Student Filmmakers - June 2008 - (Page 19) creature who stands before us with his insides exposed for all to see and figure out how to make them comfortable. Peter Fonda gave a terrific performance in The Limey. It was charming and loose, yet with an evil undertone, and very different from his other work. Steven Soderbergh told me about how he helped Fonda achieve this performance. Before shooting, Soderbergh read Fonda’s recently released book and then met him for lunch. As the director and actor chatted, Soderbergh realized that Fonda loved to tell stories and was really funny. Soderbergh came away from lunch thinking, “The most important thing that I have to do on this movie is to figure out how to get Peter to remain Peter.” On set, Soderbergh would relax Fonda by playing to his gregarious nature. He’d ask Fonda to tell the cast and crew a story that Soderbergh had read in Fonda’s book. Fonda would tell the story and as he would wind down, Soderbergh would give the crew the “here we go,” sign. When Fonda finished his story, they were rolling. Fonda would go right from the story into doing the scene and never lose his relaxation. Eventually, Soderbergh didn’t have to rely on the story-telling as much, because Fonda fell into a comfortable rhythm on his set. Often, as a director, you know what you want from a scene, but the actors have reached a creative stalemate. How do you keep pushing the scene towards success? Get in touch with your child side and use it to get the best from your artists. Years ago, I was asked to help out on a film in which the director had been replaced. On my first day, I had to re-shoot a scene with two young stars who were nearly paralyzed with fear. The director had been replaced, and they were worried they were next. Their scene needed to be light, charming and playful, showing two kids shyly flirting and getting to know one another. What we had now was two actors behaving like department store dummies. The cameras rolled. The first take was as animated as Mount Rushmore. Actors, like athletes, need to warm up, to relax. We did a couple more takes… and a couple more… and a couple more. There was no relaxing going on. I got really nervous. This scene was the first thing the studio would see the next day and it better be good. It was clear that the scene was being played far too seriously. The characters needed to have fun. It’s no good to say “come on kids, have fun with it.” A specific action or task, organic to the scene, was needed. Since the scene was in the boy’s bedroom, we messed up the bed and trashed the room. We scattered some of his underwear around the room, on the lampshade and at the foot of the bed. When the two actors came in the room, the character would discover what a pigsty it was and be embarrassed. He was excited to have this girl with him and wanted her to like him. Now he could react to this new situation: try to hide his underwear, straighten the messy bed and kick the trash out of sight, while acting cool. Now, the girl could be amused by his antics and, at the same time, be uncomfortable alone in a strange boy’s bedroom. Her job was to calm herself by pretending to ignore him, checking out posters on the wall and books in the bookcase. The scene started to loosen up. But they were still stiff. So I became Bozo the Clown (never a problem for me). I told stupid jokes and stuck carrots in my nose. At one point, I took them outside and challenged them to a race around the stage. The winner would get $10; the loser would have to sing a song for the crew that the winner would pick. We would run into the stage and roll the June 2008 studentfilmmakers 1 http://www.chimeralighting.com
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