Working through the words

Last night, I wrote about how tough it’s been working through a couple scenes from Devil’s Advocate. While that’s still true, I feel like I made a lot of progress tonight and I’m feeling much more comfortable with the scene. Heretofore, I hadn’t marked up the copy at all; I had just read through the scene a few times and tried to get a feel for what’s going on. Tonight, I sat down and meticulously marked up the script and that seemed to really open it up for me. One problem I was having had to do with the scene’s length–it’s 11 pages. I kept getting lost in the scene and not being able to find my way through all the words to what was actually happening with the characters and with the movie.

Marking it up allowed me to break it down into sections so I could wrap my mind around what was actually going on. I’ve gotten a much better feel for how my character changes throughout the scene. His objective is always the same, but he realizes that he can’t accomplish it the way he thought; he has to change tactics and methods a few times. So, I’m starting to understand the scene, but now I have to figure out how to take my new understanding and translate it to physical action. That’s where I generally have the most trouble. I have a difficult time taking my understanding of the character and translating that character’s words and actions into my own speech and movement. The trick is portraying the character honestly because the camera will surely catch anything that isn’t honest–a fake move, a staged look, or anything else where I might be “acting”.

Slow and steady…