The Art of Rehearsal

1.6 — Why and how I held rehearsals before shooting a micro-budget feature

I love rehearsing because in rehearsals there are no mistakes, nothing is wrong, some things apply or lead you to focus on the character and the things that don’t apply are equally valuable because they lead you to towards what does.

— Jim Jarmusch

I knew with 15 scheduled days of production (we went over) to shoot a feature film, I wanted to prioritize rehearsals.

Before Rhapsody, I’d held rehearsals in classrooms, apartments, even public parks when we couldn’t find a space. Luckily, I was able to access a few different spaces on campus for rehearsals.

I’ve heard from actors and directors all over the map on whether or not to hold rehearsals or how to use the time if you commit to it. At one end you’ve got someone like Mike Leigh whose process blurs the lines between development and rehearsal, carving out months of time to rehearse and devise before any material has been written.

And then there’s the Wong Kar-wai camp of filmmakers who believe in forgoing rehearsals or even script readings before shooting in an attempt to preserve genuinely spontaneous moments. Great directors fall everywhere on the spectrum, so clearly there isn’t a right or wrong way to do it.

In grad school, the best piece of advice I received in regard to rehearsals was: if you don’t know how to run a rehearsal, don’t hold a rehearsal. Don’t waste the actors’ time. So, my goal was always to make the time count.

I’m a filmmaker with a literary bent. Script analysis is a significant part of my process. I like rehearsing because it allows me to get to know the actors as individuals and honestly, it’s just more fun to be collaborative during the script analysis phase.

My idea of having a vision as a director is that it’s not about trying to get the exact picture I have in my head on screen–I’m more interested in exploring the unique chemistry between my collaborators to unlock the most authentic version of the movie we can all make together.

Maybe this will change over time, but at present, I don’t think of vision as a preconceived idea you imitate, I think it’s something you build and discover as you are making the film. The job of the director is to have an eye and ear for what will or won’t serve that vision. My instinct is that this organic and collaborative approach breathes life into the project and it is in that surrender that you are able to make something greater than the sum of its parts. I think this approach works better if the collaboration starts as early as possible.

Obviously, this isn’t the case with every filmmaker and like with anything else, the trick is finding the process that serves the kind of stories you want to tell.

One reason a lot of directors don’t hold rehearsals is actor availability. This was difficult to work around, even on a production as small as ours. We actually pushed production back a week so that I would be able to get in an extra day of rehearsals with two of the principal actors.

During rehearsals, we focused on script analysis first. We read scenes together and discussed context and objectives. In some cases we discussed character backstory. I asked the actors questions while they were in character going through the script to try and create mysteries for them to live in. I think if you can help an actor create memories through sensory information, that is a good way into the story.

One of my favorite rehearsal techniques is a slightly modified version of “dropping in” with a text, which was developed by Tina Packer and Kristin Linklater at Shakespeare and Company in Massachusetts. This is an exercise that uses breath, eye contact, repetition, and free association to help unlock a character’s psyche for an actor.

I should be transparent and say that this is a very specific pedagogy developed for rehearsal with Shakespearan texts in particular. I’ve taken it and molded it to suit my purposes, which some might take issue with being that it was a carefully developed process. But, I’m of the mind that if it works, it works. You can also read about it in the book Shakespeare and Company: When Action is Eloquence by Tina Packer and Bella Merlin.

We also played games and improvised imagined scenes. It was all about creating connection and trust. Another great aspect was that because we had a very specific window of time in which we could shoot, rehearsals helped me give the script another polish. Going in, I told the actors it would be helpful to know if there were any lines they could emote rather than speak. I was able to cut lines and tighten up some scenes based on that input and the script was better for it.

Being that this was a personal (though, not autobiographical) story, it was also a chance for me to talk about what growing up in Riverside as a teenager was like. I was able to take Michelle (who plays Devon, the lead) around to different spots in town. Her character grew up in the city and would have spent a lot of time in those places, so it made sense that she should have the opportunity to create some real memories before shooting.

I’ve shot a short film since Rhapsody, and for that one I had more of a Leigh-esque approach: rehearsals went on during development. I co-wrote the script with one of the actors. We wrote and rehearsed for about five months before shooting. I was really happy with the results of that process.

With Rhapsody, the scenes that were strongest and we got through the smoothest were scenes we rehearsed. If we ran into bumps, it was generally with a scene we hadn’t been able to rehearse. I also liked to have actual rehearsal time on set before shooting, but of course, that wasn’t always possible. It’s much more common these days to roll on rehearsal and I understand why. The time is so valuable.

I think the real trick to rehearsal is to get it about 80% “there.” You want to make sure everyone is on the same page, but you want to leave some room for mystery.