Archive for February, 2009
How Actor Coaching Works
Acting Coaches help actors of all levels to develop and increase their abilities. Private one to one coaching is intimate in that you share something of yourself with each other. The coach and student have a vested interest in joint success, it’s a personal process. It’s not wanky, it’s designed to empower you to obtain your desires but it can’t be done without your full investment. The coach can’t make you anything, they will guide and advise until you no longer need them.
• The Acting Coach uses their knowledge and experience of tested and new approaches to help you achieve the results you seek.
• The Acting coach creates a secure and comfortable environment in which you are willing to take risks and make yourself vulnerable.
• An Acting Coach helps you by giving you honest and sincere feedback, they will establish goals with you and help you to smash through them.
• An Acting Coach will kick your ass when you can’t motivate yourself.
• Acting coaches should help you celebrate your successes.
• The Acting Coach’s experience helps you to avoid many pitfalls.
• An Acting Coach wants you to do well
• A coach should practice what they preach!
• An acting coach will listen carefully to your ideas, but not always agree with you.
Mark Westbrook is an Acting Coach based in the UK, for 1-2-1 coaching, please call 0800 756 9535.
A Recent Actor Coaching Session in Glasgow
I had a recent coaching session with someone who I knew had completely opposing ideas on acting to me. But rather than fight, I found that instead, we seemed to both enjoy ourselves. Why did that happen? I believe it was because although we work in very different ways, have starkly different beliefs when it comes to acting and strongly defend them when challenged, we found a common language and we spoke in that language during the session.
We also had the same goal, to make my client the best he could be. We both wanted that, and it was more important to both of us than our own beliefs on acting. Neither of us came away Hollywoodised into some kind of relevation, but instead, we even talked about doing a show together. Why? Because we don’t have to agree on method and style! It’s not Method or NOTHING, it’s not MChekhov or NOTHING, it’s not Practical Aesthetics or NOTHING, despite how I wish it was sometimes, but it’s not and I need to learn that too. I trained in the other methods mentioned above and I choose Practical Aesthetics, but I do not delete my history, I don’t take away some of the very important lessons I learned from them, some of which make teaching Practical Aesthetics easier and more connected to those originating sources such as Stanislavski, Meisner and for us, very importantly Aristotle.
Now, I will admit that it wasn’t the easiest coaching session because I prefer to speak in the language I know best, which is the post-Stanislavski terms of Practical Aesthetics, I know I’m most comfortable with it, but I also know that to be the best acting coach that I can be, I need to offer all and any actors the opportunity to improve, to prepare and the nail auditions, regardless of their beliefs, their techniques and their perspectives. Would I prefer they all spoke PA, yes, do I think it would help them too, yes, but am I in the business of converting, no, not at all.
I believe in what I do, but I think flexibility is strength.
Exploitation: How to Make a LOT of Money as an Acting Coach
I recently read about an acting coach that charges people £500 for a weekend course in London, I kept thinking, only £500? Wow, man, that’s small time, I thought I’d offer some more advice to acting coaches that wanted to fleece their students:
1) Pretend you have the secret to acting and that you can make people famous.
2) Charge a fortune: Ask them to pay more than two week’s pay for two days training.
3) Claim an inheritance/pedigree that goes back to Stanislavski
4) Keep people coming back to your classes for years, even when it’s not helping them.
5) Find teenagers desperate to go to Drama School and charge them £££
6) Cram as many people into your acting classes as possible, they enjoy company
7) Make people commit to lengthy agreements for training
Charge as much as possible per hour, per day, per week, month and year, afterall, they may not come back.
9) Don’t teach your students enough practical stuff to get better, cos then they’ll keep coming back
10) The more you charge, the more of a big deal people will think you are
For those who can’t detect irony. This was an ironic post.
Mark Westbrook is a professional acting coach based in Glasgow, Scotland, for more details of his classes or one to one private acting sessions in Glasgow or beyond, please visit www.actingcoachscotland.co.uk
Acting with Adverbs
Today in my regular Monday night Monologue class, we were discussing the notion of quality of tactic. Sometimes when your monologue seems to be flat or all in one colour, changing the quality will make a big difference. When I’m directing, I like to work with qualities, that is if I need lines, or part of a chunk of a scene (you can call it a unit if you like, I prefer chunk) delivered in a different way, I offer the actor some adverbs, some descriptive qualities to try their choice of tactic.
Thanks to Ian Watt for pointing out the hard/soft or light/dark qualities that some actors need to get out of a rut. Rather than thinking in intangible forms like soft and hard or light and dark, I offer these very tangible adverb qualities to use instead:
Acting with Adverbs/Qualities:
Suggestively
Gently
Boldly
Mischievously
Hesitantly
Sincerely
Confidently
Eagerly
Scornfully
Disgustedly
Carefully
Shamefully
Casually
There are many more, please choose carefully as some move you too powerfully towards playing a state.
What do you teach people?
What do you teach people? It’s a good question and one that
I teach people pragmatism. I’ve been in acting classes, I’ve read many acting books, I’ve trained as an actor, before becoming a director and an acting coach. The trouble I found was a lack of pragmatism. Advice to actors was always given in such airy-fairy ways that I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. And of course, I felt like the idiot, like the bad person, like the moron for not understanding. But how could I understand? They were teaching me stuff that didn’t connect ‘training’ to ‘practice’.
So when people ask what I teach, I say I teach pragmatism, I want the actor to know HOW to get better, without getting lost in the ether of creativity, and feeling, emotion, and etc etc blah blah blah. This pragmatism comes from Practical Aesthetics, which as my new friend Mark Coleman says is repackaged Meisner or repackaged Stanislavski, well – I partly agree, it’s a lot of things brought together into something unique that works and something that works ALL the time, rather than just when the muse strikes or the crow flies.
What I teach are very simply techniques, they work pretty much straight the way, but depending upon the student, they may take some time, or one student may take longer to understand something than another, or a younger student will be less inhibited, or an older student will have a sharper mind for scene analysis. I don’t teach a system, I teach an approach, a way of thinking about acting, a philosophy of acting which believes that it should be simple and fun.
I’m teaching common sense, I’m teaching tools that can be picked up and used immediately. It’s true that you will need to use the tools for many years before you gain complete mastery, but you will gain mastery, you will have control and you will know how to use them to get the results that you want.
I teach Common Sense. I can’t explain it any different.
‘We are Members of a Dying Breed’: Mark Coleman on Practical Aesthetics
A fascinating read is in store for those of you who’ll venture to Mark Coleman’s Blog today, it seems after my Bothy Masterclass that my new friend has bee in his bonnet, an axe to grind, and see the pretty sparks.
Mark himself will admit he has never trained in Practical Aesthetics nor he admits has he any formal training, but after many years as an actor, he feels in a position, to give a round ticking off to Practical Aesthetics for being too… well his list is long, so read it yourself. I think the gist is that we’re soulless academics who’ve taken the (something intangible) out of acting. He’s read Mamet’s manifesto and made a decision we’re offering something cheap and nasty, we’re the MFI of acting techniques. (Apparently) we offer theory where there should be practice (ask my students if there is anything theoretical about Practical Aesthetics, anything that doesn’t relate to the immediate use of the technique to deliver tangible results).
It appears we’re too full of buzz words (transformational actor oops, no, that’s not ours), we’re academics, we’re unconnected to the higher power of acting, or something like that. As soon as I hear this type of thing, my bullshit mudguards go up and I stop listening, but for the sake of my new friend, who articulately and eloquently attacks us for a lack of subtance, I read closely, trying to connect to his concerns, afterall, he can’t be completely wrong, right? And yet, I still only came to this conclusion.
I suggest that our style of acting technique simply suits the type of soul we are, fits our needs, fills a void in us. Method actors have a need, perhaps something that connects to their emotions, or their desire for belief in the imaginary, MChekhov’s actors have another more spiritual need – a transformational need, and those that follow Practical Aesthetics require a type of pragmatism the others couldn’t offer. Are any of us wrong? No. But apparently to my new friend Mark Coleman, we’re the coming of the acting anti-Christ. Are we REALLY? Is it really that simple? Don’t we have to offer something just as valid, just as exciting?
My students won’t really connect with Mark Coleman’s description of Practical Aesthetics, since they’ve experienced living in the moment (is that some kind of reductionist buzz word?), really understanding a script, working off their partner and going home feeling like they’ve learned something they could use tomorrow.
I’ve got a 1 to 1 with Mark Coleman tomorrow or later today as my insomnia points out, now I’m not entirely sure why he’s coming, since he’s clearly made his own mind up about Practical Aesthetics, I’m questioning why he’s coming to show me his audition pieces, what can it profit him to spend an hour with enemy if he so strongly disagrees, if he so strongly detests the thing we stand for? What can I offer but the Road to Hell? The sign of the anti-Christ and the mark of the Devil? Who knows, but it will be fun. I know that he will a good sport.
And yes, I do believe ANYONE could learn to act sufficiently well – and that scares the shit out of the actors that live on the dream that they are God’s Own People. Because you’re not. You’re gifted, you’re talented, you’ve got the goods, but you’re not alone – cos if you were, there wouldn’t be so many of you out of work. The more esoteric you make acting, the more spiritual, the less tangible, then of course people can’t do it, because you’ve made it such a convoluted, self-serving, maybe-try-a-therapist way of achieving ‘great acting’ that no one but YOU can do it. Okay, that was a bit harsh.
We make acting simple, we make it accessible and we make it beautiful, just as Stanislavski and Mikhail Chekhov desired. What’s wrong with that?
Mark: You have a fundamental misunderstanding of Practical Aesthetics – I’ll see you at 4pm.
My Masterclass at The Actors Bothy
Thanks to Jimmy Watson and everyone that made me feel so welcome at the Actors Bothy on Saturday evening. It was a delight to be able to offer an acting masterclass, although it was only a glimpse into what I teach, the participants and observers were kind and generous and seemed to get some of what I was talking about, which is great.
The theme for the masterclass was my old favourite ‘The Other’ – or as I like to put it to actors, ‘It’s not about You’. It was a little difficult because of the amount of people that were present, so it became something of a show and tell, rather than the practical experience that I usually offer, but I think I was able to communicate many of the core ideas of Practical Aesthetics. The thing is that Practical Aesthetics is practical, not really a lecturing topic, so it always upsets me when I have to talk at length about it, whilst I love discussing it with a couple of people over a diet cola, I don’t enjoy lecturing.
I also reminded me that often I’m confused with being a Meisner teacher, I’m not a Meisner teacher, I teach Practical Aesthetics as a hybrid of many ideas.
After the session, I had a couple of fascinating conversations with various members of the Bothy, agreed to be a mentor to one of the members who is currently doing a postgraduate acting course. I met Mark Coleman, who himself is a fairly riveting chat, he had most experienced actor’s concerns about Mamet’s ideas, but I think I explained myself fairly well. My job afterall is not to defend Mamet, True and False, or Practical Aesthetics, but the help enlighten people to see the ideas differently and see if they can improve their chances of working regularly. Take a look at Mark Coleman’s blog if you get the chance, it’s a great insight into the life of a man with a passion for the career of acting.
Part of my acting masterclass yesterday was a little perturbing. I was demonstrating how repetition changes to ‘As If’ and how listening and watching the other person allows you to know what the say in order to affect your partner. We were looking at how you use various tactics to alter the actor in front of you. After the masterclass, one of the members revealed that she had been very upset by this part of the session because she felt that she had been personally attacked during this session, when her exercise partner had been required to insult her. She had taken what the person had said very personally, as if it were the truth, but the exercise is part of an improvisational game aimed at changing the behaviour of the other actor, and so, you can say whatever you think will get the result you need. Yes, it’s challenging, but within the context of the game, it’s no more challenging than the average acting scene where actors might say rude things to each other. The actor confessed that she hadn’t heard the lead up to the exercise, but it was still troubling to me, was this some horrendous psychononsense that I was teaching?
I’ve thought about it and concluded no. In order to practice playing tactics, one needs the bravery, toughness, courage, and vulnerability. It was a demonstration of how someone playing a tactic could really affect another person, and it worked, perhaps it worked too well, because the person took it personally. If the tactic hadn’t been ‘insult’, there would be no such reaction, if it had been ‘praise’, there would be no problem. Repetition is about learning to listen, if we don’t truly listen, we lose connection to what’s happening, to the other actor and to the moment. If we want truthful acting, we must learn to hit and take hits, we must learn a toughness that transcends Ego. The theme of the acting masterclass was after all ‘It’s not about You’. Still, a fascinating encounter, and the actor that mentioned it had the bravery to discuss it with me afterwards.
Thanks again for a wonderful evening and to everyone I met, I really enjoyed myself, I hope to see some of you at the Edinburgh masterclass and other events in the future.
Best Wishes
No Coaching Culture
It appears in Scotland, and perhaps the rest of the United Kingdom that we don’t have a culture of coaching in acting. Acting coaches don’t really exist. They’re considered unnecessary, but I wonder what causes this? Laziness? Ego? Excellent and first rate higher education acting courses that leave the actor fully ready for their entire career with no further need to exercise their acting muscles? Hmmm…
What does an acting coach do? I would say, we make good people better. We take whatever gifts or training the actor has already got and we push them in the directions that they find they are lacking. Just like the boxing coach, we take a gifted contender and offer them simply, powerful ways to improve what they do. Of course, in all sports, the professional sports person never doubts the requirement for a great coach. Even when they’re at the top of their game, professional sports people maintain their coaching, to stay on top of their game. In acting in the UK however, people have an attitude towards further training. I would say most of it is because the training that they already received was pretty duff and difficult to make sense of, in order to convert it into action, things they can do.
Things are different in the USA, even some of the best actors take regular classes and use acting coaches even when they’re working. They want to be achieving their best and they stick with the people who know how to bring the best out of them. This is the same in any sport, why should it be different with acting?
An acting coach is a trusted friend, a guide, a teacher, a mentor and someone to kick you in the ass regularly.
If you’re thinking about getting some acting coaching, why not speak to me on 0800 756 9535 or visit my Acting Coach Scotland website and email me for a chat about how I could help bring out the best in you and give you the edge.
Best Wishes
Mark Westbrook
Acting Books: True and False
I love books. I have about £10,000 worth of them. I’m starting my own library. I love acting books, or I should say that I loved acting books. That’s until I read David Mamet’s True and False in 1998. I first read it at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and was livid. It made me so mad, the stuff he said, it contradicted everything I’d ever learned about acting, he insulted my hero Stanislavski and suggested that acting wasn’t the complex inner emotional tripe I’d thought it was. I put the book away for the summer, heretic!
When I came back from the Festival, I drove everyone mad. I kept my girlfriend up one night arguing and arguing that an actor doesn’t need belief. (An argument I’ve had on this blog recently too!) I didn’t really know what I was talking about but as my career in the theatre progressed from actor to director, director to lecturer, lecturer to acting coach, it made more and more sense.
On the way, I stopped off in New York and trained in the approach Mamet was suggesting. It made more and more sense, it created more and more tangible results and without the tedious wank that I’d been subjected to as a drama student for many years.
Since then I haven’t been able to enjoy many books on acting. The trouble is that I read something and it no longer sounds like practicable advice, it sounds like nonsense, it sounds like somewhere along the way someone went wrong, and yes horror of horrors, I think that person was Stanislavski, my hero still. I’m not saying he shouldn’t be lauded, I’m still a huge fan and have huge respect for his work BUT, I think he took a wrong turn. For me, Practical Aesthetics puts acting back on the right track.
I used to love acting books, but now I feel like I’ve had my eyes opened. I’ve been blessed and cursed at the same time.
Mark Westbrook is an acting coach based in Glasgow, Scotland.
Practical Aesthetics Guide Part 3
Script Analysis
A vast amount of blood, sweat and tears is produced when a writer creates a good script. Every word on the page or even lack of them, are there for a reason. It’s the actor’s job to read, absorb and analyse the scenes written and formulate ideas, observations and decisions on how to act upon that information.
In Practical Aesthetics, scene analysis follows simple, flexible and effective steps. You are encouraged to define:
What the character is literally doing
This is as simple as it sounds; identify what the character is actually doing in the scene, without judgement or metaphor. This might be as plain as having a job interview with a prospective employer, buying some flowers from a shopkeeper or a couple talking about troubles in their relationship. Knowing this gives you the anchor for the scene, and requires no clever interpretation – it’s the base level of what the audience sees.
The Wants
Having established what the character is literally doing, you then move on to defining what they actually want over the period of the scene. However, it’s important for ‘the want’ to be based on the other person in the scene. And so, it becomes about wanting something from the other. With the last of the above literal situations, an example might be the girlfriend wants the boyfriend to swallow his pride.
The Essential Action
From there, the actor takes that information and formulates it into what Practical Aesthetics describes as an ‘essential action’. Again, as was mentioned earlier, the actor is focusing what they do to the other person. Therefore, encapsulating the entirety of the scene, the essential action should be expressed in the form of ‘getting something from someone’. If we use the couple again, her essential action might be to ‘get a loved one to take a chance’.
The choice of essential actions can be vast, but the Practical Aesthetics approach dictates than an essential action is only valid when it meets all of nine criteria set out:
1) It must be in line with the playwright’s intentions
2) It must not be an errand
3) It must have a cap
4) It mustn’t be emotionally or physically manipulative
5) It mustn’t predetermine an emotional state
6) It must have its test in the other person
7) It must be specific
It must be physically capable of being done
9) It must be fun
It’s not important to explain these here, but it is important to know that this checklist forces the actors to get to the crux of what they want to achieve, and gives them focus and a sense of purpose in the scene.
The beauty of Practical Aesthetics is that none of these guidelines prescribe a method of achieving your essential action. Yet it does help you formulate a huge array of potential tactics you might use to get there. This brings up the following questions:
Q. Which tactics do you use in the scene?
A. Whichever one seems to work.
Q. How do you know if your tactics work?
A. Look for the evidence in the other actor!
Q. What if the other person in the scene is creating obstacles and refusing to bend?
A. Use a different one and try again – make it impossible for them not to be affected.
Remember, your scene partner has identified their wants and essential actions and potential tactics to affect you too. Thus, the game is on; let the playing begin.
The ‘As-If’
In rehearsal, the Practical Aesthetics Actor will take the essential action and personalise it to mean something to them. So if the essential action is to ‘get a loved one to take a chance’, they might say it’s ‘as if I was convincing my brother to get over his ex, and ask out the girl next door’. The key is, it must mean something important to you, and it must be plausible enough for you to invest your energy in it.
This gives the actor the basis for trying out different tactics with a scene partner using improvisation, without initially concerning themselves with the actual text of the play.
The object of this exercise is for the different tactics to become habitual, and the actual text of the scene can be introduced later, now those tactical muscles have been flexed.
A good actor is an intrepid explorer of scenes, and a Practical Aesthetics Acting Class gives you the map and the compass. The beauty of it is, how you interpret them, and how you choose to get to your treasure is up to you, and there’s never only one journey.
With all the above preparation, analysis and practice put in, the Practical Aesthetics actor can embark on any given performance with the confidence of knowing what they are setting out to achieve, and the freedom and flexibility to act and react to what is actually happening in that specific and unique moment in time, with whoever is on stage with them.
Practical Aesthetics avoids the trap of the Method Actor; self absorption and self analysis. By taking the attention away from you and onto the other, you truly become liberated to act and live in the moment. You’re no longer trapped inside your head; no two performances will ever be identical, and the magic of storytelling casts its spell on the audience.
That’s what makes Practical Aesthetics so wonderful an approach; like an athlete you have done everything you need to prepare for the race, and are skilled enough to let your instincts take over once the starting gun has fired.
Like an athlete though, the Practical Aesthetics actor has to work and train hard. The approach is not complex, it’s not mystical, and it doesn’t require psychological introspection. Its capacity to help you grow as an actor is limited only by your courage of determination, commitment and application.
As any good Practical Aesthetics teacher will tell you, great acting skills are about hard work and application – it’s not a question of simply ‘talent’ or being ‘gifted’. A Practical Aesthetics Acting Class give the acting student the tools and techniques required to gather information from the script, apply some key criteria that means something to them, and carry out specific actions in a scene with a free-flowing, un-rehearsed manner.
In summary then, Practical Aesthetics Acting Classes equip the actor with practicable tools designed that give the actor freedom of choice over what ‘to do’ rather than worrying about how ‘to be’.
Mark Westbrook is a professional acting coach, visit his Acting Coach website for more indepth articles, class times and information.
Acting Coach Scotland asked to write for Drama Student Magazine
Mark Westbrook has been asked to write some guest articles for The Drama Student, a new magazine. Mark is already a columnist for a freelancer magazine, but this will be writing about a topic much closer to his heart, acting. The first article, published in April 2009’s edition will focus on an Acting Masterclass that Mark Westbrook will be giving for actors for a prestigious Scottish organisation.
Mark is currently working on his eBook – The Manual of Common Sense – to be notified when it is released, go to www.actingcoachscotland.co.uk and sign up for our newsletter.
Live from Holby City
News from our sometime acting coach Nick J Field, he’s currently working at the BBC on the set of Holby City, on an episode to be shown in June. Nick will be writing a couple of guest blog spots for Acting-Blog about his first time experiences of being in front of the television cameras in the not too distant future.
Thanks
Mark Westbrook
Private Acting Classes Available Now!
Practical Aesthetics Guide Part 2
Let’s turn our attention to the key elements of a Practical Aesthetics Acting Class:
The Practical Approach
A Practical Aesthetics Acting Class focuses (in contrast to the ethereal and internal ‘Method’ approach) on what the Actor is actually doing or trying to do within the scene and in the moment.
Acting is about action then, and as such it’s the actor’s actions that construct the dynamics of ‘character’ as perceived by the audience. A Practical Aesthetics Acting Class helps the actor find key goals to pursue within each and every scene, with the complete freedom to be natural and truthful every time.
Voice & Body – The Foundation
Since the voice and body are the actor’s instruments, a Practical Aesthetics student will learn simple and effective techniques to optimise these instruments, to encourage a state of readiness and flexibility.
The body and its muscles, including those affecting breathing and clarity of speech will be lightly stretched and relaxed – tension in mind and body can be the enemy of even the best actors.
Likewise, expect a Practical Aesthetics Class to give you some fundamental exercises to warm the larynx, and some verbal gymnastics to loosen the jaw, tongue and lips.
Since it’s said that only seven percent of our communication comes solely from the words we choose, the remaining ninety three percent is greatly influenced by vocal nuances of tone, pitch and rhythm as well as body language.
Repetition Technique/Exercise
Warming up of voice and body is fundamental across all types of actor training. However, it’s in the next phase of learning known as the Repetition Technique or Repetition Exercise, where the Practical Aesthetics acting student begins to specialise.
There is little benefit in explaining the mechanics of this exercise in detail – like a good script it’s designed to be acted upon not talked about. However, the Repetition Exercise has at its core one of the most valuable tools of any great actor’s craft – the development of observation skills.
Great observation skills are truly invaluable to an actor, for they encourage an alert attentiveness, an ability to absorb minute details of communication (particularly in its non verbal form) and crucially, to react truthfully to what they have in front of them.
It also has a style of approach which encourages two actors to engage with each other in a specific form of dialogue which prepares them for the later activity of setting out to achieve a goal or ‘essential action’.
The Repetition Exercise can be fun, demanding and occasionally gently competitive, and the student learns to use the other person to influence how they behave – something that runs throughout the different stages of a Practical Aesthetics Acting Class.
When the most wonderfully electric scenes are carried out by fine actors on the stage and screen, they are fresh, alive and full of energy. That’s usually because the actor’s are reacting off of each other. This avoids the notion of ‘deadly theatre’ where a play is exhaustingly rehearsed in the same manner and tone, and the actors become automatons and leave the audience bored and unengaged.
Acting is re-acting, and the Repetition Exercise is an invaluable process to practice that skill.
In the next blog, we’ll explore Script/Scene Analysis
Practical Aesthetics Guide Part 1:
Practical Aesthetics Acting Classes
Back in the eighties, award winning director and playwright David Mamet teamed up with his old friend, the now famous actor William H Macy, and did something a little bit different.
Mamet and Macy got together with a group of drama students from New York University and held what they described as a ‘Practical Aesthetics’ workshop. So exciting was what they explored, that a book was subsequently published; ‘A Practical Handbook for The Actor’, and the Atlantic Theatre Company was formed with Practical Aesthetics at its foundation. Atlantic has since become one of the most successful and critically acclaimed theatre companies in New York.
So what’s Practical Aesthetics all about then? Well, the most important thing to say about it is that it’s a modern and pragmatic approach to actor training. It doesn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater though, since it is founded on the work of key theatre practitioners such as Stanislavski and Meisner, yet moves dynamically forward.
10 Reasons to Keep an Acting Blog
An integral practice utilised by some actors is the maintenance of a rehearsal diary in order to map their efforts and progress. Although in the present digital age; the perishable pen and paper by means of documentation has rather a simple, unproblematic alternative; being the ‘weblog’ or ‘blog’ in short.
Ten reasons to keep an acting blog:
1. Something to refer back to: Perchance you’ve made a breakthrough in a tough scene or come up with a great idea during your rehearsal. If you don’t write it down, odds are you won’t remember it. Document your work on your acting blog.
2. Directorial notes: Better to write these down as soon as possible; giving you a chance to refer back to and work on elements of your performance and build them into your next rehearsal.
3. Peer critique: Post onto your acting blog some of your ideas and techniques and ask your blog community to feedback on your work. This can prove worthy in overcoming obstacles and difficulties, which other people have previously experienced and learnt from.
4. Settle disputes: If one of your peers claims an idea which you came up with in the previous rehearsal; refer back to your blog and settle the row.
5. Keep on top of your workload: Document your rehearsal plans everyday and use your blog as a checklist for this work. This also gives your blog community and peers the sense that you are busy. A busy actor looks more promising than an actor sitting at home idle waiting on a phone call from his/her agent.
6. Help your peers: Write about your successes and failures in your career. Help those who are starting out grasp an idea of how they can overcome certain aspects of the industry. This can prove beneficial in making contacts in an industry where ‘who you know’ puts you ahead of the game.
7. Share: Use your acting blog to share advice and techniques in your blog community. If you have a difficulty in an area – why not post a Q & A section on your post. This can be both resourceful to others as well as a great reference point for yourself incase something slips your mind.
8. Expand skills: Not only will an acting blog help you recall your rehearsals and ideas, but can help develop your linguistic and organisational skills. Two aspects of the industry often overlooked but very important in making an impression.
9. Develop an online portfolio of your working ethic: Establish yourself in your acting blog as someone who’s easy to work with, implementing a large skill base and professional tone throughout also showing your ability to cope in your career area.
10. Security & accessibility: As your acting weblog/blog is based online – it can be accessed from anywhere in the world and will remain there as long as you want it. A more permanent version of the pen and paper approach.
What questions will they ask me at my Drama School interview?
Here at the Acting Blog, people are always asking me, what kind of questions will they be asked at a UK Drama School interview?
Well, obviously, the range of questions is practically endless, but here’s a few to help you scratch the surface when preparing
for your drama school audition.
Q: Can you tell us about the last play that you went to see/read?
Q: Why do you want to come to ( INSERT NAME OF DRAMA SCHOOL HERE)?
Q: Why do you want to be an actor (Try to avoid… I love it and I’ve been doing it since I was wee… they hear this all the time)
Q: What actors do you admire?
Q: What kind of performances have you done outside of school?
Q: Can you tell us something about your monologue?
Q: What journey does your character go on in your first monologue?
Q: How is that different from the journey of the character in your second monologue?
Added on 13th March 2009 – thanks to my students for sharing these.
Q: What will you do if you don’t get a place at…..NAME OF DRAMA SCHOOL HERE
Q: Tell us a little about yourself (Try to avoid gushing about how much you want to be an actor here)
Q: What are your strengths and weaknesses (Don’t be a wise-ass and tell them you’re not good at Maths like me)
These questions are a chance to get to know you a little bit for the audition panel, but also the opportunity you need to demonstrate your knowledge, understanding, savvy and skill. BUT DON’T BE A SHOW-OFF KNOW IT ALL.
If you can’t answer these basic questions, do you REALLY want to GO to Drama School?
Mark Westbrook is a professional acting coach and coaches many young actors for their drama school auditions. To get advice or coaching from Mark, visit http://www.actingcoachscotland.co.uk or contact him on 0800 756 9535.
Acting through Song: Help for Acting Singers or Singing Actors
The singing actor has one great advantage over the stage actor, they have music. Music has a physical effect upon the central nervous system of both performer and audience and the actor’s singing voice has the same effect on the audience. This means that the singing actor can move an audience in a way that no straight play can ever try to do.
The voice of the performer, coupled with the music and the words, creates an effect in the audience that cannot be topped. The singing actor has something special, the ability to move without a call to the intellect of the audience, their audience responds unconsciously, truthfully and with full emotion. The filtering, editing effect of the brain does not have a chance to destroy the moment.
Acting the song requires two things:
- A good strong, supple singing voice with an adequate vocal range
- A technique or ability to connect you to the song
We approach the playing of a song like we approach the playing of a monologue, but we are restricted by the musical rhythm, like Shakespeare, we must stick to the metre. This indicates to us a certain flow of the song, but still allows us our own way of approaching the song, and how we will play it.
Perform a simple analysis on the song, ask the questions:
- What is my character literally doing?
- What does my character want the other character to do as a result of this song?
- What is the obstacle(s) between my character and their desire?
- What is the essential action?
- What’s it like to me?
- What analogous circumstances exist in my world that help me connect to that essential action?
- What tactics would you employ? – A tactic is best summed up as a verb that can be done to someone else such as mock, berate, stroke, challenge, implore etc…
The main tool here once the direction of the piece is ascertained is finding the analogous circumstances by using an As-If. This will give your body a great sense of what it means to play that Essential Action and all the ways that you might try to get your action accomplished. Working to improvise or play with the analogous circumstances will provide you with a truthful bed rock for the song.
The ability to distill your character’s task down to the lowest common denominator, the simplest form, is the real test. After that, live truthfully and the song will fly.
Mark Westbrook is an Acting Coach based in Scotland, he offers free advice and tips to actors through his website http://www.actingcoachscotland.co.uk
Drama Schools – What are they looking for?
If you’re a young (or not so young) actor, looking to get a place at a UK drama school, you might be asking the question:
What exactly are a drama school looking for from an applicant?
It’s a tough question because each individual drama school will be looking for slightly different things to make up their newest
intake of acting students. Here’s a helpful list of some things that MOST Drama schools are looking for:
* An individual who is open to new ideas
* An individual who is emotionally open and free
* An individual who has natural energy and spirit
* An individual who is unafraid of taking artistic risks
* An individual who is great alone and works well in a team
* An individual who is focused, committed and has both feet on the ground
* An individual who has an opinion but is not judgmental
* An individual who is trainable – which means they can learn from three years of training
* An individual who will make a success of their training or as Stella Adler used to say, they have a talent for their talent.
You can’t grow these overnight, and if you don’t have them naturally, it’s going to be a real struggle for you.
Having said all this, of course, there are some people who just impress them. It’s a gamble to hope to be that person.
Hope that helps!
Best Wishes
- Mark –
Mark Westbrook is a professional acting coach based in Scotland.
To find out more about his acting workshops, masterclasses and private tuition, visit Acting Coach Scotland
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