EXTReeeME.Org

The Talk with Mike Leight was all about his way of doing the Job as a filmmaker. So I’ll give you a short overview of it.

First he starts with an Idea about a film. He writes it down as a 5 to 6 pages draft which has all the things that should happen in some way.

After that he casts the actors, without telling them about the story at all. They only get a few thoughts about the character they would play.

Then they go to a six month period of rehearsal in which the actors develop the character together with Mike. After the backstory for the characters is known to him and the actors they improvise the story and work out the story from that. He even goes so far that he lets the actors see each other the first time when they improvist the scene where they first meet. There was one example about a mother that gave her baby away without wanting to see it. Years later they first met. In the backstory of the mother there was the party where she thought she had sex with the father. The baby was born six weeks to early, she gave it away and so on. But there also was a party before that in which she had sex. With a black guy. Mike gave her that memorie only one time, without saying “This could be important” or something like that. And the Actress knew another actress that she thought would play her daughter. So they improvised the story and the “Mother” was shocked that her “Daughter” was black. She even said that she would know if she had sex with a black guy. And then she remembered. This moment in which she realised that her baby was not born to early and she had sex in this time with a black man has mad it’s way to the screen and the actors play it so realistic as they fealt is in the process of rehearsal.

After the six month of rehearsal they go to the sets and then do their thing. And improvise how to react with the set.

All in all an very interesting way how to make a movie. May be not the way for everyone, but maybe some scenes (like that Mother-Daughter scene) could be done like that. If you get the Actors to work with yourself without knowing anything about the screenplay…

Popularity: 11% [?]