What is Your Story? Part Two (more)

You and the camera

If you've never acted on camera, take an acting class while prepping your $4k project.  I worked with a producer once who would not let me direct her project until I took an acting class.  It was humiliating because I was terrible.  But it forever changed how I related to actors as a director and how/what I wrote for them to say.  Before you get behind a camera and start telling actors what to do you need to stand on stage in their shoes.

And if you are good on camera--if you've never directed someone else on camera, try shooting a scene between two other actors you imagine might be part of your story.  Giving a good on-camera performance has little to do with eliciting a good on-camera performance out of someone else.  My experience has been, the less direction you give your actors, the more natural their performance will be.

Unless you hang with an entourage of actors who will put up with your $4k production, you should shelve your dialogue heavy script, even if it all takes place one afternoon in a living room.