A Quote by Helena Christensen

When on the set of a film, you have to play natural for entire scenes in a very unnatural environment. You have to express emotions and interact with other actors and also use your voice.
The ecologist has a much more comprehensive and holistic view of the world. We're looking at the natural environment as well as the human built environment and the connectivity between the two - how do the natural environment and the human-built environment interact and interface with each other.
When scoring a film, empathy is the key. And it is just as important to use music to express the actors' emotions as it is to move the audience.
To be an actor and a director, I actually felt it helped me tremendously to be in the scenes of The Hollars, because as you can see, they're very intimate, very intense scenes. You don't want to break the actor's character and you don't want to break their momentum, so as the actor, I tried not to call cut as much as I could, and almost make it feel like a play, just set this environment where these amazing actors could do what they wanted to do.
Sometimes I get a little confused because with dancing I can express my emotions with my body. With acting you have to do it with your face and your expressions, and then with animated shows you have to use your voice and use your inflections. So it's definitely a challenge to transfer from each genre of entertainment.
It's impossible to put your finger on what that is exactly other than protecting the environment that the actors get to find the scenes and build the scenes and invest in them. I think that's key and that's what I've learned from all the great directors I've worked with.
There is nothing unnatural in this world," he said. "An unnatural thing is a thing that could never happen in nature. I happened. I am natural, and the things I want are natural. The power of your mind, and your beauty, even when you've been drugged in the bottom of a boat for two weeks, covered in grime and your face purple and green - your unnatural beauty is natural. Nature is horrifying.
But when there were certain moments or scenes that required a very specific nuance or performance, I myself would act out the scene or the sequence and that would inspire the actors. Of course, I can't really express emotions on camera, but I was very active in showing a certain action or a blocking for an actor. I would also participate in certain stunts myself and because of that, I would get bruises or cuts on my knees and elbows.
In film, you're always using your tools, your body, your voice, your emotions, but onstage, you use them in a different way.
I think film is a world of directors. Theater is a world of actors. Or, theater is for actors as cinema is for directors. I started in theater. Filming is as complete as directing film. In theater, you are there, you have a character, you have a play, you have a light, you have a set, you have an audience, and you're in control, and every night is different depending on you and the relationship with the other actors. It's as simple as that. So, you are given all the tools.
It was really interesting to be editing the film [Trust] in New York and directing the play in Chicago, and one definitely informed the other. The play probably benefitted more because I realized what scenes could be cut, and I cut those scenes from the play.
When you talk about objects, one other thing automatically comes attached to that thing, and that is gestures: how we manipulate these objects, how we use these objects in everyday life. We use gestures not only to interact with these objects, but we also use them to interact with each other.
In your system of reality you are learning what mental energy is, and how to use it. You do this by constantly transforming your thought and emotions into physical form. You are supposed to get a clear picture of your inner development by perceiving the exterior environment. What seems to be a perception, an objective concrete event independent from you, is instead the materialization of your own inner emotions, energy, and mental environment.
Finding your voice is something you have to keep working at. Your voice as a comic evolves the same way that you evolve. You have to find out what works for you. How can you express your opinion, your take on the situations in a way that feels natural to you? That's where you find your voice.
In the old days when I first was coming up, you would turn up on set in the morning with your coffee, script, and hangover and you would figure out what you were going to do with the day and how you were going to play the scenes. You would rehearse and then invite the crew in to watch the actors go through the scenes. The actors would go away to makeup and costume and the director and the DP would work out how they were going to cover what the actors had just done.
My film school is making movies. But, I do think that being an actor has served me immensely, as both a writer and director, in terms of knowing what is playable and what will be fun to play, for actors, and also how to communicate to actors on set, and not screw them up and get them in their head.
What I love in working on film is just working with actors. It's one thing to write scenes alone over a keyboard and to imagine the actions and reactions in your head, but it's a completely other thing to hear actors speaking your words, to see their bodies bringing the fullness of emotion, need, desire and pain to life right in front of you. It's amazing.
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