Movies are different. A film actor will not give a full live performance in front of an audience. Their performance creation in front of the camera is just completing one performance material after another. The performance of each shot is incomplete and fragmentary, just one or a few lines, one or two movements or even a look. Moreover, if the performance is not satisfactory once, you can shoot it again. Usually every two or three shots, or even more than six or seven shots, one shot. Repeated pruning and editing on the editing platform completed the final shape of the performance. Because of this creative way: scattered and fragmented performances; A performance that is not directly presented to the audience; The performance that needs to be completed on the editing stage makes it unnecessary for a film performance to rehearse every scene in detail like a stage performance, and it is also unnecessary to accurately determine every line, every expression and every action of an actor's performance through rehearsal.
So, was the film performance filmed without any rehearsal? No, not. The film performance is actually rehearsed, but the methods and requirements of rehearsal are different from those of stage rehearsal. In terms of time, a play that lasts more than two hours has to be rehearsed for two or three months.
A movie with an hour and a half performance usually takes about half a year from preparation to filming, which is much longer than a drama, and a considerable part of the time is spent on performance rehearsal. It takes 15 minutes to take a short shot of a few seconds for half an hour. Of course, it is mainly used to adjust the position, determine the composition and light, but during this time, the director can rehearse and adjust the performance of the actors in this shot. Every shot often takes two or three shots, which is also the modification and rehearsal of the performance. As for a one-or two-minute long shot, it often takes half a day to make the actor's actions and the lens' actions cooperate accurately and harmoniously, and the actor's position scheduling should be very accurate. If there are more than two actors performing in the same shot, the dialogue, communication, action and scheduling between the actors should be coordinated smoothly before shooting.
As far as methods are concerned, film rehearsal usually adopts the following methods:
1. The director and the actors analyze the script and characters together. Actors talk about their own understanding of the role: find the character tone of the role; Find out the context of role behavior; Exchange experiences in shaping roles and put forward suggestions for modifying scripts. This process is mainly to unify the directors and actors' understanding of scripts and roles, and to grasp the characters as a whole.
2. The actor's personal preparation. The feeling that actors find their own roles; Practice the skills that the role must master; If necessary, go deep into life and do the work that the role is engaged in for a while; Read written materials related to scripts and roles; Consider how to perform every scene, every shot, and find the best expression; Learn your lines by heart (Joanna wrote them herself in court). Personal preparation of actors is the most important and basic rehearsal method.
3. The actors in the same scene are together to study the specific treatment of how the play is performed, for example; Status, scheduling, actions, details, etc. Including lens cutting and application research. This kind of rehearsal is necessary for large and heavy scenes.
4. For large-scale scenes, heavy scenes, or shots with complicated technical processing, before shooting, directors, photographers, lighting, artists and actors will master the technology together at the shooting site. Determine the scene scheduling, lens movement, position, lens cutting and shooting order of this scene, so that everyone can know it before the actual shooting. This is the most effective rehearsal. The above are the basic methods commonly used in film rehearsal. Of course, some directors require actors to have more rehearsals, let actors sketch characters and events, and rehearse the whole scene and every scene of the whole movie in advance, which takes a lot of time and is not the most effective method suitable for shooting. Few people do this now.
Movies don't need accurate performance rehearsal, and movie performances don't need to fix the actors' every move, every movement and every style. On the other hand, films need improvisation, which is also an important feature of film performance.
Movies need actors to improvise, which is not from the artistic point of view, but from the actual shooting situation and actual needs. However, since 1950s, improvisation has been put forward as an artistic theoretical problem of film performance. People think that improvisation is the most suitable way to perform in movies. Because the improvisation during shooting can best arouse the actor's true feelings and the natural expression of the subconscious, it has a spark of inspiration that is difficult to repeat and has a strong sense of freshness. The lens captures this passionate moment, and the inspiration is firmly recorded on the film, which will always retain the best artistic effect of sincerity, nature, vividness and touching. This view is correct, because people's emotions are fragile, unable to be completely controlled by the will, and easily exhausted and disappeared, and the subconscious natural expression of true feelings is the most real and precious. Repeated rehearsals seem elaborate, but they will kill the actors' true feelings and lose the freshness and abundant excitement of creation. Even if the details of every movement and the subtle changes of every expression are fixed by skills, they will lose the charm of marching under the fresh stimulation. After the camera lens is enlarged, there will be traces of carving, design and unnatural. Not only performing, but also well-trained great calligraphers, such as Wang Xizhi's "Invigorating" and "Preface to Wang Xizhi's Lanting", are also eager to try. Improvisation is so clever that it is difficult for him to write it again and reproduce the original charm. What is connected with improvisation is the randomness of performance. Since it is improvisation, it must have the randomness of improvisation, and it is by no means designed in advance. The affirmation of improvisation leads to advocating random performance and rejecting the elaborate design of performance. As mentioned above, the randomness of impromptu performance and subsequent performance meets the requirements of the nature of the film, which is a remarkable feature of the film performance. A film actor should have a strong ability of improvisation. However, this view should not be pushed to the extreme, resulting in too one-sided understanding. Emphasize that improvisation is not abandoning any preparation and rehearsal; Randomness is not infinite, you can do whatever you want. (This situation is more common. Actors don't read scripts, recite lines and don't want to act. They use improvisation and random theory as their lazy shields. )
On the contrary, impromptu performance requires an actor to have a solid performance foundation, study the script and role deeply, and repeatedly brew the ideas of performance, so as to achieve a good on-the-spot performance on the basis of full preparation and necessary rehearsal. It can be said that improvisation is an art with a lot of accumulation. In fact, this is the common feature of all skill arts, such as calligraphy, art, music and even ball games.
Randomness is closely related to the accuracy of film performance. Actors can only show limited randomness under the conditions of filming (such as light area, focus, composition, state, etc.). ), and they are very good at grasping the accurate performance scale and internal rhythm. Often move your eyes more and blink your skin more, which will cause redundancy. Imagination and design are not absolutely mutually exclusive with improvisation and randomness.