The Books: Acting in Film: An Actor’s Take on Movie Making, by Michael Caine

Daily Book Excerpt: Theatre

Next book on the acting/theatre shelf is Acting in Film: An Actor’s Take on Movie Making, by Michael Caine

A classic almost immediately upon its publication.

It has been revised and expanded multiple times, through its endless editions. It’s been made into a training film as well, with workshops and everything. If you are a beginning actor (hell, even if you’re not, if you have some miles under you), this book is required reading.

In line with his generous spirit, Michael Caine divulges all the tricks of the trade of movie acting, even down to not blinking while you are in close-up. It’s a great book for anecdotes as well. He shares some of the funny stories from his days starting out, and the mistakes he made, and also the advice he was given by veteran actors.

One piece of advice in particular blew me away, when I first read the book, which was ages ago. Michael Caine talks about movement on film. How you have to be very careful how you move when you are on camera, either in closeup, medium shot, or whenever – because you have to keep in mind the camera at all times. You can be totally brilliant but if it’s off-camera, nobody gives a rat’s ass. Movement within takes is of course highly technical and plotted out, and James Cagney gave Michael Caine some advice.

One important piece of technical advice about movement: don’t rush it. Give the camera operator a chance. James Cagney gave me this tip about running: “When the director tell you to run from over there right toward the camera and past it, run like hell when you’re far away, and as you get near the camera, slow down. Otherwise you’ll go by so fast, they won’t know who the hell went by.”

The technical brilliance of Cagney’s advice, the generosity of it too (“give the camera operator a chance”) is one of the unacknowledged parts of his great gift. Yes, he was a powerhouse onscreen. He ate up the camera. He was a star. But think about all of those scenes of him running, in all of those movies. And how real and visceral his performance seems. And then think of Cagney consciously slowing down during those scenes as he comes close to the camera. That is professionalism. Breathtaking.

Caine is often hilarious (no surprise there), and his typical workmanlike attitude shines through the whole thing, making this one of the most down-to-earth and practical art books ever written. Yet he doesn’t discount the art. He’s been a working actor for decades. Things like shooting location matter. He’d rather have a good time on a shoot. He doesn’t like to work with egomaniacs or moody people. But he also gives great acting advice, on breathing, and character development, and how to make your performance “real”, in the midst of a totally unreal situation. You have so little control if you are an actor making a movie. Your performance could be cut entirely. Your voice could be dubbed by another person speaking Swahili. You can’t think about that. It’s a job. The point is to do it well.

I still go back and reference this book. It’s an essential part of the literature of the craft of acting.

Here is an excerpt.

Excerpt from Acting in Film: An Actor’s Take on Movie Making, by Michael Caine

TIME IS ONLY DEAD IF YOU KILL IT

There is a lot of dead time for an actor during the making of a movie. You can sleep and possibly appear dopey on camera, or you can socialize and wear yourself out. I socialize enough not to offend anyone, but I deliberately spend a lot of time in the dressing room. I use the time to go through those lines. Unoccupied time doesn’t have to be dead time. It’s only dead if you kill it. A lot of actors run other businesses from their dressing rooms or trailers. I was working with Sylvester Stallone and I asked him what was so attractive about his trailer that he kept rushing back to it between takes. I thought he might have a girl in there. “I’m writing Rocky III,” he said. Then there was an actor who used to play the New York Stock Exchange from his trailer. He’s not a film actor anymore; but I saw him on television: he has his own program about stocks and shares. I figure it’s more profitable for me to deal with the business at hand because if I play my part right, the current picture may make more money for me than any other business. If an actor is thinking about another business, maybe he should be in another business.

I’ll tell you what goes on in my trailer. Show business. Walk in and you’ll see me doing a scene over and over again. There I am mumbling it and mumbling it and still mumbling it, so that it becomes second nature. It’s no good if you’re about to start a take and you’re thinking, “It’s coming soon, that difficult bit where I say ‘One hundred and thirty-eight North Ponders End Road SW16.” You must be able to stand there not thinking of that line. You take it off the other actor’s face. He is presumably new-minting the dialogue as if he himself just thought of it by listening and watching, as if it were all new to him, too. Otherwise, for your next line, you’re not listening and not free to respond naturally, to act spontaneously.

THOUGHT RECOGNITION

It may sound like a contradiction, but you achieve spontaneity on the set through preparation of the dialogue at home. As you prepare, find ways of making your responses appear newly minted, not preprogrammed. In life, we often pick up the thought that provokes our next remark halfway through someone else’s speech. Thoughts don’t leap to the mouth automatically. We don’t interrupt at every occasion when a thought formulates itself; or, if we do, we don’t have many friends. Similarly, in a film script, your internal thought processes might well start articulating themselves long before you get the chance to speak. The script sometimes directs you to interrupt, but if it doesn’t, your thought may start well before you get a chance to respond. There may be a key word that triggers you during the sentence the other actor is saying. So pick up on that; form your thought and be ready to speak. For example:

Other Actor: I’ve got to get a bus to Clapham – I’m already late for my date.

You: You won’t get far. There’s a bus strike.

The other actor doesn’t stop talking after he says “bus”, so you can’t get in and say your line at the actual moment of thought recognition. But when you hear the key word “bus”, from that point on you know what you’re going to say directly after he stops. You can show this by your reaction. And that bit of acting can only come from serious listening.

Or you can bring new life to an apparently mundane reply by planning a thought process based on a key word and then never voicing it:

Other Actor: Would you like some tea?

You: Yes, please.

“Tea” is the key word. The simple word “tea” can open up so many responses. Let’s say you would have preferred coffee. The minute the other actor says “tea”, your eyes will change because you’d really like coffee. Or maybe you’re allergic to tea. Then you answer politely, but with a bit of anguish, knowing that you won’t really drink it. The camera thrives on niceties like that; yet you often see actors missing out on these little presents that can open up whole realms of possible reaction. “Tea” could be an indication that he’s too poor to offer you booze, or that he regards you as an alcoholic who shouldn’t be offered a drink. Take the script and explore these possibilities because to pick up key words opens a repertoire of potential response that can lift a scene off the page and into reality. Don’t make a fetish of it or you will complicate things unnecessarily. You’ll seem a maniac if everything sets you off. But take it to reasonable bounds and you’ll find that your performance is more interesting to you and more believable on the screen.

MINIATURE GOLF

There may or may not be rehearsals; it depends entirely on the director. So you must do as much as you can to construct your role before you get on the set. The director always expects you to bring a fully formed characterization with you, and this without your seeing the set or meeting fellow actors. Make the decisions about your character’s physical mannerisms, practice them – and keep it simple. Once you get on the set, you will have to repeat those mannerisms and actions accurately for a variety of shots.

We’ll deal with special problems of continuity later, but basically you usually need to repeat a sequence at least three times on film: once for the long shot, once for the medium shot, and once for the close-up. The long shot is the wide-angle shot taken at a distance. This shot reveals all the ingredients of a scene. If there are three actors practicing their golf strokes on the office carpet, in the long shot you will see all of them plus the carpet. This shot is also frequently called the “master shot” because it shows the whole scene. It is the best guide to the placement of the camera for the other shots and it is the reference for inclusion of other shots when the scene is edited. The medium shot is a closer view of selected ingredients. The close-up is a very close view of only one element. If you were one of the golfers, the close-up might be of your feet on the carpet or of your face.

When you prepare your character’s physical mannerisms or actions at home, keep them simple, so that later, on the set, you can repeat them accurately for each type of shot. If you fiddle around with your golf club during the master shot, you must fiddle in exactly the same way for the other shots. Initiating a movement that you cannot repeat will often mean that scenes will have to be shot again. If you are holding the putter on your left side for a particular line in the master, but you shift it to your right for the medium shot (which may be filmed several hours later), then when the editor comes to cut the film he won’t be able to use that shot. It would look as if the golf club had jumped around of its own accord.

You’ve learned your lines, now it’s time to learn the layout of the set and begin to orient yourself to your surroundings. I go through each scene and do my actions the same way, over and over, exactly as I imagine I will have to do them on the set. Wherever I happen to be, whether at home or in a hotel room, I rearrange the furniture and try to put tables and chairs in places that create a logical mock-up of the scene. I put out cups and saucers or whatever I may need and I time the dialogue around my actions. Now obviously you may not know the exact layout of the set you will be working on or the exact nature of the props you will be given to use, but any clear decision you can make beforehand will provide you with a life raft. Somehow it’s a lot easier to change one well-planned course of action for another precise course of action than to turn a vague idea about physical movement into a concrete one on the spur of the moment. And it’s surprising how many of your assumptions about furniture and props will turn out to be right.

Plan your mannerisms and actions precisely and keep them simple so that you can repeat them effortlessly and accurately. But don’t overdo it. This is not the area for inspired improvisation. Keep it simple with those golf clubs. If you’re going to initiate an action, PLAN IT. Organize your physical actions and tasks so that they are logical – that way you will remember to do them – and practice them so that they become memorable. You have got to be able to do a physical task the same way over and over again absolutely perfectly. Otherwise, the master shot, the medium shot, and the close-up will not match, scenes will have to be shot again, and you will be costing the producers time and money, not the most endearing quality for producers to remember when they’re casting their next film.