Edoardo Ballerini » film

Show Me the Money

Edoardo Ballerini — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 14:38:15 +0000

Well, now I’ve done it. After all my preaching about actors having to take the reins and make things happen, a project of my own is about to start. It’s a low-budget affair, so of course after the initial funding came in we all looked at each other and thought, “Gee, wouldn’t it be nice to have a little more?”

Yes, it would.

So we launched a fundraising campaign, and I, the actor/producer, suddenly found myself being the guy who asks for money. It’s not a role I’m particularly adept at, though believing in the project helps a lot. But it did get me thinking: how different is this really from the rest of what I do?

Actors are always asking for something. We ask for parts, ask for attention, for praise, for reality to fade away if just for a little while. What’s the difference when it comes to money?

Bob Dylan wisely remarked that “money doesn’t talk, it swears.” Money matters. We are impressed by those that have it, we think less of those that don’t. We hesitate to ask for it, and we hesitate even more to give it. It is, quite literally, our measure of value.

But I’d like to think that my value, our value, is not measured in Treasury Notes. My value is in the project I’m working on, that I believe in, and that I’m looking forward to sharing with the world. And with this thought, I have no problem asking people to contribute a few dollars.

Neither should you.

Character vs. Scene

Edoardo Ballerini — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 19:24:31 +0000

An interesting point was raised by Ron Van Lieu in class yesterday at The Actors Center. After offering some notes on a scene from “A Doll House,” the work started up again. After the second go around, Ron noted that the actress had taken his notes and veered straight into “character,” nearly forsaking the content of the “scene.” What she did was certainly entertaining, but it neglected something fundamental.

A little bulb went off in my head. Actors today are trained toward playing character, and we do, in fact, often neglect the scene. There’s little hiding from this.

This is especially true in film and television, where more attention is paid to character elements like wardrobe, stylings, mannerisms, look, haircuts, habits and catchy one-liners, than if a scene is any good in its entirety. Whether something is advanced in the emotional make-up of the character, or whether we learn something beyond simple story points has been rendered nearly irrelevant. It’s a race between plot and character, scene be damned.

The scene, as it were, is nearly dead, rendering our most basic criticism of them as to whether they’re too long or too short. “Too long” means we got the plot point and would like the narrative to move on, “too short” means there wasn’t enough time to get our needed dose of character.

I have an audition coming up, and as I sat in class I ran my lines in my head, searching for whether I’d done any work on the scene. I had not. Several choices about vocal pitch, clothing and a nervous twitchiness had been established, but there was little in my preparation that answered the question, “So, what is this about? What’s going on? What are the points A and B here?” I had no idea, and here I was, a professional actor, studying with a celebrated teacher, suddenly clueless about the basics of my own craft.

But I felt as though I’d been mercifully spared another round of an anguished audition later. I could go back and do my work, properly. If I do the job, the rest follows, and it’s the attention to scene that will separate a mediocre read from a good one. Whether anybody in the room knows what’s going on doesn’t matter. Something will be felt, the way good stitching holds a bad together even as we desire only to feel the smoothness of the leather.

And at any rate, nearly all the classes out there are still being advertised as “scene study,” are they not?

“Fast, Cheap, Good”

Edoardo Ballerini — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:14:30 +0000

There’s a saying that in film you can choose two of the following three things: fast, cheap, and good, but you can’t have all three. That is, if it’s fast and cheap, it won’t be good, if it’s cheap and good, it won’t be fast, and if it’s good and fast, it won’t be cheap. In my experience, this has held up pretty well.

Now, perhaps it’s because of my newfound belief that anything is possible, but an idea for a film project came to me in the night that I thought might just be able to break this curse. But upon further reflection, it became clear that it wouldn’t be fast. Then upon further further reflection, it occurred to me that nothing in film is fast. An eternity can pass between the idea and the first viewing of even the fastest of the fast tracked projects.

So, if fast is hereby eliminated, and you’re allowed to have cheap and good, and there are several examples of this in film, then…

The real question, I think, is whether the final product is any good.

I would love to hear some responses on this fast – cheap – good idea, so please write me or post a comment.