Larry Garrison - Breaking into Acting For Dummies

Producers also have the less than enviable job of soothing frayed egos and dealing with problems that may occur between the director and stars on the set. When directors and stars can’t agree on the way a project is developing, one or both of them may threaten to walk out of the project (or actually do it), citing creative differences. Sometimes, the producer has to replace the director or star, and sometimes, the producer can convince the warring parties to stick together long enough to finish the project (and hopefully do a great job despite any professional or personal disagreements between them).

Until you’re a big star, you may work on a project without ever talking to the producer. When you’re on a set and you have a problem, talk to the line producer or one of the line producer’s assistants. While the producer takes care of the overall details of finishing a project, a line producer worries about the day-to-day details of getting a project completed, such as telling you what time to return to the set the next day and helping you with any problems involving your costume.

After the producer, the director is usually the second most powerful person involved with a project. Directors typically do the following:

Help the casting director decide which actors to hire for the major roles

Control the creative aspects of the set, including lighting, background design, and camera angles

Work with the actors on a daily basis to shoot the various scenes in the script

Polish the final film prior to its official release

The lighting and set designers may create the actual backgrounds, but the director has the final say on whether to alter the look, add more lighting, or film the set from a particular angle. The director determines the overall mood and tone of the final production. The actors’ roles comprise just one of many pieces that the director has to juggle when completing a production.

After shooting a film, the director (along with the producer and, occasionally, the writer and an actor or two) remains with the project in post-production, where scenes may be cut or rearranged and sound effects and music added. In some cases, the director may need the actors to dub in their dialogue in scenes where the existing dialogue doesn’t sound right due to technical difficulties, an airplane flying overhead at the wrong time, or any number of problems.

On a set, any number of things can go wrong, from light bulbs burning out to costumes being torn. Every problem that delays the production is likely to fall on the director to fix, so, as an actor, do your job, stay out of everyone else’s way, and be flexible. If you do, the director will remember you as an actor who’s easy to work with, which increases the chances that the director will want to use you in the next project he directs.

No project gets done without a script, so every project relies heavily on the people who write (and rewrite) those scripts. Basically, writers convert a bunch of ideas (good or bad) into a cohesive script that tells a compelling story with interesting characters that (hopefully) the general public will want to pay money to see.

Writers may write a script from an original story, an existing story (such as a novel, poem, or short story), or an idea given to them by a director, producer, or another writer. No matter how a writer starts with an idea, the final result should be a script that a director can use to tell the beginning, middle, and end of a story and that a producer can use to generate interest (and money) to get the project rolling.

Always respect the words that have been written. The writer may have some power on the set. At other times, you may have the ability to improvise. Unless you’re a big name actor, you should stick to the words as written.

Sometimes, writers write an entire script in hopes of selling it, which is called writing a script on spec (short for speculation). As an alternative, or in addition to writing spec scripts, many writers hire themselves out to work on various projects.

Many directors and producers write their own scripts to prevent someone else from messing up their original vision for their story. Actors sometimes write scripts so that they can create roles specifically to showcase their talents.

In the world of theater, the writer (known as the playwright ) wields enormous power, sometimes equal to that of the director. A director rarely changes a script without the playwright’s approval, and the playwright may also be involved in casting and rehearsals.

In rare cases, a producer may actually start filming before the script is even finished. On television sets, writers may write (and rewrite) scripts right up until the time of taping (and then they may rewrite the scene afterwards for another take as well).

Studios represent the business end of show business. Studios typically provide the following for a film or television project:

Financing to get a project started or completed

Sets and production facilities (such as cameras, editing equipment, and even food services)

Marketing and distribution to advertise a project

Getting a job in a studio — whether you’re working as a security guard, a janitor, or a secretary — is an excellent way to meet people and find out more about show business from an insider’s point of view.

Studios are in the business to make money, so on any given day, a studio may rent out its facilities to various productions shooting a film, a TV show, or a commercial. If you’re on a set where another production is filming, stay within the confines of your own set and don’t go sight-seeing on a different set because you’ll only get in the way (and then you may get two different directors or producers mad at you).

The following sections examine in greater detail two important tasks the studio does: financing a project and marketing and promoting a project.

Every film or television project needs money. Although a producer can raise money from a variety of sources — including individual investors — many projects eventually need the financial resources of a studio. (Occasionally, studios even collaborate with each other to share the costs and risks of a project, such as Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount Pictures did with Titanic. That way, if the project bombs completely, neither studio loses too much money as a result of diversifying their risks.)

When a producer tries to convince a studio to invest money in a project, the producer is said to be pitching the idea or script to the studio. Pitching a project involves convincing the studio to help get the project completed. Getting a studio to agree to fund a project is still no guarantee that the project will ever get done. Sometimes a studio may decide to kill a project for political reasons (maybe the new studio executives don’t want to complete any projects started by the previous corporate executives), and sometimes studios kill a project because they think it’s going to bomb so they want to cut their losses.