Directing, acting and killing theater

Over coffee, the young filmmaker shared his experience working with student actors on a film project. He held open auditions, and most of those who came were from a local school-based theater group. He found his cast, so he started filming.

"I did not give them scripts, instead I described the scenes to them and asked them to improvise - dialogue, blocking and all. And I was turned off by the over-acting, that excessive flamboyance that usually comes with theater acting. So I had to kill that theater-style acting."

I said, what you needed to correct was bad acting, period. Not theater acting.

I get asked a lot which I preferred, acting or directing. Tough call, and can't say. They're closely related yet vastly different. As a director you tell several stories - the main story, the stories of each element that goes into your frame, or onto your stage. The story of the lighting, the props, the costumes, the scenery, the background, the foreground, etc., and all of these stories do a dance, sometimes in perfect unison other times in a beautifully orchestrated chaos, that tells the main story.

Back at that coffee table. First, my friend, don't expect professional acting from amateur actors. At least not until you did your part in molding them into the actors you want them to be. That's your job as a director particularly to a group of actors who have yet to fully learn and understand the art - and science - of acting. How much preparation did you do before placing them in front of your camera? How many rehearsals did you have to prepare for this or that scene? I asked a few more questions that he didn't have an answer to.

Now, when it comes to being an actor... you tell one story - your character's, and all its complexities. Where does Tonyo's passion come from? Which appealed to Caloy more when he agreed to take part in the heist, the loot or the adventure? What was going through Procopio's mind when he realized that, kneeling alongside his brother Andres, their hands tied behind their backs, rifles pointed at them, that everything could end at any moment, that next blink could be the last. He looks up at the sky, or his brother's face, the soldier's muddy shoes, and it could be the last thing he sees before.... nothing.

I don't try to capture a person's soul, that's just pretty talk. For nobody really understands what the soul is, where it is, why it is, where it is. I try to understand the character's mind, get inside that, be that, think the way he thinks for after all, we think therefore we are. It all springs from there, and everything else follows - the stance, the gait, the stare, the gesture. You think the way the character thinks and you desire the way he desires, aspire the way he aspires, despair the way he despairs, rejoice the way he rejoices. That to me is acting, whether on stage or in front of a camera.

Ahhh, how much I crave a story to tell.