Learn to Communicate
By Jason Santo • Jan 23rd, 2004 • Category: Articles, FilmmakingJump back to the spring of 2001. I’m working on a picture called In a Sky With No Angels. On the movie, I was the writer/director, primary producer and actor. To say that it was difficult would be an understatement, especially when you add in the fact that I only had 24 hours to shoot twenty pages worth of script. It was to be a very long evening, but I felt confident and ready.
By the following afternoon, we had managed to complete all but one scene that was scheduled. The official page count was eighteen. It was a big success for me on a personal level. I had, until this point, not fully organized a shoot the way they are supposed to be organized, but instead simply grabbed friends whenever they were available and slapped movies together according to who was around. With In a Sky With No Angels, I thought more in advance, factored in actors’ availability and then scheduled pages to shoot accordingly. We were working with a script, had very exact call times for cast and crew, and each person involved on the production had a very specific role. Additionally, when someone was done with their part in the production, they left. There was no need to have people just sitting around as they can commonly act as distractions.
The circumstances involving our location (a pricey hotel room) necessitated the more organized approach, but I realized after that shoot that this model of production was the model because it allowed for a clearer understanding of what needed to be done and when. Scheduling is only a small part of the process, and the easier of the two. What I discovered was most important, however, was clear communication. As a writer, producer, actor and director, I found myself having to communicate effectively in several different ways. As a writer, most of the work had been done, since the ideas were pretty clearly presented on paper. As producer, effective communication ensured adherence to a tight schedule. As an actor, I had to make sure what I was doing was right for the camera and for the actress opposite whom I was acting. And as a director, it was my job to make sure that all things coalesced into something that would be true to what was on the page, true to what I had in my head, and good enough to work together in the edit.
It can be taxing, but the importance of communication, regardless of discipline, cannot be stressed enough. Clearly explaining yourself and your ideas is an invaluable commodity that takes years to develop, but it’s one that’s often overlooked in all fields, never mind the very communication-dependent field of moviemaking. The slogan of my alma mater, Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, was one that I’ve followed for many years: “Expression is necessary to evolution.” In order to evolve, you must learn to communicate well. In theory I’d always understood what it meant, but on In a Sky With No Angels, I realized in practice what it was all about.
When I was in college, a requirement of the school was that all students, regardless of major, were forced to take communication classes. Each semester I had one of these, I knew I was in for a bit of a struggle. At first I feared my rather thick Boston accent would handicap my chances for an “A” in any of these classes, but soon I realized my view of communication was superficial. While these classes did encompass voice and articulation, (and thus beat me into pronouncing “Car” as such, and not as “Cah”) communication classes also included lessons about organizing one’s thoughts and learning how to better convey one’s ideas. I learned to think more about what I was going to say before saying it, (something I still struggle with) and I learned that properly explaining one’s self is something of immeasurable value.
Now let’s return to In a Sky With no Angels, a movie shoot that, though still pretty amateur in execution (since it was no-budget and the crew was small), does work well to clearly illustrate how effective communication helped make the shoot a success.
As a writer, my ideas needed to be well explained on the page via very clear writing. Everything from the word choice to the spelling and punctuation to the formatting to the themes running through the screenplay… all of them play an important part in getting the whole ball rolling in the first place. To present an actor, or a crew person with a screenplay littered with misspellings, bad grammar and vacant ideas is to present them with something not well realized. As a writer, it’s your job to impress people with a well-written screenplay that’s as clear of errors as possible so when people read it, they spend more time contemplating your story, and less time gasping over your abhorred grammar. Whether you are a screenwriter collecting a multimillion dollar paycheck or an amateur starting out on your first production, know that the way your script is written will greatly impact the amount of support you get from the people you are asking to help you.
When I put on the producer cap, the focus of my attention sharpened on clearly communicating the details of the day’s shoot. Who was doing what, what needed to be done when, and who needed to be where and when… it all sounds vague (and confusing) here, but in practice, fully explaining to cast and crew all of these details is must! If you merely say, show up around 7, and you don’t specify A.M. or P.M., don’t be angry if the person shows up at the wrong time. Sound far-fetched? I recently forgot this on a shoot for a movie called Shady Business and a production assistant called my cell phone at 7 a.m. wondering where we all were. It wasn’t her fault, it was mine for not telling her exactly when the shoot was to begin. What about telling someone, “Meet us at the Dunkin Donuts on Main Street in Melrose?” Not good enough since there are two Dunkin Donuts on that street! As a producer, it’s imperative that you carefully plan out all scheduled calls by researching all addresses and supplying phone numbers whenever possible. If you’re talking to someone who doesn’t always listen, make sure you repeat yourself several times as well. The key is to make sure the other person comprehends exactly what is going to happen and when.
“You want me to stand like this, right? And then when I turn to say the line, I should be facing this way, yes?”
Obviously, acting isn’t only about interpreting the blocking given to you by the cameraperson or director, it’s also about interpreting what’s on the page. Particularly in bringing words of dialogue to life, you need to understand the mechanics of your own voice: what the difference is vocally between a quiver in tone, a whisper and a fearful choke! Additionally, you need to understand how to communicate the emotion that’s called for to varying degrees. It requires a lot of emotional buy-in to what’s on the page, and it doesn’t hurt if you know how to communicate well in the first place!
Finally, when being a director, almost all of the above-mentioned skills must coalesce. Directors, like writers, have to understand each line of dialogue and weigh how important it is if an actor changes something a bit. If it’s important that a line stay the same, directors should be able to clearly explain why this is so. More importantly, directors must understand the emotional context of a scene. The old joke is “What’s my motivation,” but too often bad scenes result when an actor is not given motivation or emotional context. I don’t blame the actors… I blame the directors! It is their job to explain to actors what everything means if an actor is struggling with the correct interpretation of a scene. Being well-spoken in instances such as this is priceless.
When talking with a director of photography, directors need to be able to understand why a particular shot is being selected and what the benefit is of that shot over another if it is questioned. When a sound person is trying to figure out how to move the boom through a scene during a rehearsal, it’s the director who must assist the sound person in finding a way to get good sound by permitting the sound person to move in such a way that he or she may not have though was okay. (ie: getting to close to an actor, etc.)
Point of fact, so myriad are the number of ways communication is valuable to anyone working on a motion picture that a whole book could be written on just this idea alone! But one singular notion stands out beyond all others: effective communication demands respect. Whether you are a writer, producer, director, actor, boom operator, cameraperson, best boy or all of the above, your ability to communicate will be directly related to the amount of respect with which you are treated. After all, how much respect do we have for writers who cannot spell? Or producers who do not create realistic schedules? Or actors who cannot deliver an emotion properly? Or directors who don’t know how to do all of the above? Truth is, perhaps more than we often should! But by learning how to communicate well, you will earn such respect much easier than someone who does not. And with respect comes the freedom to move forward in your craft.
Communication will allow you to grow. Expression is necessary to evolution!
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