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The last component of this technique is The Summary. The Summary serves two purposes. First, it gives the actor the opportunity to look at the material from a different vantage point. As actors we are often so involved with the needs and desires of our characters that we become myopic and fail to recognize there are other elements of the story that need to be advanced. By looking at the scene with a different set of eyes we can see past any limitations we may have inadvertently imposed upon the scene. In order to do this we need to look at the scene from another point of view.
But whose point of view should we take? Seeing the scene from another character’s perspective is good but limiting. If you do it correctly, you’re creating the same problem you’re trying to fix: the other character’s point of view is potentially as prejudiced as your own character’s. The ideal vantage point is the director’s point of view. He/she, too, is concerned with the journey the actor is revealing to the audience, but he/she is seeing it from an entirely different angle. So, while he/she is connected to the actor’s journey, he/she is also removed from it. It’s this unique position, this “third eye,” which provides the ideal vantage point to work on the first part of The Summary.
From the director’s point of view, write a couple paragraphs that will explain the scene to your actors. You have to be careful not to favor your character when you do this. Simply say, “This is the point we are trying to make in this scene and this is your role in making that happen.” It doesn’t need to be a long dissertation but it does need to be an unbiased assessment of what is happening in the scene as a whole—an assessment that forwards the story, not just your character’s desires.
To get the “third eye” prospective you have to take off your actor’s hat and put on the director’s hat.
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“Why,” you might ask, after doing all this homework to develop your character, “do I have to come up with another point of view?”
As an actor you’re constantly striving, trying to increase your character’s power in the scene, raise his/her status and take advantage of every situation to ensure your character gets what he/she wants. That’s the way it should be. You should be single minded in that pursuit. The problem is if you’re too successful in that pursuit, you’ll lose sight of the overall goals of the scene.
The Summary will help you see your role in the grand scheme of things.
The advantage of the director’s point of view is that he/she sees the story from a more neutral position. The director is not as concerned about your character winning every scene as he/she is in telling the most compelling story.
Whether you’re the star, the co-star, or a day player, The Summary will help you determine what your role is in the scene and what the important story points are.
The challenge for those of us who make our living as actors is that there are some directors who have a difficult time communicating their vision. This isn’t a knock on those directors. The problem is that most film schools don’t require their directing students to take acting classes. When directors graduate, they can talk endlessly about lighting, aspect ratios, and picture composition, but many of them lack the vocabulary necessary to discuss the emotional content they want their actors to achieve in a scene.
Therefore, as actors we’re often left to our own devices, and because of that, we have to learn how to take care of ourselves. Being able to “third eye” your own work, giving yourself a fair, unprejudiced assessment of what needs to happen in the scene, from both an actor’s and a director’s point of view, is invaluable.
The second part of The Summary provides you with an outline of the beats (events) of the scene and helps you map out the emotional arc of your character’s journey. Again, this is especially important in this era of self-taping. Often, even if you are auditioning with a casting director, you are very much on your own when it comes to interpreting the script. Sometimes the casting directors will know the emotional highlights the director is looking for, others times they won’t. And sometimes that information changes from the initial audition to the callback. Not too long ago I auditioned for Black Box, a short-lived medical series for ABC. I prepared for the audition, went in, hit the emotions I thought were called for, and was pleased when I got a callback.
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However at the callback the director, Eric Stoltz, was there. Eric is an incredible actor in his own right and instead of reading with the casting director I read with Eric. Halfway through the audition I saw him get an idea. I literally saw his eyes light up. He said, “Hey, let’s try it this way.” It was a different take on the scene and sent me in a different emotional direction. I did what he asked and left feeling pretty good. The next day my agent called to tell me I was booked. When I shot the scene Eric told me, “I liked what you were doing. It’s what gave me the idea to try something else.” Because I came in with a strong choice, it allowed him to see something else in the scene, something we both realized was better, and we went with that. But if I hadn’t prepared, if I didn’t have a strong point of view to start with, if I didn’t know the emotional arc my character needed to travel, who knows if I would have even been called back.
Finding and playing the emotional arc is very important and to successfully execute this second part of The Summary, you need to put your actor’s hat on again. With that hat firmly back on look over the scene and create a list of the major beats that occur for your character during the scene. You may or may not stick to this list when you’re actually doing the scene. This will depend on what the other actors do, the input your director may have, any last second things that occur to you as you’re doing the scene, but it does give you a place to start. Playing with a completely blank slate is not a good game plan.
Every scene is a series of beats. This happens and then that happens, and then this and then that, and so on and so on, until the scene reaches its conclusion. Your job is to figure out what those major beats are, the ones that propel the scene forward for your character. Once you’ve determined what those beats, you then assign an emotion to each one. This outline of beats and emotions will help you as you work your way through the scene.
The following is a look at the “Bar Scene” introduced in Chapter 4, “Ten Positive Attributes,” using the techniques described in this chapter.
BAR SCENE
Synopsis
Last night, Debby, an airline stewardess, ended up with a drunken and abusive date in a tavern where Roger tends bar. After Roger threw Debby’s date out, the date drove off with her purse in his car, leaving her stranded. Roger offered to have her stay at his place nearby. She spent the night in his bed. He slept on the sofa.
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The next day, Sunday, Roger is already awake, reading the paper. Debby woke up a few minutes ago and has been poking around his bedroom, looking at photos, etc. Now she stands in the door of the bedroom, watching Roger reading in the living room. He looks up and sees her.
DEBBY
Can I come in?
ROGER
Sure.
DEBBY
Good morning, even though it isn’t morning.
ROGER
Good morning. Did you sleep well?
DEBBY
Yeah, okay. This is really nice of you. I mean, you don’t even hardly know me.
ROGER
That’s okay.
DEBBY
I thought maybe I could make some breakfast for us. What would you like?
ROGER
On Sundays, I usually go to the deli for lox and bagels.
DEBBY
Isn’t that Jewish food?
ROGER
Yes, smoked salmon. You eat it with cream cheese.
DEBBY
Oh. I hoped I could cook something for you.
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ROGER
There are some eggs in the refrigerator. You can scramble some and make coffee.
DEBBY
I hope your girlfriend won’t be upset when she finds out I’m here.
Just tell her I won’t be here long.
ROGER
But I don’t have a girlfriend.
DEBBY
No?
ROGER
No.
DEBBY
Don’t you get lonely all by yourself?
ROGER
I keep busy.
DEBBY
What do you do?
ROGER
Read newspapers and watch television.
DEBBY
May I ask you a personal question?
ROGER
Go ahead.
DEBBY
Your parents? They been gone for a long time?
ROGER
My mother died about five years ago, and my father died a year before her.
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DEBBY
Is that them in the picture on the dresser in the bedroom?
ROGER
Yes.
DEBBY
Your father was wearing one of those little black hats. Was he a rabbi?
ROGER
No, but he was an Orthodox Jew. He always kept his head covered.
DEBBY
The Orthodox are the really strict ones?
ROGER
Very strict.
DEBBY
Did you two get along?
ROGER
No. No, we fought a lot. When I started tending bar, he stopped talking to me.
DEBBY
And your mother? Was she strict too?
ROGER
She was worse than him. She used to tell me, Jews don’t work in barrooms selling drinks to goyim.
DEBBY
My father was the president of the chamber of commerce in my home town one year. I’m from a small town in Iowa. Ottumwa. Ever hear of it?
ROGER
No.
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DEBBY
It was in the news when I was a little girl. Khrushchev stayed overnight when he visited America. Remember when he came here? We also had a Miss America a few years ago.
ROGER
They grow corn in Iowa.
DEBBY
And hogs. But my father wasn’t a farmer. He owns a men’s clothing store in a big shopping center. I used to work for him before I went with the airlines.
ROGER
Small town girl makes good, huh?
DEBBY
My father still hasn’t forgiven me for leaving. He thinks all airline stewardesses are whores, and I have to admit, he isn’t far off.
ROGER
Stewardesses are okay.
DEBBY
Sometimes I get disgusted with myself. I wonder what I’m doing with my life.
ROGER
You can’t be a stewardess forever.
DEBBY
God, that’s depressing. Can . . . can we talk about something else?
ROGER
Did you have any plans for today? Would you like to go see a movie?
DEBBY
I’d love to.
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ROGER
I got the paper right here. Let’s see what’s playing.
DEBBY
Thank you. Thank you very much.
The following are the notes from the actor who played Debby.
Looking at the script from the director’s POV, I see this scene as a bonding scene where these two characters, both lost and lonely souls, come together. Her situation is more obvious than his, but he, too, is lonely, a lost soul looking for love. She is extremely embarrassed but at the same time also attracted to Roger. He is the first guy who “helped” her, did anything for her in a long time, without wanting something physical in return.
Roger is also attracted to Debby—she’s pretty, friendly—but they have several issues they have to overcome. That’s what the scene is about: the two of them overcoming those issues. She has an issue with men; he doesn’t have an issue with women (or maybe he does; he doesn’t have a girlfriend). She is very outgoing; he’s very shy. She has a tendency to blurt out things without thinking and actually insults him a couple of times during the scene; he is more reserved. The thing they share, aside from loneliness, is that they are both good-hearted people. When Roger gets emotional while talking about his parents, Debby, sensing how difficult this is for Roger, shares the feelings she has about her father. This lets Roger know he is not the only person who has deep and hurtful parental issues.
This sharing gives them a common ground, helps them create the bond that allows Roger to overcome his shyness and to look past what he knows about her and to ask her out. Debby, on the other hand, understands that Roger sees her as a person, that he likes her for who she is, that he is not judging her for her past, and he’s not trying to put a move on her. Because of this understanding she is deeply touched by his offer to go to the movies (a metaphor for having a relationship, or the beginning of one) and accepts it. The awkwardness they both felt at the top of the scene is gone by the end of the scene.
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Beats
Moment Before—I am standing inside the bedroom, staring through the crack in the door, looking at this guy who rescued me from a bad, and potentially dangerous, situation. Emotion: Embarrassment.
I enter. We chat; make small talk, neither one of us directly making too much about what happened the night before. I am nervous, anxious. Emotion: Fear.
We continue to talk. He makes me feel at ease, accepts my offer to let me pay him back for his kindness by making him breakfast. I drop a couple of hints to see if there is a girlfriend in the picture. Emotion: Jealousy.
I find out there isn’t a girlfriend and take the conversation to another level to find out more about him. Emotion: Joy.
I discover that he had a difficult relationship with his parents. I see how much this hurts him and share my own painful experience with my father. Emotion: Sadness.
I start to beat myself up, reliving the trouble and hardship I’ve created for myself. Emotion: Anger.
Roger asks me out. I realize that he sees me for who I am, the good person, and is willing to overlook what happened last night. I accept his invitation. Emotion: Joy.
The Summary provides you with two distinct advantages. The first section allows you to gain insight into your character by looking at the scene from a different point of view. The second section provides you with an outline of the beats that occur and helps define the different emotions your character encounters as you work your way through the scene. Both are invaluable.
A maestro would never dream of conducting a symphony without carefully studying the score and having a detailed plan of how he/she wants each section of the music to sound. From the time he/she picks up the baton to the time he/she puts it down, he/she knows what he/she wants to achieve. Don’t hold yourself to a lesser standard.