Forum Session: Directing Actors and Acting with Directors

Judith Weston is the author of two books. Her first book, "DIRECTING ACTORS," is required reading for directors, actors, writers and producers around the world, from film schools to Hollywood studios. Her second book, "THE FILM DIRECTOR'S INTUITION," breaks new ground in the relationships among directors, actors, and characters.

Judith teaches workshops for directors and actors in Los Angeles. She also travels with her workshops to Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and US cities including New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago. Her students include winners and nominees of Academy Awards, Emmys, and film festivals. She has served as consultant on major film and television projects, and independent films too numerous to list. She has been a guest lecturer at film festivals, professional organizations and film schools, and has been on the faculty of the American Film Institute and the Los Angeles Film School.

Judith runs her own studio in West Los Angeles, and lives in Venice. Her goal and mission is to improve communication between actors and directors - and to help filmmakers make movies that are truthful as well as entertaining.

Judith will focus on the basics of working with actors. She will work with two of our directors and actors from Playhouse West on a portion of a scene from a script. She will also talk about some of the most fundamental elements of picking actors and preparing for the rehearsal process.

Her Books

Judith is the author of "Directing Actors" and "The Film Director's Intuition." Both books are really meant not just for directors, but for writers, actors and anyone who wants to live creatively. She says, "To be quite honest with you, I am at heart a revolutionist - none of my books or classes endeavor to tell you how to do things as well as they are usually done - that's not good enough, in my opinion."

Amazon.com Review
"Directing Actors" is essential reading for anyone interested in directing or acting. Judith Weston's brilliance is to recognize that directors, actors, writers, and technicians are involved in a process that is at essence a collaboration. In order for them to have the best shot at creating something true and meaningful, they must share a language and a method of exchange that fosters creative cooperation. Weston rightly sees the director as the central figure in inspiring the energy of a production's harmony. She advises the prospective director on every aspect of a stage or film production, showing how the director can draw the best performances possible from actors.

DGA Magazine Review
A must read for any director working with actors. "Directing Actors" is filled with constructive information that would serve not only the neophyte but also the skilled professional director.

MovieMaker Magazine Review
Sun Tzu may have the market covered on war, but when it comes to the art of directing actors, Judith Weston reigns supreme. Seven years after the publication of her seminal "Directing Actors," she's at it again with "The Film Director's Intuition." Rather than retread any of what she's covered before, this book offers a whole new insight into the role the director - this time turning the topic inward. Here, she teaches directors that it's all about accessing their own intuition - their own 'inner actor' - that will allow them the most effective collaboration on-set. With Henry Bean and Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu counted among her legions of fans, who are we to argue? Like her first book, 'The Film Director's Intuition' is a title that belongs on every director's bookshelf and film set!

IndiWIRE Review
One book that doesn't need a discount -- in fact it's worth its weight in Spirit Awards -- is Judith Weston's "The Film Director's Intuition."

Millimeter Magazine Review
Wow. What isn't covered in Judith Weston's take on the slippery subject of analyzing scripts and applying that insight to help an actor work? The weaving of relevant stories--from top directors, writers, actors, and others--helps drive home the salient points of Weston's very practical handbook.

"Directing my first movie would have been impossible without Judith's book. Her insights taught me how to audition actors, how to cast intelligently, how to rehearse. When production began, I cribbed a set of Weston reminders on to a 3-by-5 index card, and kept it in my shirt pocket every single day of shooting. She saved me."
BILLY RAY, writer-director, SHATTERED GLASS; writer, VOLCANO, HART'S WAR, SUSPECT ZERO

"I think that if Judith's book were mandatory reading for all directors, the quality of the director-actor process would be transformed, and better drama would result."
JOHN PATTERSON, director, THE SOPRANOS, SIX FEET UNDER, THE PRACTICE, LAW AND ORDER

Her Workshops

At Judith's West Los Angeles studio she teaches classes and workshops in the following areas. There is further information on her website, www.judithweston.com.

Acting for Directors, Writers and Producers:
Judith works to deepen your communication with actors and inspire them to do their best work;to establish an open-hearted and positive authority with your cast; and to write dialogue that's real and that actors can speak with conviction.

Acting Workshop
Judith has been coaching actors for nineteen years. She reconnects actors with their confidence, clarity, and creativity - their joy in acting. Her deep understanding of acting as a laboratory of life has led to her reputation as a miracle worker whose insights go to the heart of a scene, and to the soul of an actor. Actors say that she "opened my eyes," "changed everything for me" - even "saved my life." Her actors work regularly in all media.

Script Analysis and Rehearsal Techniques
Judith's goals for directors in her Advanced courses are these: communication and connection with actors; that is, gaining their trust, troubleshooting their resistances, making breakthroughs, and maintaining authority, vision and getting the job done without shutting down actors' creativity. But her creative alternatives to "result" direction and commitment to process give you more - a framework and tools for solving and shaping a scene, working beat by beat, locating events, through-lines and subtext. And even better - a deep connection to the imaginative world, its events and characters, that leads to joy and creative satisfaction.

For further information, check out her website www.judithweston.com.

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