Faloe Foundry  ·  Workshop

Faloe Foundry  ·  Summer 2026

Beyond Do It Again

A directing actors workshop

“Do it again” is not a note. It is the absence of one. It means you do not yet know what you want, or you do not know how to ask for it.

This workshop is about changing that.

The Work

Directing a performance is a specific skill. It has a language, a logic, and a set of tools that can be learned. Most filmmakers never learn them. They rely on instinct, on charm, on the hope that a good actor figures it out.

Sometimes that works. When it doesn’t, they say: do it again.

Five sessions. Ten hours. A cohort of twelve working filmmakers who want to become more precise and more useful in the room with an actor.

Who This Is For

Directors who have been on set and know the feeling of not knowing what to say. Writers directing their own work for the first time. Filmmakers who want to stop hoping for a good take and start knowing how to get one.

Not for beginners to filmmaking. For filmmakers who are beginners to this.

The Curriculum

[ I ]

The Director’s Toolkit

What you are actually doing when you direct a performance. Intention, objective, obstacle. The language that opens an actor up rather than shuts them down.

[ II ]

Text and Beats

Script analysis from the director’s chair. What the scene is really about underneath the words. How to find the turn.

[ III ]

Blocking and Rehearsal

How to use space. How to run a productive rehearsal. How to give a note that moves something forward rather than backward.

[ IV + V ]

Practicum

Each participant directs two others in a prepared scene. The group watches. We work through it together. This is where it lands.

What You Leave With

A language and methodology you can take into any room, on any project. Recorded access to all five sessions, including footage of your own practicum work to study at your own pace. A cohort of twelve filmmakers who were in it with you.

The Details

Schedule

Dates to be announced

Time

Noon to 2pm ET

9am Los Angeles

5pm London

Format

Virtual

Twelve participants maximum

Two hours per session

Investment

$450 First six spots
$575 Remaining spots

The Teacher

Jonathan Whittaker has spent over two decades teaching directors how to work with actors. As Chair of Film Arts at the New York Film Academy, he built and taught the Director’s Craft curriculum to filmmakers from more than twenty countries.

He has directed performance on set as well as in the classroom, from broadcast work with actors including Chrissy Teigen and Clint Dempsey to narrative films including The Silence Between and Emilia, which played the Big Apple Film Festival at Film Forum. He produced Train Baby, with Keith Powell and Judy Reyes, now on Amazon Prime.

This is not a theory of directing performance. It is the toolkit he has used in the room, taught by the person who uses it.

Jonathan Whittaker
IMDb jrwhittaker.co Vimeo

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