Acting Coach Scotland
Tackling Talent: Part 1 – A Guest Blog from ACS Assistant Coach Karli Evans
How many successful actors out there do you think built their careers on talent?
The answer is, probably 3.
Not only is acting not exclusive to those very few who have true talent, true talent being the ability to instinctively live truthfully under the imaginary circumstances of the play or film EVERY time, but someone with talent very rarely works hard at acquiring a technique. Why would they need to? They have talent and, so far, it has always worked. But what happens when it doesn’t work? You don’t instinctively feel it? The muse doesn’t strike? Where do you go and how do you still give a truthful and exciting performance?
A technique is designed to be a fail safe system that an actor uses when needed, to create consistently great work. That doesn’t mean being exactly the same every night, but being consistently honest, real and in the moment and therefore watchable and exciting. And a technique is learnable. You aren’t born with a technique.
Can you build a successful career on talent? The necessary characteristics of an actor extend much further than the ability to act well. An actor needs to have a fantastic work ethic, self motivational skills, incredible staying power and the ability to constantly accept rejection without slipping into self loathing and despair.
If an aspiring actor is not as naturally gifted or talented as others, to continue on this career path takes grit, passion and absolute love for the job. Does this mean talented people are less passionate because the same level of grit and hard work are not essential?
My thoughts are that true talent (making it work instinctively EVERY TIME) is so rare that it doesn’t matter and even a truly talented person must find somewhere to showcase their work and get themselves known. Everyone who wants a career as an actor needs to put in the work. Some natural ability can be a good starting point, but a football player with natural ability still needs to train every week to make the professional league.
Remember that acting is learnable. A technique is learnable. Acting is not an exclusive club for the ‘chosen ones’.
We often see a great film or play with great acting and say ‘Wow, they’re talented. They’re so lucky to have gotten their break.’
Anthony Robbins’ definition of L.U.C.K
Labour
Under
Correct
Knowledge
Nowhere in that statement does it mention talent.
What you and everyone else see up there is not talent, but the result of hours upon hours of hard, gut busting work.
All the best
KARLI
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
A Grammar of Acting
This grammar helps us to speak the same language, to develop a vocabulary for discussing the work that we do and the work of others. A shared vocabulary allows us a solid foundation for understanding how acting works and how to develop our skills.
When you have a language, you can enter into a dialogue. Dialogues empower us to learn and change. Without this grammar, without a shared language, we will find it difficult to engaged in this learning dialogue.
ACTOR: Someone that takes action.
ACTING: Acting is living truthfully under the imaginary circumstances of the play (Sanford Meisner)
ACTION1: also known as a TOOL or a TACTIC
ACTION2: Behaviour, the things that you do, made up of WANT, ESSENTIAL ACTION, PHYSICAL ACTIVITY and PHYSICAL ACTION.
ANALOGOUS CIRCUMSTANCES: Parallel Circumstances that help us to understand what we must do and how we must behave in the As-IF.
ANTECEDENT EVENTS: Events that occurred before the play begins.
As-IF: Developing parallel circumstances so that you understand the context for how you will play the scene, offers stakes and tempo-rhythm elements for your ESSENTIAL ACTION.
As-IFFING: An exercise used to habitualise the TACTICS of the ESSENTIAL ACTION into your body.
BIT: An individual section of the play script/text
BIT CHANGE: When one BIT of the scene changes to another because the character’s ESSENTIAL ACTION changes.
BEAT: What it sounds like when a Russian says ‘Bit’ and so, BIT has been replaced generally by BEAT and BEAT CHANGE.
CHARACTER: The sum of a person’s characteristics, the total of what they do. The sum of their actions2.
DIRECTOR: Someone who directs the ACTION2 of the play
DRAMATIC ACTION: The conflict of will as the Antagonist(s) strive to achieve their goals and what they do to try to achieve them.
ESSENTIAL ACTION: What your character wants from the other reduced down into a single powerful, actable sentence. Each Essential Action has 9 Criteria.
THE FACTS: An effective way to arrive at a summation of the GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES.
GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES: The term comes from Stanislavski and refers to all of the unchangeable facts of the scene. These facts are not open to interpretation; they are external influences that affect the situation of the scene. The writer, director and all the actors should be able to agree on these circumstances, as they are FACTS.
HABITUALISATION: The task of making something into a habit and therefore capable of being done without thought.
IN THE MOMENT: Now, not before, not before after, but RIGHT now.
LITERAL: A basic description of the scene – given without interpretation. A summation of what’s happening concluded into a single phrase.
MOMENT-TO-MOMENT WORK: Responding truthfully to what occurs in each moment, rather than based on what you did earlier in rehearsal.
OBSTACLE: What hinders your task IS your task.
PHYSICAL ACTION: Another name for a TOOL or TACTIC.
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY: Physical doing. Making a pot of tea. Killing Claudius, Undressing, Crossing the stage to pick up an object, or waving hello, these are all PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES.
PLAYWRIGHT: The ‘maker’/’wrighter’ of the play. The person that puts the pieces of the DRAMATIC ACTION together.
PRACTICAL AESTHETICS: A practicable theory of art.
RELATIONSHIP: The relationship type, be it PARENT, CHILD, TEACHER, STUDENT, EMPLOYEE, EMPLOYER, FRIEND, STRANGER etc that is between the characters in the scene that helps the actor to understand HOW to behave under the Imaginary GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES.
REPETITION: An exercise created by Sanford Meisner to teach actors to listen to each other and respond to each other truthfully. It helps to develop spontaneity of action and reaction in the moment.
REPETITION WITH ACTION: The exercise played from the perspective of the ESSENTIAL ACTION.
SCENE ANALYSIS: A way of tackling any scene by asking several essential questions:
- 1. WHAT’S THE CHARACTER LITERALLY DOING?
- 2. WHAT DOES THE CHARACTER WANT THE OTHER CHARACTER TO DO?
- 3. WHAT’S THE ESSENTIAL ACTION?
- 4. AS IF: WHAT’S THE ESSENTIAL ACTION LIKE TO ME – IT’S AS IF…..
SCRIPT ANALYSIS: The overarching analysis of the play/screenplay to align the actors with the Dramatic Action the writer has constructed.
STAGE BUSINESS: Incidental PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES performed for dramatic purposes.
STAKE: What your character has to lose in the scene, what you have to lose in your AS-IF. Often generated in class/rehearsal by the question:
WHAT IF YOU DON’T? – WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES
TACTICS: The things that character/actor does to get what they want. The things the actor does to the other actor in terms of TRANSITIVE VERBS that aim to produce the result required by the ESSENTIAL ACTION. It must immediately be capable of being done to another human being. TACTICS should be played based on what the other ACTOR is doing and not planned in advanced.
TEMPO-RHYTHM: A way for the STAKE to create speed of motion by setting a time signature.
TRANSITIVE VERB: A verb that can be done to someone else in Practical Aesthetics these are known as TOOLS or TACTICS.
TOOL: Another word for a PSYCHOPHYSICAL ACTION or TACTIC.
VOLLEY: To automatically fire the same ‘YOU CALL’ back in REPETITION when it isn’t necessarily true. The term is taken from tennis when the ball is hit back over the net before allowing it to bounce.
WANT: The desire, the underlying need that powers the character through the scene. Expressed in SCENE ANALYSIS as: ‘What does the character want the other character to DO’
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
Improvisation and the Advanced Glasgow Acting Class
I want to tell you something about the project my advanced students are currently working on in their Tuesday evening classes. Not because I am trying to persuade you to join them, cos I’m not, but because I think it might be interesting to hear about the work we’re doing together.
The advanced acting class at Acting Coach Scotland is a place where students that already have a firm grip on the technique of Practical Aesthetics explore more advanced elements of the technique and the training. This is an invite-only class and the standard of the student is high.
In this block of classes, we’re doing something different, we’re creating improvised scenes from scratch, working on them for a while and then handing them to playwrights to work up into script scenes.
The project started with the students creating an improvisational scenario for two other acting students. We do this with the tools of Practical Aesthetics. The student actor created a scenario, involving two people in a situation. They determined the location and what the individuals wanted from each other in the scene. Then they decided upon Essential Actions for the characters in the scene.
The next part involved a story conference with the students telling each other their ideas and I worked as story editor, working out any kinks, strengthening any parts of the story that I felt were vulnerable and challenging some of the thinking behind the decisions made.
The ‘actors’ for each scene then created an As-If for their improvised scene, to make a personal connection to the circumstances of the scene. Then they go from Repetition to connect with their partner, to Repetition with Action to begin to habituate the essential action whilst staying connected with their improv partner and finally into the As-If to bring it all together.
The students will work for a couple of weeks now on exploring the scene through improvisation before our three playwrights Ann Marie di Mambro, Chris Dolan and Philip J Larkin come in and watch the work in progress improvisations. They’ll then take their notes, their impression of the scenes and an audio recording of the improvisations and spend a week creating a scripted scene from it. The students will then work on rehearsing the scenes under my direction and using Practical Aesthetics to bring the scenes to performance.
I’ll keep you up to date with how the scenes develop and the process the students go through as they experience the generation and fruition of ideas into their performance.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
What kind of services should an Acting Coach offer?
Hello Everyone
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog, I hope there’s something here that’s useful to you. It’s often the case that I don’t shout about what we do at Acting Coach Scotland. We recently moved into new acting studio and we’re in the process of doing it up. It’s all very exciting. With a lick of paint or two, it’s going to look like a really different place.
Recently, one of my current acting class students asked me if I taught 1-2-1 classes, I was shocked that I hadn’t made it very clear what I offered right from the start. Well, rather than being a puff piece promoting myself, I thought I would set out some of the services that I believe a good acting coach should be able to offer and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. (especially because actors in my classes know that I only shoot three shy thrushes!)
Acting Classes
In Glasgow, our regular group acting classes take place on Monday and Tuesday evenings. We have an Step 1:Intro to Acting class for everyone, then students move on to Step 2: Developing Acting Skills and onwards up to the Advanced Acting and Directing classes. The classes should introduce the student actor to the basics of acting in whatever approach, style or methodology the teacher espouses. We teach Practical Aesthetics combined with a few other ideas and aim to prepare the student in the first 8-weeks.
CPD Training
Professional actors often come to me for ‘top up’ training or to discover ‘Repetition’ or the practical reality of ‘Practical Aesthetics’. We often teach classes on Monologue Preparation, Auditioning Skills and more specialist topics such as Shakespeare.
Master Classes
Ideally suited for the professional actor who is looking to add something back to their performances by engaging with a new way of acting. These are usually intensive weekend or evening sessions, not for beginners. Participants should be prepared to work hard over the course of the sessions, they are aimed at giving professionals extended and advanced developments in their acting technique.
Cold Reading Auditions/Castings
Cold reading auditions are very popular, although it’s hard to see what the director can use them for. You just an actor in pain, struggling to read and act at the same time. So we offer an immersion training, we prepare you for the discomfort of the cold read and offer you some tools so that you’re not just reading.
Professional Audition Preparation
Whether you want to try out your speeches on another professional, or you have been given a script and you’d feel more comfortable if you’ve worked through it with a coach, then an acting coach can assist you. They should offer you tools and advice, guidance and support, encouragement and honest criticism and not vague epithets.
Drama School Auditions
If you want to go to Drama School, but you want to give yourself the edge, then I advise you to find an acting coach that can help you. It helps if this coach has actually been to a drama school, although you’d be surprised at how many had not! Here the coach should prepare the student actor for all the different elements of the drama school audition, from the application form and selecting of monologues to the performance of said monologues and the famously terrifying drama school interview.
Of course, it’s possible to mix and match, someone may want some cold reading and some professional audition coaching. So that’s what Acting Coaches do. Let me know if you think I can help you.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
10 Things to Know About Practical Aesthetics
1. Forged by David Mamet, William H Macy and their students at The Practical Aesthetics Workshop from of elements of Aristotle, Meisner and Stanislavsky.
2. Practical Aesthetics is taught at the Atlantic Theater Company’s Acting School in New York and Los Angeles, Practical Aesthetics Australia and Acting Coach Scotland in Glasgow.
3. Practical Aesthetics literally means a Theory of Art that’s Capable of Being Put To Use.
4. The technique is heavily influenced by the teachings of the Stoical Philosophers.
5. There are several books that talk about the technique including David Mamet’s True and False UK/USA, Bruder et al’s Practical Handbook for the Actor UK/US and Karen Kohlhaas’ The Monologue Audition, UK/US.
6. The technique is made up of 3 main components, Repetition, Performance Technique and Script Analysis but features elements of voice and physical training from Viewpoints and Suzuki to Committed Impulse, Pilates, Laban and Yoga.
7. It offers a viable alternative to the dominant ideology of self-indulgent Method acting.
8. Practical Aesthetics is a valuable tool for the actor, director and the writer equally.
9. In an interview, David Mamet called the Stanislavski system ‘a practical aesthetic for the actor based on the Aristotelian idea of unity’.
10. Practical Aesthetics focuses on the actor’s will, their intention and the actions that lead from 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 Scotland
I am an acting coach. My job is to prepare actors of all levels to better do their job. But levels of experience really matter when it comes to private coaching. For instance, if you’re looking to LEARN to act, a class is probably the best solution for you. Acting coach, which is one on one by nature requires that the coach have something to work with. If you do not have any experience of acting, private coaching can be difficult, not impossible, but it is harder than working with someone who has not got something to offer the coach to improve.
Coaching, unlike teaching is about helping the actor to improve and refine what they already have. It’s about building upon an existing level of experience. Coaching isn’t teaching, teaching isn’t the same as coaching.
Coaching for drama school auditions is slightly different. We have a target, a goal to achieve and the acting coach can assist the actor in improving their audition skills. This is precisely the point of acting coaching, coaching requires a goal, you need to define what you want to achieve and let the coach help you work out how best to achieve it.
If you go to an acting coach for private sessions, you need to have a clear goal of the desire outcome that you are aiming for. You cannot learn to act in a private one to one session, acting requires the presence of others. When you approach an acting coach be clear about what you want to achieve and a good coach will help you put in place the steps to attain your goal. If you don’t have a goal, how will you know if the coach is helping you?
To you, the Best
Mark
Mark Westbrook is a professional acting coach based in Glasgow, Scotland.
Apologies
Apologies, the site has been up and down all day and it was impossible to write anything.
I’m due to write an article on ‘Corpsing’ for my new friend Mahmoud Osman, a good topic, and I will, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.
We have an article on the ‘This is Me’ Monologue coming up on Saturday and I promised I would write about constructing an ‘Actor’s Biog’ too, so you’ll have that to look forward to!
Apologies again, this was outwith my control, and as any good Stoic would say, what’s outwith my control, isn’t within my power.
Best Wishes
Mark Westbrook
Acting Coach Scotland
Audition Monologues – What to Avoid Doing
I often get asked the question ‘What monologue should I do for an audition?’, but in this blog, I’d like to answer the question ‘What monologues shouldn’t I do in my audition?’. There are some outright no-nos, and this should help you avoid them:
ONE: RAPE – SEXUAL TRAUMA – MASTURBATION – Within the context of a play, these are important dramatic monologues, but outwith the context of the play, they play on trauma rather than drama. They make the auditors uncomfortable and they aren’t going to select you if you made them feel uncomfortable.
TWO: AGE APPROPRIATE: Unless you have an stonkingly good reason to do it, your monologue should be age appropriate. This means ensuring that it’s within about 4-6 years of your playing age upwards and 2-3 down if you’re young, and a bit more if you could pay for 16 and you’re actually 20. If the auditors need to work to consider you as this role, you aren’t getting them in the right frame of mind to cast you.
THREE: WRONG STYLE/GENRE/MEDIUM: If it’s a comedy that you’re going to audition for, do a comedy piece, if it’s a film, choose a short film piece, suit your audition material directly to the audition. But what about Drama School? It’s a matter of choosing two contrasting pieces and contrasting is difficult. Perhaps choose a comic and dramatic, but make sure the subject matter is constrasting too. Often people think they’ve chosen contrasting pieces when actually, they haven’t at all.
FOUR: MADEY-UP-MONOLOGUE: This is the monologue that you really constructed out of a scene, you’ve just cut the other person’s dialogue out. That isn’t a monologue. A proper monologue needs a beginning a middle and an end.
FIVE: BAD LANGUAGE: People call it swearing, cursing, bad language, profanity, but I just say that a piece that is too full of those words will have the auditor and the auditionee focused on those words. A bit of swearing is fine, but… too much becomes a bit of a problem for both.
SIX: ANYTHING ABOUT THE INDUSTRY: Don’t do monologues about monologues or monologues about casting or monologues about anything to do with the industry, it’s self conscious.
So what should you do? Check out some suggestions on my website – Acting Coach Scotland
Best Wishes
Mark Westbrook – Acting Coach Scotland
Acting Books: True and False
I love books. I have about £10,000 worth of them. I’m starting my own library. I love acting books, or I should say that I loved acting books. That’s until I read David Mamet’s True and False in 1998. I first read it at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and was livid. It made me so mad, the stuff he said, it contradicted everything I’d ever learned about acting, he insulted my hero Stanislavski and suggested that acting wasn’t the complex inner emotional tripe I’d thought it was. I put the book away for the summer, heretic!
When I came back from the Festival, I drove everyone mad. I kept my girlfriend up one night arguing and arguing that an actor doesn’t need belief. (An argument I’ve had on this blog recently too!) I didn’t really know what I was talking about but as my career in the theatre progressed from actor to director, director to lecturer, lecturer to acting coach, it made more and more sense.
On the way, I stopped off in New York and trained in the approach Mamet was suggesting. It made more and more sense, it created more and more tangible results and without the tedious wank that I’d been subjected to as a drama student for many years.
Since then I haven’t been able to enjoy many books on acting. The trouble is that I read something and it no longer sounds like practicable advice, it sounds like nonsense, it sounds like somewhere along the way someone went wrong, and yes horror of horrors, I think that person was Stanislavski, my hero still. I’m not saying he shouldn’t be lauded, I’m still a huge fan and have huge respect for his work BUT, I think he took a wrong turn. For me, Practical Aesthetics puts acting back on the right track.
I used to love acting books, but now I feel like I’ve had my eyes opened. I’ve been blessed and cursed at the same time.
Mark Westbrook is an acting coach based in Glasgow, Scotland.
Acting Coach Scotland asked to write for Drama Student Magazine
Mark Westbrook has been asked to write some guest articles for The Drama Student, a new magazine. Mark is already a columnist for a freelancer magazine, but this will be writing about a topic much closer to his heart, acting. The first article, published in April 2009’s edition will focus on an Acting Masterclass that Mark Westbrook will be giving for actors for a prestigious Scottish organisation.
Mark is currently working on his eBook – The Manual of Common Sense – to be notified when it is released, go to www.actingcoachscotland.co.uk and sign up for our newsletter.
100 Tips on Acting – Part 10 – The Final Part of the Series
This is the final part of my 100 Tips on Acting, I hope you enjoyed it, please send me some comments.
91)REFUSE TO GIVE UP – it’s the only way you’re going to make it.
92)SPEAK UP They want to hear you at the back
93)REFUSE TO GIVE UP - giving up is the only way you won’t make it.
94)THERE ARE NO GRADES IN THE REAL WORLD
95)LISTEN TO ADVICE But you do not have to take it
96)REFUSE TO GIVE UP - And you will make it.
97)THIS IS A REAL JOB - Don’t let anyone tell you any different.
98) DON’T LET THE BASTARDS GRIND YOU DOWN (Mama Westbrook)
99)DO NOT BE LATE - It’d discourteous.
100) ‘I’LL TRY’ IS PREPARING TO FAIL (David Mamet) – Don’t try anything. Trying is preparing yourself for the option to fail. Do your best.
100 Tips on Acting – Part 9
Ten more things to ponder on acting.
81)BE SKEPTICAL - There’s too much bullshit in this profession
82)THERE IS NO MAGIC
83)TALENT IS AS CHEAP AS TABLE SALT
84)IN THE END, IT’S JUST A JOB
85)IN THE END, IT’S JUST A SHOW
86)WHAT’S IN YOUR CONTROL? Forget about the things that are not
87)SOMETIMES YOU’RE THE WINDSHIELD, SOMETIMES YOUR THE BUG
88)THOSE WHO REFUSE TO ACCEPT DEFEAT WILL HAVE A CAREER
89)PEOPLE WILL FORGET WHO YOU ARE (Sometimes when you do a good job)
90)PEOPLE WILL REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE (Mainly when you do a bad job)
Learn more from Mark’s articles on his website Acting Coach Scotland.
100 Tips on Acting – Part 8
71)THE PLAY’S THE THING
72)IF THE ANALYSIS HURTS YOUR HEAD, YOU ARE DOING GOOD WORK
73)WHO DO YOU KNOW?
74)THE SHOW IS NOT ABOUT YOU
75)BE DIFFERENT EVERY NIGHT
76)ACTING IS NOT GENTEEL CRAFT
77)DON’T BE AFRAID TO GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY
78)WHEN THE SHOW IS OVER, SEND THANK YOU CARDS
79)THE CORRECT RESPONSE TO ANY FORM OF PRAISE IS: ‘THANK YOU’
80)YOU ARE REPLACEABLE
Mark Westbrook is a professional acting coach, further details can be found at http://www.actingcoachscotland.co.uk
100 Tips on Acting – Part 7
61)THERE IS NO PERFECT ROLE You make the role perfect by fully living it.
62)EXPECT REJECTION But refuse to accept it
63)EMBRACE OPPORTUNITY
64)EVERYONE GETS SCARED
65)EVERYONE FAILS Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better (S.Beckett)
66)GATHER MORE STRINGS TO YOUR BOW
67)SELL YOURSELF, BUT DON’T SELL YOURSELF CHEAPLY
68)THE LITTLE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD IS USUALLY WRONG (Usually)
69)DECIDE WHERE THE LINE IS DRAWN Stick to your principles
70)SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST LUCKY, OTHERS HAVE TO GRAFT
100 Tips on Acting – Part 6
51)THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH TRAINING
52)WORK SMARTER AND HARDER What can you do to go the extra mile?
53)MAKE FRIENDS WITH STAGE MANAGEMENT
54)DON’T GOSSIP ABOUT YOUR FELLOW ACTORS
55)DON’T SLEEP WITH YOUR CO-STAR
56)TOURS ARE BORING – LEARN A LANGUAGE, READ, WRITE, PRACTICE YOGA
57)ASK QUESTIONS
58)BE THE FIRST TO VOLUNTEER FOR EVERYTHING
59)LEARN TO ACT BEFORE YOU THINK
60)YOU CANNOT ACT IN-SPITE OF THE PLAY, WORK WITH WHAT YOU ARE GIVEN
100 Tips on Acting Part 2
This is the latest part (2) in my series 100 Tips on Acting
11) ACTING IS MOVING THE AUDIENCE, NOT THE ACTOR
12) SHOUTING ISN’T ACTING When you shout, you become weaker
13) LOOK FOR OPPOSITES If the character is brave show the fear too
14) WHAT DOES YOUR CHARACTER WANT THE OTHER CHARACTER TO DO?
15) EXPRESS THE POSITIVE Not what they don’t want, but what they do
16) EMOTION CANNOT BE FAKED They look fake because they are fake
17) EMOTION IS A BYPRODUCT OF THE PURSUIT OF ACTION
18) THE DIFFERENCE IS IN THE PREPARATION
19) DO NOT PUT YOUR HANDS IN YOUR POCKETS If you are thinking about your hands, you are not trying to get your Essential Action.
20) STOP SWAYING It’s a habitual mannerism
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Recent Posts
- Tackling Talent: Part 2 with ACS Assistant Coach Ian Watt
- Tackling Talent: Part 1 – A Guest Blog from ACS Assistant Coach Karli Evans
- Know your Job
- Finding Fulfilment
- Do NOT Let the Director Near the Lighting Board
- A Few Good Resources
- The Wood for the Trees
- Lessons from Sandy…
- Making Excuses
- I don’t trust Acting Schools
- Advice to the Advancing Acting Student
- New Glasgow Acting Classes Begin Tonight!
- Gatekeepers: A Secret about the Acting Industry
- The Skills of the Actor
- The Craft of the Actor
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