6/27/2018: AWS Advanced Class Recap: On Character Choices

Greetings!

Wonderful class last night. Lots of new faces, as well as a few returning favorites. Had to say goodbye to 2 of you last night - Bryce and Nico. I hope your travels are safe and productive, and that you return to us when you can! I look forward to continuing to work with you both.

We covered a lot of ground last night in class. We rolled through the Coach's Notes, and talked a bit with those in class who are currently working on projects. I discussed the screening event I went to, for the 48 Hour Film I created this year (with my team), called Riptide. I said I would embed the film in this blog post, for those that wanted to watch it, so here it is.

My experience making the film, as a whole, was wonderful, and I look forward to participating again next year - perhaps with some of you on the cast!

Character Creation

We then began our discussion on Character Creation. There are times when it makes sense to be yourself in a part, and there are times when it makes sense to craft a character for you to inhabit. Learning to recognize when one route is preferable to the other is a skill you should all give thought to honing and developing. If YOU will work for a role, then why reinvent the wheel? In fact, if YOU are perfect for the part, trying to layer unnecessary additional choices over the top of YOU could be counter-productive.

In other cases, crafting a character to inhabit is preferable - even necessary. If you land a part in a Coen Brothers movie, for example, you'll be cranking parts of your own personality up to 11, and also adding entirely new physical and personality traits into the mix as well. The Coen's like their characters to be quirky. In this case, techniques from Chekhov and Adler should be in your toolbox.

Here is a clip from No Country For Old Men (Coen Brothers 2007) that we watched, with the peerless Javier Bardem and character actor Gene Jones, showcasing their stellar character work.



"What's the most you've ever lost on a coin toss?"

In a way, there's no purpose to this coin toss scene, story-wise. It does nothing to move the plot forward. This scene is pure character development - which is an exercise in futility, if you don't have actors bringing characters to the table that are worth developing. But a great script in the hands of great actors? Get the Oscar Noms ready... This film received 8 nominations, and won four Oscars, for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and Best Actor for Bardem.

I showed a second clip, from the TV show Gotham, season one, in which Cameron Monaghan reveals his true identity, accompanied by a brilliant supporting performance by character actor Mark Morgolis as the blind fortuneteller. Watch their choices throughout the scene, moment by moment.



This is one of my favorite examples of character-work, in either film or TV.

Support Group Exercise

I then had you each come up to the front of the class, and introduce yourselves, as though we were an Actor's Anonymous Support Group. I had you tell us a story of your first acting experience - as YOURSELF (the way you normally speak), and then had you follow that up with a story about your favorite acting experience, but I asked you to add a character choice to your delivery - modify your voice (tone or accent), modify something about how you stood, or gestured, etc, or add a emotion or mood. It was fun to watch - not just to see your choices, but to learn a little bit more about each of you.

I hope you all saw the point of the exercise. I want you each to be comfortable being yourself in a role, as well as being a version of yourself. Some of you lost your "choice" part-way through, while others lost themselves in the the choice, and YOU disappeared completely. Hopefully, as we practice this, YOU will always be alive beneath your character(s), regardless of how many layers you need/choose to add.

We watched a quick clip of Daniel Day Lewis talking about character work (in a 2005 interview), and dealing with self-doubt on set. We watched the first 2 minutes only, but the whole clip is worth watching...



My concern during class was that, by this time, we had covered so much that DDL's point got past many of you. I hope you take a moment and watch the clip again. What he's saying is very valuable.

Pro Wrestling

Before launching into our scene-work for the evening, I touched briefly on the world of sports entertainment (aka Professional Wrestling). We discussed how there is no other form of entertainment like it. In the realm of Physical Acting, as well as the realm of Character Creation, in no other type of performance - live or taped - can one be given a role to play, night after night, city after city, where you daily develop, rehearse and perform that role, often for years at a time. A new script every night. Often, storylines can take months - or even years - to complete. Plus, you have to tell your stories physically, with very little chance to say anything.

Plus, the physical risks these guys and gals put themselves through in order to entertain the vast sea of fans worldwide is enough to make you question their sanity. I have huge respect for these performers.

I mentioned the Golden Lovers Storyline in New Japan Wrestling, which took a full decade to complete (see the linked video), and also the infamous Hell in a Cell match from the King of the Ring pay-per-view in 1998, which featured Mick Foley (wrestling as Mankind), and Mark Calloway (as The Undertaker). Please follow THIS LINK to watch the match in it's entirety and THIS LINK to read about the real-life behind-the-scenes story behind why Foley decided to approach the match like he did, with his doubts and fears.

It's worth pondering, if for no other reason than to show that these are fellow actors, making the same choices we all are making in our craft, only at much higher levels, and to far less respect. They're real people like us, trying to entertain.

Scenework: Boardwalk Empire

We paired up and received scenes from the TV show Boardwalk Empire, along with a one-page sheet to help you break the scenes down and get the basics of your character work going. I had you work individually at first, and then together, as I floated around, talking to each pair about the choices you were making, and the details surrounding your work. We were able to walk through each scene together, and you all received your marching orders for next class. When we meet again, I'll have my film gear, and we'll film each scene, likely finding appropriate locations in and around the building to film each scene (as opposed to limiting the filming to the class space, as usual.)

I also passed out new monologues to those of you who wanted them. We should always have a monologue or two under development - they are great training tools. Once the text is memorized, there's no end to the character choices you can layer in and out, experimenting, trying new emotions, actions, affectations, etc.

I turned everyone loose without mentioning one VERY IMPORTANT thing! Next Wednesday is Fourth of July! We all agreed to come to class to film, but I'm not sure everyone realized that the holiday will fall on class night. I have a feeling many of you will prefer to be out with friends and family that night, enjoying fireworks and food, rather than being in class. We will be contacting each of you individually this weekend, to see who still wants class  - if enough of you want to postpone filming a week, we can certainly reconvene on the 11th.

All in all, I loved class, and have new ideas on things to do next.

Until we meet again!

David Wagner
AWS Staff

6/20/2018: AWS Advanced Class Recap: Chekhov and Check Out!

Hello all.

OK, elephant in the room first. For various reasons, I had to leave class early last night, and the illustrious Robert Dey took the reigns (thank you, Rob).

We began class with a discussion on the business side of acting, as far as the pros and cons of joining SAG, moving to LA, getting an agent, and other related issues. Lots of intelligent questions, resulting in a good conversation. We also left you with instructions to bring your headshots and resumes for review next week.

We began work on reviewing Chekhov and the first 9 exercises from his book To The Actor, which, unfortunately, devolved rather quickly, due to the fact that "Teacher.EXE" stopped functioning...

I stayed long enough to see monologues from Niko and Carlo, which were very enjoyable. Where it went from there, sadly, I know not.

However, regardless of the way the rest of the class played out (well, I hope), I decided to come here onto the blog and lay out the rest of what I'd hoped to cover.

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The stress of the night's work was going to be on the physical aspect of the acting, with Chekhov's technique as it's base. Chekhov stressed the direct connection between the human body and psychology, as far as how they are constantly at interplay in our day-to-day lives. There seems to be a disconnect when it comes to acting between the body and what motivates it's actions. An actor can feel roles deeply, but be unable to effectively express/convey that to the audience.

The Body: Your body needs to be trained - beyond merely gymnastics, dancing, fencing, etc. You need to train it to respond to your psychological impulses properly. It isn't enough to rely on instinct or mechanical operation.

The Psychology: Training your psychology goes beyond merely understanding and using your own natural inner drives. Chekhov strongly suggests studying the psychologies of people from history, of characters from other plays from earlier eras, of peoples from other modern cultures, and even the psychologies of people in your current life, whom you know, and especially those you don't particularly like. Try to get inside their heads, understand what makes them tick, why they may think and act the way that they do. If you can do this without criticism or judgment, that's huge.

If you can understand someone else's psychology, then when you craft a character who is different from you, you can give him/her a proper mindset, which your body will (hopefully) respond to in a way that makes sense for that character.

Let me stop here and insert a video or two...

Here is another clip from Michael Chekhov himself, from the 1945 Alfred Hitchcock film Spellbound. It is a scene between Chekhov's character Dr. Brulov, and the great Ingrid Bergman. As you watch it, compare their acting styles...



Bergman is no slouch, but her acting approach is traditional, stoic, mechanical, theatrical, melodramatic and - compared to Chekhov - lifeless. Whereas Chekhov's performance is alive, bursting with nuance, from the top of his head to the tips of his fingers... and he's mostly just sitting there, in that chair!

This shows how in command he is/was of his body, and it's connection to what's motivating him inside. Bergman looks stiff, almost uncomfortable in her own skin. Like she's acting! Even the hug at the end shows stark contrast. To me, anyway.

Here's another clip, from Game of Thrones - it's a clip I showed in an earlier class, between Daenerys and Tyrion, as they (also) sit and talk. Watch Emilia Clark's stoic, stiff, near-expressionless performance (which some will argue fits her queenly character in that moment), and Peter Dinklage's performance during the conversation. Not just his face but every shift of his body, every swirling of his wine cup. Watch how his emotional, psychological journey is directly reflected in his body, whereas with Clarke, we don't really see the connection - as though she's hiding - perhaps by choice.



Of course, they had excellent writing to perform, but still, the nuance in Dinklage's face and body... top notch.

There are 9 "Exercises" which Chekov begins with, which are well worth studying in detail. I highly recommend ponying up the $2.99 for the Kindle version of To The Actor. Well worth 3 bucks, I assure you. But until then, here is a summary of the exercises, which I hope to try at some point with you all in class.

EXERCISE 1: A series of broad, wide, simple movements. Involve and utilize entire body. OPEN yourself up completely, spreading arms/hands and legs far apart. Remain expanded for a few moments. Imagine becoming larger and larger. Come back to rest. Repeat several times. CLOSE yourself by crossing arms, hands on shoulders, kneel, head low. Become smaller and smaller, feeling like disappearing into yourself. THRUST forward one step, arms stretching out. Return. Go back, and sides. Do a SMASH motion, like a blacksmith beating an anvil. THROW something in different directions. LIFT something and HOLD it over your head. DRAG, PUSH, TOSS. Avoid dancing movements. Don't hold your breath. Don't hurry.

EXERCISE 2: Center: Imagine that within your chest is the center from which all activity stems. It flows out of your limbs, and energizes your actions. Every limb starts at your chest. Perform actions, such as taking off a shoe and putting it back on, or your jacket. Walk, sit down, stand up, lie down flat. Purposely instigate the actions from your chest. Do it again while sending the energy out first, ahead of the body, again, initiating from your imaginary center. This makes the movements purposeful and more visually engaging.

EXERCISE 3: Molding the Air Around You: Tell yourself that your movements are sculpting the air around you into forms, chiseled into the air around you. "Now I begin my movement, which creates a form; Now I finish it. The form is there." Think of and feel your body to be a movable form. Imagine that the air around you resists your movements. Repeat the movements, like an artist practicing drawing the same line. Try to mold the air using single body parts, instead of just the whole body, all the way down to individual fingers (hands and fingers can be the actor's most expressive assets). Shift out of simple movements, and again trying to activities (shoes, jacket, etc) at an easy, lifelike tempo, but try to retain the feeling of forming, and the air resisting, remembering your center. When coming into contact with objects, pour your power into them. Spend your power lavishly - it's inexhaustible. "Every movement I make is a little piece of art."

EXERCISE 4: Floating. Again, big, simple movements. "My movements are floating in space, merging gently and beautifully one into another." Avoid unnecessary muscle tension, but don't let the movements become  weak or vague. Imagine the air around you is water, and that your movements are skimming over the surface of the water.

EXERCISE 5: Flying: Big, simple movements. Imagine your body is flying through space, movements merging seamlessly into one another. As your physical movements pause/stop, inside you're still embracing the feeling of flying. Start with big simple movements, segue into natural movements, and then walk/activity. Keep the sensation of lightness, ease, flying, soaring inside.

EXERCISE 6: Radiating: Begin with big, simple movements, but now send your power/energy out in the direction of the movements. Lift your arm, lower it; walk around the room, sit down, stand up. If (for example) you sit down and your body stops, psychologically you continue to radiate that you are sitting. This manifests by the reality of you enjoying the relaxation that accompanies sitting. Radiate this energy around you - not just in the same direction as the movement, but fill the space around you with energy that radiates from your center. Imagine that the air around you is filled with light, coming from you.

EXERCISE 7: Imagination Only: Try to repeat the sensations of molding, floating, flying and radiating with imagination only, as you sit/stand, motionless.

EASE/FORM: Heavy movements and inflexible speech are counter-creative. Themes can be heavy - but the technique may not. Always retain the distinction between "what you act" and "how you act it." You are not the character - you are the artist portraying the character. The character may be heavy - the performing of the character cannot be.  

EXERCISE 8: Beauty: Think of something that you find to be beautiful. Ask yourself why you find it beautiful. Form? Harmony? Sincerity? Simplicity? Color? Moral value? etc. Think of other things, ask the same questions. Refine and strengthen your ability to detect beauty around you. Once you identify beauty, to try infuse the previous movement exercises with a sense of beauty, performing the movements beautifully.

ENTIRETY: Don't view your performance as a collection of individual moments, movements, and lines. This would encourage a disjointed performance, in the whole. Keep in mind the entirety of the performance, the details. This will train you to view the performance as a whole, and each moment a stroke of paint on the canvas. You will keep in mind the essentials of your character, and keep an unbroken main through-line. 

EXERCISE 9: Entirety: Review the events of your day today. Pick out periods which are complete in themselves, as a scene in a story. Define the beginning and end. Review the details again and again in your memory until each "scene" stands out as an entity, and also coheres to the other scenes, to form a narrative of the day. Entirety! Try doing it for longer periods in your life. Then craft a future to continue your story! Do the same for historical people. Do the same for objects, looking at them as entire forms - and then as separate parts which can stand alone as "scenes" contributing to the whole. Imagine each piece put into a frame, like a series of paintings on a wall. Try the same with a song, listening to the song as a whole, and then trying to separate out the individual instruments. What does each piece contribute to the overall theme? Now divide the room you are in in half - one part is the stage, the other is off-stage. Enter the stage, say a couple of lines of dialog, then exit to the "off stage". Get a feeling for "appearing" on stage, and "disappearing" off stage. Grasp the entirety of the process, then look at the individual pieces.

To radiate on stage means to give and to receive. You are constantly doing one or the other - you're never idle. Receive the presence of the other actors, receive their actions and words, receive the atmosphere that is on stage, receive the surroundings, receive the events. Never passive. Receiving means to feel drawn toward or into the energy/power of the things, people or events.

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In the book, Chekhov goes into more detail on these exercises (and far more, of course). Again, it is well worth the $3 to buy the Kindle version.

In discussing the Psycho-Physical approach to acting, I was going to discuss the art of Sports Entertainment - a.k.a. Professional Wrestling. Don't scoff! Acting doesn't get more physical than that! There's no avenue of story-telling quite like professional wrestling. Before you dismiss it as "fake" or "for kids", I think it's worth taking a deeper look. Which we will do, next class and/or blog post. I think I've maxed out the word count on this blog post...

Hopefully, I'll be back in form by next class.

Dave Wagner
AWS Staff

6/13/2018: AWS Advanced Class Recap: Check Chekhov Off!

Greetings, you talented bunch of thespians!

So, we got to wade knee-deep into Chekhov this week!

Class started with the Traditional Reading of the Coach's Notes, whereby we acknowledge and congratulate those among us who (whom?) are hanging "job pegs" on the ol' Career Board. This week, I got to bask a bit in the congratulations, having had a successful 48 Hour Film Project Weekend!

I've participated in this annual event for the past 5 years, and this year, I was fortunate enough to be Team Leader for our team, called Team Apex. We had 48 hours to craft a short film, from concept to finish. On Friday night, we were assigned the random genre choices of Drama or Sports Film, and given required elements: A character named Fernando/Fernanda who is a lifeguard; a cardboard box; and the line of dialog "That's outside my comfort zone." We were then turned loose to create a short film up to 7:30 in duration.

And create we did! I believe there were around 80 teams participating. Our team filmed at the beach in La Jolla Shores and at a gym in La Mesa. We had a fairly smooth, fun, comparatively-brief day of filming, and finished the film on time, 48 hours after beginning. We'll have our screening on the 25th.

I showed you all the film in class (called Riptide). After our screening on the 25th of June, I'll add the film to this post, for those that want to watch it again.

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We then took a few minutes to review the Stanislavsky exercises we worked on last week, before beginning work on our Sherlock scenes.

I had many of you on the cameras as we performed and filmed, and recorded the results. I'm going to post a compilation video super-cut here in the blog post once I finish the editing. Importing the files into Adobe Premiere caused the audio to get all wonky. I didn't want to wait any longer to update the blog, so I'm doing that now, and will finish the work on the videos and add them later.

I also did some handheld filming for a scene or two with my Lumix - I'll be incorporating that footage into the supercut as well.

The hope with the Sherlock scenes was that you'd be able to use some of the Stanislavsky work from last week in your scene prep. Wasn't quite as evident in your work as I'd hoped. Which is fine, for now. We may linger on Stanislavsky and Chekhov another week or two, before moving on to the Group Theater, and the fascinating triumvirate of Adler, Meisner and Strassberg. My hope was to quick-hit one acting technique per week, but I think that ultimately might be too swift to be very productive. Gonna slow it down a week or two, and see how it goes.

After finishing with the scenework, we shifted gears again, and introduced Michael Chekhov and his philosophy towards acting.

Chekhov was a favorite pupil of Stanislavsky's, in the earlier days of the Moscow Art Theater. Ultimately, Chekhov had some bad experiences with the Memory Recall work that Stanislavsky was doing (the process whereby the actor remembers, in detail, traumatic events in his past, with the purpose of being able to trigger the emotions on stage in a performance, to produce life-like, realistic emotional responses), which led to a nervous breakdown, and required therapy (and hypnosis!) to overcome.

Chekhov began to rethink the Naturalistic, realistic approach to theater that Stanislavsky so strongly promoted, and eventually parted ways with his mentor, formed his own company, and developed a technique that was more physical and artistic in nature. Chekhov felt Naturalism reflected and represented life as it really was, similar to a photograph. He felt theatrical storytelling was better served by representing life as it could be, as interpreted by the actor, as an artist. A painting, rather than a photograph.

Chekhov decided that people don't go to the theater to see real life (they get enough of that every day), but they go to the theater to see something that resembles real life, only cranked up a few notches. Like real life with the contrast and saturation levels boosted. Life as it could be, not as it is. He felt actors needed room to create, rather than directly reflect.

His approach deals with the energy that the actor/artist has within him/herself, and tapping into that energy to marry the actor's physical performance to what was going on within the actor at that moment. Rather than an actor standing there, feeling emotion and reacting "naturally", the actor could train his/her body to move in concert with the feelings, a dance almost.

It's better to see what I mean in action. And who better to demonstrate the possibilities of the psycho-physical connection than the man himself. Here's a clip from the 1944 film "In Our Time" (dir. V. Sherman) in which Michael Chekhov himself employs his technique.

Look at the robust physical work that Chekhov saturates his performance with. You can't take your eyes off of him! He makes the rest of the cast members look like lifeless statues. His every physical movement directly reflected the emotions he was feeling inside, moment by moment. When your inner energy is harnessed fully like this, your screen presence goes through the roof.

We watched a couple other videos in class to demonstrate this as well, including this clip from Season 1 of Broadchurch, featuring the spectacular work of Olivia Colman. [Spoiler alert!]



Again, notice the direct connection between her physical work and the inner turmoil she is feeling.

We also watched the Strudel Scene from Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, featuring Christof Waltz and Melanie Laurent. The physical work is more subtle (by design) but no less powerful. The tension is palpable, and that moment at the very end, with that devastating sigh of relief - man, what a moment...



We went over the basics of Chekhov's system, from Optimum Position, into Staccato/Legato, Expansion/Contraction, Floating/Sinking, and full-body pushing/pulling/lifting and smashing. These movements we performed together as a group, sending our "energy" out with each movement - and then sending the energy out before the movement! And then letting the energy linger out there after the movement was over. We tried it with smaller and smaller movements, until we tried it standing still, and sending the energy out and back again, by itself.

Yes, it was weird for many of you! But I encouraged you each to at least experiment with it, and try to find the gold in it, rather than merely dismissing it because it's weird...

The idea being that instead of merely moving naturally, we bathe our movements in our energy, making each movement more powerful, energized, purposeful -- and definitely more watchable. Don't believe me? Watch that Chekhov clip from In Our Time again...

I left you with your Sherlock scenes again, with instructions to contemplate what you could add to your scenes physically, using some of what we covered with Chekhov. If you want to watch that episode of Sherlock, it's on Netflix at the moment, and it's in Season 3. The episode is called His Last Vow. You can see how the pros handled your scene, and try to reverse engineer it a bit, to get ideas on ways to approach the scene yourself.

We ended class with Kent, Jason and Alexandra performing their latest monologues. I had mentioned to Bryce and Alexandra that I would give them new monologues to work on, but forgot (sorry!) I'll try to track down your email address this week, and email you new monologues. If not, I'll bring them to class next week.

I taped Kent and Alexandra's monologues and will post them below this post, for review. I didn't tape Jasons, when I really should have. It was very solid. I'll tape it in two weeks, when you return to class. I'd like you to see it in progress.

6/20 SNEAK PEEK:
* We'll do more Stanislavsy and Chekhov exercises.
* Continue work on our Sherlock Scenes
* Monologue work, if time permits.
* More as it comes to me!

Have a great weekend - and get out there and live!

Dave Wagner
AWS Staff

PS This is where the videos will be once I finish them! Soon, I hope!

6/6/2018: AWS Class Recap: Stanislavsky Free-For-All!

Greetings, advanced ones!

Actually, greetings to you all, whether you're advanced or not. :) See how inclusive I am..?

We had a fun, whirlwind class on D-Day. I want to thank everyone for participating - we did some Stanislavsky-based exercises, some of which may have seemed a little "out there" for some of you. But we'll never know which acting tools will work for you, specifically, unless we try them out, right? That's the hope, anyway. To help you each build your own Acting Toolboxes, catered to your individual style, so you can approach each role effectively, whether it be for stage or screen.

We began class with the Coach's Notes, and then dove deeper into Constantine Stanislavsky, the Moscow Art Theater, and the genesis of Realism in theater. I spoke briefly about the eerily-strong correlations between Stanislavsky's impact on theater history, and Martin Luther's impact on church history (vis. the Protestant Reformation) - how they each realized that, for centuries, the focus had been on outward, demonstrative theatricality, and that the focus on the inner work was missing. Stanislavsky pushed realism, to get people to focus on the missing emotional elements in acting, and Luther pushed faith, to get people to focus on their hearts/spirits.

Of course, then in each case, the new "movements" fragmented and spun themselves out into numerous "denominations", each competing with one another and forming camps... each believing that they are "more correct" than the others, often evolving way out of balance from the original vision of the pioneer.

The reason it's important to ponder is that every acting technique available for you to study and pursue can trace it's roots back to Stanislavsky. Whether it's Adler, Meisner, Strassberg, Hagen, Spolin, Mamet, or even Chubbuck and Linklater, they all find their way back to good ol' Constantine. Know your roots!

I showed a quick video essay on Stanislavsky from YouTuber "Lux"...



We then began going through Stanislavsky's four major tenets:

• Imagination
• Actions v Emotions
• Relaxation/Concentration
• Sense Memory

Imagination:

We talked about the "Magic If", where we are encouraged to flex our imaginations by asking ourselves a series of questions about our character, in the form of a stream of "what if" questions (What if I was in this person's place, faced with this situation? What would I do?), and then to shift into asking our characters questions, as though he/she could answer us (Why would you say this? Why didn't you reply this way? How does this impact you?).

In this way, we begin to fill in the blanks, and dig out the story, the mindset, the motives, the undercurrent. Much like a lawyer taking on a new client to defend. You take the time to get to know the client and his/her story, connect emotionally with him/her, and prepare your case. When the trial begins, you present your case to the jury (the audience, in this analogy) for their verdict. And "Belief" falls under Imagination as well - if you (as the lawyer) believe your client's story, you will present it more effectively. Your performance will be more believable to the audience if you believe what you are doing/saying in the part.

To illustrate this, I brought one of you up, and suggested that I had hidden a $20 in the classroom somewhere, and gave you a minute to try and find it. Thinking it was merely a hypothetical situation, the search was kind of rote and mechanical. But then I let you know that I actually did, in fact, hide $20, and that if you found it you could keep it - and that kicked things up a few notches, as far as the intensity of the search. You believed that there was actually $20 to be found, and it effected your "performance" as you searched for it, and it was far more captivating than when you merely thought it was a simple exercise.

Ultimately, I had hidden it too well, and the $20 wasn't found! I even invited everyone up to search for it together! I'll hide it again next week, and see if someone finds it...

We did other exercises to work on imagination, including fabricating details about the backstory of one of your fellow students, and also creating entirely new imaginary locations in the room, describing them in detail to us, and then inviting others up to wander around in the environments you described.

Actions vs Emotions:

While Stanislavsky brought the spotlight onto the importance of emotions in your craft work, he also stressed that emotions should never trump actions. What you do on stage is always more important than what you are feeling. Emotions are important, but they support activity, the don't replace it. Remember: "ACT" is a 3-letter word with a 2-letter definition. Maintaining the balance between the outer work and the inner work is an important skill to develop, and it's a different ratio for stage and film. If you sway too far in one direction or the other, the performance will suffer. I used a recent play I performed as an example of what happens when emotions swing out of balance - the performance was large on the inside (the emotions were overwhelming), and so my impulse was always to pull back, to avoid overdoing it - the result was a very small performance externally, and the play suffered for it. The focus became me, and what I was feeling, and I got in the way of the storytelling.

Relax/Concentrate:

We discussed the importance of being able to relax in your performance, whether on stage or on film. We compared it to combat training, and the importance of relaxing when you spar/fight. When you tense up, it causes no end of problems in a fight - and if you imagine acting a scene with a partner as a type of spar/fight, then the same observations apply. For concentration we played "Mirror Speech", which was fun, though awkward for many of you.

Sense Memory:

We discussed the two major facets of the Stanislavsky's sense work: affective memory, and sense memory. I'm not the biggest fan of affective memory work, which advocates remembering details surrounding a traumatic event in your life, making the experience fresh again, for the purpose of using it on stage in your performance to elicit genuine emotional responses by "re-living" it. I think this can lead to long-term emotional problems in the actor. You can read more about this controversial technique by a quick Google search, if you'd like. There are videos on YouTube showing Lee Strassberg taking actors through this type of work.

However, sense memory work, I am a fan of. To illustrate this, I had you each sit in class and imagine you were in a stairwell. The sights, smells, sounds, feel, undercurrent of the place - build it around you using your imaginations. Then I took you out of the classroom and into the stairwell of the building, where we sat a while on the steps and absorbed the actual details in the real setting. Then we returned to class and imagined the stairwell again, and reflected on how this new version compared to the first imagining - the benefit of going to the actual location and making new sense memories to bring into the stage/set.

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With all of these exercises in mind, I passed out scenes from the BBC TV show Sherlock, with instructions to you each to learn both roles. When we meet next week, you'll each get a chance to perform both parts, and we'll film them. As you worked on familiarizing yourselves with the scenes, I brought you up in pairs to co-create the settings that your scenes will take place in. Using your imaginations, you decided between yourselves how the set will look. I strongly encouraged you each to walk around and talk about the things you were describing, interacting with the settings as you did.

We watched a scene from the 2012 Paul Thomas Anderson film The Master, which I used to illustrate the amazing physical acting that Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman achieved. [WARNING: strong language]



I also mentioned how this was all grabbed in one take (with a 2-camera set-up) and on the very first attempt, with minimal direction ahead of time. Amazing. They were both so embedded within their characters that they could take scripted material, mix it heavily with improvised dialog elements, and fire through the whole scene in one go like that. Talk about "Masters"...

We ended class by watching a last video, a round-table interview that included Billy Bob Thornton discussing his method of playing a variation of himself in each of his roles - an approach I strongly advocate.




We played a round of NINJA, and I turned you loose for the week, encouraging each of you to go out there into the real world and DO STUFF! Everything you learn, experience, dabble with, will only enhance you and what you bring to the table, as an actor.

SNEAK PEEK for 6/13/2018 class:

* We'll do a bit more Stanislavsky next class, but will also move on to Michael Chekov and Richard Boleslavsky.
* Sherlock Scenes.
* If time permits, we'll do monologue work.
* More, when it comes to me!

Take care,

Dave Wagner
AWS Staff