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Know your Job
Greetings, apologies for the lack of blogs recently, been very busy, but which of us isn’t and excuses don’t cut it.
I’ve been reading Larry Moss’ book, The Intent to Live, he’s got some amazing clients and speaks a lot of sense, although personally I disagree with about 70% of it. His distaste for Mamet is evident, and many times his examples are born out of clear misunderstanding, but there’s still much to learn from Mr Moss.
I was thinking about at what point the actor’s own ideas begin to encroach on the script itself. Certainly my own experiences of the recorded media indicate to me that encroachment is the norm. There are so many opportunities for the actor to flex their creative and imaginative muscles in each role that it seems that impinging on the text is unnecessary.
It is when the actor’s choices damage the text and their relationship to it that it starts to become a problem.
It isn’t your job to ‘help’ the script, 9/10 your helping is a knee-jerk reaction to having to deal with the difficult part of acting. But you do not need to help the script, you need to develop the solid skills to open it up and fully explore it as an actor. If you think you can do better, then go write something but don’t be lazy and don’t feel that your creative domain includes the writer, how would you feel if the writer gave you performance notes….? Precisely.
Do your job, leave the others to do their own.
The Skills of the Actor
I recently spent two full days working intensively with a client on the basics of acting. We broke the training down into the elements that I feel are necessary for an actor to excel in and habituate, it is the craft, it is our craft:
* Discerning from the script what is actable and what clues from the script should be acted upon.
* Harvesting from the script clues to the given imaginary circumstances.
* The capacity to work off your scene partner, to act and react, within the truth of the moment.
* Technical skils of voice, movement, an understanding of performing ’style’, and the professional skills necessary to act for stage, television, film and new media.
* Lastly the ability to connect to the script and the situation of the character.
Of course, I appreciate that traditional actor training has more components and if I taught a full course, it would certainly include more, but it wouldn’t include anything to do with character, because it’s unnecessary.
I don’t say that to be controversial. I don’t say that because I am not aware of character based training, I have trained in many of them and read the books of their master practitioners, I don’t say that ‘cos Mamet says so’, but because my experience, and this week’s work demonstrates that truthful, engaging, captivating performance can be delivered without it.
And as my intensive student goes off to Los Angeles to work with his agent on adding more acting work to his career, I feel confident that he takes with him, the seeds of the professional skills his acting career will need to blossom.
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to all! I hope you have a great time, I’m watching It’s a Wonderful Life as Christmas Eve turns into Christmas Day, and you know what? It is!
It’s All in the Script
Certain methods of working as an actor put the actor’s creative powers at the centre of their process. I can understand this, as the people with the least power in a production, one will take any opportunity to have a tiny piece of the decision making. However, to my mind, the script is the most powerful resource the actor has at their disposal. The trouble is that the script is not often the actor’s friend, they fear getting to grips with it, so a few weeks spent in self-pleasuring character exercises tends to make them feel at east – until it comes to actually performing the script – because they still haven’t overcome that problem.
In television and film, the script is often less-than-respected, in the theatre, the writer is still king. In many ways this is a shame, because it’s the writers who know how to tell stories best.
My own training and what I teach on a daily basis is that the answers to the puzzle of any scene, of any script in any medium, can be resolved by looking to the script. The script has it all. But what about when the script is crap? You can’t save a bad script, you really can’t. You can save yourself, but you cannot save poor craft. You will of course be tempted, but I say resist. Anyway, let’s not look at worst case scenarios, let’s look at your average script for a television show or play, or film. Let’s imagine that the writer spent a long time working on it and it was hell on earth to get it to this stage. Let’s not piss all over it immediately as we disrespect the writer by imagine that we can make it better.
Let’s go to the script. How to play the scene is given in clues by the writer. Let’s face it, writers try to write the most useful script they can for actors – and some will even take out insurance and try to make it actor-proof- meaning even the worst actors with the worst performances based on the worse choices given the worst direction in front of the worst audience can’t fuck it up. Well, they try anyway.
For actors will little experience, I ask you now to learn to respect the script. For experienced actors that have learned many bad habits and begun to think they can do it better, respect the script or start writing your own and prove that you CAN do it better, then try not to pull out you hair whilst the actors tear it to pieces.
Say the lines simply. Don’t overdo it. The audience are NOT stupid. Help them on their dramatic journey by being good at what you do, bringing the 2-D page into 3-D performance. And when you’re looking for help with how to do that. Respect the script and start looking for the clues there.
John Strasberg, son of the famous acting teacher Lee Strasberg famously said that he ‘realised that everything is already in the play.’
But an actor needs to have faith in themselves that they can learn to use the script as a tool and not as a painful enemy, an obstacle that prevents them doing their job. Actor Steve Buscemi who was a student of John Strasberg’s said after working with John ‘I think learned to trust myself more, to look for clues in the play to help me with the character I was playing’.
To focus this much on the play means that you have to have a fairly rigorous approach to using the script as your closest ally. So find yourself an acting coach that can teach you to make the script your friend.
And oh… read more plays 
)
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
Becoming a Triple Threat
This blog originally appeared on Straight from School’s website:
There are lots of young people in the UK that desperately want to work in Musical Theatre and for good reason. When you go to a show like Wicked, Les Mis, Spring Awakening or one of the other BIG musicals – it’s glamourous, sexy and looks like great fun. The truth is, it’s bloody hard work and it takes years of intensive training to get to the position of being good enough to cast for a professional musical. Don’t be fooled by watching those TV talent shows, the amount and level of training those people have or get is unbelievable.
Becoming a Musical Theatre performer is a tough journey that requires real graft, commitment and an indomitable spirit. Those that stand the best chance of working in the Musical Theatre are those who are trained as Triple Threats.
The Triple Threat (T3) is so-called because they can sing, dance and act. Now, all the T3’s that I’ve ever worked with have a primary skill and then work their tails off to become better at the others. We’re not talking about being a fantastic actor with basic dance and some singing skills. We’re talking about those performers that have trained themselves to a professional standard in all three areas.
Not all Musical Theatre performers are T3s, but it’s the T3s that have more success of gaining employment. They can go for dance roles, singing roles, acting roles, or those that require any combination of all three. The T3 is a special kind of person and it takes a real dedication to achieve a level of professionalism in the three disciplines where one can be called Triple Threat.
Being Triple Threat means being able to market yourself as a singer, dancer and actor, and the training should start early…particularly for those that are not natural dancers. Acting and singing can be learned later in life, but you really DO need to get your dance training in early, the earlier the better.
Why are they called Triple Threats? Because when you’re up against one, they can beat you to a job in all three disciplines. The choice is clear, becoming a Triple Threat or get beaten by one.
With a certain sense of irony, Happy Birthday David Mamet )
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
Assistance with Repetition
The Repetition Exercise is one of my favourite parts of actor training and in my classes we spend a considerable amount of time attaining high skill levels in this exercise at all levels of the ACS training syllabus. I’ve been reading a lot about emotions this weekend, and whilst we do not try to fake emotions, we do try to be able to determine the behaviour and emotions of our partners. I’m sorry, this is probably not much fun for anyone that isn’t already taking classes or doing repetition elsewhere, but it’s fairly essential reading for my students.
The trouble is that among experts there is very little consensus on the actual basic emotions that the human being feels and therefore exhibits:
The Stoics believed there only a few basic emotions: Pleasure or Delight, Distress or Fear. (Can you tell when your partner is in one of these four basic states?)
In 1972, a now famous psychologist called Paul Ekman (he pioneered the reading of micro-expressions and emotions and a character based on him is in the TV show Lie to Me) came up with his own list of the basic emotions namely: Anger, Disgust, Fear, Happiness, Sadness and Surprise.
Now these are useful, but they don’t quite complete the full range of basic emotions, so in 1999 Ekman revised his list and came up with:
Amusement, Anger, Contempt, Contentment, Disgust, Embarrassment, Excitement, Fear, Guilt, Pride in Achievement, Relief, Sadness/Distress, Satisfaction, Sensory Pleasure and Shame.
This is very helpful for those of us staring at someone’s face (don’t forget it’s their body language and their tone too, this is just ONE facet of Repetition)
So Jesse Prinz was dissatisfied with these and came up with some of his own, Prinz is a philosopher, working in the field of emotions and the philosophy of psychology. Here’s Jesse Prinz’s list:
Frustration, Panic, Anxiety, Physical Disgust, Distress, Self-Consciousness, Satisfaction, Stimulation and Attachment.
Now again, not all of these work for repetition, but they’re good to consider.
Now the reason that I’m highlighting these for you, is to get you to become better and more specific at naming what you see. Think of it in terms of the stoics, then in terms of Ekman in ‘72 and Ekman in 99, then widen your thoughts on emotion to Prinz in 2004.
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
Help Me Out with My Decision About Glasgow Acting Classes
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 YODA has to teach us as actors
Recently, I did a blog offering advice for actors based on the philosophy of the rapper and businessman Fiddy Cent. This received many emails and messages and I’d like to thank you all, I’m so glad it was helpful for you. Well, in the same spirit, this blog is inspired by the quotes of that famous acting teacher, oh okay, he’s not an acting teacher, but he may as well be, the one and only YODA:
“No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.”
Meaning: ‘I’ll try’ is preparing to fail. (Mamet) If you allow the idea of failure into your pursuits, you are already admitting defeat. Either take action or do not. There is no in-between.
“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”
Meaning that you need to identify your fears, blockages, obstacles and problems, examine the problem/fear, put it into the spotlight to prevent it from quietly defeating you. For an actor, this could be fear of working on a particular kind of material say Shakespeare or Film, or hating doing monologues or cold reads. Shine a light on your issue and go after with the same passion that you want to be the best actor. Whatever your weaknesses are, find them out, and banish them.
“If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are … a different game you should play.”
Meaning: If you repeat the same strategy for your career over and over and it doesn’t work, you must change your strategy, for PA practitioners, this also means, CHANGE tactics!
“But when the day comes that even old Yoda does not learn something from his students-then truly, he shall be a teacher no more.”
Meaning: No matter how clever, experienced and gifted you are, you still have something to learn. Even your acting teacher should be humble.
“Already know you that which you need.”
Meaning: For the actor, you already have the capacity to live truthfully and the mind to do it under imaginary circumstances. Everything you need to become a better actor is already inside you, but you might need some help in finding it and bringing it out into the open.
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 does good acting look like?
ACTING STUDIO UPDATE: The studio is starting to look the part and the office is a great haven, where lots of work can be done for both ACS and Writers Inc, our writing arm… Pictures to follow!
THE BLOG: Recently in the advanced acting techniques class, we were doing repetition and I asked the two students Ian and Paul to go into the ACS Office and do repetition. The other students and I then watched through the window of the studio which allows a limited view of the office. The two students doing the repetition looked fantastic, they were just two guys, enjoying a chat, if they’d had a pint glass in their hands, they would have looked like two blokes in a pub, having a chat over a drink.
So what convinced me of this? They were relaxed and at ease with each other, they were living truthfully. They were responding to what each other was doing and they were having a good time whilst they were doing it. And it got me thinking. What does good acting look like? You see, I can tell you what bad acting looks like:
*stiff
*false
*exaggerated
*dead
*loud
*mechanical
But good acting is somehow less obvious:
* easy
* not convincing but invisible (you’re not aware of it)
* subtle
* organic
When I watched Ian and Paul doing Repetition in the ACS Office, I saw this, I saw this invisible, subtle, ease and now as advanced acting students and professional performers, it’s their job to bring that same sense of ease and invisible to the acting of their scenes.
On a great positive, this advanced class will be joined by experienced playwright/screenwriters Ann Marie di Mambro, Chris Dolan and Philip J Larkin to develop the student’s improvised scenes into carefully crafted scripted scenes.
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
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
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
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.
Repetition for Beginners
I hate Wordpress, this is my third attempt at writing this for you, fingers crossed this time. )
Repetition or the Repetition Exercise or Game was developed by Sandy Meisner in the USA to train actors to actively listen to each other and pay attention to their stage partners. Repetition is a foundation exercise in Practical Aesthetics, the approach to acting developed by David Mamet & WH Macy.
Traditionally actors do not need to listen to each other, they’ve rehearsed the scene in the same way throughout the entire rehearsal process, so they know what’s coming next. This means that their skill must be in pretending to respond truthfully to something they’ve heard hundreds of times. However, sooner or later, your performance will degrade over time. This might be fine on film but on the stage, where you need to remain spontaneous night after night, it becomes problematic.
In Meisner’s view and that of practitioners of Practical Aesthetics, actors should listen and should not set their performances in stone, in the words of Mike Alfreds, they should be ‘different every night.’
If your performance is to be truly spontaneous and immediate (meaning based on what’s happening here and now rather than copying what happened in rehearsal ad naseum, then you must learn to work off what the other actor is doing in this moment.
Repetition helps you to build the skills to deal with this new spontaneous and immediate style of performance.
Repetition is simple. Say something truthful about the other person and then that person repeats from their perspective and continue to repeat what you hear until something happens that makes you change. For example:
You’re unsure
I’m unsure
You’re unsure
I’m unsure
You’re unsure
I’m unsure
You’re unsure
I’m unsure
You’re unsure
I’m unsure
You’re unsure
I’m unsure
Etc etc…
There’s no need to do anything, there’s no need to change what you say or how you say it unless you see something new occurring.
Simply put: if you see the person fidgeting and biting their lip, you may believe they are nervous, then say it and continue to repeat (until one of you sees some new change occuring)
You’re unsure
I’m unsure
You’re unsure
I’m unsure (you see them bite their lip’
You’re nervous
I’m nervous
You’re nervous
I’m nervous
You’re nerbus (you hear them err)
You made a mistake
I made a mistake (they go red)
You’re embarrassed
I’m embarrassed
You’re embarrassed
I’m embarrassed
You’re embarrassed
I’m embarrassed
As David Mamet says ‘Invent Nothing, Deny Nothing’. This means that you do NOT need to change anything on purpose but If you see a change in your repetition partner, then say it, don’t deny it. Remember it’s Invent Nothing, Deny Nothing.
There are three rules for repetition:
1) Tell the Truth
2) If in doubt Repeat
3) Dont stop playing the game: keep playing if you get it right, get it wrong, completely fuck it up or a herd of gazelles tramples your classmates. Place your focus on your partner and play the game until you’re told to stop.
You must allow yourself to be influenced by the other actor and to inadvertently (at this stage) influence their behaviour (without attempting to do so).
This game has no winner, it’s not a competition, when you make a mistake or get stuck for words just attempt to keep going, your worst mistakes are gifts to your fellow repetition practitioner that will keep the game going.
Simply say what you see regardless of social politeness. Meisner used to say ‘Fuck Polite’. He doesn’t mean be rude, he simply means that if you are an actor, you must be open to live truthfully under a wide range of imaginary circumstances and scenarios. For this reason, the actor must be unrestricted by social niceties in order to prepare to do this. It’s not about being mean to each other, it’s about being open enough to say what you see and respond to it.
Over time your repetition skills are integrated into your scene work. From herein it’s just practise. So what are you waiting for? Get practising!
See you in class!
Please Don’t Act
I hate watching actors that are performing to me. They rob me of my chance to look at what being human is as an observer and remind me that they are attempting to play a trick on me. I may disagree with the notion of the 4th Wall for actors but not for the audience, I want to overhear, I was to see things as if the actor is unaware of me.
One of the things that leaves me cold is when I see actors ‘performing’ and not living. This I think is a point upon which many of us could agree, the actor that is living gives off a completely different energy to the one who is projecting their act to the audience.
Imagine our enjoyment to come from an act of voyeurism, when you break the spell, when ‘Act’ or ‘Perform’, you kill the enjoyment for us.
We’re all in this together, it’s a highly enjoyable complicity, the audience suspends their disbelief and the actors behave as if there’s no one there. But once you start performing, mugging, emoting, theatricalising your performance, we break the covenant between us. From there, no way back.
Notes for a Teaching Assistant in an Acting Class
I’m currently away on a writing retreat at the Arvon Centre’s Writing Centre up in Inverness-shire. It gives me lots of time to think and write my new play before my scholarship place writing course begins next Monday.
My new acting classes begin in just under a week’s time and I will be teaching three classes a week, two intro classes and one advanced class and doing lots of private 1-2-1’s based on the number of recent emails that I’ve received.
I’m formally adding two Teaching Assistants to my intro classes this term and I’m excited to say that I think I’ve picked people that will assist me well and that will use the opportunity to teach others and learn something about themselves.
Anyway, I decided that I would write some helping hints to Acting Class Assistants in the hope that my own TAs and other TAs out there in the acting training industry might benefit from it.
1) DO see this as a position of responsibility, not of power.
2) If you aren’t sure, DO ask the tutor and ask aloud so everyone can benefit and everyone can see that if they have a question, they should ask.
3) DO use similar useful phrases that the course tutor uses, this will help reaffirm what the students are learning.
4) The tutor will not thank you for pointing out an error that they made, but that doesn’t mean you should let it go. If you think they’ve made an error, then DO speak with them after the class, you may learn something, or you may indeed correct them.
5) DO display all of the qualities that we are trying to develop in the students. Be punctual, be prepared, have pen and paper, have your script, bring extra for the students that haven’t yet learned good habits.
6) DO Encourage, but don’t contradict.
7) DON’T talk yourself into a corner. If you want to make a point, do so, if you don’t think you can make the point clearly, don’t – you’ll look back at a sea of confused faces. 
DO point out any concerns about the students to the tutor.
9) DON’T forget what it was like at your first class.
10) DO ensure that you are better prepared than any of the students.
11) Correct the students but only after they’ve given it a go.
12) Although the class isn’t about you, you can still treat it as a learning opportunity.
13) The tutor makes their comments after years of experience, take care critiquing others. Give feedback that is practicable.
14) Enjoy the experience.
Good Luck!
Ease and the Actor
I never liked the idea of relaxation for actors. It’s true that performing places horrible tensions on the actor but being relaxed seems only a good way to relieve tension, we do not want to be relaxed as such when we are preparing and giving our performance. We want an active state, this active state is called Ease.
When something is done with a feeling of ease, it is organic, fluid and flowing. It feels completely natural because you get entirely out of your own way. You do not become inhibited by mental or physical tension or resistance.
Stanislavsky and Strasberg both placed a great deal of emphasis on relaxation as an actor’s tool, but I’m not sure how practicable relaxation exercises are for future application. Even frequent practitioners of yoga, relaxation and meditation acknowledge that it takes time to get oneself into a relaxed state but this is neither useful to an actor warming up for a performance nor suitable to relieve tension during the performance. Tension cannot be willed away, nor can you take time out to change your state.
So how do you approach the achievement of a feeling of ease? To my mind it is centred around your attitude to several things.
Firstly, things that are artificial and not organic, attract more stress and tension. Habit can help by providing a way for new things to become natural.
Secondly, Mamet’s famous dictum offers us a great way to discover ease in our work. “invent nothing, deny nothing, accept everything”. Do not push, do not try to hard, do not invent. But be open, be vulnerable, be willing to see and seize opportunities that arise, do not deny what happens or what you feel. Denying will lead to inner stress and outer manifestations of tension. Go with The Flow they say. Lastly accept everything, decide what is within your control and what is not. Focus on those things that you have power to change and influence and you will be happier and more at ease with yourself.
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