Matthew Toffolo Blog Entry Martch 13rd
I woke up yesterday with my whole schedule set up and was all set to work at my computer when I realized it was 8:24am and not 7:24am like I thought it was. I started to get angry because I’d just lost an hour of my day when I got the paper at my front door and realized that the clocks had gone back the night before. I had no idea! How come nobody told me this? My girlfriend was away for a few days visiting her folks and besides one brief conversation with a friend on the phone and a brief stint at the bar down the street to watch a Boxing match, I really had no contact with anyone except from people on the net and emails. I was so into my work that I forgot what was happening with the rest of the world. Sometimes this happens to me where the world is all about me and only me and the rest of the world might as well not be happening. I get a little self-obsessed at times. Speaking of Actors......... Matthew Toffolo talks about Actors I have a very polarizing relationship with actors. I love so many of them and I get frustrated with so many of them too. I mean I like them as people, but I have had a lot of bad feelings over actors over the years. And that’s generally just a small percentage of them. I guess I’m guilty of labeling one bad apple in basket as all bad apples which isn’t fair at all. Because of the reading series I’ve run and the many films I’ve either directed and/or produced, in the last 3 years alone, I’ve probably worked on some capacity with over 200 actors. So I like to think of myself as an expert on why certain actors land auditions and become successful while others who sometimes are more talented, seem to strike out in landing gigs. But I want to go back first to my recent appearance on Off the Record last Monday. This was my 3rd time in the last few months on the show, and I’m now becoming familiar with being the person in front of the camera instead of my usual position behind the camera. I am now seeing how it actually feels to have all eyes focused on me. I realized after the taping, that I really had no idea how many crew members were working around me because I was so focused on what I was doing in front of the camera to really worry about anything else. This was and is a great lesson for a film director. I am starting to really put together from an psychological level what actors go through when the cameras are turned on them. There’s so much happening inside on a performance level, that you tend to not realize the sound guys, the camera operators, the crane operator, the makeup person etc.. are even there. I never knew. I discriminated against a lot of actors in the past for not recognizing that the crew members are just as important as they are. Sometimes even more important. But because your tool is your body, you tend to be so focused on yourself. Like a Gaffer’s tools are his lights and when he’s working a bomb could go off in the next room and they wouldn’t realize. But he can walk away from the lights and be himself again. But an actor can’t leave their own bodies of course so when they are working, they tend to be always in work mode to really realize what’s happening around them. I understand that now. It took me a long time to see that. I also realized that the more practice you have, the easier it becomes. My first two times on the show I shone because the people I was on with were either behind the scenes industry types like myself or professional athletes whose main job is to perform without remembering or caring that the camera is watching. I know my sports and I know how to create conflict, so I did very well. But the last time I was on with two people who are always performing in front of the cameras, a sports TV reporter and Hal Johnson (who I am pissed off with - another story, another blog) of the Body Break fame that he does with his partner Joanne McLeod. These two guys are such pros, they just stepped up into a new horizon as soon as the camera lights went on. I struggled throughout the entire show to catch up with them and just tried to make sure I didn’t embarrass myself. So overall I just hit a major learning curve in the practical understandings of actors and will change my routine up the next time I direct a film. Matthew Toffolo talks about his “learning what actors are about” process When I started this business and really focused on this being my career, I realized quickly that I learned nothing about working with actors in film school and there was very little literal information on the working relationship between Actors and Directors. You could find 1000's of books on Lighting for Film, Camera work for Film, Sound in Film, Editing in Film and maybe 1 or 2 books on Directing Actors which really didn’t tell you all that much. I knew because the character-driven stories I wanted to tell, I needed to understand how to communicate with actors. So I took acting classes for 6 months for me to fully understand the process and understand what they go through. I am a terrible actor. So bad in fact that my teachers thought they were stealing money from me because they knew I had no future in this trade. But I wasn’t there to be an actor, I was there to learn what an actor was. After searching for as many press clippings, articles etc that I could find from Directors talking about working with actors and reading books on acting from Meisner to The Method, I seemed to understand how I was going to grapple these relationships I was going to be apart of in the future. I wasn’t going to copy anyone’s technique, but do things as I saw fit for my personality. And after working with many actors now in films, I think I’m doing okay but like everything else, have a long way to go. Matthew Toffolo talks about what he sees in actors’ personalities There are two types of actors and I’ll label them the Redfords or the Newmans. This is how I see it and I’m sure many others see it differently. The Redfords are the Robert Redford types. The people who have the gift. The people who are naturals and the camera loves them no matter what angle you take. The people who just ooze charisma and all they have to do is say the lines and people will love them. They are born performers. The plus side of these people is that you can really play with your camera because no matter what angle to take at them, the camera generally loves them. And these are your leading man/woman types of actors. The actors who have the ability to carry an entire feature film and the audience won’t get bored with them. If you think about life and all the people you see everyday, how many people do you want to follow for 2 hours? Not many. But there are those rare types you do. Back in the day when Film was just beginning, Charlie Chaplin used to go on Natural Performer hunts in the cities, looking for them on the streets like a hunter looks for their prey. He found most of the actors in his films this way. These types of people are not your typical vanity types, though some will be. Oliver Platt is a natural actor and he’s not exactly a handsome man. They’re the types of people who are at their best when a camera is in front of them or an audience is watching them. The acting trade is what their suppose to do. Like the natural athlete I’m sure we’ve all encountered in Gym class or on a sports team we played on.. A common person just can’t compete with them; they are so gifted and you get frustrated because they are two steps ahead of you. It’s like they are playing a different game entirely. The down side of these people is laziness comes into play. Acting becomes easy for them, so they don’t practice as hard as they should. So a lot of these actors hit a certain spot in their career, and then they scale downwards because they forgot to practice. They thought their natural gifts would take them as far as they wanted. Of course it doesn’t work like that in the big leagues because most people are gifted and work their butt off too which makes them even better, or they’re the Newman types who have worked at the trade so well, they know how to grind their way through to make sure their doing their job better than anyone else. The Newman types. In tribute to Paul Newman who said he worked at the trade of acting everyday of his life for 10 straight years before he even got himself an acting job. The scrappy types who have to make acting their life and work to become great. Great isn’t given to them, they make greatness happen for themselves. They develop the skills of discipline, determination and persistence to go after what they want. But also have that all important ability of fighting through their fears and insecurities and not giving a fuck what people think. Those times when people say you’re useless, you’re not that good, rejection after rejection after rejection. “Fuck those people. I will be great and you will not be.” is what they say. They have a quiet confidence because they know what they’re doing is right and they’re almost there. Paul Newman looks like a natural actor. Good looks, charm, those blue eyes! But this man worked harder than anyone else to get to where he is. I know a lot of these actors. The ones who treat this job with such determination, you love them and want them on your team more than the gifted ones. I see potential for a lot of actors I know and worked with too. The ones who almost have what it takes. The ones who are almost there, that they’ll be snapped up in a second by the studios as soon as everything clicks. People in this industry are looking for those actors. The ones who got what it takes. They will find you, no question, when you’re ready. They’re smart businessmen with millions of dollars riding on one project. And they need actors to drive the story home for them and create an emotional connection with the audience. If you’re good, you’ll be noticed. But show up prepared and confident when the auditions come. Just what I see.
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