Know the story. The process of making a movie means shooting it out of order. When shooting a scene, know where, how, and why it fi ts in the overall movie. Understand the complete plot and character arc so that when you’re asked to begin fi lming Scene 46, you should know what your character’s behavior, feelings, and motivation are in Scenes 45 and 47. When the editor edits Scene 46 together with Scene 45 (which you may have fi lmed a month later), the transition of performance must be seamless.
Russian-born actor Mikhail Chekhov developed a variation of the acting technique in the 1920s. Rooted in the Stanislavsky technique, Chekhov’s “dual-process” approach taught actors not only how to create life within the moment (first process), but also to understand how to portray that moment within the actor’s realistic surroundings of the movie set, in front of an audience and in front of cameras and lights (second process). As deep as the actor is in her character, the actor is still subconsciously aware of her surroundings and must consider them when acting.
One aspect of Chekhov’s approach is the “psychological gesture,” which is a physical or verbal cue that a character expresses under pressure that reveals his heart and soul. To reach this psychological gesture, an actor must understand the character’s breaking point and the personality aspects that will come out as a result of that pressure. The gesture quantifi es the character’s inner need in the form of an external action. The actor uses the gesture subtly as a way of refocusing the performance internally.
