Sometimes you have a period piece where you have to research around it but, if the writers have done their homework well enough, the information is all in the script.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The script is always the main preparation for me. Sometimes you have a period piece where you have to research around it, but if the writers have done their homework well enough, the information is all in the script.
I guess, as a director, you sort of take the script, and you find ways to interpret it.
Well, first of all, you read the script a million times. Because what the script gives you are given circumstances. Given circumstances are all the facts of your character.
It was pretty much the way that it was when I first read it, although one exception would be that some ideas that I had were also incorporated into the script.
When you're writing a story in bits and pieces, month in and month out, there really isn't time or space for reflection, no room to learn what those scripts had to teach you.
It's my experience that scientists can find it difficult to understand the needs of scriptwriters or storytellers.
To make the script, you need ideas, and for me a lot of times, a final script is made up of many fragments of ideas that came at different times.
As a rule it usually takes three or four readings for me to be interested in a script, and if I'm interested I'll read it three or four times before I make a strong decision.
A different script calls for different things. It always takes me a long time to get to know the part, and know the logic behind the words. I have to be with the script for quite a long time before things start to fall into place, before they become part of the character.
This basic thing I always do: 'What happened between the character's birth, and page one of the script?' Anything that's not in the story, I'll fill in the blanks.