May 3 2012

A Director’s Imagination

“It’s not the fact of the person in front of you, it’s your perception of them. Your perception IS your experience,” says Diana Castle, zeroing in on one member of the captive audience. She’s talking about how an actor relates to another character in a scene. But, of course, one could always apply this knowledge to real life.

That is one of the reasons I was thrilled that Diana Castle accepted my invitation to lead a Directors Workshop for Directors NYC. I had been thinking about leadership and vision in directing, and she having mentored artists for more than 25 years in her creative philosophy and practical application which she calls THE IMAGINED LIFE–not to mention her recent mentorship appointment at Creative Visions Foundation–was completely in tune with this topic.

“There’s a difference between thinking of the beach, and thinking from the beach,” she says to the workshop attendees, and a soft “hmm” accompanies the mental shift in the room.

As a director, I take away from this workshop ideas on how to keep myself and my actors from intellectualizing, the importance of pulling forth different circumstances in order to create a layered person, the challenges that actors face and how I might help to overcome them, and much more.

More than just offering helpful tools, Diana Castle speaks about the power of imagination and how develop it–and she speaks about the human experience. She reminds me of the things I love most about writing, directing, and working with actors–the recognition, the adventure, the co-creative experience, the going beyond ourselves, and the power and magic of empathy.

Diana Castle’s The Imagined Life Directors Workshop took place Monday, April 30, 2012 in NYC.

Diana Castle Links
TheImaginedLife.com
Diana Castle on Facebook

Directors NYC Links
directorsnyc.com
Directors NYC on Facebook

By Sharifa • Directing, Directors NYC • 0

Aug 19 2011

End of Season

I am Producing a lovely short film called “End of Season” Written and Directed by Nina Gielen. A well-written mother/daughter story set at the beach at the end of the season.

By Sharifa • End of Season, Movies • 0

Aug 16 2010

Director’s Hour: Peggy Sue Got Married

Seems I was much more interested in posting about preparations for my Director’s Hour than the Hour itself. It went well, actually. Pushed myself to a new place, learned some things.

So, here’s how it went.

Directing Segment #1

I introduced the scene for my fellow directors then told them my goals for the Hour, which were to work in beats and get to some specifics (since we had worked on more general shape-of-the-scene work during rehearsal).

We started with Beat #1: From the beginning through “You’re giving me the creeps.”

(Read the scene here)

I gave the actors a couple of things to work with at the top of the scene. For Richard, some sort of nervous habit–perhaps something he’s not aware of that he does when he’s thinking, or some sort of stance that he believes makes him look more adult. For Peggy Sue, I suggested the subtext for the line, “What I really think is that I had a heart attack at the reunion and died,” could be, “Oh, my poor children.”

We ran through the first beat a couple of times, but something was off. I thought perhaps the extra things I threw at the actors were too much. But then I realized what was missing–we needed that opening improv that we had done in rehearsal.

I didn’t want a repeat of rehearsal (hence not starting with this improv in the first place) but this opening improv (where Peggy Sue comes to Richard in the lab and strikes up a conversation about being from the future) really helped to anchor the top of the scene.

Moving on to Beat #2, from “Am I dead or not?” through “I don’ t want to die!” we worked on different scenarios for the almost-getting-hit-by-a-truck portion of the scene.

I decided to talk to Ellen alone, so I asked Ari to step out into the hallway. I asked Ellen who would be more frightened of getting hit by a truck, 17 year old Peggy or 42 year old Peggy? Ellen said 17 year old Peggy, so we went with the idea that she reverted to a 17 year old mindset upon standing in front of the oncoming truck.

Read more…

I am very appreciative of Ellen Haynes, Ari Vigoda, and my fellow DnA directors. Thank you for participating in my first Director’s Hour and for all your feedback and support!

By Sharifa • Director's Hour, DnA, Movies • 0 • Tags:

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