_Camera-consciousness and a way to cure it--Why it is_
_fatal to imitate--Some scenes_
_in “Intolerance.”_
The several qualities most likely to succeed upon the screen having
been discussed, and the importance of knowing the story, make-up and
costuming having been established, my candidate is now ready to go
before the camera.
All that has been done before is but to build up to this vital moment.
The camera tells at once and usually in no uncertain terms whether one
is possessed of star possibilities.
It is a sort of court from which there is no appeal. For that reason
every expression, every movement, every feeling and, I verily believe,
every thought are important once the camera has begun to turn.
Now the actress or actor is standing entirely upon her or his own feet.
Previously they have had the benefit of all the advice and help that
the many departments of a studio could proffer. In a word they have
been able to lean upon someone else and to correct mistakes at leisure.
It is different before the camera. The beginner will at once
feel very much alone and terribly conspicuous. This tends toward
self-consciousness, or camera-consciousness, which must be immediately
overcome or success is impossible. Camera-consciousness is the bane of
the beginner. I think most of us have suffered more or less from it. I
have known actresses who possessed it to such a degree that, finding
they could not rid themselves of it, they left the screen. By extreme
good fortune this never happened to be one of my troubles.
Self-consciousness on the screen is much the same thing as stage fright
in the spoken drama and proceeds, I suppose, from the same source,
which is the inability to forget one’s self.
When a dear friend of mine first began playing small parts she found
that she suffered from it. She also saw that it would certainly be
fatal if she didn’t cure it.
“For that reason,” she said to herself, “the best thing to do is to
think so hard about the part that I am playing that I won’t have time
to think of anything else.”
She gave herself good advice. Anyhow it worked and I am sure it
will be successful in the case of the average beginner. If so, then
camera-consciousness will really be a blessing in disguise, for it will
have taught the actress concentration upon her part and concentration,
in every fiber of one’s being, I believe, is the big secret of screen
success.
I remember the case of one young actress who came to me in tears saying
that when she rehearsed her part in the privacy of her own home, or
dressing room, she felt every inch of it, but once under the gaze of
the director, the assistant director, the cameraman, possibly the
author and perhaps a number of privileged persons about the studio, she
seemed to wilt.
“Look at it this way,” I advised. “When you are acting the director has
his work to do and is doing it. So has the assistant director. Likewise
the cameraman and the assistant cameraman have their work to do and are
doing it. So are the other actors. As for the lookers-on, request that
they leave. Then imagine you are in a big schoolroom where everyone
is busy at his or her lessons. You have your lesson to get which is
concentrating upon your part. Go ahead with it.”
It helped the girl in question. She has become a very excellent and
charming star and while she still prefers to work upon a secluded stage
she does not find it positively necessary, as do some actresses. In any
event there is no trace of camera-consciousness in her acting.
Camera-consciousness having been eliminated the beginner can now throw
himself or herself entirely into the part being played. By throwing
one’s self into the part I do not mean forcing it. Nothing is quite
so bad as that. I mean feeling it. If you do not feel the particular
action being played then the result will certainly be a lack of
sincerity. We have already decided that that is fatal.
Let me illustrate:
While we were playing “Intolerance,” one cycle of which is still being
released as “The Mother and the Law,” I had to do a scene where, in the
big city’s slums, my father dies.
The night before I did this scene I went to the theater--something,
by the way, I seldom do when working--to see Marjorie Rambeau in
“Kindling.”
To my surprise and gratification she had to do a scene in this play
that was somewhat similar to the one that I was scheduled to play in
“Intolerance.” It made a deep impression upon me.
As a consequence, the next day before the camera in the scene depicting
my sorrow and misery at the death of my father, I began to cry with
the memory of Marjorie Rambeau’s part uppermost in my mind. I thought,
however, that it had been done quite well and was anxious to see it on
the screen.
I was in for very much of a surprise. A few of us gathered in the
projection room and the camera began humming. I saw myself enter with a
fair semblance of misery. But there was something about it that was not
convincing.
[Illustration: _Back to the old Mutual days with Blanche Sweet and
Wallace Reid._]
Mr. Griffith, who was closely studying the action, finally turned in
his seat and said:
“I don’t know what you were thinking about when you did that, but it is
evident that it was not about the death of your father.”
“That is true,” I said. I did not admit what I was thinking about.
We began immediately upon the scene again. This time I thought of the
death of my own father and the big tragedy to our little home, then
in Texas. I could recall the deep sorrow of my mother, my sisters, my
brother and myself.
This scene is said to be one of the most effective in “The Mother and
the Law.”
The beginner may learn from that that it never pays to imitate anyone
else’s interpretation of any emotion. Each of us when we are pleased,
injured, or affected in any way have our own way of showing our
feelings. This is one thing that is our very own.
When before the camera, therefore, we must remember that when we feel
great sorrow the audience wants to see our own sorrow and not an
imitation of Miss Blanche Sweet’s or Mme. Nazimova’s. We must feel
our own part and take heed of my favorite screen maxim, which is that
thoughts do register.
It is true that we have good and bad days before the camera. There are
times when to feel and to act are the easiest things imaginable and
other occasions when it seems impossible to catch the spirit that we
know is necessary. In this we are more fortunate than our brothers upon
the spoken stage, for we can do it over again.
It is also very often true that even when we are entirely in the spirit
of our part, and believe we have done a good day’s work, that there
will be some mechanical defect in the scenes taken which makes it
necessary to do them over, possibly when we feel least like so doing.
In this event it is a good thing to remember that it doesn’t pay to
cry over spilt milk. We must learn to take the bitter with the sweet.
Fortunately the mechanics of picture taking are constantly improving.
The hardest dramatic work I ever did was in the courtroom scenes in
“Intolerance.” We retook these scenes on four different occasions. Each
time I gave to the limit of my vitality and ability. I put everything
into my portrayal that was in me. It certainly paid. Parts of each
of the four takes--some of them done at two weeks’ intervals--were
assembled to make up those scenes which you, as the audience, finally
beheld upon the screen.
Therefore, when first going before a camera it is well to resolve to
put as much into one’s performance as possible. We cannot too greatly
concentrate upon our parts. If we do not feel them we can be very sure
they will not convince our audiences.