The Acting Blog

Acting Classes in Glasgow! Can’t make them? Free Advice Available!

Hi, it’s Christmas time and our January Glasgow Acting Classes are almost full and as a little ‘give back’ session, this blog is going to be very short:

This blog is a request.  What would you like me to help you with?  What would you like me to blog about? I

If you have a request for a blog topic, or you have an acting problem or puzzle, or something you’d like to me to write about, then why not get in touch.

My email address is: mark@actingcoachscotland.co.uk

So whatever it is, whatever you’d like to know more about, get in touch and let me know and I’ll start writing some blogs that answer your questions and queries.

Until then, normal blogging will resume tomorrow!

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

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The Principles of Acting and NOT the Rules of Acting!

When I teach acting classes in Glasgow, I’m often very strict about the way that I approach Practical Aesthetics.  It’s almost like there are a set of rules and I’m making the students stick to them.  I suppose from the outside, that looks rather restrictive.  In our journey from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence, somewhere, we have to learn the ropes.  But I don’t think that it’s my job to teach ‘rules’.  I don’t approach acting with a rule book in mind that people must stick to, instead, I believe that I espouse the principles of pragmatism, a practicable approach to acting that we called Practical Aesthetics, the approach formulated by Mamet and Macy and developed by its practitioners ever since.

Principles? Rules? What’s the difference?  A rule says THIS is the way that YOU (and all) MUST do it. Principles say ‘this works, take it or leave it’.

Firstly, acting is not about rules.  Although the rebellious acting student wants to break them, usually before they’ve discovered if there are any.  Anxious students, wanting to be perfect (the route to stiff, mechanical thinking, behaviour and action) try to obey rules, and get confused and upset when it doesn’t all work out like 2+2=4.  Rules are easy to follow, but art and craft of the actor is based on principles, and these are a little more grey in their definition, but they work, time and again.  If you’re willing to spend the time learning them.

We live in a get-it-quick culture.  We want to take the shortest route anywhere.  We will usually do the least possible to get the desired result.  But becoming a professional, and I mean that in the fullest sense, becoming a professional actor means opening one self up to the richness, fullness and thoroughness of the craft.  If asked to familiarise yourself with the work of Pierre Marivaux (or anyone for that matter), do you read one and scan Wikipedia?  Or do you spend time reading his work, reading about his work and learning who he was and what made him tick.  Most people wouldn’t bother, but this thoroughness, it permeates through your entire work ethic.

If you practice everything as if there is nothing to lose, when it comes to the real thing, you will flounder under the pressure.   Thoroughness in everything, thoroughness in all.  This is a principle.

Excellence in acting requires graft, perseverance and a thorough grounding in the principles of the craft.  I believe and when I teach my acting classes in Glasgow, or anywhere in fact, it starts with the simplest principles and it ends with those self same principles.

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

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Tags: Acting Classes in Glasgow, Practical Aesthetics

What Actors Can Learn from 50 Cent

Well, I suppose you weren’t expecting that title.  I guess I’m not the kind of guy that most people would associate with rap music.  But I’ve recently been listening to an audio book by Robert Greene (author of The 48 Laws of Power) and 50 Cent (yes, THAT Fiddy Cent).  They co-wrote a book together called The 50th Law and I’m enjoying it very much.  While I’m listening to it, I keep having moments of inspiration and thought that you could learn along with me.

So what can actors learn from Fiddy Cent? Fiddy Cent grew up on the tough streets of South Queens, he learned to be fearless, this fearlessness is the basis of his personal philosophy and guides him in all that he does.  Here’s what we can learn from Mr Cent.

ONE:  Fear is a prison, it holds you captive and prevents you from doing what you want.  The more fears you have, the more obstacles to getting what you want.  What are your fears? How can you remove them?

TWO:  Fear is primal, it is inherent in all of us.  It is strongly connected to our survival instinct.  But as the number of threats to our actual safety decreased, we’ve allowed smaller, more insidious anxieties to take their place.  The trouble is, that they are no longer useful to us in this way.  If you can’t let go of your fears, these fear change your perspective on the world and your life within it. You approach life from the perspective of fear.

THREE: The odds of failure and the fear that accompanies those odds are always present.  Self belief and action can overcome even the most powerful odds.

FOUR:  Be Patient, but don’t let patience lead to stasis built on fear.  Patiently wait, and take action as the moment arises.

FIVE:  Rejection is a strong primal fear.  We all have it and yet as actors, we must confront it constantly.  Accept it’s place in the scheme of things and move on.

SIX: Place yourself in the situations that cause anxiety and the fear of rejection, quickly those situations will lose their power over you.

SEVEN:  Without a Plan B, without a safety net, you are compelled to take action and go after your target.  When you have something to fall back on, you act with the knowledge of safety, you avoid trouble and you look for opportunities to return to that safety, rather than throwing yourself into the game.

EIGHT: ‘The greatest fear people have is that of being themselves. They want to be 50 Cent or someone else. They do what everyone else does even if it doesn’t fit where and who they are. But you get nowhere that way; your energy is weak and no one pays attention to you. You’re running away from the one thing that you own—what makes you different. I lost that fear. And once I felt the power that I had by showing the world I didn’t care about being like other people, I could never go back.” – 50 Cent.

NINE: We have little control over our circumstances, mainly we just react.  We struggle to maintain equilibrium but we have little control.  But we can our way of thinking about these circumstances, and if we can do this, we can change our circumstances.

TEN:  Bold action backed up by real confidence will be your secret power source.  When people are confronted by real confidence, they either back down or follow.  When someone expresses real confidence, people cannot help but admire it.

ELEVEN:  Don’t be afraid of change.  Be fluid. Go with the flow.  Everything, I mean EVERYTHING is an opportunity.

TWELVE:  Our days are numbered, it could all end tomorrow.  What did you do today to propel you towards your target?

THIRTEEN:  Ingratiation is weakness.  No one respects it.

FOURTEEN:  Refuse to avoid confrontation with your fears or those determined to get in your way.

FIFTEEN: Your fears exaggerate themselves.  When you confront them, you will overcome them as you see them in perspective.

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

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Tags: 48 Laws of Power, 50 cent, Acting Classes in Glasgow, acting without fear, Actors and 50 Cent, Mark Westbrook, Robert Greene, The 50th Law

Acting Classes in Glasgow

I like to hear about other people do it.  Teaching/coaching acting I mean.  Of course, the chances are that as an acting coach, I will see very few other coaches and teachers doing their thing.  It’s true that I have a fairly strict code of what I believe teaching acting SHOULD be and what teaching acting HAS BECOME.  For the most part, anyone can call themselves an acting teacher and that makes it dangerous because so many gifted and vulnerable people come to us for help and advice.

I was upset to hear a student talking about another class she attends as having over 21 members.  21! That’s not an acting class to me.  Instead, it is a valuable opportunity for the institution to make dishonest money.  I’ve had large classes to teach when I was in the conservatory and in the university, but the best classes that I’ve ever taught – for the student I mean – were classes of no more than 8, perhaps 6, well, okay, probably 2.  This causes us acting coaches and acting teachers trouble, it’s hard to make a living that way, unless you charge the earth.  Private classes are a part of what I do, but you can’t run an acting class and say you only have 2 spaces and that you’re charging £600 for each space – well you could, but…

Of course I understand that intensive full time programmes can have 16 students in a room and part of the time they are watching and part of the time, they are taking part.

I find the idea of putting 21 students in a room quite dishonest, I struggled with it when I taught at the conservatory and I struggle with the idea now.  Acting is one on one.  Two actors/acting students and the coach is the best possible environment for learning.  Perhaps you could stretch this to four if you wanted to give two a chance to reflect and learn through observation and reflection.  But ideally, I say 2.  Not 1, because 1 misses that important relationship with The Other.

You see, as my friend Terence Zeeman taught me, drama – particularly acting is taught on the body, it requires presence and practice.  That’s why I’m stuck for words whenever a student asks me to recap what they missed in class.  What is missed, is missed.  It’s not even about new knowledge, I suppose that could form a hand out.  Instead, it is the presence, it is the training being done to and with you present.

If you’re looking for an acting class, ask how many people are in the class, if you find the number high, you will not, you simply cannot, spend that much time DOING the business of acting, because there is not the time for it.  Sure, you can break into groups and come up with improv’d sketches and skits, but that feels less like an acting class and more like a drama group.

If you’re taking acting classes in glasgow, my advice, look for a small class, you’ll learn more, develop quicker and have greater feedback.

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

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Tags: Acting Class, Acting Classes in Glasgow, acting coach in glasgow, acting teacher in glasgow, how many people should be in an acting class?

Sloppy Repetition

Meisner believed actors do not listen.  They are so focused on what they have to do that they rarely really listen and connect with their partners.  I would go one further and suggest this is not a problem for actors, this is a problem for the human race.  Yesterday I had an experience on the telephone and it made me think about how we do not listen, we gloss over, we fill in the blanks, we presume, but we don’t listen…

CALLER:   Hello, Mr Jones?

ME:            No.

CALLER:  Hello there Mr Jones, I’m calling from SOME COMPANY TRYING TO SELL YOU SOMETHING THAT YOU DON’T WANT.

Now how was this boy going to sell me something if he hadn’t listened to see if I was Mr Jones or not?  He wasn’t listening, he was too focused on his task to actually care about the one person that could help him do his job better.  It is the same for the actor.

Until now, I’ve resisted writing about the repetition exercise or game.  Personally, I think talking about it dilutes it somewhat.  Yet, there’s no exercise for the actor that teaches them to listen, pay attention to their partner, see what changes in their partner and educates them in how to connect with their partner, whether their partner is connected to them or not.

To me, one of the big problems with students as they get better at the exercise is that they no longer focus on being precise about the repetition, in other words, they sort of gloss over the cracks, presuming, reading, fortune telling the response, and not allowing the moment to be true.

REPEAT WHAT YOU HEAR is one of the basic tenets of the exercise, yet people want to lead, they want to abuse, control, bully, compete with the other person.  Just repeat what you hear with your own perspective.

Repetition becomes fake when you begin to try to take control. Do you see? It’s not ABOUT YOU. It’s about the OTHER person.

When you take control of the repetition, you are getting sloppy, you are no longer truly PAYING ATTENTION TO YOUR PARTNER.  You make assumption and presumptions.  You can afford to neither.

How many times do we hear the same old predictable calls made when someone does something that you recognise.  You say ‘ah yes, that’s this’, before you even look to see what it truly is.  You must be on the ball, that’s what being in the moment is about, but you must also be exact, you must be precise, you must learn to see the difference between disagreement and surprise for instance.

Challenge yourself to take your time next time you are up doing repetition, challenge yourself to say what it is, not what you have gotten used to saying.   When I was training, I remember that one of my classmates would also use ‘you’re stuck in your head’ or ‘you’re in your head’ whenever she couldn’t think of anything else to say.  She was learning to lie and this exercise is about revealing the truth.

Repetition is about learning to see what behaviour your scene partner is exhibiting so that you can learn to address that behaviour with your actions.

Sloppy repetition improves no one.  It simply allows you to lie to yourself, and to your scene partner.

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

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Tags: Acting Classes in Glasgow, Meisner Repetition, Repetition Exercise

Mamet on Acting and Emotion in Film Acting

Hello, just a brief one to recommend this brilliant article on acting and emotion in film written by David Mamet in The Guardian back in 2003.  It’s one of my favourite articles on film acting relating to emotion.  Of course, it will piss off all the Method-ists but it fully expresses what we teach at Acting Coach Scotland in our regularly acting classes in Glasgow and our acting masterclasses across Scotland and beyond.

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

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Tags: Acting Classes in Glasgow, Acting Emotion in Film Acting, Emotion and Acting, Mamet on Acting