In praise of Judith Weston E. Jane Thompson
Industry Centre > Blogs > In praise of Judith Weston | E. Jane Thompson
Posted by E. Jane Thompson
on Wednesday, September 03, 2008.
Categories: Acting, Directing
It was my great good fortune to attend two
Judith Weston workshops in July. I have long used Judith’s book,
Directing Acting, as a reference. (A revised edition is about to be published.) But to be in the room with her for seven days with a small group was potent far beyond what a book can be.
My goal was to learn to work with actors to create characters.
It seems to me the biggest differences between my experience of directing for television and what I anticipate will be the experience of directing
The Berliner Complex (my feature film) lies here. Actors for television know their characters pretty much inside out by the time the director arrives. With a feature film, director and actors are building characters from the ground up, together.
I filled a notebook in those seven days. Here are a few gleanings from my notes during the workshop “Acting for Directors.”
- Let go of doing things right
- Give permission to fail
- Invite chaos
- If all we do is make things honest and real, we’ll be okay
- Look on a failed take as a great rehearsal
- Embrace the work of actors: “I love that.” “Let’s try it.” “That’s wonderful.”
- A soft voice from an actor may mean he’s fearful: “Let’s all make mistakes out loud.”
- Actors are used to creating almost instant intimacy with one another: how can a director create intimacy with actors?
- Ask questions
- Tell your own stories
- Learn to be open: “Help me out here.”
- The subconscious mind is more truthful than the conscious mind: you can save a huge amount of time if you get to the subconscious quickly rather than intellectualizing for a long time
- Directors should encourage the inner life of characters – and let go of controlling that inner life
- Breathe
- Learn to recognize “good listening” in an actor
Meryl Streep, one of the best listeners, was once asked, “How much of your performance do you get from the other actor?” She replied, “Everything.” It is total surrender to the other actor that activates her performance.
But to direct an actor to listen could come across as teaching. Instead, a director who is looking for her actors to be more attentive to one another could say, “Take everything from each other. You have everything that you need.”
Those words, “You have everything that you need,” came up more than once in Judith’s workshops. How comforting they are. Judith demands extremely hard work. But once you’ve done it, “You have everything you need.”
That seven day visit to the land of 'let’s pretend' took me to the heart of the work. Judith led us into a refreshing ocean of creativity that feels immediately at hand as I turn back to my notes. Says Judith, “It’s all feelings and imagination.”
I returned from Los Angles to one of the best updates possible: we learned that Telefilm would support our Second Draft round of development (of The Berliner Complex). The whole team – Katherine, Dan and I – worked hard for that 'yes' and that made the positive response all the sweeter.
E. Jane Thompson is an alumnus of the NSI Features First program with her project, The Berliner Complex.
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Views expressed here are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI).
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The views expressed here are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI).