Time for more specific fixes for Writers, Directors and Actors. These, I should say, are very much inspired by/a ripoff on Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies. Basically, if you’re writing, directing or acting a thing and you get stuck…what can you change?
The original oblique strategies tend to be gnomic.
Only one element of each kind.
What would your closest friend do?
What to increase? What to reduce?
Are there sections? Consider transitions.
I want to furnish you with something more specific. I want to talk about notes.
What are notes?
When a director directs an actor, or a producer gives feedback to a writer, each bit of advice is called a note.
There’s an old story about the great movie director and writer Billy Wilder. He’s directing a scene set in an office, with a bunch of extras being office workers in the background. And one of them, for whatever reason, it’s just not working. Too much, too little, too self-conscious, wrong size or speed of performance, who knows. So in between takes, Wilder sidles up to him and whispers in his ear “It’s the taste of the stamps.”
This story has entered directing, screenwriting, and acting lore as the canonical Greatest Note Ever.
It may even be true.
Why is it such a good note? An incomplete list:
It’s so memorable.
It’s so short.
It’s a whole world in six words.
It’s sensory.
It doesn’t tell the actor what to do.
It doesn’t tell the actor how to do it.
It doesn’t negate their agency or expertise or craft.
It illuminates the character and their predicament.
But my favourite thing about it is this: Wilder is on the actor’s side.
Things it’s not:
A line reading.
An adjective or adverb.
Treating the actor as a prop or part of the set.
Dismissive of the actor, or their craft.
Reductive of the character.
“Less” or “More”
So, that’s the gold standard for notes. I’ll argue that, alas, there are times when directors and writers need to be more prescriptive. We’ll look at that next time.
