Depending on your budget you might be working with known actors, up and coming actors or students trying to make it in the industry. Whatever you end up with you’ve got to remember at the end of the day they are still people and to get them to work to their full potential you have to treat them the way you would like to be treated. If you was an actor, at the end of a scene you wouldn’t want to be told how poor you portrayed the character in that scene, it would just destroy your confidence, you need to be told something like “yeah that was good but why don’t we try it like this... and see how it goes.”
I worked with an actor who mainly worked in theatre so when it came to him being in front of the camera to him it felt like he was standing centre stage and to me his acting felt a bit too false. I pulled him to the side and said to him “what would you do in this situation if it happened to you in real life, how would you feel?” he said to me what he would do and I said “use that emotion but portray it through the mind of your character, your character isn’t very confident so maybe stutter a bit as he tries to explain the situation he’s in.”
We done the take a few times and I got what I was looking for but now he was able to use the advice I gave him in other scenes as we shot the rest of the film. As long as you respect your actors, your actors will respect you and will give 110% to fulfil your vision.
