ROBERT MILAZZO’S
ACTOR/ DIRECTOR FILM LAB
The Film Lab will explore the unique practical artistic relationship between filmmakers and actors, given the varied artistic and material realities precise to all filmmaking processes. Film Lab will attempt to deconstruct all practical, instinctual, and cinematic parameters of collaboration, including the how we speak to one-another and the why we see what we see. The Film Lab is less an exploration of text than it is an empirical deconstruction of how actors and directors communicate most-effectively.
Each Lab session will introduce topics which will accompany a project to be filmed outside of Lab and screened with feedback in an independent session. At the conclusion of each Lab session, directors and actors will be placed in groups/teams on a rotating basis, so each Lab member will have an opportunity with all other Lab members.
FORM/CONTENT: The Film Lab will be comprised of filmmakers and actors who will be lead through
a series of exercises, from the intrinsically photographic to the fully-developed (script-to-screen.)
All projects will be shot outside of class and given in-class group feedback.
Stage 1 will unite the artists’ baseline understanding of film vocabulary and the art of photography –
from the objective to the subjective; the shooter to the subject. This Stage will include feedback on
pre-existing films to be screened, as well as a still-photography exercise, serving as a prelude to the
Lab’s understanding of both film art and practical film collaboration.
Stage 2 includes a detailed deconstruction of the various truths of a frame – width, motion, placement - and how both filmmakers and actors apply craft within said architecture. This Stage will also explore the realities of on-screen movement, staging, and composition; and how both actor and filmmaker approach said elements. The Stage 2 project will focus either on a staged-scene (incorporating location shooting) or a faux-documentary, authored by both actor and director.
Stage 3 explores the craft/science of the eyes and its ubiquitous, cinematic power – continuity, shooting-axis, and the realities of editorial control. The project will challenge collaborators to achieve a precise continuity-state on screen (improvisation, action, dance, hand-held camera), balancing both it’s practical demands with its unique artistic result.
Stage 4: The Final Stage is a Group Project in which all Lab participants will take part. The project incorporates elements of all previously-applied craft, along with the added realities of working on interlocking-content; for example, a script that takes place along an expanse of time and space, with a larger crew of collaborators (d.p., continuity, sound) and cast (extras, non-actors, etc.)
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT US AT info@afilm.es
