The thing about directing is that you need to have your head in a gazillion things and yet not lose focus on the actors.
This is really hard as delays, mistakes in wardrobe and props get in the way.
But for me, the best part of directing is working with the actors.
In the atmosphere of tight timelines and even tighter budgets, this is, unfortunately, a luxury.
Back in the days of producing for Under One Roof, My Grandson the Doctor, Phua Chu Kang, Happy Belly and other sitcoms, we had four days of rehearsals before the final day of shoot, usually before a live audience. It was a joy to watch the rehearsals and see the actors fine tune the scenes.
Today, I hear that even MediaCorp has cut down rehearsal days and all the actors get is 2.5 days of rehearsals for one episode.
It’s a pity. And I think it shows. Rather than adding any layers to the show, the actor just goes out and says the line without him really owning it.
Rehearsals don’t just allow actors and directors to fine tune the scene. But it also helps everyone familiarize and relax into the scene.
But when you’re overrunning like crazy, you just need to go for the take, even when you’re not quite ready.
There’s this scene in PG between James (Adrian Pang) and Ling (Jessica Hsuan). He’s appealing to her to reconsider trying to get their daughter, Jocelyn (Foo Fang Rong) into Ling’s old school.
James found Jocelyn late one night trying to work on knitting that will get her into the school Ling wants her to get into, when she should’ve been sleeping. Jocelyn’s fingers are full of plasters and Ling hasn’t noticed them at all.
There was no rehearsal. We did the first take. It was pretty good. But the beginning of the scene lacked a certain enjoyment that James could’ve had knowing more than the usually more “together”, all-knowing Ling.
So I asked Adrian to do another take, keeping in mind that he’s rarely right and to enjoy being right. He took the direction and got it right.
But when he hit the second part of the scene, I could see he suddenly got distracted. He lost it. And I saw how he tried to find it back, but as he struggled to, he appeared more aggressive and angry.
Still, I let the scene continue. And after I yelled “cut”, Adrian immediately knew that something wasn’t right. The second bit wasn’t good and he told me so. I agreed with him.
In the editing room, I saw the scene again. Now it was edited together with Ling’s lines. And the scene seemed okay. But something about it troubled me. I couldn’t put my finger on it. In fact I wasn’t even aware it was troubling me.
Until five days later.
It then occured to me: The editor might not have used the right take.
But it couldn’t be. I’d told the AD to mark both takes as good, log it both, use the first half of Take 2 and the second half of Take 1.
I wondered if the difference I observed at the shoot was just a figment of my imagination. That there was really no performance difference between the takes.
So I checked the shotlist. Sure enough, the AD hadn’t ticked both takes as I’d requested. It had no notes whatsoever. So I asked the editor to log the other take. And as it was playing, I could immediately see the difference.
It was subtle. But it was there.
The editor re-edited the scene. And it was better. It flowed better, the attitude was right.
Probably no one else would notice.
Maybe not even Adrian.
I’m glad I did. I sure made a lot of mistakes during this period. So when I do something right (and there are so few), I’d like to enjoy it just a little bit.
In a flicker of a moment. actors move in and out of getting it. hitting it right.
This is just like in real life, after all, when in the middle of someone talking to us, something quick just flashes into our mind, distracting us from what’s happening for a moment.
But real life is more forgiving. People miss reading your face, miss seeing you’re distracted.
The camera doesn’t. It reveals everything. Every bat of an eyelid that shows you’re not one hundred percent there. And good actors, like Adrian are very aware of it.