At The moment of creation : an exploration of how directors know and assess screen performance
Year: 2012
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This Doctor of Creative Arts project consists of a major creative work, Gingerbread \nMen, a 29 minute film, an additional creative work attached as an appendix, 10 Days \nto Die, an 87 minute feature film, a set of filmed research interviews presented on \nDVD, Research Interviews, approximately 70 minutes and this exegesis At the \nMoment of Creation. \nThis doctoral project is an enquiry into how directors read, know and assess the \nactors’ performance on a film set while the camera is rolling. The major creative \nwork, Gingerbread Men, serves as an experimental tool to explore the manner in \nwhich a film’s visual style impacts on the nature of the actors’ performance and in \nparticular as a method of understanding where agency lies for the creation of the \ncharacters in that film. Research prior to the production of Gingerbread Men lead to \nthe selection of the long-take, single shot per scene filming style as a means of \nforcing myself, as the director, to only be able to make decisions regarding the \nactors’ performance on set at the moment they were being created and not in the \nediting suite, as is typical in modern filmmaking. 10 Days to Die then experiments \nwith the clash between these two filming styles in a feature film context, however \nthis is only lightly touched on in the exegesis. \nThe exegesis explores particular aspects of film directing to better understand how \nthe role of the director impacts upon the methods used to know and assess the actors’ \nperformance. In looking at the role of the director on a film set, how directors \nperceive themselves as an audience for the actors’ performance, what directors and \nactors consider are indicators of an unsatisfactory performance and how recent \ndiscoveries in cognitive science and neuroscience further our understanding of \npeople’s ability to distinguish facial emotional expressions and the manner in which \ndirectors know and assess the actors’ performance are investigated and discussed. \nThe exegesis concludes that knowing and assessing the actors’ performance is a \ncomplex higher level function that relies heavily upon tacit knowledge, embodied \nknowledge, acute perception, empathetic projection and emotional experience in \ndistinguishing authentic complex human behaviour.
Author: BM Sergi
Language: English
Topic: Cinema History and Criticism
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: Bond University, RMIT University
OpenAlex ID: W2395664741