Week 11: Character Breakdowns

Character breakdowns show how good of a director you really are. The more in depth you know a character the better you can communicate that to an actor and have them become the character rather than just play the character. That is the key to a film being believable and successful.

From your first few readings of a script you may or may not have a solid idea of who each of the characters are. A good way to learn more is to ask the writer. Who knows more about the characters than the creator. Once you get a good idea you can start creating your character background or back story. Some directors don't go into great detail with their back story's. I think this is wrong because the less details an actor is given the more times they might have to think "what would my character do in this situation" and for that brief second or two they are thinking about it, they have gone out of character. If you give them a complete and detailed back story they start to become the character and act as the character would in those situations, not how the actor might act in that situation. This is how you help the actor find the truth of the moment and create believability.

In class we watched the making of Collateral starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx, Directed by Michael Mann. IMDB Link  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369339/ . This was very interesting to watch in regards to character backgrounds. Micheal Mann had gone to such great detail to create Tom Cruise's character, Vincent, going all the way back to his childhood and where he grew up, his parents, the schools he went to and more. I found this fascinating because before this lesson I thought it was the actor that came up with the background from their research and what they understand from the script. I think Michael Mann goes above and beyond what some other directors do because even Tom Cruise was surprised at all the information he was given and said that this is usually the kind of work he does to get into character. Michael Mann said he wanted Tom Cruise to become Vincent and think like him. Tom Cruise did a lot of physical training to achieve this, things like training with live ammo to get a realistic reaction to firing a gun, which is different to firing a gun with blanks. With Jamie Foxx's Character, Max, who was a taxi driver in the film, he got him talking to veteran taxi drivers and learning defencive driving because taxi drivers know how to cut corners and avoid accidents. The amount of time and effort put into these characters by Michael Mann made the film and characters realistic and believable. This is the type of director you should aim to be. Someone who puts a great deal of time into the characters instead of just how the film looks. It's the only way you are going to get your actors to become the character.

Watching the behind the scenes from Collateral got me inspired to come up with more in depth character backgrounds from now on because I want to be a better director.