Dialogue is always tough, especially if you use non-professional actors; it just always seems a little fake. When we were working on Stalled we would do rehearsals and encourage the actors to embellish the script with whatever felt right in the moment. Based on those improvisations, Stuart would re-write the script resulting in a more believable final product.
Because METER BY METRE is a mocumentary and we were using quite a few non-professional actors we decided to ramp up the improvisational element.
Stuart, Ben and I detailed what had to transpire within a scene, the beats that needed to be hit, and we had a few key pieces of dialogue or “character reveals” that needed to occur in order to move the story along, but besides that the actors were free to improvise. We also encouraged the actors to inject randomness and rants, the two R’s!
To help the actors we wrote really detailed character descriptions & bios. The idea being that the actor familiar with his/her character will react in the moment exactly how that particular character would react. Now this sounds like acting 101, but even the most experienced actors can’t polish average dialogue. This way you get a weird hybrid that’s the actor generating these random bits of dialogue that sound all the more real because it’s coming from their own internal store of words and phrases. A good example of this was Ian, (who is from London), he added an eclectic mix of slang that we would never have thought of, stuff like “plonker” and “cock hounds” which was gold.
Having said this, rehearsals are essential, it helps the actors relax around each other and it allows everyone to be creatively “triggered”. We all came up with more material during rehearsals and the film is much better for it. It’s an opportunity to discuss any aspect of the script and characters so that on the day of the shoot, as Sydney Lumet says “everyone is making the same movie”.
With the non-professionals we really tried to cast people who had a similar vibe naturally to the characters we were hoping to portray. For example a friend of ours Nick is naturally a very confident guy and a phenomenal sweet talker, he was perfect to play our “business man” who attempts to talk his way out of a fine. Another friend of ours naturally has a very dry wit and very quick on his toes when it comes to retorts, Marcus was therefore perfect to play Beverly’s nemesis Steve. So I guess the point is try and cast your non-professionals as close as you can to how they are in real life and don’t expect them to do/react in anyway they wouldn’t normally, common sense I guess.
During improv rehearsals every actor contributed to the scene, bringing something of their own to the moment, a funny line, a piece of the character that we had never thought of that added to the piece. Improvisation is a real favourite of mine because it allows everyone to really contribute and shape the characters and scenes. We were really lucky that all of the actors “got it” and only ever had to make a few adjustments during rehearsals. We’d get to about 60% of what we expected on the shoot and would leave the scenes to be fleshed out on the day and in the moment.
Something else that I think is important is to give actors something physical to do in a scene, with our main character Beverly Vanderlinden, we made sure he always had something to do in a scene, some “keep him busy work”, it just helped him deliver the lines and give a kind of reality to the moment. This is good for actors who are self-conscious or not quite in the moment, give them something to do and it loosens them up a bit. Also when on a no budget if it’s possible try and mix your non-professional and professional actors. It’s like a game of tennis; the better players always lift the other player’s game, especially at the rehearsal stage.
Scott
