Good film, bad acting

Theater friends have pointed it out, and I’ve experienced it myself: you’re watching a short/student/local/indie film and the photography is great, the sound is good, the music is fine, the editing competent, but what’s with this acting? Especially in a town with so many great theater artists, why does film acting seem like a stumbling block moreso than other elements of filmmaking? One thing to note is that the two most important film training programs in the Twin Cities are at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) and at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC). MCAD, of course, has no theater department at all, and students in the Directing and Producing program at MCTC (a two-year degree) are not required to take any theater courses (although Introduction to Acting is recommended). I asked Max Becker, IFP’s Director of Equipment and Facilities and a fairly recent MCAD film grad, about what training he and his classmates had in working with actors. He told me his program did have one course called Directing Actors, which dealt with understanding basic acting training so as to become better at communicating with actors while directing. It covered acting exercises and how directors should tell actors what to do instead of what to feel. Unfortunately, the subject of working with actors was confined solely to this class and didn’t come up again during the training in a systematic way. Add to that the fact that student directors are almost always working with inexperienced actors and “that’s why acting in student films always sucks.” Well, not always. Some savvy student directors cast experienced actors, like Max did with Charles Hubbell in his thesis film "A Good Man.” Add to that Max’s method of shooting scenes all the way through instead of in small fragments, and you get an exceptional performance. Of course, many filmmakers don’t go through degree programs. Matt Osterman, writer/director of the much-buzzed-about upcoming local film Phasma Ex Machina, got his degree in technical writing and learned filmmaking by making his own short films. He did know enough from the beginning to cast real, if not full-time professional, actors from the beginning, unlike some beginning filmmakers who just cast their friends: “You can tell a film is amateur when the whole cast is 25-year-old white dudes.” What he had to learn is how to steer his actors towards what was good for the film. At first, he would just let them go in whatever direction they felt best. Now he will always give them the first shot and then nudge them in the direction that works for the scene. “I’m a great believer in collaboration. I tell them what I want, but to bring something new,” wanting to find new surprises in the material. Because of the lack of pay for most indie films, it’s difficult to schedule rehearsals, but Matt tries to work one-on-one with his leads to understand the emotional beats of their scenes. As for how actors should approach working in local films, “There’s varying levels in quality in anything. When you start out, work on everything and you will start to learn who’s good and who’s not, who has integrity and who you shouldn’t work for any more.” The high quality folks are out there, and sometimes they’re someone you’ve never heard of before.