All About Movie Stars

June 7, 2009

Breaking Into Acting in the Movies

Filed under: Careers — Tags: , , — admin @ 6:18 pm
Malcolm Blake asked:


In New York resides a dramatic critic, now on the staff of a great newspaper, who has his own ideas about movie acting. The idea in question is that there is no such thing as movie acting and the gentleman carries it out by refusing to allow the word “acting” to be printed in any of the notices and reviews in his newspaper. When he wishes to convey the thought that such and such a star acted in such and such a picture he says, “Miss So-and-So posed before the camera in the motion Picture.”

Now this critic is a good critic, as critics go, but he would be improved physically and mentally by a set of those monkey glands which the medicos are so successfully grafting upon various ossified Personalities. Anyone who thinks that there is no such thing as motion picture acting is probably still wondering whether the Germans will win the war. Motion picture acting is a highly developed art, with a technique quite as involved as that of the legitimate stage.

The fundamental principle to remember in undertaking screen acting is that the camera demands far greater realism on the part of the actor than the eyes of an audience. An actor in the spoken drama nearly always overplays or underplays his part. If he recited the same lines in the same tone with the same gestures in real life, he would appear to be just a little bit spiffy, as they say in English drinking circles. On the stage it is necessary to overdraw the character in order to convey a realistic impression to the audience; exact naturalism on the stage would appear as unreal as an unrouged face under a spotlight.

The camera, however, demands absolute realism. Actors must act as naturally and as leisurely as they would in their own homes. Their expressions must be no more pronounced than they would be in real life. Above all, they must be absolutely unconscious of the existence of the camera. Any deviation from this course leads to the most mortifying results on the screen.

The face, enlarged many times life size, becomes clearly that of an actor, rather than a real character. The assumed expression of **** or fear which would seem so natural on the stage is merely grotesque in the film. Unless the actor is really thinking the things he is trying to portray on the screen, the audience becomes instantly aware that something is wrong.

In the same way the camera picks up and accentuates every motion on the part of the actor. An unnecessary gesture is not noticed on the stage. On the screen, enlarged many times, it is instantly noted.

The two most important rules to follow, then, in motion picture acting are: act as you would under the same circumstances in real life, and eliminate all movement and gesture which does not bear on the scene. It is better not to move at all than to make a false move.

Beginners must adjust their walk to the camera. There is no rule for this, however, as every individual’s way of standing and walking is different. Only through repeated tests can the beginner discover and correct the defects which are sure to appear in his physical pose the first time he acts before a camera. Often in making a picture, the director will instruct his cast to “speed up” or “slow down” their scene. Sometimes, also, he will alter the tempo of the scene by slowing down or speeding up the rate at which the camera is being cranked. Beginners must follow such instructions to the letter, for the timing of a scene is a vitally important part of picture production and a duty which is entirely in the hands of the director.

The best way to learn the principles of motion picture acting is to watch the making of as many scenes as possible before attempting to act one. Most of the stars of today learned their art by watching the efforts of others before the camera. Only by constant observation in the studio and, more important, in real life, where the actions and reactions of real people can be noted, can an actor hope to become proficient.



Caffeinated Content - Members-Only Content for WordPress

April 10, 2009

Inside the Brain of the Movie Star

Filed under: Careers — Tags: , , — admin @ 3:14 pm
Malcolm Blake asked:


“But they have no brains !” someone is sure to say. That sort of thing is rather cheap cynicism. As a matter of fact, they have plenty of brains, but of their own peculiar sort. A movie actor, like any other type of artist, is an emotional, temperamental crea- ture; but the problem which worries him the most is one of intellect rather than emotion; in short, just how to control the reactions inside that discredited gray matter of his.

Every movie actor and you, too, if you enter this field is at one time or another confronted with the perplexing problem of just how much thought he should allow to go into his work ; that is, whether his acting should be emotional or intellectual. The question resolves itself into this :

Does an actor feel?

Should he feel?

There are two schools of thought on this seemingly academic but in reality most important subject. First are those who say that an actor must feel the part he is playing. The greatest actors, they say, have always been those who wore themselves out in an hour’s time, because they felt the emotions they portrayed. They tell stories such as that of Mrs. Kendall, who, having lost her own child, electrified an English audience by her portrayal of the bereaved mother in “East Lynne” to such an extent that women leaped to their feet in the pit, shouting, “No more, no more.”

They point to the fact that the great stars of the screen and the stage alike are able to simulate the three reactions which are quite beyond the control of the will pallor, blushing, and the sudden perspiration which comes with great terror or pain. This, they say, is proof positive that these actors are feding every emotion as they enact it.

The second group declares that all this is nonsense and that if an actor really felt his part he would lose control of himself, and perhaps actually murder some other actor in a fight scene. Acting, they say, is an art wherein the artist, by the use of his intellect, is able to simulate that which he does not feel using his face merely as the painter uses his canvas. The moment an actor begins to enter into his part, his acting is either overdone or underdone and the scene is ruined. The whole trick of it, they add, is to keep perfectly cool and know exactly what you are doing, no matter how spectacular the scene.

Still a third school declares that both these views are wrong, and that acting is neither a matter of thought nor of emotion, but is purely imitative. An actor observes his own emotions as he experiences them in each crisis of his real life, they say, and re- members them so well that he is afterward able to reproduce them before the camera.

The truth of it seems to be that all of them are partly right and partly wrong. The great stars of the movies to-day, when one is able to draw them out on the subject, say that when they are acting they are thinking not about one thing but about several things. The brain is divided into different strata, and while one section is thinking about the part, another section is entering into it, while still a third stratum is busy- ing itself with idle speculation about the cameraman and the director.

There are two important secrets, connected with the psychology of screen acting, which every beginner should know, even if he never makes use of them. The first is that of Preparation; the second, that of Auto-Suggestion.

A movie actor or actress is in a more difficult position, so far as the artistry of his work is concerned, than the players of the spoken drama. In the movies the scenes are nearly always taken out of sequence, the first last, the last first, and so forth. For that reason the motion picture stars have great difficulty in working themselves up to the proper “pitch” to play a scene, inasmuch as they have not been through the action which leads up to it.

The movie directors know this, and in most studios try to help them up to this “pitch” by employing small orchestras to play during the important scenes, in nearly every large studio where more than one company is working there are to be heard the faint strains of Sonata Pathetique, where some melancholy scene is being taken, or livelier music for a bit of comedy in another set.

Also the directors are always behind the camera to guide their actors with spoken directions as the scene is made. This orchestra business has always seemed to us pure buncombe, but if the director or actor gets any fun out of it, it doesn’t do any particular harm.

The wise movie actors of today are borrowing these two tricks of Preparation and Auto-Suggestion from their brethren of the stage. Preparation consists merely of spending a little time before the scene is begun in going over the part, in thinking about it, and in trying really to feel all the emotions of the character in question. This seems a simple matter; but it makes the difference between real acting and routine work.

Once an actor has carefully worked out the part for himself he can easily conform to the director’s ideas; and once he has let himself feel his part he need waste no emotion upon it when on the “set,” for his mimetic powers will reproduce his feelings of an hour before.

Auto-suggestion consists in working oneself up to the part before going before the camera by various expedients. For example, one actor, before playing a part calling for extreme anger, spends some ten minutes in clenching his fists, swearing at the handiest fence post, setting his jaw and so making himself really angry. It is not hard to reproduce emotion by these tricks of auto-suggestion.

Try thinking of something sad draw your face down and before long you will be in a very glum mood. That is the way such stars as Norma Talmadge and Mary Pickford produce tears on short notice. Most people think they are tricks of make-up, such as drops of glycerine ; as a matter of fact, it is a matter of puckering the face and a few gloomy thoughts.

All this sort of thing sounds very intricate and unnecessary. And yet it is the really practical side of screen acting. The psychology of each actor is different and his manner of preparing for a scene and of enacting it will be different. The important thing is that he be aware that there is such a thing as psychology, and that if he will only understand it as applied to himself he can improve his work as a film player.



Caffeinated Content

April 1, 2009

Points to Consider Regarding Breaking Into the Movies

Filed under: Careers — Tags: , , — admin @ 9:45 am
Malcolm Blake asked:


Were the average man suddenly called upon to assemble all the women in his town who looked like Mary Pickford, he might find himself at a loss as to how to commence. In fact, he might even doubt that there were sufficient persons answering this description to warrant such a campaign. We know a way to get them all together on twenty- four hours’ notice. Just insert a small advertisement in the local newspaper, reading: “Wanted for the movies a girl who looks like Mary Pickford apply at such-and-such a studio tomorrow morning.”

We guarantee that not only will every woman who looks like Mary Pickford be on the spot at sunrise, but that a large preponderance of the entire female population will drop in during the morning. For it is a puzzling but indisputable fact that everybody wants to break into the movies. The curious part of it all is that the movies really need these people. On the one hand are countless men and women besieging the studio doors in the hope of starting a career in any of.a thousand capacities, from actress to scenario writer, from director to cameraman.

There are people with plots, people with inventions, people with new ideas of every conceivable variety, all clamoring for admission. And, on the other hand, there are the men who manage the movies sending out all manner of exhortations, appeals and supplications to just such people to come and work in their studios. They drown each other’s voices, the one calling for new talent and new types, the many for a chance to demonstrate that they are just the talent and types that are so in demand.

This economic paradox, this passing in the night of Demand and Supply, has come about through a general misconception of everything concerned with the movies. The first to be in the wrong were the producers. They built up an industry which, in its early days, was vitally dependent upon individual personalities.

A picture, according to their views, was made or unmade by a single star or director or writer, and very naturally they were loath to entrust the fate of a hundred thousand dollar investment to untried hands.

While on the one hand they realized the pressing need for new blood in their industry, they were, nevertheless, very wary of being the first to welcome the newcomer.

Producers preferred to pay twenty times the price to experienced professionals, no matter how mediocre their work might have been in the past, than to take a chance on a promising beginner. The business side of the movies, has, in the past, been nothing more nor less than a tremendous gamble wherein the men who had staked their fortunes on a single photoplay walked about in fear of their very shadows desiring new ideas, yet afraid to risk testing them, calling for new artists yet fearing to give them the opportunity to break in.

The very nature of the industry was responsible for this situation and, to a large extent, it is a condition which still prevails in a majority of the smaller studios.

The greatest obstacle which every beginner must surmount is the one which first confronts him the privilege of doing his first picture the first chance. The larger companies, however, in the last year or so have awakened to the fact that by excluding beginners they have themselves raised the cost of motion picture production many times.

They have found themselves with a very limited number of stars and directors and writers and technical men to choose from, all of whom, for this very reason, could demand enormous salaries. One by one these companies are instituting various systems for the encouragement of embryo talent. Now, if ever, is the time to break into the movies.

Making movies is not child’s play. It is a profession or rather a combination of professions which takes time and thought and study. True, there are fortunes to be made for those who will seriously enter this field and study their work as they would study for any other profession.

But unfortunately, most of those who head towards the cinema studios do not take time to learn the facts about the industry. They do not look over the multitude of different highly specialized positions which the movies offer and ask themselves for which one they are best suited. They just plunge in, so intent upon making money at the moment that they give no thought at all to the future.

No industry in the world presents so many angles, varying from technical work in the studio, to the complexities of high finance. If you really wish to break into the movies, go to the studios and see for yourself what you are fitted for.

Perhaps you think you are an actor, and are really a first rate scenarioist. Perhaps you have an ambition to plan scenery, and instead find that your forte lies in the business office. Men who started as cameramen are now directors. Men who started as directors have ended as highly successful advertising managers. So there you are. You pay your money and if you are wise you take your choice.



Create a video blog…instantly.

March 7, 2009

How To Look Good in Movies

Filed under: Careers — Tags: , , — admin @ 10:41 am
Malcolm Blake asked:


Probably the number of people who have not at one time or another wondered in a sneaking sort of way if they wouldn’t look pretty well on the screen is limited to the aborigines of Africa. Needless to say, both beauty and character are the characteristics in demand in the films, as everywhere else. The curious fact is that faces which in real life possess great beauty or deep character, frequently fail to carry this across to the camera.

The chief reason for this lies in the fact that the: camera does not accept color values, and at the same time accentuates many defects which are ordinarily imperceptible to the eye. For example, a wonderful type of Italian beauty appeared at our studio while we were casting “Mama’s Affair” for Constance Talmadge. She had never before appeared in motion pictures, and our casting director was quick to seize the opportunity to make a test of her face.

When the picture was shown, her extraordinarily fine coloring of course went for nothing, and her beauty was entirely marred by the inexplicable appearance of a fine down over her upper lip and a large mole on her left temple. Both the mole and the down had been entirely unnoticed in daylight, but under the fierce mercury lights of the studio and the enlarging lenses they made her face grotesque.

At another time we attempted to make a leading man of a famous war hero. This boy had been a college athlete and had subsequently distinguished himself as a bayonet fighter on four battlefields. When his test films were projected, to the astonishment of everyone he appeared as an anaemic, effeminate stripling, whose every gesture aroused the ridicule of the audience.

The skin of the face must be entirely smooth and unbroken. The slightest eruption or blemish is visible on the screen, especially in this day when “close- ups” are the vogue. The teeth must be perfect. Considerations which do not matter in the slightest degree in ****** beauty on the screen are those of coloring and of fineness of the features. The pinker a woman’s cheeks may be, the hollower they appear to the camera, for red photographs as black, and a face which is beautiful, but coarse in its outline, frequently photographs quite as well as the beautiful face which is exquisite in every detail.

A screen star should be equally beautiful in every expression and from every angle. This is not so true of the stage star, for when she is moving about, speaking and gesticulating, the question of her beauty becomes comparatively unimportant. On the screen, however, important scenes are always taken in “close- ups” wherein the star, whether portraying rage or pain, love or hate, must be equally charming, at the risk of making a permanently bad impression upon her audience.

Many people who are beautiful when seen in “full face” are most unattractive in profile. In fact, the matter narrows down still further, for quite often those who have a lovely profile are, for some inexplicable reason, gross and unattractive when the face is turned to show three-quarters.

A number of the present movie stars have risen to the top despite such impediments by stipulating in all their contracts that they be never shown in close-up in the pose in which they are unattractive. One star in particular never shows the left side of her face for this reason. This, however, is obviously a great handicap.

The male types which are most in demand are not those whose appeal is through physical beauty. Audiences are sick of large-eyed, romantic heroes, and are demanding a little manly force and character in their heroes.

To film well, a man’s head should be large, rugged, with the features cut in masses, like a Rodin bust. Whether he is attempting to play “juveniles,” “leads” or “heavies” his face must possess the cardinal requi- sites of character. Deep-set eyes, a strong chin, a jutting forehead, a prominent nose, are all desirable. Again, the high cheekbones and long face appear desirable characteristics. William S. Hart’s success depends largely on these two simple characteristics of ****** structure.

Neither in men nor in women is the hair an essential for screen beauty. Wigs and trick arrangements of the hair are a function of the make-up department, and a man or woman with no hair at all could still be made to appear most attractive to the unsophisticated camera.

In analyzing your own face, then, ask yourself the following questions:

Are my eyes large?

Is my skin fine and well kept ?

Is my mouth small and are my teeth good ?

Is my nose straight?

Has my face character, something which makes it not only beautiful, but which portrays the underlying personality ?

If you can answer these questions in the affirmative you may have a career before you in the motion pictures. If you cannot answer any of them but the last in the affirmative, you may still be successful as a movie actor, for “types” whether of gunmen or millionaires, villains or saints are much in demand.

In any case, if you are to essay a career in the movies, remember that your natural characteristics are all that count. Tricks of rolling the eyes or puckering the lips or setting the jaw are buncombe and are instantly discovered by the camera. Be natural. Keep healthy and happy. That, in the movies, as in real life, is the way to charm and beauty.



Website content

March 2, 2009

Getting Into the Movies - Movie Etiquette

Filed under: Careers — Tags: , , — admin @ 9:23 am
Malcolm Blake asked:


This article does not deal so much with how to act in a picture as how to act in a studio. Motion picture people live, more or less, in a world of their own. It is a world which may seem a bit topsy turvy to the outsider, with its own peculiar customs, and a greater freedom from restraint than is customary in the conventional world outside. Examined a bit closer, these outlandish ideas appear to be the very same ones which are always associated with artists a bohemian spirit which is the same whether in Hollywood or the Latin Quarter of Paris.

If the newcomer to the studio wishes to establish himself as a bona fide member of the movie world he must always remember that no matter how cynical they may seem, no matter how pessimistically they may talk, these people, in the bottom of their hearts, consider a photoplay a form of art and themselves as artists.

The actor or director or author who does really good work, who has something new to offer, or who at least is sincere in his desire to do something big and fine in the motion pictures, will always be tolerated no matter how bizarre his character in other respects. In short, people are ranked according to their artistic understanding rather than according to their ancestry, their bank account or their morals.

Most of the leaders of the motion picture world have risen from poverty and obscurity, a fact which accounts for the democracy which prevails in the studio. There are a few rules which beginners would do well to follow. Here they are :

1. Be modest. Because you don’t understand why something is done, don’t believe it is all nonsense. And remember that you have ever so much to learn

about the business.

2. Don’t criticize.

3. Try your best to please everyone, particularly the director, whose shoulders are carrying the responsibility for the whole production and whose manner may be a bit gruff as it usually is when a man is laboring under a heavy load.

Don’t be ashamed of being in the movies. If you think movies are a low-brow form of making a living your associates will surely become aware of your state of mind and you will be quietly frozen out.

In the old days of the movies social status in the studio was determined by a curious system, based upon the pay envelope. Actors for the movie world is composed for the greater part of actors are classed as stars, the “leads,” the “parts,” the “bits,” the

“extras” and “mobs.”

The star is, of course, the highly paid actor or actress who is the feature of the production; the “lead” is the leading man or woman who plays opposite the star. The “parts” include all those characters which appear on the program the minor characters of the play. The “bits” are those who Nare called on to perform a bit of individual action, such as the butler who opens the door, or the chauffeur who drives the car, but who have no real part in the play. The extras are simply members of the crowd, as the ballroom throng, while a mob is just a mass of people, like an army or the audience at a football game.

The large producing companies frequently give elaborate dinners, seating three or four hundred people, and under this ridiculous old system the star sat at the head of the table, with the “leads” near at hand. Then came the “parts,” then the “bits,” and finally, away down at the foot of the table, were the “extras.” In the same way directors, assistant directors, studio managers, and so forth, were graded down according

to how much money they drew from the cashier every week.

Today all this snobbery has passed away. The movie world has its smart set and its slums, as in any other world, but the criterion is artistic worth, not money. We know of one rather unpleasant personality who has risen to stardom, but is completely ignored by the lesser lights of the profession despite this star’s attempts to break into “film society.”



Website content

January 4, 2009

Celebrity Jobs In East Anglia

Filed under: Careers — Tags: , , — admin @ 10:26 am
Shaun Parker asked:


Money - it makes the world go round. It also tends to be the most important item on the list of criteria people look for in a job. After all banking has to be one of the most boring jobs out there yet the good salaries offer a great deal to keep people interested.

There is also a great deal of secrecy over salaries. People rarely like to divulge their salary and as a result there are a great deal of misconceptions about how much different people earn and as a result the issue of salaries is shrouded in mystery. There are a number of salary comparison charts that enable an individual to work out if the pay they are receiving in their current job is up to scratch. These can be extremely beneficial for negotiating a better deal at work.

These salary scales may also indicate that it is time to move on from your current job and find something new. To most people the most interesting pay packets are those that the celebrities receive. We all know that these celebrities earn a lot of money but how much is a lot? So here is and look into the jobs that you should be doing to make mega bucks - don’t get envious!

TV and film salaries

TV and film pay packages can be obnoxious. The lead actor in the US TV show The Sopranos James Gandolfini earned an incredible 5million pounds per year for his role. It is said that talk show host David Letterman earns and even more impressive 15 million pounds for hosting his show.

The highest earning people in the movie industry are said to be the Weinstein brothers. Harvey and Bob have produced a number of box office successes and as a result regularly earn in excess of 25 million pounds each per year. The high earning movie stars tend to demand fees in excess of 9 million pounds. Both Robert De Niro and Leonardo Di Caprio received fees that worked out at around 10 million pounds.

Nicole Kidman is one of the highest earning actresses and for her role in The Interpreter she commanded a fee of seven and a half million pounds. Other high earning females in the movie industry are Kirsten Dunst who earned four million pounds when she appeared in Elizabethtown. Lindsay Lohan was paid one and three quarter million pounds when she played Maggie Payton in the new version of the film Herbie. Most shocking of all is the salary that was paid to Sarah Jessica Parker as a representative for GAP. She was paid a disgusting 19 million pounds!

Musician salaries

It is well known that the music industry is one of the areas in which the most money is earned. The most lucrative areas of music at the moment seem to be in rap and hip hop music. 50 cent is said to earn 25 million pounds per year whereas the P Diddy enterprise brings in 18 million pounds for its creator each year. Frank Sinatra makes an incredible 5 million pounds per year despite being dead and John Lennon makes and even larger 10 million pounds.



Caffeinated Content for WordPress

Powered by WordPress