On Ali’s project I offered my almost non-existent acting abilities, portraying his protagonist plagued with nightmares. Ali’s project was focused around the idea of working without a scripting and reacting to the improvised acting. As an actor this meant I didn’t have to learn copious amounts of dialogue, the crux of the film was Ali’s direction and how we worked together. I haven’t had any real experience in screen acting so I found in bizarre carrying out daily actions with a camera quite close to my face. It was beneficial in terms of revealing how important both rehearsing and blocking is for an actor. Often I had to remember particular cues and to ensure that my performance was consistent from take to take. Firstly so that framing was never hindered and secondly to ensure continuity would be easy to obtain in the edit.

Ali is a very clear director and it was obvious that he knew his idea inside out. He knew which aspects were central to the main theme and focus upon these. As an actor this focus was incredibly beneficial as I was able to grasp quickly Ali’s key interests for the project. Due to the minimal dialogue and frequent close ups Ali focused upon my facial expression and allowed me ample rehearsal time and offered feedback that easy to transfer to my performance. I wasn’t aware of any schedule but it seemed that we got through the shoot with good time for each shot. Ali had a perfect sense of how long to spend with each shot and was able to move on when too much time was spent on a particular shot. As an actor I also found it useful that we shot chronologically. For Ali’s project it made perfect sense as the story follows my character through his daily activities.

In terms of my own work as a director I found this a valuable experience, particularly in terms of the actor director relationship. Experiencing this exchange as an actor I was able to see how much a director needs to reveal to their actors. Enough information that they can form a character and situate that character within the film’s universe but not too much that they get lost on the technical aspects of the film. It was also beneficial to witness someone else use DEDO lights to light a small room and to compare this to how I had used them with my own project only a couple of days prior. Overall, I feel that Ali was far more prepared than I was with my own actors. I found that although creative import from actors is incredibly useful relying on them for constructive advice can be detrimental and can cause an unfocused set. Their ideas should provide either refinement to your own idea or an differing perspective rather than as first possibility.
In saying this I feel that you can never underestimate the power of an actor and the knowledge that they bring. I was amazed by the depth of development both my actor’s had gone into to portray my simplistic characters. I found myself struggling to find answers to questions about character’s motivation and reasoning. Without this level of engagement I don’t believe my scene would have result in anything as interesting. I can only hope that my engagement with Ali’s project provided him with a result he was pleased with and felt that I had portrayed his protagonist with honesty.