Archive for October, 2009
How NOT to do the Repetition Exercise
THIS IS DEFINITELY HOW YOU SHOULDN’T DO IT 
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Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
Some Assorted Thoughts on Acting
Legs and Spine
Actors spend hours standing. The legs, the pelvis, the hips, the spine, the head, we must spend a great deal of time working on helping them cope with the demands of all that standing. They are so essential, they cannot be ignored. Supple and strong legs are essential, as is a supple, relaxed and lengthened spine.
Kid’s Games
We were all taught a lot of fun nonsense as children, the Easter Bunny, Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy AND that acting was about pretending to do things. For children play pretend is a game, it’s a child’s game, for adults, it’s completely unhelpful to learning how to act.
We teach children about the theatre, about acting and performance through their imaginations, through pretend because their imaginations can make it real for them. We teach adults about acting and performance by asking them to tell the truth, because their imaginations make them miss the truth of the moment.
Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
True and False: The Difference between Truth and Pretending in Acting
Hi and welcome to today’s blog on Pretending and the Truth in Acting.
This is a topic on which I have given three lectures this week and so this blog comes to you by way of me having to explain myself three different ways on three different days. I hope you find it useful to help you think about acting. I’m sure it may challenging your ideas on acting, don’t take it too personally, I don’t know you, so if you have a different opinion, that’s cool, I appreciate it. My perspective is taken from working with actors as a director and coach and teaching them and seeing that acting can be different.
So, I’m talking about truthful acting and pretending. And I think I’m starting from the point that pretending always looks like pretending. You have to be, you have to be exceptional actor to be able to pretend well enough not to be pushing, not to be letting your ‘performance’ show through, to hide your pretense. It’s very difficult, it’s a very difficult job and our capacity to pretend is not equal, that’s for sure. If you’re not good at it, your show off signs that it’s a show, that it’s a performance, little things. If I go to the theatre, I may just be very aware that I’m indulging them. I’m indulging them because what they’re doing, it isn’t organic, there’s too many signs of artifice, it isn’t honest. So not only do I have to pay, I have to go and indulge them. But they’re the professionals and I’m paying their wages, and I want to be entertained. I guess I find that upsetting.
But then pretending is the norm and pretending is the tradition, so I guess I must be wrong? What’s the alternative? For so long there wasn’t one. The ‘pretendy’ actor and teachers has all that history and tradition to fall back on. But you know the pretendy actor starts from a position of truth, they really do, they’re already truthful and organic, but what emerges from that is pretend. They would say that, it’s not pretending, it is scenic truth, creative truth, dramatic truth, so in other words – lying, I guess – you know, pretending. And they’re going to get paid good money to deceive the audience. And let’s face it, unless they’re exceptionally good, won’t be much of a deception, so the audience will have to indulge them, which seems like a painful way to spend an evening, indulging others. Like having those friends you met on holiday once visit you.
And I suppose the other choice is the truth. Simple as that. You start from the position of understanding that you are truthful right now, you’re a real person but the circumstances under which you are going to act are imaginary, they are the pretend element. But what emerges from you through that, is the truth… truthful acting. And that’s very rare. When you’re telling the truth, there aren’t those little signs of pretense, they don’t have anything to indulge. It takes a lot of pain out of going to the theatre. You pay £17, you really start having to indulge actors in pretending. I think, I guess I think that it doesn’t need to happen. Indulgence doesn’t need to occur, pretend doesn’t need to happen. Just because we have a long tradition, doesn’t make it right. We used to think the world was flat, well, now that seems stupid, doesn’t it.
Telling the truth, what does that mean? Let’s not get philosophical about it, I can coach you to do it, but I’m not an academic anymore and I’m not going to engage in a theoretical debate, I can coach people to tell the truth in front of the camera or on stage, and no amount of conversation will prevent that from being true.
So what does it mean? Well, we have our standard PA definition of acting ‘Living truthfully under the imaginary circumstances of the play’ from Sanford Meisner, but to me, actually, I have a much more simple definition. To act is to do, to be in the process of doing is acting, to be acting is to be taking action, those that take action are actors. It’s that simple. It’s simple, and that doesn’t make it wrong. When you’re a truthful actor, you learn to take the focus off yourself, relieving you of a whole lot of mental junk and you give yourself something concrete and real to do. DO is the important word there. Do. Because doing is done through the body and acting is a physical craft, like a sport and doing is truthful because the body is uncapable of lying. If you raise your arm, you raise your arm. It doesn’t matter what was going through your mind at the time. Action, the focus of the truthful actor is what drives the truth because in order to act truthfully you need to know what’s driving you.
Truthful acting is made up, not of a string of faked emotional states, or emotional states that are real that have been conned from yourself through emotional blackmail, but from a string of tiny moments of psycho-physical actives. I call them ‘actives’, they are tactics, transitive verbs, they bring the actor to life because by ‘doing’ the actives, by taking action in order to do that thing to another person, what you are doing is truthful, it is not conjured from artifice, it is not an attempt to deceive, it is an attempt to reveal the truth. And when I see that, when I see the truth being revealed by actors who are able to live truthfully in their performance, that’s a pretty special thing.
To You, The Best!
Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels.
His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
More Tongue-Twisters for Actors
You must know by now how important I think mouth exercises and tongue twisters are.
Well, today’s blog is full of ‘em:
See here we go:
- Two toads totally tired of trying to trot to Tewkesbury.
- A tell-tale tattling Termagent troubled all the town.
- The bitter blast blew biting through the bleak bare branches.
- But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom; Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate. (Thanks Bill)
- Around the Rugged Rocks the Ragged Rascals Ran
- Truly Rural
- I sell shop snuff, do you sell shop snuff?
- Three tree twigs
- A proper cup of coffee from a proper cup of coffee shop.
- A proper cup of coffee in a proper copper coffee pot.
And remember, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
Audio Blog on Text Analysis
Hey Everyone, thanks for reading the blog today, but you may be disappointed. I’ve decided not to write anything today, but to talk about acting and text analysis through the medium of an audio blog. So here’s the address of the audio blog, please come back tomorrow to read my next acting blog.
http://audioboo.fm/boos/70513-text-analysis
I hope you enjoy it!
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
What kind of services should an Acting Coach offer?
Hello Everyone
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog, I hope there’s something here that’s useful to you. It’s often the case that I don’t shout about what we do at Acting Coach Scotland. We recently moved into new acting studio and we’re in the process of doing it up. It’s all very exciting. With a lick of paint or two, it’s going to look like a really different place.
Recently, one of my current acting class students asked me if I taught 1-2-1 classes, I was shocked that I hadn’t made it very clear what I offered right from the start. Well, rather than being a puff piece promoting myself, I thought I would set out some of the services that I believe a good acting coach should be able to offer and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. (especially because actors in my classes know that I only shoot three shy thrushes!)
Acting Classes
In Glasgow, our regular group acting classes take place on Monday and Tuesday evenings. We have an Step 1:Intro to Acting class for everyone, then students move on to Step 2: Developing Acting Skills and onwards up to the Advanced Acting and Directing classes. The classes should introduce the student actor to the basics of acting in whatever approach, style or methodology the teacher espouses. We teach Practical Aesthetics combined with a few other ideas and aim to prepare the student in the first 8-weeks.
CPD Training
Professional actors often come to me for ‘top up’ training or to discover ‘Repetition’ or the practical reality of ‘Practical Aesthetics’. We often teach classes on Monologue Preparation, Auditioning Skills and more specialist topics such as Shakespeare.
Master Classes
Ideally suited for the professional actor who is looking to add something back to their performances by engaging with a new way of acting. These are usually intensive weekend or evening sessions, not for beginners. Participants should be prepared to work hard over the course of the sessions, they are aimed at giving professionals extended and advanced developments in their acting technique.
Cold Reading Auditions/Castings
Cold reading auditions are very popular, although it’s hard to see what the director can use them for. You just an actor in pain, struggling to read and act at the same time. So we offer an immersion training, we prepare you for the discomfort of the cold read and offer you some tools so that you’re not just reading.
Professional Audition Preparation
Whether you want to try out your speeches on another professional, or you have been given a script and you’d feel more comfortable if you’ve worked through it with a coach, then an acting coach can assist you. They should offer you tools and advice, guidance and support, encouragement and honest criticism and not vague epithets.
Drama School Auditions
If you want to go to Drama School, but you want to give yourself the edge, then I advise you to find an acting coach that can help you. It helps if this coach has actually been to a drama school, although you’d be surprised at how many had not! Here the coach should prepare the student actor for all the different elements of the drama school audition, from the application form and selecting of monologues to the performance of said monologues and the famously terrifying drama school interview.
Of course, it’s possible to mix and match, someone may want some cold reading and some professional audition coaching. So that’s what Acting Coaches do. Let me know if you think I can help you.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
‘Being in the Moment’ Just Sounds Pretty Wanky to Me
I’ll admit it, ‘Being in the Moment’ sounds pretty wanky to me. I teach actors to act in the moment, yet every time I say that, my little bullshit detector goes off and says ‘Mark, you sound like a Well-Meaning Hippy Twat or some Zen Master. Okay, so I don’t like the phrase either BUT, I do think that ‘the moment’ is where the actor does their best work, so it helps if you understand it.
This is my attempt to talk about ‘being in the moment’ in a sensible, pragmatic way. If your acting teacher says that you need to be in the moment, I think you’re probably right to say ‘I am in the fucking moment you idiot’. The trouble is, that I suppose being in the moment is quite difficult. We feel much more comfortable thinking about the future or recalling the past. Actually being in the moment is hard. Acting in the moment is tricky because it requires a certain bravery, to place yourself at the risk of failure because ‘the moment’ is filled with danger and requires a courageous actor.
I suppose ‘being in the moment’ means being present. Not present, like physically attending, but a developed sense of the self and others in the exact and precise here and now. When you’re an actor, it’s very difficult to ‘be in the moment’ because the future has so much meaning. The future movement you need to make, the future objective to be achieved, the future line you have to deliver. And then you have to deal with the past, the line that just got fucked up, the snag you made on your coat at the door on the way on to the stage, the way your fellow actor looked at you after that last scene. It’s hard to compete with these things. But the moment is our target zone. When you’re in the moment, you’re in your element, you’re in the zone, you’re in flow.
We know that our physical corporeal self (the body) never leaves the here and now. The body is always present. But it is the mind, the focus or the concentration that seems to time travel around a lot. Breathing is key and core. Breathing keeps us in control, it allows us to centre ourselves in the moment. When shit goes down, it’s our breathing that shows us our true reaction, we can’t hide it. The body cannot lie and the breath won’t hide your emotional response, even if your mouth is closed and you keep a straight face. We are our breath.
Being in the moment is taking each thing as it comes, dealing with what’s in front of you now, not in the future. Now. Worrying about the future is after all as effective as trying to mend a puncture with an elephant.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
The Actor and the Spontaneous Impulse Part 2
Yesterday, I began blogging about the Actor and the Spontaneous Impulse, today is the second part of that blog. We spoke about why repetition exercise is important for the actor and what impulses are and why we shouldn’t ignore them.
If the actor is to allow themselves to follow their impulses without blockages, then the self-editing, self-criticism and self-abuse of self-consciousness must be sidestepped. The actor must respond freely within the truth of the moment. The truth of the moment is that you are in a situation with another person and you have something to achieve and set of words provided for you by someone else with which to do it.
Sanford Meisner, the inventor of the Repetition Exercise believed that the way to get truthful, impulsive acting was through focusing on the ‘other fella’ – the other people in your scene. If you have to connect with a real person, you will do so in a truthful way. Responses have to be personal, you can’t fake a response, it will seem out of place to another human being. Repetition helps us to loosen the stays of our self-consciousness and our natural human barriers, our inhibitions. By using the Repetition Exercise, you become more open, more available, more vulnerable and more observant. You can also affect and be affected without the editing process kicking in.
The Repetition Exercise has been discussed at length in this article on Repetition.
However, it’s always worth explaining something in different ways, so here we go. Meisner came up with an exercise called Repetition. Two actors face each other and repeat a phrase that is based on the situation they see their partner in with them. ‘You’re anxious’, ‘I’m anxious’, ‘You’re anxious’ etc is batted back and forth, being slowly influenced and changed – not by the actor- but by what’s going on between those two actors that are sharing the moment. The words become an entirely flexible tool, capable of massive changes in meaning and become a truly spontaneous part of the actor’s performance. This is quite different from the traditional actor bleating out the lines in the same old tired way they did the time before, and the time before that, and the time before that.
In Repetition, the actor never needs to think about what to say. If they do, they’re stuck in their head. They only have to pay attention to their partner and pass ‘the ball’ back and forth between them. The game forces the actor to allow their own spontaneous impulses to guide their acting. When you don’t impede your urges and impulses, you begin to tap into the massive creative power of your improvisational acting capacity. Words become vehicles, not restricted to simple initial recitation, freeing them from literal meaning and allowing the actor to lose themselves in the moment and find ways that they never dreamed they would say the line.
As the game progresses, the phrase changes based on truthful changes that the actor sees in their fellow repetition partner. From here you can grow an entire scene, beginning work with simply repeating the first line of a scene over and over to bring the actors to a point of communication and show them where they can go with just one line.
The actor has massively untapped creative power just behind their self-protection system called ‘inhibitions’. To access this, we follow a simple set of rules offered as the best advice to the actor by David Mamet:
“Invent Nothing, Deny Nothing”.
Don’t try to create. Simply free yourself from your restraints and see what happens. When something happens, don’t ignore it.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
The Actor and the Spontaneous Impulse Part 1
Okay, I’ll hold my hands up, I’m a little obsessed with Repetition. As my students improve, you see them starting to have fun with it, succeed, fail, fuck it up and start all over again. I can’t help myself, I could watch them doing Repetition til the cows come home. In today’s blog, I’ve decided to take a little more time to discuss the Repetition Exercise, or simply ‘Repetition’ as we call it, and spend some time thinking about it.
Repetition is about learning to follow your impulses. We’re bombarded by them 24/7, but we have been socially schooled to ignore most of them. The trouble is that when we learn to ignore our impulses, we don’t choose between the good and bad impulses, between the polite and rude impulses, between the creative and the destructive impulses. When we learn to turn off our impulses, we turn them all off. When we need to open them up, we really need to switch off our social schooled straight jacket for spontaneity and impulses.
One of my favourite moments in repetition is when people begin to laugh. Not a laugh which is a tactic to cover a ‘playing for time’ moment, but instead, a laugh that comes from the game, from deep within, from embarrassment, from the ridiculous situation of the game, but it comes from within. But we’re not allowed to laugh ‘in school’, so most people try to kill it. That’s insane. Laughter is healthy, natural, a release of tension and a perfect example of the spontaneous impulse.
All good acting is impulsive. All good acting is based on spontaneous impulse. All good acting is essentially improvisational in nature. We should respond to the truth of the moment and repetition helps us to do this without the editor in our heads getting in the way and trying to be ‘nice’.
Whether we’re living, acting or doing repetition, we feel impulses all the time. An impulse is a reaction, often an emotion response to something that has a significant momentary or long term meaning to you. The emotion start sparks the impulse does not need to major, it can be tiny, but it causes some kind of psychophysical response in the actor. Some impulses do not cause a strong physical reaction, but the stronger the impulse, the stronger the physical action associated with it. We must learn to untether ourselves and allow ourselves to experience our impulses without getting in our own way.
Acting is about being human, not pretending to be characters. We need to forget that we’re acting and start living truthfully on stage or in front of the camera. Through practice, you can help the actor to forget that they’re acting and respond naturally, just as they do in real life. In fact, the line between acting and real life blurs.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
What should I wear to my audition?
For our profession, it’s all about image. Not beauty, but image, no matter what that image be. And Actors are trying to present the best possible image of themselves at their auditions. And so, they often wonder what they should wear, how they should dress, how should they present themselves. Well, here are some top tips for what to wear and how to appear at your next audition:
WOMEN:
TIP 0: Be Yourself. First and Foremost. Above All Other Tips.
TIP 1: Always wear comfortable shoes and unrestrictive clothing.
TIP 2: Only wear very light, natural make up, they want to see YOU.
TIP 3: Don’t go in costume.
TIP 4: Pull your hair away from your face. Pin your hair up away from your face.
TIP 5: Don’t bother with any jewellery.
TIP 6: Wear clothing that isn’t too bright or patterned or distracting.
TIP 7: Don’t dress provocatively.
TIP 8: Keep perfume to a minimum.
MEN:
TIP 0: Be Yourself. First and Foremost. Above All Other Tips.
TIP 1: If you have long hair, tie it up or brush it well.
TIP 2: Don’t wear hats. They cause a shadow on your face.
TIP 3: Don’t wear make up.
TIP 4: Forget jewellery.
TIP 5: Don’t wear a jacket or a big baggy sweater.
TIP 6: Don’t wear anything loud or offensive.
TIP 7: Wear unrestrictive trousers, avoid trackies.
TIP 8: Wear comfortable shoes.
You do want to stand out, but always for the right reason.
Take a look at your wardrobe in advance of the day. Look at some different outfits and see which one presents the best you. Try them on and take a look at yourself in the mirror. If you need to buy something new, then you’ll have plenty of time to choose something.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
Parents Warned Over Drama Schools
Today on the BBC’s news website, one of the top stories was about drama schools. A fascinating warning from the NCDT or National Council for Drama Training. Due to the number of reality tv talent shows, it seems that there has been a rise in ‘unrecognised’ drama schools. The NCDT are warning that these schools are money-making operations which are tantamount to ‘betting’ on success, rather than ensuring a proper level of professional training.
It’s true that I’ve seen an 1 Year MT (Musical Theatre) course advertised on Facebook for £24,000. There are some people that are out there to make money. But the NCDT are scaremongering for their own good too. In a recession, they don’t want to share their marketplace with others. Now, don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly believe that if you MUST go to a drama school in the UK, it probably should be an NCDT accredited one. But as many schools are trying to gain NCDT accreditation and status, it means that there are some schools on the periphery of that status that would offer just as good training and perhaps even at a cheaper price. Because even the NCDT has schools with incredibly expensive prices. Take Arts Educational School, I had a student who got into that particular full time course and yet she couldn’t afford to go because the fees were exorbitant. However, that particular school has an excellent reputation for helping students achieve their potential. Still, for all students, it is a gamble.
Only 19 schools are currently accredited and validated by the NCDT, that’s to maintain the level of professional training. But NCDT needs to keep its status, so by telling everyone that agents only come to NCDT showcases, they’re trying to scare people. Personally, I think there are far far too many acting schools already. 19 is too many. Why too many? Because if each of those courses graduates a minimum of 18 undergraduate actors into the market place, that’s over 300 new actors entering an already over-filled market for less and less jobs.
One of my favourite lines in the entire article however, is the BBC’s Brian Milligan offering ‘advice’:
“students who cannot get on an accredited course are being advised to try for university drama courses, or else to consider giving up the idea of acting altogether.”
Give up or go waste three years on a generalist university drama course. Wow, that’s great advice Brian thanks! Give up on your dreams (since if you didn’t get into an NCDT course the first time, basically you’re fucked) or attend uni and waste three years. The UK’s university drama courses are to acting what flower arranging is to becoming a boxer.
Click here to read the original BBC article.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
Wadda YOU know about Acting
You know, I receive quite a bit of abuse from people that don’t like what I have to say about acting. And while my style might sometimes be provocative, I do thoroughly believe what I teach and one of the reasons that I left my conservatory teaching post was that I wouldn’t be able to teach something that didn’t connect with my own ethos.
On the other hand, I understand people’s animosity, acting is very personal, even audiences develop a sense of themselves as shareholders in their favourite actors. So if I criticise, they feel attacked. I understand. But rather than defend myself against the abusive emails, I’d like to share some of my thoughts on acting and point to the reasons behind doing what I do.
Why did I get into teaching and coaching actors? I was a theatre director, I studied and trained as an actor, and went on to train as a director. I was surprised by how many of my friends that were actors found it difficult to find work, even if they were very good. What’s more, those that got jobs had horror stories about weak directors with no understanding of acting, or great directors with no understanding of acting. Of course, there are directors with great understanding of acting, but I have only met a few. The actors that I knew got jobs found that other actors didn’t know how to work on a script, so most of rehearsal was spent somewhere between avoiding the script, playing games with no practicable relationship to the rehearsal of the text or what might be lightly described as ‘fannying about’.
My other experience was that after many years of drama school, most of the actors that I knew or met still struggled to know what to do when they got work. Their technique or lack of resulted in a hit and miss approach that basically depended entirely on whether they were lucky enough to learn something about text through osmosis. Those that had a technique seemed locked into it and no technique seemed to liberate the actor, only straight-jacket them.
This was the background to which I began to conceive of Acting Coach Scotland. The trouble is, that if you’ve studied 3 years of fun but not particularly practicable stuff in drama school, then when you got a job, you knew how to work with a director but you didn’t know much about how to work, you aren’t going to believe that an acting coach can help you. IF the ‘expects’ in the drama schools and conservatories couldn’t help, then why could a coach help? What’s more, why would you risk your reputation to learn something new, when what you’ve been doing all along works adequately well? Well, frankly, cos I didn’t get into the creative arts to be adequate. I want to be excellent and I want my students to be excellent too.
It’s rather simple for me, I’m not coming at it from the same angle. I’m breaking acting down into some simple elements:
- Audition Skills
- Preparation (Voice and Body Work)
- Learning to Work off the Other Actors
- Script Analysis
- Scene Analysis
- Performance Technique
- Technical Skills (Blocking, Verse, Mic Technique, Camera Technique)
We don’t address intangibles like ‘character’ and ‘feeling’, we work through doing and action, which engages the body, the mind, the emotions and the spirit. You still need a natural knack for performing, a good imagination, and the capacity to improvise and live in the moment. What we do is different. The actors that work with us don’t require belief in the imaginary, they don’t require to play children’s game in order to act the scenes in the play or film they are in. We don’t approach creativity as something that the actor sets out to achieve, instead, we learn to remove the bars to creativity that are in place. Allowing creativity to exist without restraint. Funnily enough, when you do that, you don’t need to ‘invent’. As long as you refuse to ‘deny’ your creativity, it will come tumbling out of you all over the place. If you want to actively create, become an author or a painter. If you want to learn to tell great stories by performing the actions of a character in a film, tv show or play, then acting is the thing for you
What I teach is a combination of ideas but generally come under the term ‘Practical Aesthetics’, the technique developed by David Mamet and WH Macy. It is the most hands-on practicable approach I’ve yet to discover, it’s great fun and the skills that you learn can actually be used. It’s simple stuff, but it takes a while to master and at each stage of advancement, the bar is raised, just like in life.
On a different note: I met up with John Cooper, the photographer today for lunch, a very amiable guy who does actors’ headshots and I enjoyed learning more about headshot photography from him.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
Don’t become an Actor
An actor’s life isn’t easy, it’s one of dispiriting rejection, even for those that make it through to drama school and beyong.
For a bit of a reality check, let’s look at 10 reasons you shouldn’t become an actor, and if you still want it, well fair enough:
ONE: For all but the very lucky ones that make big budget features, the money is terrible. Equity minimum is terribly very low for someone with skill and experience. Most jobbing actors earn less than £15000 a year, that’s not much of a future
TWO: Getting to become an actor isn’t straight forward, I know plenty of actors that have been to Drama School, got out there in the industry and failed to secure any work.
THREE: 5 years after finishing college, most actors have given up and are doing something else. But what exactly are they qualified to do?
FOUR: The competition is phenomenal. There are hundreds of thousands of actors all looking through a shallow pool of work. They want it as bad as you do and they know the director.
FIVE: Fannying about pretending to be someone else is no way for an adult to earn a living. Or more politely it’s hard to build a family, get a mortgage etc with such a transient existence.
SIX: Most of the training is duff, which means although you were lucky enough to earn a place at a conservatory, what you do there for 3 years may not help you secure a job or do it well.
SEVEN: Other actors aren’t always great company. The ones in shows want to brag but end up moaning and those out of work are jealous of your success. Actor’s ego is renowned for being brittle. How many actors does it take to change a lightbulb? 1. They just hold the bulb and the world revolves around them.
SEVEN: When you get jobs you realize that acting is a job just like any other. Well, okay it’s a lot better than being an accountant but there are some pretty crappy acting gigs out there.
EIGHT: If you’re female, there are two criteria that you need to fill to be a movie actress, as Mamet says, you need to be able to take your shirt off and you need to be able to cry. Plus if you’re female the parts still aren’t as good.
NINE: Agents don’t want you until you can book gigs. When they do want you, it’s because they know they can make money out of you. They’re necessary parasites.
TEN: When you do find success, you can lose it with just one bad show. Your reputation is only as good as your last job.
Okay, maybe I’m painting it black. But before you make the decision to commit your life to this marvellous, beautiful, miserable profession, have a think if you really want it.
And if you do, that’s just great! Now get on with it .
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
Private Acting Coaching in Glasgow
There are many reasons that people come to me interested in private acting coaching at my wee studio in Queen Street in Glasgow.
Some people come for help with preparation for auditioning for theatre courses or drama school. Some want to prepare for job auditions, others want to try out acting but not in front of others.
However, it’s vital that before you arrive at the door of the acting studio you have considered what you wanted to achieve from your session with your private acting coach. Acting Coaches can only work their magic if they know what it is that you want to get out of the sessions.
Just ‘getting better’ is too vague and can be achieved in 2 minutes. The more specific your goals, the more impressive the improvements.
But don’t worry; if your acting coach is worth their salt, they’ll help you to set achievable goals and encourage you to meet your personal targets. As you continue to work together you’ll take more responsibility for setting your own targets and reaching them.
A good acting coach wants you to improve so you can fend for yourself, they don’t expect you to come every week, just when needed.
Some people need more help than others.
Chat with a coach in advance to see if the pair of you will gel. Find out a little by Googling the coach. Assure yourself that this person is the real deal and not just a high school drama teacher with delusions. Make sure that they’ve professional experience and not just academic experience. Seek out the best coach you can and then when you make the financial investment to work with them, making the psychological commitment to work with them too.
Training doesn’t have to be expensive either. I’m automatically suspicious of costly coaches, even with a pedigree.
How do i say that line?
I hear this from actors of all levels all the time. Beginners say it openly and experienced actors confess it shamefully.
The fact is that you should never need worry about it. Words, even beautiful ones are simply the superficial surface level of our communication, they are a means to an end, a method or strategy, a tactic to help us get what we want.
So it is with the characters whose actions you must carry out to earn your crust.
Let’s face it, most of us will animate a line sufficiently well, even if we don’t understand it. That’s part of our gift, we can bring other people’s words alive.
But if we really want to connect with the role we are playing, we need understanding. Understanding the line and its context is important because looking at the ‘why?’ helps us make our connection to the ‘how’.
Why does your character speak? Mamet says that we ‘always say something designed to get what we want”. Our desire drives us towards getting what we want and getting what we want, achieving our goal or reaching out target becomes our task. Whenever an obstacle arises and confronts our pathway to the target, IT becomes our new task.
If you know why the character speaks, you can examine what method or tactics they use to get what they want.
That’s half the battle. That’s taking action, or acting if you will.
But the performance of a role is not just action but reaction and action based in reaction to the actions of the other actors in your scene. In other words, it’s not just working out what to do but placing that within the physical world of the scene.
The scene exists on two levels, the first is the literary/book/play level with the words given by the dramatist and then the physical, tangible world of two real people (actors) standing opposite each other dealing with the truth of the moment.
So how do you say the line? First establish the why, this is based in the script and then that leads you to the how, based on a combination of the character’s goal in the scene with dealing with the behaviour of the real human being opposite.
Then you instinctively know how to say the line and never need to ask the question again.
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