Director Person, Special Shooty Swimming Pools, and Why Everybody in the World Should Take an Acting Class (with Guest Judith Weston, Acting Coach, Teacher, and Author)

Nigel: | Hello, Vance, what's happening?

Vance: | I'm excited today we're going to play a bit more in your directorial world. Talking about directing actors and those challenges and we have a wonderful guest today, Judith Weston Hoskins who knows all about actors and teaches people like yourself, how to direct them in an appropriate and exciting manner.

Nigel: | Well, the whole thing about directing is that certainly for just about everything else in the film world, it's very technical, you know, F stops and apertures and...

Vance: | Um, I'm going to stop you right there, Nigel. In our world, we work in T stops, I'm sorry.

Nigel: | Oh, sorry, T stops. Isn't isn't a tea stop at four o'clock in the afternoon, when you have a hot drink with biscuits?

Vance: | Um, It may be in Pommyland, but where I come from, that would be 4:20. And that would be you know what

Nigel: | Okay, I stand corrected. So I think we've established I know bugger all about the technical side. But if you're a director person, or pretend to be a director person, like I've been pretending for many years, eventually you have to speak with the talent. And as I discovered, it's not as easy as you think. So one day, I joined a class and Judith Weston Hoskins was the teacher. And she's fantastic. And she's going to tell us some of the tricks that she comes up with which she suggests that us director folks should use when we're communicating with an actor. And I won't give any more away right now. But Judith has a fantastic book, and she's worked with some pretty fancy people.

Vance: | Those clients of hers, a pretty impressive list of directors, that's for sure. So she obviously knows what's up. So I'm looking forward to that.

Nigel: | I've got very good news. This is our sixth episode and the podcast police have decided not to close us down.

Nigel: | And we have great news for listeners, in that uh we are going to have a Q&A segment later, which does not stand for quibble and annoy. And a third person is going to enter our special podcast hutch. And I think they're going to ask you a question.

Vance: | Did we do a background check on this person first before we allowed them into our hutch? I hope so.

Nigel: | And we would like to point people to the small print, which states very clearly that they do not get any money.

Nigel: | No bread.

Vance: | No bread, but he gets to talk to you and I which is kind of you know, worth more than money. [laughs] I guess.

Nigel: | And he gets a free pass to the psychiatrist afterwards [laugh] for a debrief.

Vance: | Psychological debrief

Nigel: | So listen up people, we're actually going to learn something today.

Vance: | That'll make a change

Nigel: | There's a breakthrough.

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Vance: | Hi, Nigel, how you doing what you've been up to?

Nigel: | I've been quite busy. I've been all over the country in the last 20 days.

Vance: | They allowed you to travel huh?

Nigel: | Well, I drove myself to two of the shows. But the other one they allowed me on the aeroplane.

Vance: | They did, god, I tried to I tried to stop them. They didn't listen to me.

Nigel: | So yeah, I've been all over in the last three weeks, I flew to the east coast, down south to do a little job, which was a lot of fun. Then I flew home, got in the car and drove out west to shoot in the studio for three days called Vahayne who's an old friend of mine, making his new album we shot some of the footage in Village Studios, which is out in Santa Monica. And then I shot for a day in Sunset Studios, which is on Sunset Boulevard in the room where Prince recorded Purple Rain, which was a lot of fun. And I also visited Vegas on that trip and shot some B-roll shot some planes taking off and landing in the rain in Vegas, for my stock footage catalogue. I have well over 2000 images now, moving images. And then I drove home to shoot something for an Italian artist whose name is Flutter. I think that's roughly the way you pronounce it. But he has Greek heritage. So we're talking about Greece and Italy, and England, and it's all very confusing because I'm trying to make a music video at the same time, which incidentally, the music has not been recorded for yet. [Laughs]

Vance: | Oh, geez. Okay. Well...

Nigel: | So that's been my January.

Vance: | Yeah, I actually got a underwater shoot this week. For people that don't know, as much as I do land cinematography, I'm also an underwater cinematographer. And, I've got a nice job where I'm actually sinking a set, and we're gonna shoot a set underwater, I've also been teaching my underwater cinematography class. It's something that I started in 2015. And it's evolved over the years. And during the pandemic, I ended up teaching a bunch of these classes on Zoom and sort of evolved into a much more professionally focused course, because it seemed that every client was actually uh a film person. So it's been really good. So I've been doing that as well. And I'm actually uh I have the open water portion of my last class on Sunday. So it's kind of a dive week.

Nigel: | What type of wet suit do you wear darling?

Vance: | Well, actually, you'd laugh. My current wetsuit uh, you know I'm going to shoot on Friday and Acton SCUBA, which is a tank out in Acton, California. They're heated to 88 degrees. It's specially designed to shoot in. So I'm gonna be wearing my beautiful three millimeter wetsuit that has been well worn, has great big holes in the knees, a great big hole in the right elbow. But it will get me through.

Nigel: | What color is it?

Vance: | It's supposed to be black, but now it's kind of a light gray from from sun bleaching and chlorine bleaching and all the rest of it from using it so much.

Nigel: | Why are wetsuits black? Why aren't they orange or yellow?

Vance: | You know what, that's a very interesting point. I've had this uh conversation of why do they make wetsuits so boring? There are some cooler ones now, mostly for free divers, they have these sort of blue camouflage outfits, which unfortunately, there are three mil on they have this coating on the inside that makes them really hard to put on and off. So I'm not going to wear one of those. But yeah, I agree wetsuits should be a more interesting color.

Nigel: | Here's here's the question which I'm sure everybody really wants to know. Does one wear underwear under one's wet suit?

Vance: | One wears uh, I wear a very tiny pair of uh of Nike swim trunks, not like Speedo type ones that are a little less, you know, buttock revealing but yeah,

Nigel: | You are getting me quite excited now.

Vance: | Yeah, but you know I live in California. So 80% of the year I'm probably diving in a dry suit, so um I'm nice and dry under my outfit, so.

Nigel: | Why is that related to California?

Vance: | California is considered cold water diving. So, the hottest time of the year maybe the water temps get up to 70, 72 degrees in which case I'll wear a wetsuit but right now I'm going out on Sunday and the water temperature's around 57, 58 degrees so definitely dry suit time.

Nigel: | You're not very manly are you? I mean you can't deal with the cold?

Vance: | Well, you know there's this little thing called decompression sickness that uh if you are shivering and you go hypothermic, it greatly increases your susceptibility to decompression injury. So let's not do that, shall we?

Nigel: | Can you wear a woolly jumper underneath your wetsuit?

Vance: | I wear a long underwear and then this special jumpsuit underneath so I keep nice and warm because the dry suit keeps you dry but provides no thermal protection so you dress accordingly underneath depending on the temperature of the water.

Nigel: | So um I'm sure shooting anything underwater needs a bit of planning, Is there anything special happening with this underwater shoot, you're going to do?

Vance: | Well it's quite interesting actually. They're building a set a bedroom set and it's for a film and the talent basically falls into the water. It ties into another scene, but uh, she falls into the water and drops down onto the bed underwater. And then slowly there is some action which I've gotta shoot and then once she's completed that action the bed slowly rises out with her on it and water drains away. Now obviously we've got a huge construction crane with a set that's a framed in truss that we have to light and it is being moved by a crane so obviously you've got safety divers in the water. You know it's a fairly dangerous environment but you have the right people in place so we should have a lot of fun and safe at the same time.

Nigel: | How do you get lighting underwater 'cause my limited knowledge of physics is that electricity and water is not necessarily a good combo.

Vance: | Well yeah, we are using a combination, we're doing some lighting from above, um actually soft light using ARRI S360 Sky panels. And then Hydroflex have a pretty great selection of underwater lighting. Which we will be using some of that 4K HMIs. 1.2k tungsten PAR can, and I believe I have an S30 as well underwater light. to your point about electricity, you know in your kitchen you have these little outlets they have a little red and black button on there called a GFI or Ground Fault Interrupter. We have great big ones of those that all the lights all the power anything near the water is connected to a GFI so anything gets wet and you know electrifies water the powers killed instantly so, it works pretty well.

Nigel: | Now, most of the swimming pools I've been in have got blue painted walls. Does your special shooty swimming pool have blue walls?

Vance: | Actually the pool has gray concrete walls. But they do have custom underwater blacks made for the pool so the whole thing will be lined in black. They also have custom blue screen, custom green screen for the same environment if we have a you know, blue screen or green screen shoot.

Nigel: | Do you have to worry about the sun coming and going?
Vance: | Depends in day exterior shoot, no. On this shoot we're actually tenting the whole thing. Basically, it's a big truss rig that rolls in over the top that's covered in black that we now can kill the sunlight on the pool so we can just light as we see fit.

Nigel: | Hmmm, interesting.

Vance: | Yeah. Lots of stuff. You know it's it's interesting everything takes longer, optics change, everything changes once you start shooting underwater but as I said, that's something we're going to get into in a whole episode dedicated to the wonderful world of underwater cinematography.

Nigel: | I know you were kind of interested in this acting story. When I was doing my second movie. We were doing a scene with the lead actor who was very experienced, and a lovely lady actor who had been in a couple of Bond movies. And the scene was not working. And I learned an incredible lesson at this moment. Because we kept doing take after take. And I would say to her, "that was fantastic. Now let's just try and do this" to try and get her to where I wanted her to be in the scene. And it really wasn't working. And after about 10 takes suddenly, the male actor who as I said was very experienced, just literally said something like "I've had enough of this" and ran off the set.

Nigel: | And we're in a cafe or something in Santa Monica, actually on the beach. So he's running off down the boardwalk and I'm chasing after him. I'm sure everybody on the set is going what's going on. And eventually I stopped him and I said, "What's the matter? What's the matter?" And he turned around to me and he- he said something which blew my mind. He said, "Every time we get to the end of this scene, you're saying to the woman I'm acting with how fantastic she is doing. And you're not saying a thing to me." And this guy was an award winning actor. And I said, "well, you, you understand, right that she's not nailing the part like I want her to do. But I'm not telling you anything because you're nailing it every time" And he said to me, something which blew my mind, which was, "well, I'm an actor too. I need to know that I'm doing good."

Nigel: | And I was shocked because of course I just assumed he realized he was nailing his part every time. And in essence, and this is a bit of a glib way of looking at it, certainly. Actors are like children and they need to be encouraged. They need to be patted on the back so that you can move on and get to the next scene and I- I learned a big lesson that day and we're going to speak with somebody in a minute who has tremendous credits for teaching people like me on how to speak with actors.

Vance: | You know, It's interesting Nigel you're speaking of like a-list actors they are very aware and very conscious of their environment for me as the director of photography I shot a lot of promos for Turner Networks

Vance: | And I've worked with a list actors and like Kyra Sedgwick, Holly Hunter, Eric McCormack to name a few. What I found is they're very aware not only of obviously the direction they're getting from the director, but shooting promos, obviously, they want to look as good as they can. And they want to hear they look good. They also can feel it. You know, with the light. I mean, they're very, very aware. I mean, I know, with Holly Hunter, especially, she was very knowledgeable about film and light and how the light should be. And it's kind of fun working with actors in that way.

Nigel: | The thing that we all forget is that there's a lot of technique to being a movie actor, as well as knowing your lines and emoting the part, you got to hit your mark, if possible, which for two reasons, one being that they want to get into the light or where the light is perfect, and also helps the focus puller, and so on and so forth. So yeah, there's a lot of technical stuff, which has nothing to do with remembering the lines. And one thing that we do very often, and I think you and I have done it when we've been shooting videos, as well is you get the talent or the actor, sometimes both pretending to look at somebody far away. Whereas in fact, they're looking right into the matte box and reacting to two pieces of camera tape. An inch away from the lens, and I've had to do it I've done little acting bits. And it's hard work. Forget emoting and remembering your lines just trying to pretend that that piece of tape is a person.

Vance: | I mean, I definitely don't like being in front of the camera. So I kind of get how challenging that can be. I mean, I'm just terrible in front of a camera. But I think our guest today is going to reveal a lot about what that world is like for an actor.

Nigel: | Yeah, and how to communicate with them, which is very important for us director folk.

Vance: | Yeah, I mean I know even for those little pieces that I did for Turner where I actually was director, which really I'm just shooting eye candy. It's not like I'm directing dialogue or anything like that. But for me, it was intimidating. Just telling an A-list actor stand here, say this. Tonight on TNT, whatever it may be, you know?

Nigel: | Well, one of the things you have to learn is to just roll with the punches. I was working on a job and we had a very, very important actor doing the, the vocal introduction to this show. And he said to me, "and what am I supposed to be doing?" And we had a number of takes, which failed. And eventually I said, "You know what..." I'm on the talkback. I said, "You know what, you just just pretend you're the voice of God." And he turned to his buddy who's in the vocal booth. And he said, "What the fuck does that mean?" [laughs] And yeah, that's intimidating when somebody who's known around the world says that, and you hear it

Nigel: | All right. Now it's time to put our big boy pants on and go into interview mode.

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Nigel | So I'm going to start this segment with a short story. I was shooting my first movie, and after doing the first take of a scene, my producer came up and whispered in my ear and said, "He needs to be angry, more angry in this scene." So I went up to the actor and I said, "Can you be more angry?" And the actor looked at his scene partner, the actor, by the way, who was an Oscar-winning actor. And they both rolled their eyes and he said, "He wants me to be more angry." And I realized at that moment that I could not talk to actors the way I talked to musicians because I understood musicians. And a very good friend of mine, suggested I go to this class, which then was the Judith Weston Acting for Directors class. And Judith is with us here today. Her resume of directors reads like a who's who of current filmmakers, and includes Alejandro Iñárritu, Ava DuVernay, Taika Waititi, Steve McQueen, Terry Zwigoff, Andrew Stanton, David Chase, and me. And Judith's book Directing Actors and I can see it over Judith's shoulder in the video that we have. Judith's book Directing Actors is now in its 25th anniversary edition. And I'm proud to say that my copy of the first edition is signed with thanks and love, Judith. So Judith, welcome to our show. Two Stops Over. I'd like to introduce you to Vance who's my co host.

Nigel | He has a strange accent. And he prefers Vegemite, and I prefer Marmite and that's all we need to know.

Vance | Lovely to meet you Judith and uh Vegemite is vastly superior just FYI.

Judith | Okay, Thank you so much for having me.

Nigel | It's a pleasure. Vance and I have done over 100 jobs with each other, all around the world. He's a fabulous cinematographer. And he's made movies too. So we're delighted to have you and ask you about what we should and should not be doing behind the camera. Now, you always told me, the director should sit beside the camera during a scene and not behind the monitor. And I always disagreed with that. And I'm wondering if your opinion has changed?

Judith | Well, um I have softened up on that. Because I'm so far in the minority on that opinion. I talk about it in a different way in the in the new book, the 25th anniversary edition. And it's about intimacy, really. At the time that I wrote the first book, the technology wasn't good enough. if you were looking through the monitors that they had then, you couldn't really tell if the actors were listening to each other. You couldn't really tell if the actors were responding to each other, the way you could, if you are looking right at them. So that was partly a technology issue in the first edition of the book, which came out in 1996. And the technology, of course, has improved very much. And if you have a high definition monitor, it's almost like looking at, at the actors in person. because that's the most important thing is that the actors are responsive to each other, that they're responding in the moment to each other, that's what makes them seem present. That's what makes them seem natural, and, charismatic, and interesting to look at, is if they're responsive to each other.

Judith | The idea of watching the monitor to me, it's like you're assessing, uh is everybody doing exactly what I told them to do? But if you're, in the present nearby, it's a witnessing, it's a communication. So that's the basis for the way I think about that. but of course, I know that many really, really good directors sit behind the monitor. So the other thing is, once in a while I've visited uh film sets when I'm not, in the film myself, but you know, as a visitor, and video village, you're not with the people who are making the movie. if you're in the room, where things are being shot, then you're with the people who are making the movie, if you're in video village with the people who are, you know, standing there with their arms crossed, looking for what to criticize. that's the other thing, I think it's more pleasurable to be with the people who are making a movie.

Vance | I have to agree with you, Judith, 100%. As a director of photography, I also feel that having a director next to me, Um we used to make movies that way, if you look at like a titan crane, there's three chairs on the crane one for the operator, or the cameraman, one for the first assistant, and one for the director. There was something about that process that I agree with you. for me, I'd much rather have a director close. And I think most DPs would say the same thing.

Judith | one thing that happens because of directors not being close, is that very often, the actors, after the take is over, they want to look up and they want to see somebody go "Oh!" You know, somebody smile at them. You know, they want to see somebody eyes light up and smile at them. So that's going to be the DP. if the director isn't there.

Vance | Yup. One thing I've wondered, you know, you've worked with a lot of different directors and I read this about you that the idea that everyone, including people outside of the film business, can benefit from your workshop, and I feel like it makes a lot of sense., when you're dealing with interpersonal relationships. Do you feel that way?

Judith | Well that's how I started. Actually, I started out teaching a class called Acting for Non-Actors and I had the idea that everybody in the world should take an acting class, that it would, just help you connect more to your inner self as well as to other people. that's why I started acting. I didn't start acting in order to be a movie star. And it was to know more about myself, you know, it was the 1970s. and people were looking around for ways to understand themselves. so that was how I found this wonderful teacher and the way she talked about the characters just made me understand people better, understand myself better, so I, I started out with this kind of idea that I was going to teach the world to act. not to have everybody want to be actors, but to understand human behavior better, to understand their own, and to be more tolerant of other people. Because when you're acting, you can't judge your character.

Judith | so, that was how I started, but then I turned out that I got interested in this idea of narrowing down and focusing on directors. Because they seem to know so little about actors. And [laughs], the very first class I taught of acting for directors, they were just such lovely people, I really, I just thought, "Oh, I really like this group of people" they're fairly, equally balanced between right brain and left brain. directing, it's a left brain activity to a great extent, but the directors, their right brain is closer to the surface than say, lawyers. because I've worked with lawyers too. For a while I thought, oh, I can, help lawyers uh connect better with juries, if they took some acting class, but their right brain was so buried, that they didn't enjoy it. but the directors enjoyed it right away, they loved acting. they were scared, but they liked it. so that was just a pleasure and a delight to work with them always. And I just felt like I got in touch with their sweeter sides. And, of course, Nigel was just was one of the most wonderful people I ever had in class. He was just the sweetest and always excited to make some, some discovery about a character or something he just, he just took to it like a duck to water, it was wonderful.

Nigel | You're embarrassing me now. kind of following on from that story I just told, one of the most important lessons you taught me was that result-oriented direction doesn't work. Hmm. "Be angry." I'm wondering if there's ever a situation where it does work?

Judith | Of course, yeah. I think it's helpful if you tell the actors that that's what you're doing. If you say, I know, this is the result, you're gonna have to figure out how to make it work. I think it helps to couch it that way. but I also think, and this is something that the new book goes into much more deeply than I ever did when you were taking class or in the old book, But, what's more helpful is to talk to actors about the emotional event. instead of saying "be angrier," that you could say, "This is a fight to the death." That's a description of an emotional event. Okay, and it, carries an emotional charge, right? and actors understand that, you know, if you say to an actor, "thanks for what you did on that take but it felt a bit polite. what I see here in this scene is the politeness is covering up the fact that this is a fight to the death."

Vance | Right

Nigel | Very interesting.

Vance | Makes a lot of sense, actually.

Judith | So that's my big message these days, is to talk about emotional event. because
I don't want directors policing themselves, I don't want them saying, "can I say this? Or no, I can't say that." Well, you can say anything you want, I mean, I'm not going to be there, slapping you on the wrist or anything like that. but I want to move people in the direction of understanding emotional event of the scene, and this will make you a better director in every way, because it helps you with your narrative drive, of the whole of the whole feature, for instance, if it's a feature length, because an emotional event needs leads to the next emotional event.

Nigel | One of the things you taught me to tell actors, is when they see the script, they should immediately cross out any direction.

Judith | I know, I've softened up on that too.

Nigel | And just rely on the facts, which they know from the scene. So if the actor says, "Well, my son did this," oh, so obviously, you have a child. So why do you think that's so important?

Judith | Well, I don't anymore. [Laughs] So there you go. I'm gonna bring you guys up to date and give you the Cliff Notes version of what's different about in the new edition. The 25th Anniversary Edition. [laughs] it's got a little gold seal on the front, it's so cute. Anyway, I think I was basing that on my own teacher told me to do that. And I could look back at you know, the books, the plays that I bought in the early days, and, and the scenes that I worked on. the stage directions are crossed out with marker where you can't read them anymore.

Judith | And that's what I was told. But no, I think now, if you're going to cross anything out, you should do it with a very thin line so that you can come back to it if you need to. but I do think that everything should be questioned. I think one of the most valuable script analysis tools is something that I call mysterious lines. you know, to look for mysterious lines, and then to use on them what I call the technique of three possible and think of, and think of three different ways that that mysterious line could be interpreted. So that applies to lines of dialogue, of course. If a character says uh, "I hate you," you could you could call that a mysterious line. because it could be a joke for one thing. or the subtext of it could be "I hate you now. And I loved you yesterday," right? So there's different ways that that line can be interpreted. So it's a mysterious line, and stage directions can be mysterious as well.

Judith | They're clues, and not a blueprint. not a manual. And sometimes they are wrong. You know, sometimes the stage directions are actually wrong. but you know, you want to think about that.

Nigel | I'm gonna go back to your invisible lines comment because I didn't know it was called invisible lines. And I know that I had a chat with you before I was doing a movie with some people who weren't necessarily professional actors. one thing you told me, which was really useful in changing line readings, was, instead of them saying, "I'm going to walk the dog," and I'd say, "Well, you know, it's not... I'm not getting the feeling from it." You said, "well get them to take two different ways. I'm going to walk the dog, I hate you." Because it affects the way they do that. Or the other version, of course, says, "I love you, I'm going to walk the dog," and it comes out completely differently. And along with your be sly as a fox, as ifs, and your verb, actions, accused, punish, knife, reclaim, whatever it may be. Those three tools were extremely useful to me.

Nigel | I mean, every time, at a moment of panic, I could go to one of those tools. How did you discover them? I know you yourself were a student for a while.

Judith | Well some of them are long standing tools, the verbs are common to many acting teachers certainly. Stella Adler- I took a seminar with her once andshe would say what, "where's the verb? Where's the verb?" You know? don't play an emotion. What are you doing? and she had studied with Stanislavski. But even Strasburg, who was more known for the emotional memory and pulling up emotions, he talked about verbs as well. But the those are the big three, you know, Strasburg, Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner. My teacher, Jean Shelton always talked about verbs and objectives. The verb is what you're doing. The objective is the reason you're doing it. What do you want from the other character? I want to hurt him, I want to make him cry, or I want to encourage him, I want to lift him up. those are ways of getting at emotional behavior without labeling the emotion. And putting it in a box like that

Judith | So I didn't invent those at all. I just tried to keep saying, These are good ideas you know and to put them in a modern context. So that I'm not just saying, well, there are good ideas, because Stanislavski said so. That you can that you can see it in actual situations and actual words, and the as if, you know, the metaphor. Mike Nichols used to talk about this all the time, Mike Nichols was a teacher for a while he taught a class at, at The New School, I think, in New York for directors, and he called the it's like, when, and he used it all the time. that can be a way of getting at the emotional event. This is an argument, but it's not like when your best friend has slept with your spouse. it's like when you want to use the good silverware and the other person wants to use paper plates, so you add color or flavor to something by saying "it's like when"

Vance | From an actor's point of view. What makes a great script and what really gets actors fired up in your opinion?

Judith | A great script. It has to have some truth to it, I think. I think that's a great script. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Have you guys come across the David Lynch's little book Catching the Big Fish?

Vance | Oh, yeah. I love that book. It's so good, yeah.

Judith | Yeah, well it's a funny little book. It's tiny.

Judith | I found it very fascinating. It's the idea of letting yourself be captured by an idea. He keeps talking about you find the idea, you have to have an idea. And then the other thing I never quite figured out the, the fish metaphor, who is the fish? Am I the fish? Because I've been caught by the idea? Or is the fish the idea? I don't know. But fish in water, right? And water is symbolic of the subconscious. The way I think of it is when I tell people when they say, I'm trying to figure out what my script is about, or I'm trying to figure out what I should write about. I always tell them, Don't pick something, let it pick you. that's what I loved about David Lynch. Well, of course I love David Lynch in many many ways

Vance | Of course, yeah.

Judith | But that's what I loved about that little book, and uh that an idea has to capture you. And it has to mean something, and it has to matter. and then, of course, you have to have the technical skill to have it come out in plot and characterization and stuff like that. Writing is a skill. And you have to study it. You have to you have to learn the skills of it. But you also have to have the compelling reason to tell this story. And I think that actors can tell whether that's the case or not. And of course, sometimes the subject matter is very important to them.

Vance | And that's what gets them excited.
Judith | I think so. I mean, you know, of course I've been fascinated by the movie Tár and Cate Blanchett talking about her response to reading it. So I'm a little bit paraphrasing her maybe where she, she said she could tell right away that this was about something that it, that it mattered. That there was an idea behind it. Even though you couldn't put that idea into words, unless you watch the whole movie. That's how I feel about that movie. I'm a bit passionate, but

Nigel | As you've mentioned, Tár. I felt that Cate Blanchett and her wife who was played by German actress Nina Hoss approach their roles from different directions. And I found the Nina Hoss character, the wife, much more believable than Cate Blanchett's. I kind of sense that Cate was sort of acting it whereas Nina was being it.

Judith | That's interesting, although I think the character was acting a lot of the time.

Nigel | Good point

Judith | I think that might be the case that the character was often acting. I think there are a lot of subtle touches there.

Nigel | But the moment where she splits up with Cate Blanchett, with the six year old in the room. That moment was the most real moment for me in the film.

Judith | Yeah. I think that Lydia Tár is acting a lot of the time. And I think that's quite an amazing feat for an actor to pull off. You know, to play someone who's was acting, without judging her.

Nigel | In addition to having to learn German, and also how to conduct and having a musical communication.

Vance | Have you ever got a call from set with a director who's like stuck and saying, "I can't get this performance out of such and such? What can I what can I do? This is the scene." Do you get those calls, panic calls from set like that?

Judith | Yes.

Vance | You do? [laughs] the 3am phone call at all

Judith | Once in a while, Yeah, once in a while, Last time, it happened was maybe a month or so ago. And the director we've worked on, we've worked ahead of time to prepare, had several sessions. And I've worked with him before on other things. and then he was on set. And he was able to send me clips of the scene that he was panicked about. And I was able to figure out what the problem was, was the actor who was really doing wonderful stuff, but needed an objective.

Vance | Is that fun for you? I would I would imagine something like that, resolving issues like that probably be quite fun.

Judith | Oh, yeah, it's great fun to be able to resolve something. it often comes down to the objective. That each actor needs to have something that they want from the other actor

Judith | And if something is missing, that is often it.

Nigel | Speaking of objectives, according to Robert McKee's story structure class, when they shot Casablanca, only Humphrey Bogart had an idea of where the script was going. Especially as they were kind of rewriting it a lot as they went along. And obviously, they were in a set, so they didn't have to worry about shooting it out of order. So they shot it in order, and none of the actors knew what was going to happen to their characters. So, you always taught me, you know, find the objective in the scene. Obviously, for them, their objective was not to figure out the fact that they were going to be shot 15 minutes later in another scene, because like the rest of us, we don't know what tomorrow brings. It must be very difficult for an actor when he knows what's happening, the end of the movie when he's acting a scene, 20 pages in, how'd you get around that?

Judith | That's part of the craft, you know, it's part of the craft to play the moment. and as I say if you have something you want, even if you know the character is not going to get it, it's a skill of a good actor to be able to commit themselves, and they commit themselves, to their partner with that need to get that from them. And, and with the belief that they might, I used as an example, in the new book, that very famous scene from Godfather 2, with Michael and Fredo. The "I'm smart" scene, that's how you can find it on YouTube, where he's, lying in this hammock, and Michael is standing and Fredo wants to be respected, and to be kept part of the family. And even though I mean, the actor knows is not going to happen. and maybe, maybe you can say that his body language shows that he knows it's not going to happen. But his commitment to believe that maybe this time it will, maybe on this take Michael won't say those words "You're not in the family anymore." Maybe on this take, he won't say them. it's all a suspension of disbelief, right? It's all imagination. our powers of imagination are very wonderful. Very large, very expansive.

Vance | I have a question. One last, from me, anyway. Looking at your list of directors you work with and the interviews you've done. Your clients include a lot of women and people of color, why do you think you've attracted those directors? And I think, obviously, it's very important, this is a very important thing, especially in this current times.

Judith | The Vanity Fair interviewer asked me that too, and I am not sure how to answer it. I do know that I wanted it. I do know that I wanted to help particularly help people with less of a chance.

Vance | Opportunity, yeah.

Judith | And, and somehow that came to be. I don't know that I did specific things to make it happen. But, but I know that I wanted it.

Vance | You had the intent?

Judith | I did. But I didn't have strategies to make it happen, if that makes sense. I also think it's possible that people who are not white, straight men, you know, seek me out. Because they know they need to get an advantage somehow. they know they need to work harder.

Vance | I read that there was a feminist March in New Jersey in 1968, which you participated in with a giant female puppet in chains I think Miss America.

Judith | Oh right! Miss America, Miss America Pageant., yeah.

Vance | Which I thought was fantastic and amazing. I mean, you're really you're still fighting

Judith | Oh, yeah. Well, when I was teaching. In the old days, I didn't used to mention my checkered past as a Women's Liberationst and protester at the Miss America Pageant in 1968, but I'm very proud of it now.

Vance | You should be, I think it's awesome.

Nigel | I have an answer to that question for you, Judith, uh being a former student, is
that you're very compassionate and nurturing.

Nigel | And so um speaking as a old white straight guy, I found it, I found it wonderful to be a part of your class. eventually, I felt that I needed to no longer be in your class because I could not commit the time to my scene partners because I was traveling so much and working. But your class was very important to my career. Your book, certainly I have the older version, I refer to it often, it has loads of notes in it, and clippings, and pieces of paper. I have here a list of the verb actions, which I always carry with me on set. So it's very useful and crucial. And my advice is that any up and coming director, or even a director who's working with gets in a hole, seeks you out, or at least seeks out the new version of your book, the 25th anniversary version of Directing Actors. And on behalf Vance and myself, I just like to say thank you so much for being with us.

Judith | Oh I just had great time with you guys. Thank you.

Vance | Thank you, Judith. It's so great

Nigel | Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls in film world, you have to read this book, or you have to seek out Judith somewhere and find some of her advice. It is so useful on set.

Judith | Let me tell you where. I have the website judithweston.com.

Nigel | Judith, thank you so much for all you've helped me with in my career. And
lovely to see you again.

Vance | Thank you, Judith.

[music]

Nigel | Vance, we have a new segment. What's the deal?

Vance | The deal is, that we were getting questions so we thought, from listeners, so we thought it'd be a great idea to invite a listener on with a question and ask us directly.

Nigel | And who do we have?

Vance | Today we have Eric Iyoob

Nigel | And Eric, I understand you have two questions what's your first question and who's it to?

Eric | So my first question is for Vance.

Eric | I just wanted to say that I look up to you as a, you know, a DP. And I also wanted to say too congrats on your Camerimage achievement award,

Eric | Um so as an independent director of photography, who often works from my own funding– what are some ways to build confidence so that I can make it to that next level?

Vance | Honestly I think firstly, trust your instincts and don't overthink things. you know, obviously there's levels to the craft, and we have to know our craft and have to understand how to expose film et cetera, et cetera. But I think at the heart of it, I mean, shoot without fear, trust your gut, you know I see a lot of things, "Well, we've gotta have a key light to backlight ratio of two point six stops and blah blah blah." Things like that. Forget all that, trust your eyes, trust your heart, and that will help you um gain confidence because once you realize you can trust those things you'll find your work will grow and get better.

Eric | Okay, I respect that. yeah and that was the other thing like contrast ratios. That was something that I'm really, I don't know if it's something I'm just overlooking but that kinda ties into that too. The whole overthinking part.

Vance | Yeah, I mean honestly, um you're- if you're going to do a scan, you'll wanna expose a little fat. That means, a little overexposed- a stop over, something like that. Just to give you- so you hold detail in the shadows. You don't overblow the highlights, and then the rest you can clean up in post, in color grade

Eric | Okay so my question for Nigel, so years ago, lets say early 2000s I would wake up, you know I'd pop on MTV and the music videos, that's just one thing that comes to mind when I think of your name because your work is very defined. So when I see your work I know it's your work. So how did you define your own directing style?

Nigel | Um the truth is, I didn't. I'd be interested to even to know what my directing style is. I've actually tried to make sure it differs. I've always said that you can't make a Nickelback video look like Britney. Or you can't do a video for Britney making it look like Alice Cooper. Because they're completely different artists and you want to make sure that the artist shines through. of course if you look at anybody's reel, you'll start seeing the same things over and over again. Because you learn these tricks and if things aren't going well you fall back on a trick to help you out of a hole. if the day's not going quite the way you want to do it then you go uh-oh I'm gonna have to throw in some whip pans here to speed it up a bit. So, I think it's true of any artist whether they're a painter, a photographer, a filmmaker, a poet, a guitar player, whatever it is, they start using the same tricks after a while, we all do. And our biggest trick sometimes is to try not to do those tricks and try something new. And uh as we've just mentioned, that can be very frightening.

Nigel | Just so I can go to bed and sleep well tonight, what is that destinctive thing that you're talking about that I'm supposed to do?

Eric | So this was a project both you and Vance both worked on, it was uh Me Myself and I by Jive Jones. Um real funny, I was just listening to a playlist on my Spotify, I came back from a film shoot in Philly yesterday and it popped on the radio and I'm like "whoa wait a minute" you two are like the highlights of that era in my opinion. You really brought that to life

Nigel | I always like to see performance, because I always want to see the artist be the artist. That's what always got me out of bed in the morning when I was a record buyer. You know, when we bought records. So you know it's very nice to have a story and I love telling stories and i love doing videos which have stories but if the artist doens't perform then we're in the hole. And certainly Jive Jones you know that was the only video I ever did for him. but he was a great performer, so I milked that certainly. you know I'd- I'll confess, having been in the business many years now I'm kind- I'm kind of mystified sometimes when somebody shows me a new video that somebody's done and there's no sign of the artist at all. It's like well why make the video? I want to see- I want to see whoever it is being their best self. that's what i signed up for. I don't wanna see some airy fairy story which doesn't contain them. otherwise why would I go to the gig?

Eric | Right, right. Mhm

Eric | one more thing I did wanna add um the Hemorrhage video by Fuel um I'm not sure if you both worked on that but to add to that, the pane of glass, where Brett is up against the glass like...

Nigel | Oh yeah

Eric | ...literally screaming to the camera like that, that alone I think just sells it right there, you know?

Nigel | there you go, the performance again

Eric | Mhm

Nigel | Did you notice the bass player in that video?

Nigel | Because it's me. The real bass player couldn't show up

Eric | Really??

Nigel | And everybody's going "What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?" and the guitar player suddenly turns to me and says, "Can you put this hat on?" So I put a hat on like you're wearing now, and they all loooked at each other and said "He's the bass player. Can you play bass?" [laughs] and I said, "Sure, I can play bass."

Nigel | So if you look very closely, I don't have uh a pedal at my feet, you know like, a bass player might do. I have a small monitor so I'm- I'm directing the video while I'm playing and at the end of each take, the band would direct me and say "no you gotta, you know, put your head down more" or whatever they were asking me to do. But...

Eric | Wow! Whatever it takes, you know?

Nigel | Exactly. Whatever it takes

Nigel | Good luck, Eric!

Eric | Thank you very much

Vance | Have a good one! Take care Eric! Cheers

Eric | You too. Cheers Bye

[music]

Nigel: | So we're nearing the end. I can see the cliff coming. What do we need to do now Vance?

Vance: | Well, first of all, Thanks, Eric. that was nice to chat with you. I think, what we'd like you to do now is follow us at uh @TwoStopsOverPodcast on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. And also if you could give us a wonderful review on Apple Podcasts would be most appreciated.

Nigel: | And we would like more victims to come on the show to ask us their questions so we can respond to them. At the moment. We've got enough room in the podcast hutch for one person per episode. the rumor going around that if you join us on the podcast, you will get a "victim of two stops over podcast t-shirt" that's a big fat lie, that's not happening. But you will get a pat on the head but I warn you. You're not allowed to touch Vance in his wet suit. But if you've got a question, let us know. And we'd like to have you on the podcast.

Vance: | Yeah and uh besides directorial questions you can ask cinematography questions, stunt questions, camera questions, what it feels like to wear a rubber suit questions, anything you like

Nigel: | Oh, oh, wouldn't it be rubbery?

Vance: | Oh yes it would. Uh rubbery with Burberry, [laughs]. Get rubbery with Burberry today and his wetsuit and, and uh you can fiddle with his optics... underwater.

Nigel: | On that note, thank you very much for listening and we'll see you in two weeks time.

Vance: | And piss off everybody appreciate you listening bye.