What did JJ Abrams say to her?

J

James Thayer

Active member
If you haven't seen Super 8, do yourself a favor and watch it. It's an all around good film with comedy, action, scifi, suspense, romance, and adventure rolled into one.

Now, there is one specific scene I have a question about. It's the one where Elle Fanning has an extremely emotional delivery at the train tracks. At the end of it all the boys look at her with jaws dropped. I take it she has wonderful talent, but what, if you had to guess, did JJ Abrams say to her when directing that scene?

I ask because I need to direct a drama here soon and it is filled with scenes that need that kind of emotion conveyed. Any advice is appreciated.

- James
 
It's completely situational, so there's no way to say without having been there, or heard otherwise from the horse's mouth. For a great general answer to this question however, check out Judith Weston's book "Directing Actors" if you haven't already done so. It goes directly to this sort of thing, and does so better than any other resource I've ever found.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Act, please?
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Probably considered the 1st act of the movie.

Ted Spencer said:
It's completely situational, so there's no way to say without having been there, or heard otherwise from the horse's mouth. For a great general answer to this question however, check out Judith Weston's book "Directing Actors" if you haven't already done so. It goes directly to this sort of thing, and does so better than any other resource I've ever found.
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I'm actually reading it right now. Have you ever had to direct a really emotional piece before? Care to share your experience?
 
He probably told her the following..
"so there is this truck that hits a train head on. The train will fly off the tracks in an amazing fireball of action that makes the train debris fly
in all directions with explosions everywhere. The truck will however not explode, not break into a million pieces and not only will the driver still be alive, he'll still be in the drivers seat."

With that the little girl broke down in tears and got emotional thinking "why did I agree to this crap?"
 
Rippie said:
He probably told her the following..
"so there is this truck that hits a train head on. The train will fly off the tracks in an amazing fireball of action that makes the train debris fly
in all directions with explosions everywhere. The truck will however not explode, not break into a million pieces and not only will the driver still be alive, he'll still be in the drivers seat."

With that the little girl broke down in tears and got emotional thinking "why did I agree to this crap?"
Click to expand...

best ever. So true. LOL
 
I'm assuming you didn't write the script...maybe you should speak to the author to get a full understanding of the characters.

I typically know all my characters very well. There's a back story to each one and I can relate it to actors when I see they are going in a different (wrong) direction.

For me, when directing, your goal is to tell the story. You need to give the actors direction (sorry) and tools but still give them room to "get there" on their own. Sometimes giving them the back story of the character--where the character is in their life, what they've been through, etc. is enough for the light to go on.

One of my favorite memories of directing was in a rehearsal for a comedy I wrote. There was a phone scene between 20-something daughter and her forgetful/abscent minded mother. Everyone kept reading the scene as the daughter getting annoyed at the mother's quirks. I never thought of it that way because I knew the backstory of these two characters. I asked the leading candidate to change her reading from annoyed to amused, and she nailed it. It was incredible for me, a first time director, to see an actor do that 180 change with the direction of one word.
 
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