“Understand Filmmaking & Film Tech Around You” – Actor Tom Cruise Advises Young Actor

American Actor, Tom Cruise (Top Gun, Mission Impossible franchise) has urged young actors to study the craft filmmaking.

Cruise disclosed this while receiving a British Film Institute Fellowship (via Times of London).
Cruise who lamented the fact that aspiring actors aren’t taught production tools and filmmaking technology in school, said learning about lighting, camera blocking and more, as much as acting craft.

According to online entertainment magazine VARIETY the actor said, “It is important the tools around you. There is tech. It is like understanding the stage as an actor but for a lot of artists it is not taught in film school; how to understand the lens and what it can do, and why there is eye movement and recognize the effect it has.

“I always tell actors: spend time in the editing room, produce a movie, study old movies, recognize what the composition is giving you, know what those lenses are, understand the lighting and how to use it for your benefit.”

“Understand the art form to that degree. (Marlon) Brando absolutely understood lighting; all the greats did,” he added.

The actor was so adamant about actors learning filmmaking craft that he put together a six-hour filmmaking video to share with up-and-coming performers, which his Top Gun: Maverick co-star Glen Powell admitted to GQ UK Magazine, he got a chance to watch alone in a movie theatre.

Speaking of the video, Powell said, “(In the video Cruise is like) Do we all agree that this what a camera is? This is the difference between a film camera and a digital camera …”. The funniest part Powell continued is on flying. It was like he put together this entire flight school.

So, he would literally go, “Okay, this is what a plane is. Here’s how things fly. Here’s how air pressure works,””.

Cruise’s latest and final Mission Impossible: The Last Reckoning (II) with Paramount Pictures, will premiere in US theatres May 23.