Continuing the exploration of character & performance, Episode 5 digs deeper into what actors want & how the writer & director can construct a work of cinema that allows for real 3D characters to emerge. Featuring Miranda Otto & Jeremy Sims.

Video Transcription

(Music Playing) Male 2: Who is this man? What is he wants? What is he trying to hide? Where he had been? What is he think? Miranda Otto: Yes, some of you have money. You do something in any. It does well and you feel like, you know, you knowing yourself, you feel like chase something and then you think coming off that you think, “Oh, I know how to act. I can do this.” It is easy going to a next project and you are going in for the first rate assigned and you sit down and then, you go, “I got no idea.” I do not know? So, every time I part something, it never seems to be alright. He is my next I know I am going to do it. You know, like in film a lot of the times, people make it easy for you. You feel it not so much but in film they make it easy because you know, if it is a kitchen you are in a kitchen. So, you do not have to imaging inside the kitchen. So, sometimes I think your imagination gets a bit shot down. So, when with green screen, you back, using your imagination. I mean, how to keep still it. They run around the playground, I am being chase by something and I am stabbing it, and you just have to let your imagination go. Jeremy Sims: Basically, really good actors can put there heads and rub there tummy at the same time. Miranda Otto: Part of the key light doing, I think, the greatest thing you could be is not being afraid to file. I think that is the one thing that hold a lot of this back is being afraid to be inappropriate and being afraid to file, and being afraid to be metaphor in some way, or being in a situation that is unsecured. Male 2: Most writing how to books, focus on the notion of creating three dimensional characters. Obviously, one dimensional characters are in the script, just to move the plot along. Bad guys in the westerns are just mad. They wear black, they have scars, they abuse animals, nothing they say or do inside a movie except revenge or greed. They are plot devices. We do not care about them but imaging a villain who you would like. Who we understand. Who we care about. Even when they are doing a upholding things. This is a three dimensional character. This is something in an actor, can see bit teeth into. The character shade is a writers best weapon. No one may ever read it but you and that is okay. The character is your place to play. It is your place to play and fresh out the character. The things you would like here may never end up in the script but detail description of the physical traits, the height and weight. They are in sequence what drives and what does not. The history, the unresolved conflict with your mother. May all have no tangible part of the screen play that they inform the writing. They inform there character, that can be inhabit by an actor. The crucial part is not to be afraid to throw this things in and then throw them away. Miranda Otto: I often sit down and start running a biography and you know, I will sit down and know about you. What dates would I have gone to high school and where would I. And all those things in the end they just completely unimportant but the process of doing that, actually can take you somewhere. So, a lot of it, you cannot play it. You cannot use it but some how the fact you have done it, can be really useful. Just sitting and thinking it through is a good thing but you can exactly get and go. Okay, in this scene, I am going to show that I went to high school in, you know, 1942 and it was an all girl school. You cannot, but to know it your mind means that it may come in use somewhere, you know. It just means that in some way you flesh out the character to yourself. So, that when you are in any situation, you feel like you know who you are and what you would do. You are not sort of less stranded thinking. I do not know what I do in this scene. Jeremy Sims: I am kind of structure Nazi, you know. I like to beat it out and block out and work out what it is, you know. What is the controlling idea of the story and in what does my character illuminate that story or work against it, and if that is the case, they want kiss scene, and if that the case, I think for this are all those, all those reasons are on become a director and a producer. Male 2: Of course great performances are not just made from the interpretation of the dialogue and the characters on the page. Great performances are made in casting. That process of casting, finding the right feet for the character is a crucial creative role in developing the film. So, from Writer, to director, to producer, through casting agent that process of casting and understanding what the production is looking for is crucial. Do not be afraid to think about casting. Do not be afraid to imagine who might play the role. Your budget may not be able to afford Al Pacino but that type of person might be exactly who you are looking for and the process of imagining that role, imagining that actor might be just what you need to kick start that next great scene. Miranda Otto: I think the great thing to do when you first read the script is make a bunch of know it, so that is first rate because you will never have the first rate again. Every time you come back to it, you will always come back to it, which what you already know about it and but sometimes when I have written original know it. so, go back to them when I am working and some of the original as the are the key things that I can work from, you know. My first impression of things. It starts to get muddy the sooner you start to talk to other people about it and all that it gets filtered in some way. You learn more as you talk but you never had that first impulse again. Male 1: Do not treat your characters as spokes people for a cause. Do not let them say everything you want them to say. Create characters that have motivations and desires and let them say the unexpected. Great writing for performance is not about writing great dialogue for actors to say. It is about writing great characters from which play performances can come from actions, desires, motivations, and the unexpected. This is the playground you are going to let your actors play it. Give them space and they will reward you with the most the most unexpected things that you can never write. (Music Playing) Male 1: I do not know what acting is? Male 3: Alright, that is really nice. That is a great word.