Sydney Pollack - How to Direct

This week's interview with acclaimed director Sydney Pollack was extremely helpful to me as the director of our film as as I have previously mentioned, I have been researching the various directing methods and the role of a director on set.

Pollack's methods are quite unusual. One of the first things he says is he asks all the crew to remove themselves from set. Then, he instructs his actors to "do nothing". To read the script with no performance, no movement and no expression. He says that if he has set this up right then "the actors won't be able to do nothing. They will start to do the scene". I find this intriguing particularly when you read the part about how he tries to reduce rehearsals to a bare minimum and never instructs his actors about the type of character they are playing. In a way, he lets the actors figure it out for themselves. He goes on to explain how he attempts to get his actors to work towards causes, not results. He does this by telling them little details about the scene or another character, knowing that they will have to react accordingly to that action. The example he gives is where he tells one actor that another has a gun in his pocket and he is now reaching for it. Instead of telling the actor to look frighened or suspicious, he tells applies a cause to them and waits to see what comes up as a result.

Going on, Pollack explains how the hardest part of his job is encouraging his actors to relax. To express the subconscious consciously to be exact. Thinking about this a little more, you definitely can see the implications of this style of directing. Tell an actor too much and they become a robot. Tell them too little and they look lost. The balance Pollack describes he is trying to achieve is in getting his actor's to a place where they are comfortable enough in their role so much so that they "subconsciously" as well as consciously, act like that character. A great point I found was where he says "The really good actors are incredible listeners". In essence, a good actor is a good "reactor", someone who isn't sitting there thinking "crap, what's my line?! crap, what's my line?!" and instead has internalized his dialogue so that when spoken, it sounds like a reaction to the words spoken by the other actor. This to us is the most natural form of conversation as in real life, we can not know what the other person is going to say and so we react accordingly when they say something to us. With film obviously, only so much of this can occur before it gets messy.

With all this in mind, three things I've taken away from this article are:
1. Make sure your actors LOOK comfortable in their roles. Asking them will only make them more conscious of the fact that they are playing a character. Ensure their environment is cushy and safe so that they can relax into their character.
2. Try encouraging an actor to "react" not act when the camera is rolling. This will create a better scene for you as well as them.
3. When searching for actors, guage how well they listen to the person they are auditioning with. If they are able to do this well, they will be able to complete step 2 more efficiently as well.