Directing

CHAPTER 20

DIRECTING ACTORS

 

 

DIRECTOR IN RELATION TO ACTORS

Unlike you and your crew, actors have no equipment to stand behind, and nowhere to hide. Their work is intense, exposed, and difficult. This means they are vulnerable, easily discouraged, and quick to compare themselves negatively with other actors. It’s important that you and every director do some acting so you experience this for yourself. Actors seldom need challenge or authority—they usually have all that working inside them, and then some. What they work for is recognition, and you, as their director and sole audience, are the only one who can confer it. All directions and all approval come from you, and you alone (Figure 20-1). Everyone in the film unit,

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