Archive for July, 2011
Why Working with Script is Hard
The script is a tricky bastard. The problem is that as actors, we always wind up dealing with the end result, the final article, the finished product, which does not easily give up the secrets of how it came to be.
In this situation it’s devilishly difficult to glean from the script the reasons for the action behind the words. The writer knows, but because they are using psychologically real characters, which do not speak their motivations, it’s often hard to fully understand why they say and do what they say and do.
Historically characters often speak their inner thoughts like in Shakespeare’s great soliloquies. Later, particularly in French comedies, servants might give away important information in ‘table dusting scenes’ – those where they chat whilst doing domestic chores, as the author exposes detail as chit chat.
But contemporary writing is not the same. And so we have to dig for ourselves into the intention behind why the characters do and say what they do and say.
Because we are not often in the presence of the writer (sometimes when we are they do not help, do not want to help or cannot help.) we don’t have easy access to the answers.
A few other problems contribute to this difficulty with script.
Factor 1: we’re a bit lazy, we’d like to have the answer without having to solve the puzzle. It’s natural, but not a good thing.
Factor 2: we like to rely on our instincts, our intuition is strong and it’s helped us in the past.
Factor 3: most of our training did not adequately prepare us for script work, why? Because our teachers have the same problem as we do!
Factor 4: we are lacking the tools with which we can unlock the intentions behind what the characters say and do.
These factors cause you to attempt to make meaning out of the words, but the scene is so much more than that for actors.
The script will yield it’s secrets if you own the right tools, but even with the right tools it will take time, long hours until you can use them to unlock these secrets with more ease and even then it will be hard work to make the very best decisions.
You can’t just use the words, it’s lazy, it’s superficial and it’s not using your skills to their most.
Be a better actor, learn to unlock the script, one scene at a time.
How to really F-up a casting
So, you’ve been invited to a casting, so the first thing you do is fail to check where it is properly, so you haven’t worked out the transport links until you’re already on your way out the door. Now you’re in a panic.
You’re chewing mints and gum like crazy to try to take the stench of alcohol from your breath, but can feel it oozing from your pores.
You’re still hungover from last night, so you grab a coffee.
You realise you’re not going to make it on time, cos you miss the bus while getting your hot beverage and you’ve left the casting director’s contact details at home, so you can’t call ahead to change your slot.
So you run for every transport connection, becoming more sweaty and unkempt.
By the time you arrive, you look like a bag of shit tied up with string (thanks Mum).
You’re sweaty, anxious, but you’re only 15 minutes late, and you’ve missed your slot.
You think about going home, but they tell you if you wait, they’ll still see you at the end of the day.
Around lunch you get peckish and wander off to find a deli without telling the casting assistant. So when they look for you at lunch, to fit you in early out of unwarranted kindness, you’ve vanished.
You wait all day and get tired, stiff and grumpy.
Eventually you are lead into the casting room, where you fail to make eye contact, as you hand over your crumpled resume/cv and the headshot taken from the wrong angle that didn’t look like you when it was taken 8 years ago.
You do your monologue to camera, hoping they’ve never seen that monologue from Star Spangled girl, or the one about being raped and dying of cancer.
Despite traumatising the entire panel, they ask if you’ll read over the script and come back in 15 and do it to camera.
You beam as you stride out of the room forgetting to thank them or ask any relevant questions.
You spend the prep time trying to work out the character’s emotional islands and learning some of the lines.
When you’re asked back in, they ask you deliver it deadpan and the producer reads the other role. You make a quip about her being a failed actor, which goes down like a fart in a spacesuit.
You ask if they’re casting any of the bigger roles, and if you can be seen for those too, you always ask that because someone told you that it never hurts to ask.
You leave, head home, only to be told by text from your agent that you were unsuccessful. You spend the evening moaning to your significant other how tough it is being an actor and how you deserve to get your break because you work so hard for it.
If you want to totally f-up your next casting opportunity, follow the good practice described above.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
Emotion
When I ask actors of any level to describe or offer a definition of acting, they inevitable use the word Emotion.
This is so widespread that I almost guarantee that in a group of ten, half will use that word. It has become an omnipresent belief, an article of faith that pervaded all levels of public consciousness.
This mistaken, misfocused, misguided belief has wrongly become the norm. And it has remained fairly unchallenged.
Acting isn’t and never needs to be about the portrayal of emotion as an objective. The Method got it wrong and the tools they teach their students are voodoo bullshit, a waste of time and a blight on our profession.
How do I know this? Because over the years, I’ve explored the many techniques of acting, looking for the root of acting, the part that is common in all techniques and that helps to produce truthful acting, authentic behaviour on stage or screen.
But the thing that I’ve discovered is that action is the root of acting. Seems rather obvious, but it’s true. To paraphrase my friend Paul, when he talking about performing last weekend, ‘emotion is the result and not the objective.’
The Method practitioners would agree with this, but their means still require them to chase the elusive emotions as an objective, whether they know it or not.
Action is how you get to authentic behaviour. Doing is incredibly convincing. An authentic doing is the most convincing. But what of emotion? Well, the thing is, if you ask yourself, what is my character feeling? You’re commencing from the wrong start point. Instead, the questions need to lead to action. If you go after the same actions as the character, connected to them, you will produce emotion, without trying, effortlessly, it will be the result of your actions, but you will not attempt to control or direct it, you will simply let it be.
And for one last time, the ability to cry on cue, has nothing to do with being a good actor. I know people that can cry with ease, they are not good actors. Buy some tear stick, leave the emotion alone and work from moment to moment with action at the core of your activities.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
On Performing and Not Performing
Just a short one today: A few days ago, I tweeted that ‘In my house, performing is a dirty word’. As he should, as a good friend, Paul Wilson brought me up on this while we were having lunch a few days ago. He felt that I was being a bit unfair to ‘performance’ with this comment, and to some extent, he’s right. I was however concerned that people ‘put on an act’ when they are ‘performing’, so I was attempting to discourage that behaviour.
Paul said to me “Performance is the result and not the objective”. Here in Paul’s wisdom is the solution to the problem that so many actors face. The trouble is (and the reason that performing is a dirty word for me and performance isn’t) that so many actors think of acting as performing. Of course, it’s a performance, but as Paul said, that’s the end result, that’s what the audience watch. However, when an actor ‘puts on a performance’ it is always false, fake, inauthentic.
But many actors mistake ‘putting on a performance’ with performance as their objective, as if it were they who had to ‘put something on’ and just as Paul wisely summarised, the problem is that actors think that is the goal. This simple error is at the heart of an awful lot of problems for actors. And it afflicts everyone from the kid in the school play right through to professional actors.
Because of this, I often try to avoid saying ‘perform’ or ‘performance’ and sometimes, am concerned about saying ‘act’. I used to say that the actor had to ‘perform a task’, but of course – that’s exactly NOT what I wanted. I don’t want you to perform anything, anything at all, the only performance is the one that you create as a result of bring your most authentic self into an interactive engagement (thank you Paul) with your scene partner(s), the script and the reception of an audience.
The moment that you start to perform as an act of will, you lose your authenticity and dilute the power of the interactive engagement with the others around you.
To You, The Best!
Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
The Lessons Learned
You know, I learn more from teaching than most of the students ever realise. Having to articulate time and again the goal of truthful acting, the authentic behaviour that I call truth in action. Being an acting coach is a privilege, working with people young and old, beginners and experienced professionals, people coming back into the profession and people just putting their toe in the water, it’s an exciting job where no two days are EVER, EVER the same.
I’m fairly use to ranting about acting, but I’m also given the unique opportunity to test out my ideas in practice every day, with the people I work alongside. So this week, when we started to develop something special (CODENAME: ADRA) there were plenty of people around to bounce ideas off. I’m amazed when I read books on acting just how difficult those guys make it seem, just how complex and complicated, just how much nonsense they take, I mean, lovely, well-intentioned, well-meaning nonsense, but just intangible crap. The lessons I’ve learned in the past few years are that nothing works better than the truth, nothing is more convincing than real, authentic behaviour.
Today, I just wanted to give you some things to think about. Things that I’ve been thinking.
- Acting is about listening, but not to other actor’s words, they’re lies, but what the other person is doing, there’s truth in that. Respond that.
- You have to do more with the words than the words actually mean, the words of the script are really just the tip of the iceberg.
- Authenticity cannot be faked, it cannot be bought cheaply, it cannot created, behaviour is not something that you can create, it is something you do.
- The foundation of your scene work is your understanding of the scene. If you don’t understand the scene, you’re acting on ignorance.
- If you don’t have the tools to transform that understanding into action, your understanding is academic.
- The tiniest moment of each scene is your friend if you know how to use it.
- Finally, something I’ve tweeted earlier last week: The script, the moment, and your partner, that’s acting, that’s all it is.
Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
10 Types of Acting Teacher/Acting Coach
There are many types of acting teacher or acting coach. Often when we experience problems with our acting teachers, we blame ourselves. Well, I’m an acting coach, and I can tell you sometimes, it’s not your fault, sometimes the type of acting teacher/acting coach that you have is preventing you from getting the most out of it. Your acting teacher may be a combination of any of these:
ONE: The Enthusiastic Amateur
Probably a friend of a friend, sometimes a failed actor turned high school drama teacher turned amateur acting coach. It’s lovely that they want to help, but they’ll probably end up confusing you and giving you bad advice. How can they help it? They’re not a professional, they mean well, but in the end they’ll probably fail you due to a lack of vocational knowledge in application. They won’t know how to teach you to act, they’ll talk about feelings and space and emotions and whatever clever things pop into their heads, but they are not an acting coach.
TWO: The Unemployed (Fill in the Blank)
There are lots of unemployed actors or directors or something else that set themselves up as acting teachers. I’ll be honest, learning to act does not equip you to teach acting, it’s a very different skills. Teaching people to act requires the ability to break it down into learnable chunks. I’d say 99% of the time, they weren’t taught in a way that they could learn from, so they will struggle to patch it together into something that they can teach you. They’re only there to make a bit of cash on the side while they wait for their next gig – even worse, if they’re a famous face – trading on their name.
THREE: The Dinosaur
Old fashioned, has no real technique, lots of focus on speech and elocution. They’ve been around since the dawn of time and they may have some great things to say about acting, some wonderful stories, but they’re completely hopeless when it comes to help you prepare for anything in this century. “When I was at the Royal Academy…”
FOUR: The Academic
A university lecturer that has to teach acting courses, can be a frustrated actor, director, writer – even worse, a true academic, someone that never touched the stage in his life and now because of their position believes they can teach acting because they understand it in theory.
FIVE: The Brutaliser
Claims to be honest and sincere. Claims to seeking the truth, telling the truth, but rarely is. Claims to break you down with the truth and build you back up again. Really, they’re just a bully, they have no idea how to apply their methodologies to you, so when you don’t comply with them, you get viciously brutalised. They call these brutalisations ‘honesty’ and they try to make you believe that you needed it. Bullshit! They’re an abusive
SIX: The Fanatic
So deeply ingrained in their approach that they cannot see any other way of working. Fallen for their own ranting and ravings. A disciple of the cult of whatever Method they’ve convinced themselves works. Treats acting like a religion, and the price for failing to be faithful to their religion, is severe. Zealots rarely analyse their own beliefs, only look for ways to reinforce the beliefs they have.
SEVEN: The Well-Meaning Hippy Twat
Somewhere lost in the Sixties, bare footed and deeply empathic. Shares a lot of positive qualities with the Empowerer, but only in theory, they can’t put it into practice. A lot of their approaches are fun games, whacky shenanigans and out there ‘Post Grotowski-esque’ performance art which really makes it fun to be with them, but at the end of the session, you’ve taken away nothing tangible. Unfortunately, drama and performance art and professional actor training in the UK, are as far apart as Hello and Goodbye. They’re well meaning but…
EIGHT: The Remarkable Self Publicist
Everywhere you look his face is there. You can’t get away from him. His marketing budget is huge because he charges high fees, promising whole potatoes but barely even delivering fries. But behind the glossy promotional material and the clever words, he’s simply a charlatan in disguise. Sorry, did I say he? I meant HE.
NINE: The Director
Can’t tell you how to help yourself, so they basically just direct you. This direction may be stunningly brilliant in that moment and in that situation, but it doesn’t empower you to help yourself next time. So rather than learning to act, you’re simply learning to take direction – but at the same time they are teaching you to become dependent on the director. This person is hindering you for the basic reason that they are taking away your ability to work by yourself.
TEN: The Empowerer
Honest, but never brutal. Friendly, approachable but not interested in pleasing people. They’re never interested in breaking you down, because they know that without a doctorate in psychology, that’s a dangerous place to be, and anyway, you don’t need breaking down, the person you are is fascinating and can act their socks off without expensive pseudo-psychology bullshit. Their only aim is to make you better, doesn’t throw stuff at you and hope it sticks. Is obsessed with their vocation as a professional acting coach and their eager is rarely part of the equation. For this person, it’s about you, and not them.
The Empowerer is someone I aspire to be. They don’t give their students false promises, they don’t ever brutalise them for misunderstanding, they always try to find new ways to explain things better so that more people understand. They don’t show off about past triumphs, they don’t hide behind flashy marketing and big prices. They’re often humble, sincere and perhaps even that the principles that they personally live by, are somewhat akin to those of their approach to acting.
Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
Tips for Actors: Taking Direction
Whenever the director gives you instruction, do not look puzzled, do not think for a moment, do not immediately start speaking, start to defend yourself, explain why you weren’t doing it in the first place.
Instead, the trick to taking direction is to repeat it back to the giver in your own words with the confidence that you’ve understood them. This gives the director (or whomever it may be) the opportunity to correct your understanding.
You can apply this to receiving any type of instruction, but it will work well with a director. It shows that you are attempting to give them what you want. Don’t question it immediately. Or ask them to repeat themselves.
Just repeat it back in your own words. You can use this to confirm that you’ve understand. If you pretend you’ve understood, the chances are you’ll drop a clanger later when it doesn’t happen.
Directors particularly hate to repeat their instructions to you. It seems like you’re wilfully being disobedient or don’t understand, can’t understand or worse – that you might disagree with the direction and might be failing to do it on purpose.
If someone has to tell you something more than twice, it just seems like rudeness on your part, so make sure you listen very carefully. Use the repeating it back to the director as a way of making sure you’re both on the same page. This is vital.
You can do this in an acting class, in rehearsal, or when you’re getting directions to the new supermarket that’s just opened. Try it, you’ll see that the director enjoys your attention and your seeming enthusiasm to take on board their suggestions.
Then do it.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
React BEFORE you Speak
In life, this is rather obvious. Someone speaking elicits a response from you and you react physically, emotionally, cognitively, facially, and then when socially convenient (or not) you react verbally. But because most people use the lines of the script to act upon, they’re really only acting when they’re speaking. This causes massive dead zones in their performance whenever they have nothing to say. You can still chase your task you can still have a tactic and often your ‘reaction’ is a tactic. Tactics are reactive as much as active.
The flip side of this is the actor who feels like they have to be filling each tiny moment of the scene with some kind of performance. This person is tiring to watch, they’re constantly performing in moments when simply staring would do fine.
Either way, the fake reaction looks fake. If you must ‘stage’ the reaction because you can’t find a way to do it naturally, then you do need to think about the type of tactic involved in the reaction and then wait until your instinct tells you to react. But don’t listen to what they’re saying, wait and watch for a moment to react off what they’re doing. You’ve probably heard what they’re going to say a few times already, and you know which part the character might react at, but then ditch that for the best time to react. Obviously some times, the camera is not even on you, but that’s fine – you should treat it the same, so the other fella has something to work off still in their shot.
Don’t be afraid to react while others are speaking, if you sit waiting for your line, you’ll be horribly dead before that, probably even experiencing a premature ejaculation of your words. Be in the moment, watch the other character, find something physical to respond off and don’t expect it to be there the next time they do it, on stage or screen, it’s the same. You need to respond when the moment strikes, whether you have words to say or not, and even if you have to wait a full minute, brimming full of ‘attack’ or ‘coax’ or ‘reject’ before you get to say the line, then be that, chomping at the bit, will only make the line more suited to the moment.
It might be helpful to try to watch the way that you respond to someone in a conversation today to teach yourself more about how and when you react.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
This is Me – A Monologue for Generals
Last weekend, 20 of our students attended a masterclass with Kahleen Crawford, a Casting Director from Kahleen Crawford Casting. She explained to our students how the casting industry works from her perspective and gave useful hints and tips to the students about the casting experience.
She also spent quite a lot of time explaining how ‘Generals’ work, when a Casting Director invites you to meet with them, see a short monologue and have a brief but general chat.
In my experience, the monologue that you do during a General is very important. It’s important that you show off your acting ability, but it’s important that you don’t load it with character. Ability to convince, to be truthful, to be authentic on tape, and in person, that’s what really matters, so choosing a monologue that works for you is important.
So, I’ve re-written an old monologue to keep you up to date with what you need to prep if you’re going to see a Casting Director.
This monologue was named the ‘This is Me’ Monologue by Karen Kohlhaas, one of the Master Teachers at the Atlantic Theater Company’s Acting School.
The ‘This is Me’ monologue allows you to show off your ability, style and personality. It’s definitely not a chance to show your range, your Shakespeare, your gritty realism. It’s a chance to show off your authenticity as a person and an actor on camera (expect them to tape it) The ‘This is Me’ monologue helps you to show off who YOU are.
I would work to have TWO or THREE 2-3 minute THIS IS ME monologues, they need to be the type that works well on the screen, so don’t choose big, performy pieces, or small intense crying pieces either. Obviously if they’re a casting agent for theatre, choose a THIS IS ME THEATRE monologue.
Karen Kohlhaas suggests that a THIS IS ME monologue is defined not by what it is, but by what it isn’t. Here’s a list of what to avoid for a THIS IS ME monologue.
- Monologues outwith your playing age/range
- Monologues in an accent other than yours – they don’t hire character actors any more.
- Monologues with heightened language (it requires a heightening performance style)
- Monologues with anything shocking or graphic (THINK – choose something I could show my ‘Mother-in-Law’)
- Monologues that are self-written (written by a good friend who is an exceptional writer is fine)
- Monologues that attempt to demonstrate range
- Monologues that are too intensely…. ANYTHING.
- Monologues that allow you to hide behind anything
- Monologues that talk about someone else constantly (THIS IS ME should be about… YOU!)
- Monologues related to the industry or business
- Monologues for women about how shit your husband, boyfriend etc is… they flood the market.
- Monologues that are heavily negative.
- Monologues that you DON’T KNOW THE LINES FOR!
SO WHAT SHOULD A ‘THIS IS ME’ MONOLOGUE BE?
* CONTEMPORARY
* ABOUT SOMETHING YOU CARE ABOUT
* WELL WRITTEN (has a beginning, middle and end)
* NOT TOO LONG (2-3 minutes MAX – if they have to stop you, they’re dead in the water)
* AUDITON SPECIFIC (film for film, theatre for theatre – if it’s a general – decide what the Casting Director’s main medium is and go with that.)
* GENRE/STYLE SPECIFIC (funny for comedy, drama for drama)
* SOMETHING YOU DO WELL.
You should tape yourself doing it (you can get someone to do it for you – use an iPhone or something) and watch yourself back (I know, I know, it’s horrible) to learn what mistakes you might make when you’re doing the monologue.
Let me say it again. Actors are tempted to ‘busk’ it on lines. Don’t, you’ll screw it up, you’ll screw up your chance and you won’t get another one for two or three years, so… LEARN THE BLOODY LINES! (I can’t believe I actually have to say this, but I’m frightened by how many actors don’t!)
To You, The Best!
Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
Drama School Audition Coaching – 5 Tips
Part of my job is preparing people for drama school by offering them audition coaching. My students have a great record of getting into top schools, in the UK and the USA and I’m proud of that fact.
Today, I wanted to give you a little bit of coaching in a blog. Particularly for those of you lovelies out there that can’t make it to Scotland to benefit from our coaching (it’s really not that far, we even have airports!)
1) Choose your pieces and learn them long in advance of your audition dates. The scrabble for you to prepare them with highly unpleasant, you will not be ready and you’ll struggle to remain calm when you’re trying to remember your pieces later.
2) Don’t be afraid to stay still during your pieces, in my audition coaching, one of the most common questions is ‘should I put a bit of movement into it’? Sure, the answer is, sure – if you think it would help, but stillness is a very powerful thing when you use it well.
3) Don’t apply in May. Places open in Autumn, then they start filling slots, get organised, choose your schools in advance, don’t bother with open days unless you live close by or have really deep pockets. Apply immediately. It won’t make you a better actor but statistically you stand a better chance of getting a place, rather than being stuck on the waiting list. (CRINGE – waiting list = good enough to get in, but not quite good enough to get a place)
4) Sexual, profane, aggressive – leave those monologues alone.
5) Since one of your monologues is likely to be Shakespeare, you should probably find out how to do Shakespeare, I’m going to be doing an audio series on Acting Shakespeare which should be released on www.bookonacting.com in August. That might help, or a good book, because although all they want to really see is if you can do modern and classical acting, if you can actually work out what Shakespeare’s telling you what to do, it will REALLY help. Trust me, I’ve made some awful monologues great by adjusting the person’s reading of the lines!
*) A point. If it isn’t NCDT accredited, it ain’t a drama school. So a college or a university course in acting does not have the reputation, standards or facilities that a proper accredited drama school does (US people, that isn’t true, but conservatories STILL have a better reputation than most university theater departments, excepting a few…) I hate it when people tell me they went to drama school and I ask which one and they say Glasgow Cheltenham College of Navy and Army Trading Printers. NOT A DRAMA SCHOOL!
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
The Mechanics of Writing
For Scott
I know that my friend Scott reads my blog. He often comments, although he doesn’t have an acting background. I’ve been in some pretty tight (grappling) positions with Scott and respect him hugely.
A wee while ago, he asked me if I would talk something about writing, since he knows that I also write and I thought I would blog a little about writing, as it is a subject, along with directing that we will eventually teach here at the studio. In Step 7.
I start out with a basic idea, usually something that’s happened to a friend, something real, something I read in a newspaper, never fantasy, something actual. Then I expand it.
When I was writing Lovely Creature, I took ideas and banged them together, and it created the main conflict of the short play, a man and his wife are attempting to get over his infidelity, when there’s a knock at the door – that was one idea. I bashed it into a girl losing a baby and making it a baby that the man had fathered. These two ideas together set up enough dramatic conflict (not argument, the difference is very VERY important) and I continued from there. The play is just one scene, but since I didn’t know any more than this, I started to ask myself the questions that matter. I don’t start filling in character details because that’s what the books on writing say. Flesh out the character with details. There are no details to add, what care I where they had lunch earlier? What matters is these three things, taken directly from Mamet:
- Who wants what from whom?
- What happens if they don’t get it?
- Why do they need to get it now?
This covers the driving desires of the character and who their target is. The consequence, stakes or what they have to lose if they don’t get it. And the final question gives it a deadline, which pushes the drama forward and increases the importance of getting what they want due to some kind of deadline.
If you work these out for each character and make them tangible, real things, then you’ll have the beginnings of the bones of a scene already. Then you’re onto dialogue. Dialogue you should write quickly. Edit later. If you have an ear for dialogue already, congratski, but many people don’t, go listen to how people talk, listen a lot, copy that for while, but cut out most of the shit that they say, until you’re left with the least you can get away with writing on the page. But as I say, write the dialogue quickly. This is my trick for not over-thinking it, you can go back and spend hours over it later. Just make sure that you keep going back to those questions because they drive the scene.
This is my rule on exposition…
Don’t have your characters explain anything that the audience already knows, don’t have them explain anything that the audience doesn’t already know.
If you need them to know something, tell them in trickles.
So, well, that’s my thoughts on the mechanics of writing, put into a nutshell – I hope my regular readers don’t mind, I don’t write about writing very often on the acting blog, but those questions.. they’re for actors too (and only those actors with patience enough to get to this line of the blog will know that, the others.. well… we don’t need to worry about them, do we ? 
Actually Scott, I kinda think you’d make a good actor too. See you in class sometime.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
Acting for Camera
My background is theatre, but I’ve spent a considerable amount of time now educating myself about how to work with actors that are mainly focused on screen acting. And the first thing that I want to say is that nothing I teach at ACS, aside from perhaps Shakespeare, is any different for stage as it is on screen. The approach that we work from works equally well for the recorded arts and some say better, although I doubt that it troubles theatre very much.
It was during the Kahleen Crawford ‘Demystifying Casting’ Masterclass that I began thinking about this blog. I attended both masterclasses and I heard her say twice about how the camera registers every thought, and that was the main difference between acting for stage and acting for camera. Last week, the wonderful Mel Churcher gave us her perspective of the technical differences for the actor in a blog about the differences between stage and screen acting.
Today, and only briefly really, I want you to think about what makes good acting for camera.
First off, you have to look comfortable when someone has a camera in your face. You need to be at your most natural in a most awkward situation. Up to your knees in sludge, shouting lines you don’t like at someone who isn’t there, while looking natural on the camera, and then doing it again and again (in film) or again (tv). This naturalness is impossible to fake. And this leads me to believe (not a new thought, just a reconstituted one) that acting for camera is really about you. Not the character, not your method, but you being as authentic as possible. You simply can’t show, perform or act. You can only be and do. Without pretend, without performance. The moment you do that, you start telling a lie. And truth happens in every moment of the camera’s unblinking eye and it will catch you faking every time. So when you’re preparing to act for camera, we need to know how to get closer to our authentic self.
Second, there are camera skills to learn, but these are very simple and just take a bit of practice, but they’re likely to be similar things if you were to make a little movie of your own. So basically, you can learn a lot of the basics from scratch yourself. Of course there’s things that you can only learn working with others.
Third – you don’t get a warm up – you need to be ON, now, no one is going to wait for you and your precious preparation, method or whatever you need to ‘get in character’, that’s nonsense, you just need to be ready, and they’re burning daylight and dollar bills. All that character shit is nonsense anyway. the idea of the job of the actor is becoming someone else, or creating a character is built on a fallacy. On screen, there is no character, there’s you. Naked, vulnerable and captured for ever on tape.
Fourth and finally, you need to show a little bit of this you to the casting people. Because on camera that looks like gold, you look perfectly natural, totally authentic, beautiful even – but this is why, because you are, it’s no trick, it’s not magic technique, it’s a sincere and honest authenticity, coupled with script skills and the ability to work off even the most boring casting assistant reading like they’re a robot or like they’re a frustrated actor, complete with bombast. You need to show this if you’re self taping, or in a room with them. Because basically, all that performing and character crap, it doesn’t wash.
Acting for screen, is bringing the authenticity of you to each moment in front of the camera. You can’t do that pretending anything, you are your performance. Mull it over.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
Listening but Not Listening
We’ve been talking about this all week in class, so as usual, it’s made it’s way into the blog. One of my top tips is not to listen to the words the other actor says. Don’t let yourself get caught up in them, they’re a bunch of baloney. They’re the same every night and you can’t be expected to respond to them freshly in each moment if you know the script as well as the other fella does. So pay no attention to what they’re saying TO you.
Instead, listen to the tone of voice with which they speak to you. Watch what they appear to be trying to DO to you. But block out the words, they’re not truthful, they’re actually a big fat lie. So if you want to react in truth, you need to respond to what the other actor is doing to you in each moment. It doesn’t mean ignore the other actor, it just means pay no particular attention to the words they’re using.
You see, when an actor tries to respond truthfully to the words that they hear, they already bring themselves into a lie. (Not to mention mouthing along without realising because they know their scene partner’s lines) Then when you respond with words that aren’t yours to words that weren’t theres, the lie grows, as you both try to fake the action/reaction process based on the content/ words of the script. Especially as you try to find the right way to respond to the content of their lines. But how can you? They’re not real, so the truth of the moment is infected with a lie. The content of the lines is nonsense, it’s gibberish, but the way that the other actor treats you in the scene, that’s real, that’s the truth, and that’s what you need to work from.
But you need to watch them closely and you need to listen closer, because when most actors act, they’re solely focused on themselves. This is the ultimate in self-consciousness. No wonder the actor is slagged off for being only about ME ME ME! Start every scene with your entire focus on the other actor(s), place your attention on them and work to actually change THEM. The characters can’t interact because the characters only exist as words on a page or in the imagination of an audience. For you, the actor, you must work from the perspective of total attention to your partner. You’ve got enough to concern yourself with, so block out their lines with focusing on what they’re doing and respond truthfully to that.
Listening but not listening. It’s a new skill for you to master.
To You, The Best!
Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
The Cost of Training
Only a few days ago, some of the main drama schools in the UK announced that along with other institutions of higher education, they would be charging the maximum of higher fees, £9,000.
Now to those readers in America, you’re not entirely sure what all the fuss is about, £9,000 is nothing compared to what you would pay for some of the best training in your country.
But now finally, in the UK, they have basically done what they’ve done in the US long ago, priced actor training out of the reaches of anyone that isn’t already rich enough to sustain a life of unemployment after they graduate.
The trouble is, that the quality of training at the British drama schools is fairly poor. I mean, you get fancy buildings and big directors and all that, but the actual stuff that’s taught is mainly useless garbage. So now even if you could afford the £9000 for three years and get yourself into debt (and so not afford to pay it back later, when you’re trying to be a jobbing actor) you’ll be getting the same type of training you would have got 3 years ago, but for 3 times as much.
What this should mean is that with the increase in tuition fees, we should expect an increase in the quality of training. Don’t be silly. The cost change in training will not influence the quality of anything, only the quality of profit.
Understand this, it’s like buying a loaf of bread, only today, it’s going to cost you three times as much as it did to you yesterday, but it’s only going to be the same as it was yesterday. Would you buy a car like that? Well, a drama school training will cost you £27,000, I would buy a car instead! Or put a deposit on a house, or see the world, something that you would receive the £27,000 value back.
Now, I do believe that the free education system wasn’t ever going to be sustainable in the long run. There are twice the number of degree bearing institutions than there were 20 years ago and more and more and more drama training courses churning out graduates for whom there are not enough jobs. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t, but let’s face it, they’re causing an environment in which there are more and more applicants for fewer and fewer jobs. It doesn’t make sense.
I used to work for an institution that was so proud of letting lots and lots of students in, specially those who would not normally have gone to university. Yet, with the free tuition system, many of them spent more of their time NOT coming to class, getting drunk, and getting a poor degree. Just because everyone SHOULD be able to go into tertiary education, doesn’t mean that they SHOULD go. We need to have a considerable think about whether everyone’s children need to go to college. It’s an unquestioned belief, particularly in the USA, that you won’t get anywhere without a degree. That’s because the system has demanded it. But there are plenty of highly skilled jobs that do not require a degree education and we should not look down on those people because they didn’t go to college, they didn’t NEED to go to college.
We do not need more actors. I say this freely of an institution of my own which helps people to become actors, but we do it in such as way that is it manageable and affordable and that while they are training and attempting to get work, they are still contributing to their household income, still working. Some of them will become actors, some of them will do this for fun.
The trouble with the high fees is that hundreds of thousands of unemployed actors will NOT pay back their fee loans. Because only when you’re in work will you have to pay something back. So the system will fail because government loan schemes will still place a huge burden on govermnet coffers because a million out of work actors won’t be paying their loans back! So by increasing the fees, they’ll decrease the number of people that actually WANT to become actors, which is great, potentially, but with the number of courses out there that aren’t charging top whack, these people will be encourage to go to smaller, less expensive courses, which also will not be of high standard.
The only thing I know for sure is that it will encourage more students to come to me for training, because we charge relatively nothing in comparison and we don’t waste their time and money fannying about.
One last thought, before you think of paying a small fortune for substandard training here in Britain, don’t forget that other countries such as France, Spain and the USA have excellent actor training provision, and now that you’re willing to pay £9000, you may as well spend it on getting the best training for your money!
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
MEL CHURCHER on The Differences Between Stage and Screen Acting
Today, I’m delighted to introduce another guest blog, from someone that has inspired me in my progress as an acting coach over the years and I hope she inspires you too, Mel Churcher. Mel has been an acting and voice coach for many years and worked on such films as The Fifth Element, Lara Croft and Chalet Girl, Sherlock Holmes and Unleashed. Two of her books are on my recommended reading list in my Amazon AStore, please have a look at them after this and perhaps you’ll be persuaded to get your hands on them after you’ve read her blog. We may differ on some specific issues of technique, but I’m sure like me, you can learn a lot from her.
Screen acting and theatre acting have differences. Here are my big three:
The first and most important is often the last one that actors think about and yet the most crucial: In theatre, there is an audience. In film, at the moment of acting, there is no audience. Sounds obvious. Yet understanding this will have a deep, subtle effect on your work. On stage, you always share with people out there in the darkness. There is interplay between you and the audience – the observers and the observed. When filming, you are surrounded by technicians, but they are not your audience. Only a few key people like the director, the producer, script supervisor and sound crew are even wearing headphones to hear what you are saying! The camera, certainly, isn’t your audience. It’s a recording device that will document your acting life. (Which will be cut and pasted at your director’s discretion and shown on a screen much later if you are lucky.) You must open yourself up to it, to be minutely scrutinised by it, but you ‘share’ with it at your peril. Once you help us to understand your subtext or the story, you will seem false. You have to find your ‘real’ life and surroundings within this weird world full of cameras, microphones and people – to be a child again and believe, in the moment of acting, that there is no one else there but the other roles inhabiting this ‘reality’ with you. You need to think hard at every moment and drive what you (in the role) need. But not add anything else. The camera will see your thoughts. Thinking (without ‘showing’) is enough and you have to trust it. You mustn’t add ‘sub-titles’. All you can do is ‘be in the moment’ of acting. We will see genuine emotion. Your eyes literally shine with all the thoughts that light them up. Too often, this light dims when an actor is speaking learnt text. All the thoughts, memories and pictures in your head need to be as specific and extra-ordinary as they are in life. You need life and humour in your eyes. You must be as multi-dimensional and interesting as real complex human beings are – as you are!
Next – film is shot out of order. You may bury your lover before you’ve met them or murder your boss before the interview. Each scene is done from many different angles (or set-ups). The bigger the production, the more set-ups there will be. Each set-up can involve many takes and each take needs to be fresh and spontaneous. So film takes tremendous imagination and focus, not to mention, stamina.
Which brings me rehearsal. Or rather the lack of it. There’s not much rehearsal for film – well, not as we know it in theatre. And, until you arrive on set for shooting, you may never have rehearsed with, or even met, the actors with whom you are going to play the scene. You need to do a tremendous amount of preparation before you get to that set. But it must be the right kind. It is you ‘as if’ you were in that situation or living in that time. And that ‘as if’ could mean a complete change of physicality, depending on the life you’ve led in the role. You might be a medieval peasant or an astronaut. ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Where am I?’ must take the life you’ve led and the period into account. And you have to reach it organically through research, physical work and specific imagination. At a deep level, you have to, truly, inhabit that imagined world. ‘What do I want in the role?’ Your needs must be powerful and strong. These needs may be hidden to the other characters (that’s sub-text), but strong needs must drive you. Beware of deciding how you get what you want or how you ‘say’ the lines. If you plot a course or decide how to play the scene, you will not be open to react in the moment. Turn off the ‘director’ in your head. You don’t know what the others will bring yet. You need to stay open to all possibilities. When you were a child, you didn’t say, ‘Now, I’m going to show you a character called Superman, who can fly’. You said, ‘I’m Superman! I can fly!’ and you must think like that with your roles.
Mel Churcher www.melchurcher.com
Mel has recently started writing a blog and you can find it here.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
(Y)Our Guiding Principles
It’s important that any organisation has core principles which guide it’s activities. Google, Coca-Cola, the Royal Shakespeare Company – they all have their own guiding principles, which reflect their values and working philosophy. Actually, I think it’s rather useful for individuals to think the same way. And I would encourage you to come up with your own guiding principles and to put them somewhere prominent and use them to guide your future activities.
Today, I wanted to share with you the guiding principles which currently help us shape our direction at ACS. These were not invented from thin air, they emerged and evolved over time to represent the ACS ethos. Regular readers of the Acting-Blog will recognise them as the ethos that runs as an undercurrent throughout the many blog posts here. They are a living philosophy, not just something written in a book that no one ever looks at, they’re not objectives, they’re not corporate values, they are a living, breathing philosophy for the activities of Acting Coach Scotland and as such, we – the staff embrace them, teach them, and live them.
These can be found on the wall of my office, they can be found on the ACS website and the future of Acting Coach Scotland is determined by the direction they offer. I would like to take this opportunity to go through each one of the ten and explain what they mean to me, as they may become inciting or inspiring to you too.
At Acting Coach Scotland, our guiding principles are:
- There is no place for bullshit in actor training and coaching.
- You can be serious about what you do without wearing a suit and tie.
- The price of success is sweat.
- Part-time training does not signify less of a commitment to excellence.
- Age and experience are not indicators of future success.
- Our weaknesses are our students too, we always work to identify and eliminate areas of weakness from ourselves first.
- Feedback should be practicable, so people can act upon it and it can be honest without being brutal.
- Script first, script last. The answers are always in the script.
- Talent is tinsel, what matters is expert knowledge and thousands of hours of practice.
- Actors that are dependent upon the director are useless. Training must empower the actor to become autonomous.
Let’s take a look at these in some more detail:
1. There is no place for bullshit in actor training and coaching
Oh Mark, you’ve put a sweary word in your principles. No, I’m not trying to seem cool or annoying, that’s precisely what we’re aiming to avoid at ACS, any bullshit, the presence of which turns acting into something else. There are hundreds of thousands of acting coaches who talk absolute garbage and when you listen closely to what they’re saying, it’s meaningless drivel – or well-meaning hippy crap. Bullshit dilutes your training makes you do ridiculous things that make you leave your common sense behind. It also pervades your acting and ends up with your pretending and performing. Pretending doesn’t lead to good acting. The imagination is powerful, but the basis of good acting is the reality of doing – living truthfully, authentically behave as we do in life.
2. You can be serious about what you do without wearing a suit and tie
This summer the staff started wearing shirts to work. Being smart for work is one thing, but wearing a suit and tie to me has always denoted being a sheep, sorry – that’s my feeling. One can look smart and be appalling at one’s job, so it’s really not about how you look. If Steve Jobs wore a black polo neck, jeans and cons every day, then I admire the shit out of him for that. Some jobs don’t suit the suit, but I understand that some of us have to wear it, to project a certain image to the customer. The problem is that projecting an image is the opposite of what we’re about at ACS, we’re about authenticity, so while we’re going to be a bit smarter in our dress from no on, we were always serious about what we do and we don’t need a suit to show that.
3. The price of success is sweat
Okay, probably paraphrased or ripped off from Fame but not intentionally, because we know this is true. The true price of success is not talent or capacity, it is the ability to graft. At ACS we are grafters and that’s the ability we really admire in other people. Still, graft without intelligence is no good, you need to get good advice and have an intelligent direction to work in. But intelligence without sweat, is inactive, what really matters is SWEAT.
4. Part-time training does not signify less of a commitment to excellence
Some people look down on us, because we’re not a college or a conservatory. Actually, that’s our strengths, we’re not tied down by any of the institutional rules and regulations that kill the essence of most acting courses. We have a simple plan, train part-time so that you can afford it, learn the lessons and then you can start going for jobs, without having to starve. We can still demand quality and excellence from our students in a few hours a week. We know it will take them longer in general to attain their goals, BUT since we spend a LOT less time fannying about, actually, the part-time element doesn’t hamper them at all. We teach the essentials and those take about two years part-time.
5. Age and Experience are not indicators of future success
The acting coach that has taught for 50 years gets all the kudos. We’ve only been around for 3 years, and I’ve been teaching for 10. But in that time, I’ve changed and adapted and developed my approach, constantly dissatisfied with letting things become staid. Maturity and years in the business don’t mean anything to me. With the greatest respect, you can give me the beginner with the right attitude any time. Likewise, time served does not mean that the acting coach/acting teacher is any good. Listen to what they say, don’t just add up their years of experience.
6. Our weaknesses are our students too, we always work to identify and eliminate areas of weakness from ourselves first.
We acknowledge that our weaknesses as coaches become the weaknesses of our students. We must always work to identify those weaknesses and do something about them before we pass them on as deficiencies in our students.
7. Feedback should be practicable, so people can act upon it and it can be honest without being brutal.
Feedback is essential, it is an important part of the learning process, acknowledged in Kolb’s learning cycle. We need someone to tell us where we made mistakes and when we did things well. But that feedback needs to be angled in such a way as that it can be acted upon, otherwise it’s just words and words and ideas are not easily translated into action. Secondly, the feedback does not need to be brutal, it can be delivered with care and attention to the student’s development without being rude. So many so-called acting teachers deliver harsh and brutal feedback which damages the student’s confidence. Some students even believe they WANT brutal feedback, like some sort of masochist, hoping that the brutality.
8. Script first, script last. The answers are always in the script.
The script is the actor’s best friend, it provides all of the clues. That’s the bottom line. We often forget that. Trust the writing.
9. Talent is Tinsel. What matters is expert knowledge and thousands of hours of practice.
Blogged about this recently. Read it here if you haven’t already.
10. Actors that are dependent upon the director are useless. Training must empower the actor to become autonomous.
The relationship between actors and directors is usually one of child and parent and it’s unhealthy. You need to have an adult-adult relationship and this is best for the collaborative nature of our industry. But being an adult means you need to have parity of skill in the room and too many actors have been trained to ‘need’ the director. Stand on your own two feet, but an adult.
That’s a long blog, but I hope it makes our principles clear. Now, how about you think about 5 principles that you can work/live by? Don’t make them things you aspire to, don’t set them as objectives that are out of reach, you know your principles, you can live already live by them.
Excerpt
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
Truth in Action – My eBook on Acting
I didn’t want to write it. I umm’d and aaaarrr’d and put it off. I have almost 500 blogs, plenty of resources and enough time to do it. But there always seemed like something a bit crappy about an ebook on acting. The ones that I’d seen were either free, and of about the same use and value OR they were on stupidly gaudy websites promising those things that they could never, ever deliver. Then there were real print books on acting, the which I could count on one hand the number of useful books on acting have actually been published. Those that I think are worth a read are in my Amazon aStore if you’re interested.
I’m about 100 pages in, I’ve bought the domain name, purchased the ecommerce plug-in, written the copy and now I have to finish the book.
Truth in Action is about how we need to remove the performing and the pretend from our acting if we want to reach the most truthful, organic, sincere, honest, authentic acting. It’s heavily influenced by my background, my training and my belief in the power of the individual to effect positive change for themselves. It won’t tell you how to get a job, I’m not an agent or a manager, but it will help actors to think of acting in different terms, in terms that will allow them to become the best that they can be. I’m an acting coach, not a recruitment agent, I can help you to become a more natural actor, more honest, more authentic, but I can’t walk you in the door of a casting director, that’s not what I do.
There may still be a print book in the future, but for the time being, I’m going to enjoy the self discipline of finishing this book and sharing it with everyone. And for those lovely people who keep visiting the website for the book, stop it! There’s nothing to buy yet, but soon… very soon!
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
Choosing your Equity Name
I was recently working with a young actor and we discovered that he can’t work under his own name as someone else has registered his name with Equity, it’s a real shame because it’s a strong name, but that’s life and he has to now come up with a name he will use for the rest of his life.
Here’s my ten top tips for choosing your Equity or Stage Name:
Tip 1: Never presume just because you have an unusual name that it won’t be taken. Head to Spotlight’s website in the UK and check the name for other performers, if they’re present, sorry, tough luck, it’s taken.
Tip 2: You can’t just throw in an initial or a middle name, you can’t register Daniel T Radcliffe or be Emma Ann Watson.
Tip 3: Get in early, as soon as you are eligible, register your name with Equity, the actor’s union.
Tip 4: You can’t be a sound alike either, so Sophie Dear cannot register if there is already a Sophie Dere.
Tip 5: Never change your first name unless you really must, you are hardwired to respond to your first name.
Tip 6: Make the surname that you choose something personal to you. It could be your mother’s maiden name or your middle name. Many people choose a hero’s surname, David Tennant took the name of a favourite pop star, my friend names herself after a favourite actress.
Tip 7: Don’t choose wacky names, don’t be Chuck Water or Bingo Wings, or Eileen Over, no one will take you seriously and you have this name for the rest of your professional career. Avoid anything that you might mock if you heard it mentioned on the television!
Tip 8: Remember this isn’t a legal name unless you change your real name which some people do. Remember to get paid by the name on your bank account.
Tip 9: Take your time, this is a big decision!
Tip 10: Ask your friends and family and listen to their responses.
If in doubt, message me and I’ll tell you what I think, remember to include your headshot too though!
My Absolute Top 10 Tips for Actors
ONE: Acting isn’t pretending, it’s not performing, it’s being truthful in every moment on camera. We’re already truthful in life, so we know how to do it, but somehow, whenever we think about acting, we start to pretend, or get fake. Stop. What’s required in each scene is authentic behaviour. Honestly. You do that all day, every day, you’re already authentic, but it’s about finding ways to tap into that when you’re having to behave authentically under imaginary circumstances.
TWO: The great enemy of authentic behaviour is self consciousness which manifests itself in physical tension which attacks the body and the breathing. To evaporate self-conscious, you need to give the consciousness something else to focus on. That’s because when we have something that directs our attention away from the self and holds the focus of our attention, self-consciousness just vanishes.
THREE: To redirect our focus of attention, we need something achievable to really do in the scene. The words will come out regardless, because they’re written down, but by having something to achieve in the scene, we can direct our behaviour in certain ways. What specific I advise is that you have a TASK, something that can achieved from the target actor in your scene. The target actor is the actor playing the character that your character wants something major from. It could be ‘a commitment’, or ‘for them to tell the truth’ and ‘to knock them off their high horse.’ Whatever it is, really do it to that other actor, the words are set in stone, but your actions, the things you do are not. And so you direct your attention towards the other actor and attempt to achieve your TASK.
FOUR: The other person is a living, breathing, constantly changing entity. If you attempt to achieve your TASK, there’s a good chance that they’ll change. That’s great. Transform your TASK into something physically achievable. So, if it’s to get a commitment, see if you can get them to shake your hand. Don’t just thrust your hand out, but see if you can engender that behaviour in them, see if through your actions, you can get them to do it. But here’s the trick, it doesn’t matter whether they do, or they don’t. It’s you attempting to get that which will lead you to authentic behaviour and bust your self consciousness.
FIVE: The way that we achieve our TASK is through strategy. We call the small strategies that we employ TACTICS. They’re really easy to use, because we use them ourselves all the time. TACTICS are verbs that can be done to someone else. COAX, NUDGE, BITE, (they’re psychphysical so you’re not actually sinking your teeth into them) CHALLENGE, CONFRONT, PUNCTURE, BERATE. Prep these for your scene, know which tactics will work well for the scene and use them when the need arise. You can pre-plan which to use when, but that’s not really authentic because you need to respond in the moment to what your TARGET is doing!
SIX: Connect to what doing your TASK is like by finding a parallel in your imagination or memory. What’s getting a commitment from a friend like to you? It’s As If…. Don’t worry, you’re not going to have to puke up all your emotional history, you just use it to make sure you remember what doing that TASK is like. Otherwise the TASK is useless to you. Ah yes, getting a commitment from a friend is like that time when my friend wouldn’t commit to going on holiday with me, what did I do then to persuade her? In your imagination you must still use a real person, but day dream to imagine what that TASK is like to you. What would you do to the person if you needed to get the TASK achieved? Do those things to the TARGET actor.
SEVEN: Learn the lines cold. That means so you don’t need to think of them. If you need to reach for the lines at any time, you’ll be distracted, self conscious and dead in the water. Learn them without intonation or tonal inflection though – in other words don’t fix your speech patterns – otherwise you’ll struggle to change moment to moment.
EIGHT: Trust the writing. It’s done, it’s dusted. Trust it now.
NINE: Listen carefully to what the director wants. They may be good, they may be great, they may be abysmal, but if you listen carefully you can work out for yourself what the director wants from you.
TEN: Everyone in our industry has their own language from the grips to the director and writer. Actors are no different. Actors speak the language of action. Don’t expect everyone else to speak your language though, but always translate whatever you’ve been asked to do back into action. Directors often talk in terms of the results they want and often you’re on your own as to how you deliver these results. So, the director tells you to get more aggressive, you need to think of the types of behaviour, the tactics that aggressive people might use. When you do these tactics with the same intention as the character, you give the illusion the director wanted.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
Happy Birthday Acting Coach Scotland
It was three years ago today that we rented a wee gallery space in a rough area of Glasgow and a small group of people gathered together to attend a basic six week acting course under the auspices of Acting Coach Scotland. One of those people, Ian Watt, is still with us, now teaching Step 1 and with my greatest respect – a growing embodiment of Practical Aesthetics.
Since then we’ve worked with some wonderful people, we’ve moved to our own space, developed plays, had triumph and disaster and pushed onwards to forge a part-time professional equivalent to conservatory training in a city over-run with ‘drama training’.
So our little studio is three years old. I’m so happy with what we’ve accomplished in that time. If you’re one of our students, or even if you’re not yet – we’ll be having a party in August, I can’t wait to celebrate properly with all of you.
To all of our students past and present, you continue to inspire us, thank you and Happy Birthday ACS!
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND
Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? 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 2011
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