After a dry patch, our anonymous actor finally has his career back on track – with two film jobs on the go. Happy to be back on a film set, he ponders the strange dynamic of his setting...
Having rented out my flat for a year, turfed out my flatmate, put a deposit down on an “apartment” and booked my flights to the States, and finally decided to hustle my way around Los Angeles, a film has come my way.
Or rather, two films. Both in England. As I’ve said before, the only proven way to get a job is to make other plans. A bit of money should be nice, but where will I live? A hotel would be all right…
About 10 years ago I saw Richard Harris in the lobby of the Savoy, where he lived on the proceeds of Camelot. He appeared in the lobby, a disreputable, granite eminence with long white hair, a long black overcoat and huge white trainers of the sort that alcoholics like to wear and you can buy for a fiver at Shepherd’s Bush market. In tow was pretty girl of about 18. I dared to stare and he shot me back a dangerous look. Dare ye not.
But I don’t care where I live… I’m excited to be back on a film set. Like a lot of people in the business, it’s where I feel most content, even when I’m sitting about, rolling cigarettes (I always start smoking again on films – it passes the time). The concentrated energy of a well-run set is something to be involved in. On a big film there can be several hundred people all brought together simply to capture a few seconds of film. The extravagance of it seems almost Pharaoh-like, and the organisation requires a special talent – the First AD.
Some of the subtleties of the ecology of a set can pass you by as an actor. You occupy a strange position. You are coddled, and pampered and yet, unless you are a big star, you are not really powerful. Rather you are separate and somehow additional to the essential running of a set. Actors are the only people on a film whose arrival on set is announced. “Artists stepping on!” This is a pretend sort of respect towards “the artist”, and half the time a sarky AD adapts this to “artistes” with an “e”, betraying his actual respect, but the real idea is that we are visitors to a world beyond our understanding.
The logistical demands of a film mean that actors are treated well for the same reason that small children are treated well – so as to minimise the chaos we like to cause. We are not trusted. We represent a randomising, disruptive element. We are a necessary evil in a technician’s world. I am content with this.
It’s not an actors’ world, though actors can flourish in it and end up craving it like a drug. I was once shooting a scene and I was tense – there was limited time and I’d been waiting to shoot this scene for months. When it came to it I had no flow: I was clumsy, almost robotic, I’d over-thought the scene and the director wasn’t getting what he needed. Suddenly he took over the camera from the operator and started to bark directions at me while we rolled, like a silent film director. The sound would be dubbed later.
He told me stand up and to sit down, he told me to look to my left and look to my right. Further, no, no not that far! Now look up! No, just with your eyes, don’t move your head! I was so completely “out of the moment” by this time that I was nearly in tears but eventually the boss got what he wanted – he had the flick of the eye to cut on, and with that he could tell his story. It really didn’t matter if I was “feeling it” or not. The story was told in the cut.
My lesson was learnt – it’s not an actors’ medium. It’s a great jigsaw puzzle for technicians and storytellers.
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Image: Adam Kesher by djenvert, available under a CC BY-NC-ND license.