To my dear friends who’ve been part of the StoryAtlas community,

I’ve missed you! I remember fondly the tremendous a-ha moments that were experienced in our studio, and the genuine warmth that accompanied all the learning. I’m truly proud of what we accomplished together and wish it could’ve lasted longer and grown into something a bit bigger. What I loved most about the studio was the sense that people were rooting for each other, and making the effort to improve, no matter what level the actor had attained thus far. I also loved the experimental nature of the teaching – trying brand new techniques as well as some time-tested ones.

So what happened? If so many good vibes were being experienced, why did I quit? 

In short, I burned out. Then, the pandemic came along and made already complicated logistics even more overwhelming. My instincts were to retreat into a new layer of learning for my own career – watching and re-watching classic films, reading plays from antiquity, growing into a more authentic man, and researching topics important for my own creativity. And indeed, those efforts have shown results. Since our last class, I’ve written two original screenplays and completed a significant revision on a third script. I developed a television series intended as a vehicle for Patricia Velasquez and Rex Lee. Although that project did not materialize on a streaming network as I hoped, it felt empowering to know I could develop a show that resonated with a number of people, even if we didn’t get the final, “Yes.” (Yet). 

I can honestly say that although teaching means a lot to me, creating films, series, and plays means even more. 

And yet, lately I’ve been wondering if there’s a way to be of service to the creative seekers – like all of you – that I love and respect. Maybe there’s a way to walk and chew gum.

So far, I’ve come up with two ideas. First of all, I will be releasing some content on the Fatelink YouTube channel that dives into the creative process and how I believe it can be harnessed for spiritual, moral, and psychological growth. Upcoming shows include an exploration of the “Fool” archetype, a rundown of five key takeaways from Aristotle’s “Poetics” as well as an exercise I’ve recently developed to help artists identify their ideal audience. Best yet – that type of instruction is totally free for you.

Also, since I love classic films so much, why not share it? On January 30th, we’ll host our first livestream on Patreon that does a deep dive into a classic film. In this case, we’ll look at Edward Yang’s YI YI, one of the best films to ever come out of Taiwan, in my opinion. There is a modest fee to become a Patreon member and participate in the livestream – it costs $3.50 a month – but that membership will grant you access to a library of storytelling videos as well as first look at a checklist of 400 classic films and the ideal audience exercise I described. I realize this livestream is probably not as exciting as an in-person reunion, but it could be a great way to see and interact with some of the faces that made StoryAtlas so special.

In the future, if this modest launch on Patreon goes well, I’ll consider adding a higher membership tier for which actors can receive coaching on their monologues – essentially an online class. But the last thing I want is to burn out again, so I’ll have to take it step by step, one day at a time.

Whether these offerings interest you or not, I want to thank you for being part of the StoryAtlas community and look forward to all the great work that I know you can accomplish.

Much love,

Hunter

—

Hunter Lee Hughes is an award-winning actor-filmmaker living and working in Los Angeles. His first venture into content creation was the acclaimed multi-media one-man show Fate of the Monarchs. He went on to write the play The Sermons of John Bradley, the dark comedy short film Winner Takes All, the comedy web television series Dumbass Filmmakers!, the feature film Guys Reading Poems and the original play Nathaniel Quinn, Filmmaker. He also spent five years as the writer’s assistant to legendary screenwriter Mardik Martin and eight years as a story analyst for Paramount Classics/Vantage. He’s currently preparing his second feature film for a shoot in June 2024.

I love the story of how Leonardo DiCaprio wanted to play his Titantic character Jack Dawson with a limp (James Cameron…and the studio…eventually told him, “No.”). But his instinct to impose a “limp” on the character is partially what makes DiCaprio so brilliant as an actor. On some level – conscious or unconscious – I believe DiCaprio wanted the character to be more than the typical romantic leading man that his good looks, charisma, youth and fame guaranteed. DiCaprio wanted to move beyond those inherent weapons to bring additional depth to his performance by adding a physical challenge. And even though he ultimately agreed not to play the character that way, I’m sure the idea of that “limp” was integrated into the complexity of the Jack Dawson psyche so that, indeed, when we watched DiCaprio in the film, we felt like we were watching a fully human character, not a matinee idol indulging in his prime.

It sounds simple (and it is). If you possess a big weapon as an actor, there’s a good chance Hollywood will know how to use you. The industry of Hollywood values actors for their strengths. If you can toss off sass as a lovable sidekick, agents and casting directors will notice that and plug you in where needed. If you’re incredibly good-looking and sexy with an ability to flirt, a manager will know exactly how to submit you. If your look is more dangerous and you’ve developed an authentic, grounded quality to your acting, you’ll have gravitas that leads to yet another set of jobs and opportunities.

So it makes sense that when actors begin to suss out their strengths, they get to work….to take their strengths into hyperdrive. I see it all the time. A super sexy guy that knows how to flirt will invest the time to take his six-pack to a twelve-pack. A funny, quirky comedienne will sign up for more improv classes and an actor who already possess gravitas and a grounded sense of truth enrolls in a scene study class where that type of work is highly valued. This makes total sense. After all, if you’re a sexy guy, you are competing (at least largely) on that basis (especially with jobs generating from a studio), so you want to be the sexiest guy in the audition room. Same with funny. Same with gravitas. And on and on.

The business doesn’t really need you to stretch so much. They get variety from the orchestration of all the characters, not from within an individual actor (for the most part). They need you for your weapon. After all, if you’re nice-looking but not smoking hot, pretty funny, and have a slightly above average amount of gravitas, you may actually be very well-rounded as an actor…and a human being. But what is the edge or weapon that will get a studio exec excited to hire you?

And yet…

DiCaprio wanted to add a limp.

I believe DiCaprio’s instinct there is emblematic of something that separates a fulfilled actor from one merely fulfilling the requirements expected of him. For to truly grow in the craft, I think it’s important to unearth and examine weaknesses – both in the character, in our craft and in ourselves – as well as relying on our strengths.

That begs the question: what sorts of weaknesses can actors possess, even actors who are accomplishing a lot?

Here are just a few I’ve witnessed over the years of being an actor, as well as training and directing them.

1. A grounded actor with a highly developed “sense of truth” is afraid to take risks out of this comfort zone of “the truth.”
2. Actors adept at being chameleons take on mannerisms and speech patterns of characters extremely well but fail to reveal the humanity underneath those traits.
3. Actors who are great in other genres lose their bearing in a comedy. Their good habits somehow go out the window and they start trying to be funny. Or they attempt to ignore altogether that it’s a comedy and seem out of place in the genre.
4. Actors who consciously bring themselves to a role and seem to have a great skill with personalization are flummoxed when asked to play a real-life character that forces them into speech patterns or movement patterns completely different than their own.
5. Actors with immense power and range on stage are intimidated by the technical skills required of film actors. Even if they make adjustments to hit their marks and cultivate a more still presence for camera and resist “playing to the back of the house” while on set, the intensity of their stage work is gone and now they’re flat.
6. Actors whose strength is their body failing to apply their imagination to bring a complex character to life.
7. Actors whose strength is their intelligence/imagination failing to ground themselves in their bodies for a role that requires some more primal expression.

And the list goes on and on.

Even if an actor can identify their weakness, what is the point of focusing on that, rather than continuing to build on the strengths they already possess? After all, I truly believe it’s your strengths – rather than not having a big weakness – that gets your hired.

For the answer, I have to go to my intuition, rather than logic. But I believe that actors that face their weaknesses head-on are actually tackling repressed fears that – once addressed – can free up their work and even enhance their original strengths. Facing a weakness as a performer – even if it’s technical skills – requires an actor to be uncomfortable. That discomfort plunges you further into the churning vulnerability of being human, rather than into the potential ego rush from being awesome at something. As an actor, discomfort is the unwritten part of the job description, even if audiences and studio execs think all they’re seeing is “awesome.” That discomfort can eventually yield results even when you return to the strike-zone. After all, if a sexy guy has a moment of incredible vulnerability that feels personal in an otherwise string of solid charm attacks, we like him more. Focusing on developing that weakness of vulnerability may bring only one deepened moment, but in a game of inches, that may be what separates great from, “There’s just something about that guy that I love.”

This topic is not something we consciously discuss much because it’s awkward to talk about the weaknesses and shortcomings of luminaries in the field, whose brilliance is apparent even when they are mainly trafficking in their strike-zone. And candor about the soft spots in our acting games and those of our colleagues can be even more perilous. Dostoyevsky wrote in Crime and Punishment, “There is nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery.”

It’s easy to note your own strength…and the strengths of those around you. Harder to identify and rectify weaknesses. And it’s not even really possible to completely rectify a weakness. After all, your skills exist on a sort of spectrum. I realize the self-help movement is immensely focused on positivity right now. But, in reality, no matter how good you are, there will always be something about your craft as an actor that is less good or more difficult for you. There will never be a day when you have only strengths and no weaknesses. That makes it harder still to face them…and work on them.

And yet…just the act of facing and addressing a weakness is more than worthwhile. It’s like the decision to stand up to a bully. Even just making up your mind to go up against something bigger than you feels empowering. And once you begin, real progress can be made rather quickly. Think of it this way. If something is a weakness, it’s possible to make more strides forward…and at a faster pace. With your strengths, you’re already there. You’re working at the margins. But if you’ve ignored comedy work for a decade, relying on other strengths, you may fairly quickly acquire some basics once you dedicate the time and energy to it, for example. You might surprise yourself and realize it was your fear of comedy that was pre-dominant, not a lack of skill or talent. That’s the other thing about facing weaknesses – it provides room for discovery. And making discoveries, even if you are making them on the job in front of the crew, can be more powerful for the audience than an actor strutting around in his or her wheelhouse.

There’s a reason why Charlize Theron was so rewarded for her performance in Monster, that required her to sacrifice her beauty. Or why Robin Williams was acknowledged with the Academy Award not for a comedy, but for Good Will Hunting. Don’t get me wrong – audiences love to see Robin Williams in his breakneck humor and no one is going to be able to look away when Charlize Theron accepts a role that makes use of the striking way that she looks. Clearly, the teenagers of his day appreciated Leonardo DiCaprio in full heartthrob mode for Titanic. But it’s removing the beauty, digging into the pain underneath the rapid-fire wit and the instinct for a limp in an otherwise standard romantic hero that makes these performers transcend from the zone of “you nailed it” to, “I never knew you had that in you.”

Because – like actors – every character now being drawn up by a writer – holds something that we never knew they possessed. If only the actors who play them dare to search for it…

So consider requesting a comedic scene if your strike-zone is drama. Or convince a film student to go shoot the scene from the award-winning play you did and make the necessary adjustments for it to work on camera. If you’re one of those actors who religiously guards your sense of truth but may be overly cautious, as an exercise, do a run-through that’s an experiment with overacting – shout, fake cry, speak rapid-fire in an imposed way – and then let it go and return to your work.

By diving into the discomfort outside your strike-zone, you might just discover a hidden strength in you…or your character.

—

Hunter Lee Hughes, founder of Fatelink and StoryAtlas, is an actor-director whose award-winning directorial feature Guys Reading Poems will be released across platforms in January, 2018.

By Hunter Lee Hughes

Every now and then, a young actor will ask me, “If I invest time and resources into creating my own projects, will I enhance my acting career…or sacrifice it?”

After some hard-earned life lessons, my advice to actors looking to advance their own careers by making their own creative content is this: don’t do it.

My advice to actors looking to create content because something primal within you is demanding you pursue a story: do it.

To illuminate the difference, I’d like to offer into evidence the course my own creative life as it expanded from actor to hyphenate.

As a young actor living in a small studio apartment in Koreatown that I rented for $550-a-month (including utilities), I’d booked a number of student/indie films, then a pivotal role in a pilot presentation for the guys who previously produced Unsolved Mysteries and had a string of successful plays, including my favorite role up til then – the role of Jimmy in the 25th anniversary production of A PRAYER FOR MY DAUGHTER by Thomas Babe, directed by Emmy award-winner Dorothy Lyman. In those days, major reviewers actually attended theatre in Los Angeles and I’d gotten some great notices, which lead to being signed by agents and managers and new rooms, new opportunities. I was training in the Ivana Chubbuck studio, where I’d eventually make my way into her master class. I was determined to make it as an openly gay actor from the outset, which presented significant challenges in that era, but still, my future as an actor looked very bright indeed.

I also had a habit of falling in and out of love – mostly in – and not always with the Good Housekeeping steady candidate for romantic partnership.

To my surprise, one particularly difficult break-up upended my ability to function properly. My youthful joie de vivre dissipated and I became something approaching a shut-in. At the time, I was doing script coverage for Paramount Classics as a day job, along with occasional cater waiter gigs, which I’d recently started to turn down. After struggling to get out of bed one afternoon, I realized I had overdue books. I grabbed them and wandered into my local library. I planned to drop the books and go, but an image caught my attention. The magnified wing of a monarch butterfly on the front cover of “Four Wings and a Prayer” by Sue Halpern made an immediate impression. I checked out the book and learned that monarch butterflies – with a wingspan of three inches – migrate thousands of miles, sometimes traveling as much as 40 miles per day. The paradox of this extremely fragile yet fortuitous creature was, for me, the spiritual parable I needed to renew my life’s purpose. I began to understand my own experience as a migrant, from Houston to Los Angeles. Their journey became an allegory for coming into one’s own, against great odds and for a purpose you may not understand, but pursue nonetheless. Suddenly, I was moving around town again, to coffee shops to write, then to meetings with potential directors, then to appointments with artistic directors of theaters. Then, rehearsals. To condense a two-year process into a sentence, the result was Fate of the Monarchs, a multi-media one-man show and my first venture into writing, producing and performing original material.

So, I started my career as a content creator not out of any sort of savvy career planning, but out of a need to keep getting out of bed.

That experience was followed by the writing of another play. After that came a darkly comic short film, a comedy internet television series and, finally, a feature film. I don’t have enough space here to go into details, but I can assure you that my reasons for pursuing each of these projects all sparked with some moment of crisis or inspiration, mirroring the inception of Fate of the Monarchs.

And yet some point, I noticed that – outside my own material – I was spending significantly less time acting, rather than more.

I sometimes wondered if I was sabotaging my acting career by allocating so much time to these productions. But I always resisted that conclusion by reminding myself that this was eventually a road to more roles, more opportunities and bigger platforms. After all, I was writing interesting, three-dimensional characters and delivering in the performance. I wasn’t sacrificing anything. I was just experiencing delayed gratification.

Or maybe it was a time management problem, I’d sometimes beat myself up. I always seemed to underestimate timelines. The first short film I wrote and produced, I expected to take maybe 9-12 months. It took two years. I thought the comedy internet series would take maybe a year. It also took two years. Seeing that pattern, I adjusted my thinking when it came to directing my first feature film. This time, I was resigned to the fact that the process would take two years. It took five.

If I’m honest with myself, auditioning during this period became more difficult because of my split focus, not just because I was expending time and energy in new arenas, but also because those new pursuits were incredibly challenging. On the writing front, I had serious support in the business, having served as a story analyst for so long and then landing a gig as the writing assistant to Mardik Martin, who basically paid me $20/hour to absorb the craft of screenwriting. I felt like a natural developing and refining material. And those screenwriting skills served me well as I began developing as a director. But then…there’s producing.

If there’s one aspect of content creation that almost all actors underestimate…it’s how much time, effort and skill it requires to produce material. In this act of willful naiveté, I was no different. And I wasn’t some wallflower with dreams of roses that thought producing was easy. I knew it would be hard. But to quote Debra Winger from Terms of Endearment, “As hard as you think it is, you end up wishing it was that easy.”

To make something exist that’s currently only an idea on paper…and see that real human beings build the sets, light it, shoot it…is really hard. It is really, really hard. I can’t stress this enough – it’s so difficult. And all your efforts to make all that happen inevitably cost you stress. I don’t care how much you meditate and do yoga, if you’re producing a movie, especially for the first time, you’re going to be super stressed out. And as a producer…I was jumping into the indie film deep end of the ocean…with a storm brewing.

Producing required me to develop new skills – sometimes very boring skills – that felt like the antithesis to my previous life as a young actor. I had to deal with SAG-AFTRA contracts and negotiate pay rates with collaborators. I had to learn legal language. I couldn’t always afford someone to read the contracts for me. I had to pay the bills. Balance the books. I had to learn more details about the equipment and the perspectives of the entire crew. As a young actor, I’d focused on just a few individuals: the casting director, the director, my fellow actors and the producers. More days on set as a director-producer brought inevitable interpersonal conflicts, too. And that required me to develop a more diplomatic approach to solve problems and make the team happy. Life as a young actor never felt diplomatic. It was more expressive, experiential. As a producer, I had to worry about people’s safety. And make sure we hired stunt people and took precautions. I had too woo investors. Learn how to design a pitchdeck and how the waterfall of proceeds works with independent films. I had to learn about codecs and digital editing and back-ups. And how much they cost. I felt so much cooler as a young actor. As an actor-producer, to get my content off the ground, I had to crowdfund and promote and persuade. I had to share on my Facebook feed. A LOT. As a young actor, I didn’t even believe in social media and did not participate. As a young actor, in a professional context, I was just focused on developing a character, then persuading you to hire me or persuading you to see the character the way I did. As a producer, I had to find a way to persuade just about everybody to do just about everything for our projects since funds were never free-flowing.

Jumping from that producer mindset back to the mindset of an actor is incredibly difficult, at least for me. I still booked a gig here and there, but much less frequently.

Now that my feature is wrapping up and I’m re-entering in full force the acting game, I can’t help but wonder…would I have been further along if I’d never bothered to create content at all? If I spent all that time and energy over a decade only on training, working out, auditioning and acting jobs?

The truthful answer is: I believe I would have booked more roles on a conventional actor’s path had I not transitioned to creating content.

At first, that’s a hard pill to swallow. Because it forces me to confront the reality that the projects I’ve built haven’t necessarily led to an avalanche of new acting opportunities. In fact, it required a sacrifice of some jobs and some opportunities and, very likely, significant jobs and significant opportunities. I had choices to make. And I made them.

But maybe, I made a mistake.

This afternoon, I found some old stills and headshots and wondered, “Did I do right by this guy? Would he be happy with my progress? Or pissed off?”

But that’s when I remember…that I didn’t pursue the projects I did just to benefit my career. In the back of my mind – and at times the forefront of my mind – I certainly hoped they would. But, deeper than that, I pursued them because I needed to get out of bed. And each of them emerged from an intense desire to explore and make sense out of something that was previously unsettled in my mind or heart. Synchronicity and perhaps, fate, played a role, with subtle clues arising to meet moments on the brink. Repeated cycles of breaking up, not only with lovers, but with ideas and expectations, continued to provide urgency to explore human behavior in creative projects. Now, for better or worse, those projects stand as the real body of my work as a creative professional. In many ways, that work has not (yet) brought me to the level of professional achievement for which I aspire. But they got me out of bed. And a side benefit – they got me to not only see the burdens of others, but to bear responsibility and duty to other artists….and the audiences we serve.

So, as for my own journey as a content creator, I stand by it. But I don’t advise it, at least not for actors simply seeking career advancement.

I only advise it for human beings, seeking to understand themselves and the fragile yet fortuitous creatures that surround them.

—

Hunter Lee Hughes is an award-winning actor-filmmaker living and working in Los Angeles. His first venture into content creation was the acclaimed multi-media one-man show Fate of the Monarchs. He went on to write the play The Sermons of John Bradley, the dark comedy short film Winner Takes All, the comedy web television series Dumbass Filmmakers! and, most recently, the feature film Guys Reading Poems. He also spent five years as the writer’s assistant to legendary screenwriter Mardik Martin and eight years as a story analyst for Paramount Classics/Vantage.

By Hunter Lee Hughes

The stylized world of mystery/mindbender films raises a question for actors – what adjustments to their process (if any) should actors make to accommodate the genre in which they’re working?

In shooting my debut feature film “Guys Reading Poems” – a stylized mindbender shot in black-and-white – I was a bit concerned about one of the performances, based on what I’d seen in rehearsals. But when we got to set, the actor delivered beyond my wildest expectations. I leaned over to our cinematographer, Michael Marius Pessah, and asked for his theory on what changed between the rehearsal and the set. In all seriousness, without skipping a beat, he calmly said, “It’s the lighting.”

Michael’s response still brings a smile to my face years later, but it raises interesting issues related to film performance. The aesthetic of suspense/mindbender films plays an oversize role in guiding the audience through a specific experience of the world, one which is both terrifying and erotic. And while it may be the cinematographer’s job to help create that aesthetic, along with production design, costume design, hair/make-up department and so forth, what about the actors? Certainly, the actors must delve into the interior landscape of their characters, discover their needs and develop their relationships with other characters, but are they also somehow obligated to the aesthetic and tone of the film being created?

Still from “Guys Reading Poems”

Our team’s design and aesthetic choices did provide imaginative clues (forgive the pun) to the actors. In a sense, Michael is exactly right. The high contrast lighting invokes a world where dark choices feel in tune with your surroundings. So, all of a sudden, the actor is perhaps more comfortable pursuing those choices in the scene. Shpetim Zero’s haute couture gowns grant a tremendous power to the actress wearing them and her ability to use seductive prowess to get what she wants. A delicate finger puppet designed by Nathaly Lopez invokes an empathetic response from a trapped seven-year old. And so on.

But underneath all that, the actor still makes choices about his backstory, his needs and how he goes about fulfilling them (or makes choices about not making choices and simply existing in the present moment, etc). So the question remains…is the actor’s process impacted or influenced by the genre in which he works?

There’s a real danger for actors in stepping outside their characters to observe the world in which the film takes place. After all, if observations of the tone of the piece cause actors to become self-conscious, the performance suffers. We all know how painful it is to watch an actor’s hackneyed idea of a detective. We’re internally rolling our eyes within a few scenes. And yet….some actors seem better than others – perhaps unconsciously – at understanding the new rules to the strange universe being concocted by the director and her team. Some actors score roles in these constructs repeatedly and their success may be traced to a gut-level knowledge – or perhaps conscious observation – of how the genre functions. Think of how Veronica Lake and Humphrey Bogart allowed themselves to become not just performers but iconic representations of the archetypal characters they embodied in noir films. But was their preparation the same as if they were auditioning for a warm family drama or slapstick comedy? Or did they prepare differently? Was it just good casting? Some studio exec figuring out that Veronica Lake just seemed to work in noir films? Or did Ms. Lake understand how to make the tone, design and shot selection of noir films enhance her performance?

This is a question I hope to continue to explore as a director and actor for many years to come. But based on my observations on shooting this film and working with actors for many years, I believe there’s a two-stage process when working within a specific genre like this one. In a very general way, I believe actors must start out by developing a role in a mystery/suspense film in exactly as they would for a comedy film. Identify the driving needs of the characters, develop a backstory, make personalization choices, etc. But once an actor is deeply involved in that process, I recommend making adjustments and “new rules” to account for the genre.

For example, in a stylized mindbender film, to be elegantly shot in black-and-white, you might add the rule, “No one moves haphazardly in this world.” Now, on the surface, that seems like a pretty strange rule, a limitation. But, after all, characters have other limitations, too. No one is using curse words in “The Sound of Music” even if an actor playing a Nazi in that film really feels it’s right for the moment. And if you’re cast in a super-WASPY family like the one in “Ordinary People,” those characters are going to have limitations in how they behave, due to their conditioning, etc. So working with limitations and rules is something that an actor can accept, if explained properly. Neo-noir films, in my opinion, make careful use of how the characters are blocked. There’s a sense that moves have been planned and executed, then neutralized by another character, who pre-planned a response. So deliberate movement and the actor’s control over his/her own body enhances the effectiveness of the characters in these sorts of films. Maybe it’s interesting to see spastic movement in a broad comedy. But in a noir film, it feels out of place (except when it’s the exception that makes the rule, etc). Actors can even create a backstory that justifies the rule. Perhaps, the character was playing around with friends as a kid and the horseplay got a bit chaotic. All of a sudden, the character’s father stepped in. Slapped the child. And said, “This is a dangerous world. We move through it carefully. Stop that horseplay.” This gives the actor an ability to have a sense of truth in applying the rule rather than simply feeling that an overbearing director told him what he wasn’t allowed to do.

Also, an adjustment to the tactics of the character should be influenced by the genre. A quintessential cliche may suffice as an example here. In a romantic comedy, a great tactic may be for the character to charm her love interest. In a neo-noir film, perhaps she would adjust that tactic slightly and choose to seduce her love interest, instead. The need underneath might remain the same but if the world being created is one that rewards seduction rather than charm, it makes sense that the character might choose accordingly. Altering some of the tactics might be an organic way to ensure an actor’s performance matches the world in which they reside. After all, in life, different environments require different tactics. An abusive, dysfunctional home may require a child to be sneaky to survive, whereas that same tactic would be counterproductive in a healthy, emotionally-aware family. So again, when presented in this way, actors can accept adjustments they need to make once it’s coded into language that has less to do with genre and more to do with the environment they encounter.

The final piece of the puzzle (again, sorry for the pun – I can’t help myself) is trust. Films in this mindbender territory often deal with betrayal and danger and characters incapable of trusting one another, but paradoxically trust between actor and director is the one quality needed to make a really good film in this category. Here’s the rub. A lot of great actors have an incredible sense of truth in how they build their characters. On set or in rehearsals, they speak out at the right moments as guardians of their character, “Hunter, I don’t think he would ever do it this way” or, “Hunter, she’s still so focused on what just happened, why would I change focus so quickly?” And most times, actors are 100% correct to bring up these concerns so that the truth of the character can be reconciled with the action in the scene. But sometimes, with stylized films, a director might need an actor to “take one for the aesthetic” of the film. Let’s not forget that the shot itself is often revealing the character’s psychology as much as the performance in these types of films. So when the director says, “That was great. I just need you to lean your head this way before you say the line” or “let’s find a way for you to enter with just four steps instead of six,” trust is paramount. It may feel slightly uncomfortable or even offend the actor’s sense of truth. But the shot may be so f’ing cool that it ends up doing the work on behalf of the actor, when the performer’s temporarily challenged sense of truth finds a way to make it work.

In conclusion, I believe genre matters and an understanding of how to personalize the rules of the genre to empower the actors – in addition to a mastery of the character’s psychology – enhances the work. That’s why I’m excited to continue working in this genre with the next film…and the one after that. (But for my fourth feature, I’m already planning a tennis comedy. After all, every once in awhile, you need a break).

—

Hunter Lee Hughes, founder of Fatelink and StoryAtlas, is a Los Angeles-based actor-director whose award-winning feature film directorial debut Guys Reading Poems was recently called “essential viewing” by The Los Angeles Blade. The film debuted at the Palm Beach International Film Festival and went on to screen at eight international film festivals, winning three awards before a week-long theatrical run in Los Angeles. The film will be coming out across platforms in January, 2018.

Our fourth StoryAtlas cycle of the year, running from May to June, started with a four-week investigation of the tactics actors can use effectively to fulfill their characters’ objective. Our process culminated in an Open House performance of the scenes our actors developed with special focus on savvy use of strategy.

We honor two actors every cycle. One is chosen based on the quality of the final performance (EXCELLENCE IN PERFORMANCE AWARD). The other is based on our observation of the actor’s growth and insight into the topic over the entire four-week class (BREAKTHROUGH AWARD).

This month, our “Excellence in Performance Award” went to Cameron McCormick, for her role as Sara opposite Sarah Connine in “The Accused,” a screenplay written by Tom Topor. The emotional depth and fighting spirit in Ms. McCormick’s performance greatly moved our audience.

Our “Breakthrough Award” went to David Stark for his role as Warren Schmidt in “About Schmidt,” a screenplay by Alexander Payne opposite Hazel Paraoan. David’s flash of anger in the scene startled our audience (in a good way).

StoryAtlas Honorees for June, 2017:

Excellence in Performance Award: Cameron McCormick for her role as “Sara” in “The Accused.”

Breakthrough Award: David Stark for his role as “Warren” in “About Schmidt.”

To read about our next StoryAtlas cycle, please click here.

By Hunter Lee Hughes

It’s no accident that notable filmmakers and painters, writers and even musicians have all drawn on their dreams to inspire their work. At a dinner party here in L.A., I met an acclaimed author who sets her alarm for 3 a.m. each morning so that she’s still half-asleep and esconsenced in dreams while she’s writing. Paul McCartney famously heard the title lyric of “Let it Be” coming from a mother figure in his dream. Salvador Dali called his work “hand-painted dream photographs” and acclaimed master film director Akira Kurosawa achieved a career pinnacle with “Dreams,” adaptations of his own nighttime excursions into fantasy.

So that begs the question….are dreams useful to the actor’s creative process as well? To answer this question, let’s delve a bit more into the actor’s challenges in building a role.

One dilemma that’s always haunted me as an actor and someone who directs actors – how do we channel the most primal, compelling material of our unconscious into a role whose demands (the lines you must say, the marks you must hit, the character’s arc charted by the writer) must by definition be processed through the conscious mind? It’s a bit of a paradox.

For many actors, the pipeline to this reservoir of energy and rich inner life has been…memory. Actors identify a compelling recollection from their life that lines up with the character’s experience in that moment. If the character describes a treasured lover from the past, the actor will – as part of his preparation – identify a treasured lover from his past to make sure that he can understand what the character is feeling and expressing. In this way, the actor deepens the dialogue. Now, instead of simply saying something about a past lover, the actor actually is experiencing mental images of a past love, that trigger authentic emotions, which the other actor…and the audience…can observe.

An actor may make his way through the entire scene in this way, filling in details from his own life to match up with the specifics his character faces. If the character experiences a traumatic loss, the actor will also conjure up a memory of a traumatic loss as a reference point. If the actor receives a thoughtful and meaningful Christmas present, the actor might stir a moment from her past when she received an incredible gift. And so on.

To be sure, actors will make other choices to build the performance as well. What is my character’s objective or need? What are the beats of a scene and how do my tactics change from one beat to the next? Some actors may work on physical traits of the character – how does my character walk, talk, move?

By confronting and answer these questions, the actor begins to understand her role and how she might be able to relate those to her own experiences as a human being. And, through this process, the contents of the actor’s unconscious may work themselves into the scene, because the need of the character is so primal that that actor’s primal emotions get engaged. Or a chosen memory may spark contact with an experience hidden from the actor that taps into an unconscious reservoir. But notably, all the choices are made and decided by the actor’s conscious mind. So even as the actor may hope and desire that the unconscious contents bring vitality and depth, those shadow elements have a narrow path in which to operate since the conscious mind is directing the performance and choosing which memories and objectives to embody.

This is where dreamwork comes in for the actor. According to the brilliant psychologist Carl Jung, dream figures represent unconscious aspects of ourselves. When you see yourself in a dream, the figure that is “you” is actually your ego, according to Jung. The other figures are the parts of you (or complexes within you) that you’ve not yet integrated, parts of the broader, unseen personality of which your conscious mind is not aware. If you dream of your mother, it’s most likely your own “mother complex.” If you dream of a shadowy monster, it’s likely your own psyche’s shadow or power drive. And what’s more, Jungian principles explain that these other elements within your dream are trying to communicate with the ego/conscious mind through the dream to achieve a more integrated personality. So if you see a shadowy figure in your dream, it may be that the shadow part of your personality is emerging and active in your life in some way the ego/conscious mind has not yet recognized. The dream is a counterbalance so that the ego can begin to understand the unconscious forces at work. But dream figures don’t always communicate with you directly – they use symbols and the associations around those symbols as a sort of code.

By writing down our dreams, decoding them, then contacting our dream figures through a process of active imagination, we can become aware of the sides of our personality that our own ego/conscious mind represses. This process is well-documented for those seeking personal growth through Jungian analysis.

I also found out – almost by luck – that dream figures can transform an actor from solid to spectacular, from interesting to riveting.

At my StoryAtlas studio, experimentation and innovation are our key principles for developing work. To reflect that, we switch topics every five weeks to force ourselves into looking at the craft of acting from a different point of view. Inspired by my friend and artistic mentor Deni Ponty, a painter who started a dream symbolism course for his students at Arts Center in Pasadena, I started looked at dreaming as a possible lens for actors to view their creative process.

In our January cycle, I used Jungian dream analysis followed by some of the active imagination techniques advocated by Robert A. Johnson and attempted to apply them to actors. The results blew me away. I interviewed the dream figures of an actor’s dream, sometimes asking these “characters” to take over the actor’s performance. Many of the female actors in class invoked powerful male figures from their dreams, lending a new power and sexuality to their work almost immediately. For the men, it was sometimes the opposite – a female figure from the dream would emerge, then provide a depth of emotion I’d never witnessed from the actor. But sometimes the male actors, too, allowed shadowy figures from their dreams to play the scene and, all at once, a new energy and power was unleashed. I saw risk averse actors whose work was always grounded in truthful realism suddenly allow themselves to take risks physically and effortlessly channel an entirely new way or walking or talking that still seemed authentic…because it was. These actors weren’t mimicking characters outside of themselves. They were channeling repressed characters within their own psyche that had opinions and desires, who treasured the chance to take over the actor’s performance because they desperately needed and wanted to express something. The scene then became a dance choreographed by the unconscious mind through which the conscious mind made realizations about its previously unseen inner drives/complexes. The active participation of the unconscious mind made the work riveting rather than merely good.

Of course, dreaming isn’t the only way actors delve into their unconscious and then spin that energy back into their work. I believe it’s no accident that actors are so prone to alcohol and drug abuse, promiscuity, diva-dom, nasty ego trips based in a drive for power etc. and other high risk behaviors, because in a way, the powerful forces being unleashed by these mechanisms are rooted in the unconscious, something actors feel obligated and compelled to make use of in their creative work. More so than other professions, we need all that primal energy of the unconscious….and if we’re going to dive in, why not get lost in the murk down there and have some fun? The alternative is to remain firmly ensconced in the conscious mind/ego. But who wants to see work that feels entirely under the conscious control of a pre-planned or regimented actor? So – to inhabit a role fully – some actors hand over the “keys of the kingdom” of the psyche to unconscious forces/drives. Are those the choices? Stay in control and cut yourself off from powerful unconscious drives OR submerge our consciousness into the unconscious and allow these primal wounds/desires/appetites to completely take over our creative lives (and, perhaps, subsequently, our personal lives, too) and hope for the best?

Again, the dreamwork is a mediation of the two, a way for actors to experience their unconscious drives and hidden aspects of their personality in a cauldron of experimentation without completely submerging into the abyss of the psyche or handing over the “keys of the kingdom” to an unconscious power drive or complex.

What I thought of as a monthlong experiment now appears to be a possible template for how the work of actors can be expanded further into the unconscious in a way that is imaginative and constructive. It’s something our studio will continue to explore as a cornerstone of empowering content creators to produce innovative work.

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StoryAtlas will once again explore dreamwork in an upcoming virtual class in 2020. For details, click here.

Hunter Lee Hughes, founder of Fatelink and StoryAtlas, is a Los Angeles-based actor-director whose award-winning feature film directorial debut Guys Reading Poems was recently called “essential viewing” by The Los Angeles Blade.  

Our third StoryAtlas cycle of the year, running from April to May, started with a four-week investigation of the shadow side of our psyche, culminating in an Open House performance of the scenes our actors developed with special focus on bringing qualities of the shadow to the surface.

We honor two actors every cycle. One is chosen based on the quality of the final performance (EXCELLENCE IN PERFORMANCE AWARD). The other is based on our observation of the actor’s growth and insight into the topic over the entire four-week class (BREAKTHROUGH AWARD).

This month, our “Excellence in Performance Award” went to Yuki Sagara, for her role as Ines in Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit.”

Our “Breakthrough Award” went to Ryan Hensley for his darkly comic performance as Tom in “Fat Pig” by Neil LaBute opposite Chris Crema. This was Ryan’s first acting role in our studio…or any studio…and he greatly impressed us with his natural ability and dedication to the process.

StoryAtlas Honorees for May, 2017:

Excellence in Performance Award: Yuki Sagara for her role as “Ines” in Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit.”

Breakthrough Award: Ryan Hensley for his role as “Tom” in Neil LaBute’s “Fat Pig.”

To read about our next StoryAtlas cycle, please click here.

Major change is coming to StoryAtlas!

I’ll explain the process that lies ahead for the studio, but first, I want to look back at our remarkable evolution, to put this new phase in perspective.

When I founded StoryAtlas in 2013, our first instructive offering was a men’s only class called “Actors as Emotional Athletes” that included a small but incredible group of artists, including Alexander Dreymon, Jerod Meagher, Vincent Montuel and Jason Fracaro. At that point in my career, I felt more suited to helping men – most not much younger than I was at the time – with some of their specific and unique challenges to developing characters. That class wound down in 2014 with a beautiful scene between Bob Dallmeyer, a sprightly man in his mid-70s, and Jason, a hard-working, generous-of-spirit young man who ended up becoming my producing partner. The two of them performed a scene from “The Shawshank Redemption.” In the scene, Bob’s character expressed that he may not have it in him to reach the fabled Zihautanejo. Simply put, it was great work. After class, I took Bob out to dinner at Bossa Nova on Sunset. He gave me advice about both career and romance, in an inversion of our roles as teacher and pupil. He told me that I should find a way to become a father, that I would be a good one. Less than six months later, Bob died. But the remnants of the work of those two men remains a symbolic highlight of the purpose of that first incarnation of StoryAtlas: to fortify and inspire men to be vulnerable and real with one another with the pretext that the vulnerability was all about the craft of acting. It was and it wasn’t.

Flyer for our original men’s acting class

The second incarnation of StoryAtlas has been our own two-year journey at Studio A on Hyperion Avenue. When I re-started teaching after wrapping up the shoot for “Guys Reading Poems,” I knew that I wanted to teach both men and women this time. Two fundamental principles were important to me in this second go-round. I wanted to create an environment that fostered a welcoming, community of artists and I wanted to teach acting free of the confines of one particular method. I wanted to use the class as an experiment for how to approach the craft of acting, even if that meant I risked looking foolish or had an exercise fall flat. I’ve seen a room full of StoryAtlas actors swim in tanks with sharks during our “Creating Realistic Fear” cycle and a dance-studio full of you pretending to be one of four types of drunk. I’ve seenCamille channeling her brassy mother and Shereen suddenly and remarkably take on the mannerisms of a boorish but somewhat charming New Orleans bar owner. Perhaps most of all – at least today – I still remember Yuki cradling a make believe baby as an exercise for our “Death and Dying” cycle. I’ve noticed that you’ve become Facebook friends with each other, thrown joint birthday parties and truly supported one another. And that means the world to me. You see, I’ve seen L.A. and its uncaring power structure tear some people down. In some ways, I’ve even been part of the tearing myself. But with our group, we built something up and supported one another, regardless of status within the industry…and I’m so proud of that…and grateful to all of you for being part of the current incarnation of StoryAtlas.

Our current incarnation of StoryAtlas – next month’s flyer for “Dark Side Rising”

And yet, despite it all, I’ve come to realize that StoryAtlas must continue to evolve, that there’s another phase demanding an incarnation.

A new ruthlessness is emerging within me that desires – with my remaining time, to the best of my ability – to make a lasting contribution to both cinema and the craft of acting. Also, I am no longer satisfied for actors in my studio to make progress. I want to see career-changing breakthroughs as a regular course of events, such as the breakthrough we saw with Mauricio just last night. I feel that the work we stumbled upon in January’s “dream” cycle is the best possibility I’ve seen so far of being able to make a significant contribution to the craft I care about so much and to spurring individual players in the studio to new career milestones. For those who didn’t take the class, we experimented with analyzing our dreams and bringing figures of the dream out through active imagination and then rolling them into character development and scene work. It was compelling, exciting, even revelatory work, but advanced. To truly benefit from this type of work, actors need a grounding in the fundamentals of overall objective, scene objective, beat work and script analysis. Support and an empathetic environment are important, but to fully develop and execute this emerging technique will require a group of actors that are committed, ambitious and very, very well-versed in the fundamentals of the craft.

So, to accomplish my new goals for the studio, our flagship class on Sunday night will be transitioning to a Master Class by invitation only, with a new Intermediate level class to be established in six weeks time.  Our upcoming cycle – Dark Side Rising – will remain open to all registrants and the change will not take effect until our late May/early June cycle. I will also continue teaching the on-camera class on Wednesday nights for the next six weeks and that drop-in class is open to all StoryAtlas actors. The fate of the on-camera class will be determined by its attendance over this six-week period. However, it is certain that – in six weeks time – we will establish an amazing Intermediate class that works to provide the fundamentals of great acting: beat work, objective, script analysis. It is unlikely that I will teach this class myself, but I will personally train a new StoryAtlas instructor to lead this new group. The Intermediate class will also go in five-week cycles and I will attend the final class of each cycle to provide feedback. The idea of the Intermediate class will be to empower actors with such a secure grounding in the fundamentals that you can then fully benefit from the newer, emerging techniques of Sunday night. And who knows? Maybe the more traditional approach of the Intermediate class will naturally appeal to some and that’s fine, too.

Change can be unsettling. But I’m a risk-taker by my nature and it feels like the right change.

If you have any questions about the new classes, please let me know. We will send out invitations for the flagship Sunday night master class no later than Monday, May 15th.

Sincerely,

Hunter Lee Hughes

Founder, StoryAtlas