Mindfulness As The Guidance To Film Acting

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The philosophy behind Project Panopticon started out with the dissatisfaction in the structures that dominate the filmmaking process, the main problem being bad acting. This is one of the biggest problems for all the young filmmakers (after financing): most likely they will handle cinematography, sound design and lighting at least in a decent way, but very few can actually direct their films so that the acting is really believable, touching and interesting.

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One of the problems that I had found out about acting was pretentiousness, which in essence means not being present in the moment. A person is being pretentious when he/she is becoming too aware of him/herself, as in, trying to see how he/she looks from the outsiders perspective. A person is authentic when he/she is involved in the moment, captured in the flow of things. There is no difference for these two concepts wether they are applied to real life or acting for cinema - even if the latter is based on a screenplay.

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What then, is the cause of pretentiousness? First of all: the screenplay, if badly written, can already hold the seeds of pretentiousness in it.

If there is no meaningful flow of action, reaction, conflict and result, no good acting is to be expected. The main problem of any screenplay is how to make a piece of paper filled with words become authentic action.

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This led to an idea: what if the actors would be determined before the writing takes place? In the traditional process, the actor is compared to the character, but this way, the actor could actually influence the writing process and create the character. I started to plan out a workshop, in which the actors would use their own personal insights to create their characters for the film. I sent out an email for an local acting school and told them about the project. A group of people got interested and I met each one personally to see if they were motivated for the project. A time table was set and we were all ready to go.

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In our first meeting, I set up a structure for all the workshops. This structure included meditation as a regular practice both at the beginning and the end of the workshop. I had read a lot about mindfulness from the american professor Jon Kabat-Zinn and realized that there is a lot mindfulness could do for film acting. I was convinced that mindful presence was the key for achieving good acting, since after meditation you feel everything in a fresh way; instead of preassuming the future your concentration is centered to the present moment. The theory was that through mindful presence a person could, for a moment, overcome the problem of pretentiousness.

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A dialectic between a thesis and an anti-thesis is formed.

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Thesis

Linearity - life is like a film

Ego - each of us is an unique person

Closed dramaturgy - life has a purpose,

which can be achieved throug action

Imago is that which helps the individual

achieve the purpose.

Intelligence, analysis, logic, benefit and loss,

preassumptions.

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Anti-thesis

Cyclicity - life is a like a river

Egodeath - there are no individuals,

everything part of the whole

Open dramaturgy - life has no purpose,

all we have is here and now

The imago is a lie that puts barriers

between people

Emotion, risk, irrationality, impulses, momentariness

leap of faith, authenticity.

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