Acting
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Dial it Down a Little: Disney Lets You Shape Actors’ Performances with New Face Director Software
The director Ruben Östlund shoots wide in 4K, composing the individual shots for films like Force Majeure by, in post-production, pushing in and moving from side to side. Now, Disney Research has developed a new tool, Face Director, that offers directors even greater possibilities; it crosses the final frontier in post-production manipulation: actors’ performances. Whereas, previously, directors would shape a performance by using multiple takes or, in post, skillful editing and music, with Face Director directors can alter performance by modulating them between two extremes. From Disney’s page: We present a method to continuously blend between multiple facial performances of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 13, 2015 -
“The Minute You Walk Out the Door You’re Risking Something”: Philip Seymour Hoffman on the Challenge of Acting
In a free-flowing interview with June Stein in the Spring, 2008 issue of BOMB Magazine, Philip Seymour Hoffman discusses the insights into acting he gleaned from his experience as a director. Early on there is the following remarkable exchange, in which Hoffman says that acting is not about embracing one’s first instincts: PS: … Actors’ first instinct is to make themselves feel comfortable, to do things to make themselves feel like they’re in it, they’re truthful; I’m moving over here and that feels right, blah, blah, blah…. That’s what I do; so when I see another actor doing that, I […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 3, 2014 -
Jake Gyllenhaal in Prisoners: The Shadow Knows
In Robert Bly’s examination of Jung’s concept of the shadow, Bly talks a lot about this thing called “the bag.” The bag is where, for the first 20 years of our lives, we hide the stuff we’re ashamed of. Or have been made to be ashamed of. Then we spend the rest of our lives trying to get those things out of the bag. Things like our emotions, our anger, our creativity, our vulnerability, our troublemaker, our defiance, our gut instinct, our spontaneous wildness. They’re in the bag a lot of the time. So, boys learn how to put their […]
by Noah Buschel on Jan 10, 2014 -
Matt Herron Talks Audition
Usually the term “a cast of hundreds” isn’t applied to a film with just two characters. But that’s exactly how to describe Matt Herron’s new feature Audition, an innovative film in which 100 actors — 50 men, 50 women — portray one couple over the course of a torrid romance. The concept is for this narrative story to be told through the documentary process of different actors interpreting the fictional roles (or, conversely, it could be seen as a documentary about acting that conveys a narrative storyline): the original 100 actors are winnowed down as the film progresses until the […]
by Randy Astle on Oct 21, 2013 -
AT CANNES: THE CRONENBERG METHOD
As Toronto Film Festival head Cameron Bailey said by way of introducing a conversation with directors David Cronenberg and Brandon Cronenberg here at the Cannes Film Festival, 2012 is the first time the event has ever featured father and son filmmakers in the official selection. Pere Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis is a hotly anticipated title in the Official Competition. (Perhaps “ruefully anticipated” is a more accurate description; the film plays Saturday; many journalists, myself included, will be back home; and there have been no advance press screenings.) Antiviral, son Cronenberg’s foray into body horror and celebrity culture, is in Un Certain Regard. […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 21, 2012 -
Kate Lyn Sheil Discusses Acting at SXSW
With a focused, intense, and somewhat mysterious screen persona, actress Kate Lyn Sheil has stood out in a number of recent independent films, including Silver Bullets by Joe Swanberg and Sophia Takal’s Green. At SXSW this year she arrives with four titles, including Amy Seimetz’s Sun Don’t Shine and Bob Byington’s Somebody Up There Likes Me. Here I talk with Sheil about how she got into acting, being a movie fan, her influences and the particular pleasures of independent film.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 10, 2012 -
Actress Sues IMDb for Revealing Her Age
It was bound to happen. An unnamed actress has filed suit against IMDb for revealing her real age. The actress, known only as “Jane Doe” in the suit against Amazon.com, IMDb’s parent company, is seeking $75,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages, plus lawyers’ fees. The alleged misconduct occurred after the actress signed up for IMDbPro in 2008; as filmmakers know, this is a different process than creating a public profile (or having one created for you), which had presumably already been done. Soon after joining IMDbPro, she saw her actual age on her public profile. Since […]
by Randy Astle on Oct 19, 2011 -
I ALWAYS WONDERED ABOUT THAT…
The generally excellent Boing Boing website posts this link to a news release from the Association for Psychological Science that answers a common question about actors and acting: how actors learn all their lines. Cognitive psychologist Helga Noice (Elmhurst College) and her husband, cognitive researcher, actor, and director Tony Noice (Indiana State University) have studied the subject and hope that their results can be used to counter cognitive decline in the elderly. From the piece: “According to the researchers, the secret of actors’ memories is, well, acting. An actor acquires lines readily by focusing not on the words of the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 28, 2006
