Learning

We had the Wildlifeless rehearsal with the actors on Monday. How did it go? Well, I think. Loring Olk, the actor playing Winston, continues to impress and amaze me. I find him to be very easy to direct, attentive and almost always imaginative in providing solutions. And how about the young actor, Alexander Khan? How am I doing in my direction of him?
Not as well. Now, that's not to say that he's giving a bad performance or that the film will drag with him. Far from it. He plays the character well and he interacts with Loring in new and interesting ways. What I mean to say is that I am learning a lot about the difficulty of directing children.
And so...I sought out some advice to make up for my shortcomings in this area. Thankfully, I learned some fundamental truths about child acting and directing children. Many of these truths basically explain why I have been having such a difficult time in this area.
First and foremost, children do not respond well to the method (my primary tool in directing Loring). Why? The Method relies upon life experience in creating its magic...and child actors, despite their attempts to please, have no life experiences to draw upon when given direction associated with The Method. I hadn't given Alexander much direction with relation to this acting principle, but some of my suggestions had been tinged with advice that stems from Method. I'll have to correct this.
Secondly, children, unlike many adult actors, generally need to be given concrete emotions to act towards. That doesn't mean I can start result directing with this kid...but I am going to have to *simplify* my approach.
Finally, I just don't relate to kids. I gotta find some common ground with this guy.
Angie suggested we go and see him perform in a play. This is probably a good idea. Anyway, it'll work out...I just need to use a different approach to get the most potential out of him.

Hey, later on next week I just might post a screenplay for a new project entitled "White Bread". I think I'm going to clean it up a little bit first. If we decide to film something after WIldlifeless and before Filmic, maybe we'll shoot this story.