I have been a fan of movies and television since I was five years old. Whether sitting on my mothers lap in the theater barely tall enough to see over the heads in front of me, or while sitting cross-legged in front of our television watching Howdy Doody, I believed the fantasies that swept me and my imagination away up into the screen and lost me to the real world. Well, I am not a child anymore and as a adult working actress I now know the real world of each of these media forms that entertain us are entirely different and not always so glamorous on the back side.
First, I am must address an actor's theater training, because that is where it all starts. Lines the actor has during a performance must be projected back to the last seat in the house. So the actor is trained to project, project, PROJECT. Every single patron is entitled to hear a good performance. Therefore, sometimes it is quite a challenge for a theater actor to work in film or vice versa. That is why some of the old silver screen scenes are set like plays and the actors according to today's techniques seem to be 'over acting' and their performances, though wonderful, seem to be 'broad'.
Film acting today erases everything a trained theater actor has learned. "Project" translates to "hush." When they call "Quiet on the set" they mean it. The softer one speaks his or her lines the better it reveals the intimacy and truth of the scene through the camera's eye. The actors are working with one camera and they never look at the camera, the vouyer. When I walked onto the set of my first film, waiting for my cue to enter the scene, I could hardly hear the actors' dialogue. It was so softly spoken that I had to watch the First AD (assistant director) for my cue to enter the scene that was rolling. Everything is exaggerated through the lens of the camera. A raised eyebrow, a longing look, an angry word; each must be true, but under-played. Every inflection in an actor's voice or expression is muted or it will not look real.
According to the director's style or the actor's ability, scenes or scene angles, are usually only 28 to 48 seconds in length and can be shot over and over again until the director is satisfied. I once was on a shoot for a film with a prominent actress who took all night to get several of her lines for a scene to the director's satisfaction. We wrapped at seven in the morning.
Television acting is another animal, a more realistic one. Both tape and film are used for television productions. The actor's dialogue is different in that it is in normal tones and the actor can play to more than one camera. Usually, the scenes are done once or a few times, if problems arise with dialogue or lighting, but rarely with the short segments of taping or filming. Usually full sections of scenes with dialogue or action. In television, there is not as much waiting or 'down time'. That is a good thing for us actors.
Television Soap is more like 'nine to five' work. Rehearsals and costume fittings are in the morning and after a lunch break, the shows are taped without interruption from beginning to end. Around five in the afternoon production is wrapped and everyone in front of the camera goes home. Except for the pages of dialogue that can be changed on the spot, this is a great way to earn a steady living for an actor.
So, while comparing both the silver screen and television acting styles and production techniques, though very different from one another, each has contributed to our lives by taking us and our imaginations to exciting places we may never have been before.
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