I assume this varies greatly from director to director, but there still may be some general idea. I know that there’s generally one or more “table reads” of the scrips where they try to explore line delivery and explore how the character “feels”, and generally develop some actor chemistry.
But how much practice is there before they start trying to film it? Do they do rehearsels without costumes/makeup? Or do they mostly film the scenes without any real practice with the idea that actors generally can perform after a table read and some explanation? I assume this changes a little bit with scenes with really complex blocking, where they probably practice the movements in a studio with the choreographer and/or some sort of coach beforehand, but for dialogue scenes without too much movement (or simple blocking like “go to the window after this line”) is it just film a couple of takes and done?
I partially ask because I know most professional concert musicians/orchestras don’t really have group rehearsals* the same way amateur or school bands do, they’re mostly expected to practice their part on their own, and then they’ll do maybe one or two big ensemble practices to tweak the score for the performance. I was wondering if it’s similar for other performing arts. (Though music has some quirks since you mostly CAN practice your part on your own and then perform with others with only minor tweaks, which isn’t always as true for other performing arts).
At least, this is true for the professional orchestras/symphonies/wind symphonies I personally know of.
Nobody’s going to go straight from a table read to filming, unless they’re doing something on the level of Blair Witch Project. Even the most basic scenes are going to require a fair amount of blocking, especially if the actors are going to have to memorize their marks rather than put down tape.
Any fighting (that looks real) is going to require days or weeks of rehearsal, and for some actors, it may take months of physical training before they’re able to even start rehearsal. So, for the physical stuff, absolutely, lots of rehearsal. Weeks of rehearsal for a couple days of shooting for maybe a few minutes in the movie.
Some directors are famous for making the actors rehearse; some are famous for not doing so. Most will have some level of read through for the actors, but there are numerous stories of actors meeting for the first time on set. However, by then they will have gone through costuming, makeup, lighting and other pre-filming technicalities with various members of the crew. It depends, it depends, it depends. No general answer is possible. Actors often complain that when working with an unfamiliar director they will have no idea of how the set will be run.
Action scenes, dancing, signing, and long sequences filmed without cuts will naturally require a different set of preparations.
I get the impression that in some cases the actors just do a basic read thru then wing it and do their own thing which they say is often better or funnier than the original script.
Thats why some actors work so well together and play off each other well. As long as they say the key words for the story I dont think it totally matters if its script perfect.
Marlon Brando was famous for refusing to ever rehearse. He would give the script an overall glance and if he decided to do the film he insisted on having his lines written out on TV-show style cue cards for him to read on-set while filming. For Apocalypse Now he merely sat around with Coppola and Sheen for days on end discussing what the dialog should be, and then he still wound up winging most of it. It wasn’t because he was lazy, he claimed it made the performance much more natural and spontaneous. Can’t really argue with his results…
There are different kinds of rehearsal. There’s the kind that the director needs on the day; the kind that actors need; and then testing things out on set.
You can get rehearsal time in wherever you need to. While the scene is being “blocked out” with actors or stand-ins being moved from place to place, letting the crew know what’s going to happen, the actors will rehearse their lines as they go through it to help memorise them. Remembering lines is easier when you know to stand at points A (line 1), B (line 5), then C (line12), etc.
Then when there is downtime while things get set up, lighting is changed, etc, the actors will be off-stage rehearsing with each other, experimenting with stuff, discussing what they see the scene is about, figuring out verbal and emotional interplay.
Then there will be live on-set rehearsal. The first take is usually never going to go well, and it may be the first time anyone has heard the actor’s particular take on their dialogue, so over the next four or five takes there will be direction given on how to say their line (or not, if it’s already good) but it’s learning on-the-job rehearsal. Different angles for the same scene can mean you say the same lines so often it actually becomes harder to keep things sounding real and fresh. Scenes around a crowded table are particularly prone to this.
I don’t know if there are many directors who set aside a staging area and block out rehearsals weeks ahead of shoot days, unless it’s a complicated shoot with lots of stunts or complex set-pieces. That’s more a kind of blocking than rehearsal anyway.
Oh the same topic. How much do screen actors memorize their lines?
It’s obvious that you have to have your entire character/script memorized on stage since it’s all live and in one take, but in films you rarely do more than one scene at a time. Plus you have the wonder that is multiple takes.
If I were an actor, I would think that I would memorize my lines for that scene/day, but never more than I needed to.
Correct. Most do it that way, some only just before going on camera. Many lines are changed on the fly anyway, so it’s best not to clutter your memory up with too much ahead of schedule when entire scenes might be cut or rewritten before shoot day.
Usually it’s child actors who try to memorise everything in one go, they seem to have the elastic brain to cope with that.
I’ve always thought a good actor should know the line as written, but also know what their character would say in response to any situation, so combined with both the memorisation becomes easier, i.e. if they listen to the other actors, they know what their lines should be.
That seems to be what most of them do. They may read through the entire script multiple times before shooting even begins, but they know there will be dialogue changes along the way, and the characters may evolve through the process of filming. They’ll have thousands and thousands of lines to memorize in a career, no point learning more than the next day or so. It’s a lot like modern education, you just have memorize the material for long enough to get through the test, and then you can forget it entirely afterwards.
A well known anecdote from Dolly Parton: Before shooting her first movie 9 to 5 she had memorized the entire script from beginning to end, only to find out on the first day that movie scenes aren’t shot in order. She wasn’t ready to pick up in the middle of the script.