Directing a film

[Melvin Harris]

How do you decide what tactics and obstacles to use when on set and how do you cover the scenes without using the Master Scene, and how do you cover the scenes once you change tactics for choices that don't work?

 

[mail4joeg]

I'm not sure what this means: "tactics and obstacles."

I would hope that would be in the script.

Can you be more specific? Every film is different. The variance is staggering.

 

[Melvin Harris]

Tactics and obstacles are things that we use to elicit performance variance from actors. When performance is not up to par, we can create certain things, either in staging or blocking, that helps to draw out natural performance from the talent. They are not necessarily in the script but a function of story, character choice, location and a myriad of other things. My question is how do you decide what to use, and then how do you cover the choices made as a result of that choice. Naturally, actors of a certain level have the ability to not only make choices, but also make similar choices over and over- multiple repeatable performances, but how do you do this with a not so great talent, and how do you then cover it with the same level of attention to your visual language?