THOUGHTS ON ACTING/PERFORMING

Melbourne Girls Web Series

I am casting some actors shortly and want to outline some thoughts on where I would like to go with performance.I am not comfortable with the term acting/actors.In our conventional system acting is learning lines/movements and pretending to be someone else/pretending to feel something/or manufacturing real feelings usually in the service of telling a story.The best actors can do this in an amazing way and there is nothing wrong with story telling.However if interested in cinematic art there must be other avenues to explore.I always remember the quote 'great art is about seeing the world in a different way's. Some filmmakers talk about dreaming/fantasy/magic.I also like the ideas of abstraction and surrealism and it did occur to me the other day perhaps in troubled times and the increased pace/stress of life why would I want to put that on the screen but the true artist can come at it from another angle.
I used to think that if film was pretending why not exaggerate that to such a degree that we achieved some sort of other truth.I had a certain look with costume and a pale makeup. We have performers in a room with a camera,what do they do ?How do they feel ,nervous/shy/uncomfortable......Don't worry about feeling,pretending,character.....just be in the space with whatever comes up.
As usual there will be a framework with an outline/script but more abstract,I don't want them to be remembering a lot of lines or showing how they are feeling.I always liked the writing and plays by Harold Pinter,the text was very sparse and could have various,or no meaning.Ambiguity.I would like them to be totally free and not have the expectation that they have to act in a conventional way.We will explore the scenario and there will be different angles/cutting in the editing.I never really want to record a 'performance' but to possibly discover something true/false/unexpected/accidental.
A filmmaker can find infinite possibilities in an interesting space with some bodies in it.
I fully subscribe to Robert Bresson's thought that 'when actors are asked to perform theatrically in front of a camera that is reduced to recording the actors performance,this miraculous,extraordinary instrument is demoted to a tool of reproduction.......I WANT THE CAMERA TO BE A TOOL OF CREATION.'
and I am always pleased a bit of humour seems to sneak into the work!

In the next post I will talk about 'A Hesitant Move' a film we made that suggested a few of the elements discussed in this post.