The professionalism of the actors

[wstol]

I was watching some of Ballad for Wind Instruments and Canoe today.

Just look how brilliant the trio are in the scene where they are putting the canoe outside Nora Batty's house.

For a whole minute and a quarter there's a scene done in one single take. It's the same camera angle without any 'joins' for the first minute and a quarter.

In that single shot, the actors have to maneouve the canoe and say all their lines perfectly.

And they do it perfectly.

 

[Don]

In Peter Sallis' Autobiography, he mentions watching the Oliver Stone film "JFK" and a particular scene where, for about five minutes Kevin Costner and Donald Sutherland are talking on a bench without any cut away. Peter mentions how impressed he was. I think what you are talking about goes along the same vein. A real tribute to their profession when actors can do that, definitely something that Stage actors are all too familiar with.

 

[brendalovescompo]

In that single shot, the actors have to maneouve the canoe and say all their lines perfectly.

And they do it perfectly.

Sometimes I wonder in this such case if the actors have both objectives they have to fulfill, if they sometimes ad lib the lines while completing this task. We don't know, this scene could have been the 15th time to get everything right. Maybe not that many, but you see where I am coming from. I haven't thought about it much in this show, but have heard others mention it that the actors are so into their character that they stay in character, and may not deliver the exact line, but puts his or her own spin on it and its a take that they keep. I have not read directors books, and wonder any mention of this.

If that is not the case you are right, their professionalism is top notch!!!!:wink:

 

[barmpot]

Becasue of my hearing, or rather lack of, I tend to rely on subtitles: theese often deviate slightly from what you hear and I have wonderede whehter this is a case of the actor adding their own words that still convey the senese exactly whereas the sub-titles reflect the written wcript?

So there may some ad libbing but nothing that deviates very far from the writers intention.

Once when I was the amateur stage, late 1970s in Rothwell, another chap and I had a long three page dialogue which we delivered in almost reverse order - or thereabouts. Great consternation behind the scenes I can tell you! So indeed it is always good to acknowledge real skill.