Fallen Angels (2005) is a fifteen minute filmed exercise that explores the staging and cinematic possibilities of a free form improvisation30. Photographed at St. Pancras and Islington Cemetery in September 2005, the film is a simple model, a maquette and forerunner of a later project entitled Blood Offering (2005). It was made with the intention of identifying what was dramatically possible when using improvisation in a pared down and simplified form. I aspired to producing moments that captured slices of life in the raw. I believed that by removing the structure of a script from the improvisation I could get closer to characters and narrative that naturally evolved. That improvisation could be used as a tool to facilitate the representation of human existence, as an un-dramatised condition of everyday experience was intriguing. I was particularly interested in slower paced, unabridged and reflective performance exchanges, wherein actors appeared to be genuinely taking their cues from each other, as opposed to the snappy, well formed and goal centred dialogue of mainstream film and television. Paradoxically, this approach would entail removing all preconceived notions of a dramatic construct from the performance equation. It should be said that one of my key interests was drilling down to the core of an actorÕs experience within a performance
30
I use this term in a loose way, partly to acknowledge that there are different impetuses that drive and inform the improvisation process. The term free improvisation was coined in the 60Õs as an alternative to the more structured improvisations found in Jazz.
ÔIn Britain, in the mid-60s, free improvisation (often just called "improv") developed out of free jazz, eventually becoming a separate and distinct music. Free jazz gradually removed conventional structure - chords, melodic themes, regular rhythm Ñ but free improvisation took their absence as its starting point. Essentially, free improvisation has no rules; in Derek Bailey's words, it is "playing without memory".Õ (Eales, 2005) http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=18638 - retrieved 28-05- 2010.
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environment. Looking at the ÔbanalÕ and every day details that can be reproduced within a performance, rather than driving the character headlong through a series of emotional imperatives. Whilst I accept that human experience is often driven by such emotional imperatives and desires, we must also concede that much time is spent in a more simple state of being, occupied in our own equilibrium and working with a more ÔneutralÕ set of emotions.
One of the main objectives for this exercise was to let the actors construct and discover their charactersÕ identity through the use of costume and action, working on location as opposed to a studio. It is worth noting that Fallen Angels, as well as the other films submitted for this research, including Blood Offering (2005) and Birdman (2008) have been created as experiments that challenge my understanding of the improvisation process, the relationship between performer and director, and the relationship of improvisation to film form. As such, these films are not pieces of ÔentertainmentÕ in their own right and are not intended for exhibition outside this context of this research. This is not to say the films are not being made for an audience, rather, that the expectations of the audience needs to be informed and determined by the aims and context of the research, which is to explore Ôcertain tendenciesÕ of improvisation in relation to film production.
Fallen Angels is the first of my filmed exercises and was produced during a period in which I was formulating my initial ideas concerning improvisation and engaging with background reading. I consider the film to be a tentative foray, where my aim was to acquire an elementary understanding of improvisation, having had no previous experience of using it within my earlier filmmaking practice. After reflecting on my initial literature review, I had come to feel rather daunted by the challenges that improvisation posed and wondered what hidden pitfalls would be revealed when using improvisation to construct a film. One of my
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immediate concerns was the absence of any critical commentaries or accounts of improvisation practice in relation to film and video production. Furthermore, the literature that I had encountered tended to approach improvisation from the standpoint of the performer and considered the ways in which material could be developed within the context of a live performance. When evaluated in this way it is perhaps easy to believe that improvisation is a process entirely controlled by the performer. In taking this stance, it is equally too easy to ignore the fact that filmed performance is being mediated and therefore is being controlled as much by the camera and edit as by the verisimilitude of the mise-en-scene and conventions of the genre. As I was to discover, the intervention of the camera into the improvisation process offered a number of technical constraints and challenges to devising work, particularly regarding how the use of a vŽritŽ filming style could both support and detract the viewerÕs attention from the performance process. The main issue here was that the visual style and production ÔconventionsÕ associated with documentary, and its sub-categories, such as the mock-documentary, can blur the boundaries around the evaluation of what ÔperformanceÕ and ÔactingÕ might be in relation to the documentary form. When beginning to explore ideas around the notion of acting within the mock-documentary, Michael KirbyÕs essay Acting and Not-acting (2002) proved an interesting starting point, as he attempts to classify the varying degrees to which an actor could be regarded as acting. KirbyÕs position is that we are fundamentally capable of recognising when people are acting, as he says Ô[i]n most cases, acting and not-acting are relatively easy to recognize and identify. In a performance, we usually know when a person is acting and when notÕ (2002: 40). Of course, this raises the question Ôhow do we know when a person is acting or not?Õ The problem lies, not such much with KirbyÕs attempt to classify the point at which an actor can be regarded as acting31, but
31
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that his approach in measuring the ÔamountÕ or degrees of acting is isolated from the contexts of production, for example, the mise-en-scene, genre and techniques of filming. I draw attention to this, because I feel the degree of ÔrealismÕ that one can attribute and measure in a filmed performance is made possible through the details of staging and, as is the case with documentary, is further qualified by the methods of documentation; in other words, the filmmakersÕ techniques. Therefore we must be certain that the process of acting in film is something that cannot be separated from the medium, the genre and the effects of mise-en- scene. By contrast, we might see that the theatre is inherently an ÔunrealÕ environment and, no matter how good the mise-en-scene, our physical relationship to the ÔprosceniumÕ and fixed point of view remind us that we are spectators to an event. Obviously, this relationship can be challenged when the spectator is presented with staging in which they are situated within the performance space, which could be someoneÕs kitchen or shed, and in this context their physical relationship to the performers and material changes further.
In reviewing the Ôacting Ð not acting debateÕ a number of key points emerge from KirbyÕs commentary that need further qualification and examination. The most pressing question being, how do you measure the effects of staging on the performance; the difference between performances within the controlled space, versus, improvisation in the live space? Furthermore, how do you quantify the actorÕs skills that are evidenced in precise pacing and delivery, against the open and lose conversational interactions of an improvised performance? In principle, I am happy to accept, that Ô[a]cting can be said to exist in the smallest and
dependent on the perception of the view, quality and context of performance. What scale do we use to carry out such measurement? Whose perception, that of the actor or spectator, do we use to measure the amount of acting within a performance? What points of reference and scale do you use to measure this perception? Commenting on the value of costume in relation to creating character, Kirby does identify that within the Òcostume continuumÓ, and he uses the example of a person gradually putting on clothes that are representative of a cowboy, the point at which a viewer can specifically identify a character is dependent on Ôplace or physical context, and it undoubtedly varies from person to person.Õ (ibid: 41).
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simplest action that involves pretenceÕ (Kirby, 2002:43). However, what is not measurable, but equally defines the degrees of an actorÕs process, are the internal markers created and embedded by the actor in order to underpin the characterisation. Thus, we cannot accurately evaluate the extent to which an actor might be pretending. Therefore, and running contrary to KirbyÕs scale, perhaps the biggest paradox for the film actor, in order to create the impression of realism in their performance, is not to pretend and not to act.