STAKES
When there are literally hundreds of clips to watch, stakes will easily help you stand out and keep your audience watching YOUR clip rather than moving onto the next.
WHAT ARE STAKES? Stakes are the importance of something within the scene to the person you’re playing. It is a NEED. A NEED is different to a WANT. A NEED is something integral to your life, something to continue to sustain you. A WANT is a desire that is NOT required to sustain you. It could be a relationship, an task/mission, an emotion or message that the other person needs to know or you need to hear; or a literal time limit.
WHY DO YOU NEED STAKES?
Stakes are important because they provide a drive for both the person and the situation they’re in. Without this drive, the scene will feel stale, boring and laggy as there’s no pace - no sense of importance - it becomes a nothing scene.
WHO HAS STAKES?
Every person within the scene will have stakes as they will always be driven by something. There’s reason why they’re there, having that conversation, at that time. The question is WHY?
HOW TO FIGURE OUT STAKES? There are a few questions you can ask yourself to figure out the stakes for the person you’re playing; 1. Why am I here? 2. Why am I having this conversation? 3. Why is this conversation happening right now? (As opposed to later or earlier.) 4. What’s important about the other person? 5. What do I have to lose if I don’t get what I NEED? This last question is the most important one because this is the result of you not achieving the sustenance for your life. If you don’t achieve your NEED, then what’s the point? That’s how high the stakes are when you ask that question. Don’t disregard the other questions, though - they are base questions which help hold strength for the final question and without them, the strength of the final question may be questionable. And you always want to make the stronger choice. By knowing what you have to lose if you don’t get it, you create a sense of urgency which then creates a sense of pace and importance. This will provide the scene with that bit of oomph, that little extra something that makes it exciting, engaging to watch and we won’t want to turn away because we as the audience have questions we want answered. One more question. 6. How far am I willing to fight to get what I need? - #5 identifies the reason behind NOT getting the need however #6 begs the question of HOW? This how you, the actor, explore your limits. You want to explore this and see how far you’ll go to achieve that need. You’ll want to push yourself to where you’re uncomfortable because that’s where things get interesting.
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