I focus a lot on the action of undressing, intimate handling of the body, kissing and humping your co-star, but there's one thing that I left out: the moans.
Usually moans done outside the bedroom are done in a joking manner, at least in the Western world when taking a jab at a friend or foe when a possible love interest come to light. We can see this in tv and film when a bully makes fun of a virgin or a friend urging another friend to have sex because they're too wound up from stress. In real life this rarely happens, but it does happen from time to time - again, mostly around friends.
When it comes to acting, sex scenes have multiple stages during rehearsal and during filming. I will lay it out below, the sequence 1-3 in each stage is not binding since each can be transitive.
- kissing + hand placement, undressing
- undressing + hand placement + kissing
- nudity + hand placement + kissing
- "penetration"/humping + hand placement + moaning
- cover privates or lay naked
- director says cut + actor's dress + reset scene
- actors wait until lighting and scene is reset
- repeat scene until director is satisfied
When filming 1-8 it does take several hours, maybe even half the work day to get a sex scene completed. There's also a very high chance of several takes from different angles and different takes from the actors to see what works best under the lighting conditions and what works best for the camera. What 17 yr old actress who agrees to do nudity at 18 thought "Gee this is what I dreamed of! I'm doing what adult actors do! Who knew I'd be in this situation when I was 16!"
If partial nudity was agreed to (if the following example counts as partial nudity and if partial nudity is a thing) - say no breasts will be bare when filmed - since the actress' hair or bedding will cover her chest, this doesn't mean the actress is not topless because usually they are when such situations are put in place. During movement when filming a nipple or full chest nudity will most likely be accidently shown therefore a reset will have to be done. Hair covering her breasts always reveal "nipple(s) slip" when movement is done so actors may have to keep a mental note to take is slower in order for the hair to remain in place. Such bare nudity is not put into the final cut, but there's no doubt it was caught on film with the director and fellow actor experiencing all that nudity. Now it's the editor's job to take the best take where the hair does cover the breast just enough in order to honor the partial nudity clause (i.e. actress will be topless but hair will cover breasts). Devil is in the details. People who share my concerns concentrate on what's shown and what's not shown, or whether or not the nudity causes one to sin, while forgetting the process of it all. This is just looking at one side of the coin. It's an incomplete view. The other side of the coin is what's done - and what's accidentally shown in takes that aren't used - to get to that point on what the audience experiences. And usually, even if the actress' hair does cover her breasts there's going to be a nipple shown to some degree unless the director directs the actress to to put a vast majority of her hair over her chest.
What was described was an actual sex scene. The actress was 20 when the sex scene happened. It was clear that they tried to cover as much of her body as possible but, the internet being the internet, found out more was revealed than intended. Plus the sex scene clearly was a waste of time given it added very little to the characters involved and did not move the *plot forward (as we currently suspect).
When social experiments are done it's usually to make the subject uncomfortable and to see how they react to this feeling. If we told people in public that we'd give them $5 if they could moan out loud as they would having sex, but not in a joking manner, but in a genuine manner - with facials expressions and body movement too, they'd probably feel damn awkward.
How about this, instead of letting then do the social experiment standing up let them do it on a chair. The men would sit as they usually do when sitting on a chair, but pretend they have a woman on top of them riding, so hand placement, kissing and them thrusting. For women, they're facing the opposite direction so the front of their body is to the backrest. The women hold onto the backrest as if using that as leverage as they grind or move up and done simulating penetration.
Add in the moans.
A bizarre situation, right? Maybe not. Flash some big money, a promise that you'd be cast in bigger role and you get actors doing that as if it's drinking with their best friend.
Even if you do that social experiment in the privacy of your own bedroom it's still awkward.
When actors are required to cry usually they go into a state where they recall a sad memory or really get into the situation their character is in and empathize with them, hence making crying easier. Actors really get into fight scenes and dramatic, tense scenes too. But, for the most part, they don't apply the same enthusiasm towards sex scenes or heavily intimate scene because sex and intimacy is a private matter. Actors usually just bite the bullet and get on with it. You don't have actors saying a fight scene or a tense dramatic scene where monologues are dished out as awkward. Rarely it happens. Why? Because those types of scenes are what actors really cherish. They want to be that action hero or be seen as that prestige thespian. But nudity and sex scenes? A majority of actors, when honest, would rather not do it. What actors don't confess is that even if they're fine with such scenes because "that's just what we do" or "nudity is normal" or "it's my character" they won't do it on command. If an audition required them to undress they'd probably do it but it'll look like it's an auction for a porn shoot. Ah, yes. You see how mainstream acting is just one stone throw away from resembling the porn industry? I told you so.
There's no "dang this is gonna be fun" like when physically preparing for a role that requires the actor to jump, run and fight. Okay, maybe actors dread this physical work but they aren't going to approach it the same way they do with nudity and sex scenes both mentally and emotionally. When sex scenes are done only the required people are on set - director, lighting, sound people, necessary design crew and actors. That's it. Sex scenes are "closed off" situations. Why? If these scenes are just like any other scenes they wouldn't be treated this way.
So the stages of a sex scene is more than getting over the nudity and doing the correct hand placement. The actor needs to vocally act too - where their moaning hopefully sounds halfway convincing where it matches their facial expressions. There's no doubt it's both amusing and sad at the same time. I mean, after that first rehearsal and first take ask the actress how she feels. Either she's dead inside because she realizes she just joined CelebrityMovieArchive, she wants this to end or she's laughing inside because it's so utterly ridiculous.
What counts as professionalism in these situations really is just trivializing the body, the act of sex and all that comes with it. It deadens the soul. It's not like a medical examination at all. Mainstream tv and film can't have its cake and eat it too because sooner o later the actors will come out, or, someone like me will point it out.
*Theories are saying the sex scene formed a basis for the female character to form a sexual relationship with the man in order for her to get pregnant and therefore remain in the man's family - a permanent, so to speak, blood tie given she is an outsider. This of course is an intriguing theory, but nothing in the past of the female's character proves she's even capable of thinking up such a contrived plan let alone have the ability to effectively execute it.
No comments :
Post a Comment