Speech Pacing question

Blade Borge

Blade Borge

Well-known member
So for any given film, short or whatever, shouldn't the actor speak the lines quicker than they would in real life? Albeit, maybe just a little bit faster than normal.
 
I would say no, the line should be delivered in the context of what you are doing.

Perhaps you are thinking of the fact that actors, especially on stage, have to fight the urge to deliver their lines too quickly. Nervousness will typically cause an inexperienced actor to rush through their lines.
 
I don't know, I guess I heard somewhere that time within a movie is different and that a 1 second pause in reality can feel like 3 seconds on film.
 
The pacing of a line of dialogue is completely dependent on the choice the actor makes and their ability to be in character and in the moment. An overexcited teen character may speak amileaminute. An older villain character may speak l i k e m o l a s s e s i n J a n u a r y.

A good actor will know how to play it effectively without even thinking about "pace".

Alan Rickman ("Snape" in Harry Potter, and many other great films) is one of my favorite actors where this is concerned. He manages to shift gears effortlessly between very slow and very fast speech (and everything inbetween) without ever seeming like he's doing anything other than being in the moment. Which he is, of course, which is why it works so well. He's good, IMO. Really, really good...
 
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overall, film pacing should be quicker - the pauses between people need to be shorter, and you usually don't want all the 'um's and 'ah's of 'real' dialogue. But that's only a general rule - sometimes a pause or an 'ah' can be just what you need.
 
Blade Borge said:
I don't know, I guess I heard somewhere that time within a movie is different and that a 1 second pause in reality can feel like 3 seconds on film.
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I've heard that too. And it's true...but it is talking about pauses between characters talking, not the rate at which a person speaks. When two people are talking in real life, there isn't a pause in between comments and often one person interrupts the other. Thats what that saying is talking about.
 
Ted Spencer said:
Alan Rickman ("Snape" in Harry Potter, and many other great films) is one of my favorite actors where this is concerned. He manages to shift gears effortlessly between very slow and very fast speech (and everything inbetween) without ever seeming like he's doing anything other than being in the moment. Which he is, of course, which is why it works so well. He's good, IMO. Really, really good...
Click to expand...

I agree. Rickman is an awesome actor. He's also Hans Grubber in Die Hard, he's maybe even more well known for that role.
 
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