What is the advantage of planting people? Are our audiences afraid to react?
I don’t know how many of you are interested in working in television, or working outside the United States, but as a BBC fan, I found myself fascinated by some of the talks I found here. They have full sessions from the event from the last three years, talking with producers, directors, writers, and actors about what it’s like to work in European television. It’s an interesting insight into both a different industry and a different culture.
The Many Roles of an AD (from Last Week’s Colloquium)
Last Friday we discussed the many possible roles of the Assistant Director. Here’s what we came up with:
- Active Observer - This is your most important job. Be present in the room. Take notes (with permission.) Be able to speak articulately about the process (but only when asked.)
- Staging - Sometimes a director has you take a stab at a scene while s/he works on another, especially if the scale of the show is daunting or the rehearsal period is short
- Acting Coaching - Working on monologues, moments, talking through things with actors
- Translator - Sometimes it’s English to Spanish, sometimes it’s their English to conventional English ;)
- Production Assistant / Personal Assistant - Coffee, correspondence, sometimes even babysitting
- Emotional Support - Depending on your relationship, this becomes an important part, but it’s also part of being a good friend and good person
- Stage Management / Technical Director Knowledge - Can that chair be brought on stage left? Is there enough clearance?
- Sounding Board / Confidante - Sometimes a director needs to talk something through, and they might not necessarily want your opinion. They just need to talk it through.
- Wide-Eyed Optimist - Be the person who sees the good in everything: the production, the difficult actor or designer. Be infectious but not obnoxious.
- King’s Fool - (With permission) Ask the stupid questions. Not pointedly, but ask them. Someone’s got to do it.
- Sightlines / Traffic Cop - Two sets of eyes are better than one.
- Dramaturg - Research, theory, accountability to the vision.
- Fixer - in the organized crime sense. Sometimes you get sent out with a task that you’re not told how to do, and you just have to figure it out. You’re the fixer. The family depends on you to take care of things.
- Liaison - Directors have lots of meetings to go to, and if you prove yourself, you can be a great representative for him or her if there’s a scheduling conflict that requires s/he be somewhere else when the meeting’s happening.
- Hostage Negotiator - Things should never get to this point, but sometimes they do. This connects to being an optimist. Smoothing over professional disagreements as gently as possible is a skill you are sometimes called on to have. Be very careful with this one. It doesn’t, and shouldn’t, happen often.
- Wrangler (Children, Animals, Puppets, Actors, etc.) - Some directors don’t like having to deal with kids, animals, or particular special effects. Make their life easier and take care of those issues both artistically and personally. (Again, always wait until you’re asked.)
Most importantly, you need to talk to your director to figure out which roles you’re fulfilling. Expectations will often change after that first conversation, but you need to know the rules of the world before you start helping someone run it! Every assignment, and every relationship, is different!
And that’s that!” said Snufkin, pushing back his hat. “And now we’ll pull down every single notice, and every single leaf of grass shall be allowed to grow as it likes.”
All his life Snufkin had longed to pull down notices that asked him not to do things he liked to do, and he was fairly trembling with excitement and expectation. He started off with:
NO SMOKING Then he flew at:
DO NOT SIT ON THE GRASS After that he turned on:
LAUGHING AND WHISTLING STRICTLY PROHIBITED and the next minute:
NO HOP, NO SKIP AND DEFINITELY NO JUMP ALLOWED HERE followed suit.
The little woodies stared at him with more and more astonishment.
Little by little it was dawning on them that he had come to their rescue. They left the sandbox and gathered around him.
“Go home, little ones,” said Snufkin. “Go wherever you please.”
-Tove Jansson, Moominsummer Madness
Brideshead Revisited
Eleven of the most perfect hours ever captured on film.
‘That is an actor’s life, my dear,’ he explained. 'Like a soldier’s, never tardy or disobedient to his general, the director. Everything,’ he said, 'absolutely everything will depend on you.’
Grace Paley’s “The Loudest Voice,” a short story about a group of Jewish children participating in their school’s Christmas play. A beautiful little piece about the power of theater to empower and unite.