Original subtitles

- If your production schedule allows for it,

and you should make every effort for it to,

you should hold quality meetings and rehearsals

with your talent before you are on set

and the cameras roll.

Having meetings and rehearsals with your talent

isn't always possible,

especially if you have a low budget.

Or sometimes on projects like industrials

or corporate promos where you have only a one

or two day shoot to work with.

But when you can rehearse or meet with your talent,

you want to do it.

You want to make a lot of time for it in pre-production

and it has to be as high a priority

as any of your other meetings that you would have

with your DP, or your lighting technician,

or whoever.

Your talent is just as important to meet with.

Every project's going to have different time needs,

but you almost always need some type of experience

to get the actors comfortable with each other

and with you, and for you to get to know

your actors better.

If it's at all possible,

have the cast and crew meet each other ahead

of time as well.

Having people meet each other ahead of time

will only increase the comfort level with each other.

Filmmaking is a lot of hurry up and wait.

You want to encourage onset rehearsal with other actors

or even have them do it by themselves

during any downtime while you're switching out equipment.

Working with actors in small groups can be a good idea,

to concentrate on specific scenes,

or if you have limited amounts of time to get things done.

For our film Of Dice and Men,

we actually had several different types

of meetings and rehearsals.

On the left, we got together our cast and crew

ahead of time to play a game together

so they could experience the world of the film

to get a sense for it.

And then when we were ready to go through the script,

we had a rehearsal around that same table

while we did our regular read-through.

And then finally on-set,

because we had the meetings and the rehearsals

around the same table, when we actually shot the scenes

with the table later,

the actors were already familiar with it

and comfortable in their space.

Making time for proper meetings and rehearsals

will make your shoot days run much more smoothly

and will keep your talent concentrated

on their performances.