Acting Teachers Offer More Than Just Instruction

Thousands of careers have been wrecked by actors who "changed horses in the middle of the stream." Those actors go from teacher to teacher without ever finding out what any of them have to offer.

They switch from agent to agent before a long-range plan for their career can be developed. They go from one publicist to another, destroying the valuable groundwork of every publicity campaign. Finally, they fight their way out of legitimate contracts -and into oblivion.

The entertainment field is the only business on earth in which a girl who might never make more than forty dollars a week running an elevator can be molded by specialists into a commodity worth thousands of dollars weekly to one of the major industries of our time.

Actors today have unprecedented prestige and social standing.

Most of them use their advantages to good purpose, as does Bob Hope, globe-circling, good-will ambassador extraordinary to the court of humanity. Royalty welcomes Danny Kaye, and so, in many lands, do the underprivileged children to whom he has brought the vitalizing nourishment of laughter.

While the successful actor acquires prestige and social standing in plying his well-paid profession, he attains other gratifying goals.

Almost without exception, every notable performer refers nostalgically to some artistically worth-while venture about which he says happily, "I didn't make much money with it, but it was a great satisfaction to do."

Where does this satisfaction come from? It comes from giving an audience something he believes in: something that to her/him represents, either inspirationally, dramatically or amusingly, the truth as he sees it.

In a discussion of acting, John Mason Brown, distinguished critic and lecturer, paid a tribute to the men and women of the profession when he said, "An actor turns pretense into truth."

Actors work considerably harder than most people think they do. I have heard more than one parent say of his own hard-working, well-established son in show business, "Yes, he's doing all right, but I wish he'd get a real job."

He has one. Acting is a very real job. As the standards of the profession grow continually higher, and the taste of the public keeps pace, the demands on the actor are more exacting.

Those who fulfill these demands will win the ultimate beachhead and earn the right to live securely on the island of success.

Lucille Ball cried her eyes out the night she was fired from RKO as a stock player. But she never stopped working to improve herself. When she was at her lowest ebb, half frightened and altogether frustrated, she put more drive than ever into her career.

She went on the road with a stage production of Elmer Rice's Dream Girl and steamed full speed ahead on the upgrade again.

She, with husband Desi Arnaz, became co-owners of the studio lot where the name DESILU STUDIOS looms high on a sign replacing the letters that used to be there-RKO.

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Why Method Acting Is The Most Successful Acting Technique

The Method approach to acting became famous when Marlon Brando and James Dean started to appear on the silver screen, changing the perception of what the acting profession was capable of. Their acting seemed so real you forgot they were acting. Since then, there has been a list of outstanding acting talent that has been enabled by the Method. Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Paul Newman, Daniel Day Lewis, Meryl Streep and this year ?Best Actor' Academy Award winner, Forest Whitaker, all use the Method.

But why has it been so successful?

The Method creates a reality beyond the conventional reality. This means that instead of the actor adhering merely to the conventional thought of the character and situation, they are able to stimulate themselves, and indeed the audience, on a much deeper level.

Christopher Walken was asked what he was thinking about when he shot the scene at the end of the film, ?Deer Hunter', where he plays Russian roulette and kills himself. He said that when he was younger, he went to summer camp and his parents made him go - he hated going, and the experience filled him with a sense of abandonment, loss and anger. He said that he felt his character was experiencing similar feelings, so he thought about that event during the scene. He understood that events from his own experience could expose the experiences of the character on a much deeper level.

He was using an important tool within the Method called ?affective memory'. This is when an actor recalls an event from his own life using his senses. The rationale behind this is that we all experience the world through our senses - we see, we hear, we touch, we smell and we taste. If the actor trains and uses these senses in conjunction with their own memories, they can have a powerful effect on the actors' instrument - the human body.

The Method also allows the actor to create a completely different physicality and psychology from their own, using the animal exercise. Marlon Brando famously used the animal exercise in the ?Godfather' when he played a bulldog. He stuffed his cheeks full of tissue paper in his audition to recreate the jowls of the dog; he started to move around slower and heavier with the underlying menace of a bulldog. In ?A Streetcar Named Desire' he played an ape, scratching his chest and moving objects around with his knuckles and eating like an animal. The animal exercises allowed him to create the life of another human being in a deeper more complete fashion.

Using the Method, actors can go beyond the conventional and effective way to act, and make the work more human, more alive, more exciting, more amused and entertained - not on a light level, but on the utmost level which acting is capable of.

http://www.themethodcentre.co.uk

email:info@themethodcentre.co.uk

Brian is an experienced actor, director and teacher of the Method. He established The Method Centre in London, an actors studio in the UK focused on the Method.

Being a Bully and Acting Assertive

There is a difference between being a bully and acting assertive and there is indeed a problem when one crosses that line. There is also a very interesting thing that I have witnessed in my career with bullies in business. You see I ran a Franchising Company and I often noticed an interesting and yet alarming thing with some of my franchisees.

They would complain about their boss and unfairness to me prior to buying a franchise. Then after they started their business they turned into little Hilters and treated their new employees even worse than they were once treated. It makes me wish I had never spent all the time to help them get into a business of their own and give them the American Dream, it is rather unfortunate really.

It is a real common human psychological problem. It is so common, I am very careful with people who complain too much and study their words, body language and such and motivation too. You need to watch out when people complain too much, sometimes it is an outlet, other times it should be a warning. Of course if one is pushed too hard inevitably they will push back, thus this is something that should be known too.

What is amazing is when I talked to these franchisees about this I was fascinated at how they said that they had have considered this? There is a notion of humans who get tired of being pushed around and played, often they will take a stand, which can be perceived as bullying.

When you are talking to friends in person or on the phone think about this and think of your online communication and how it might be misinterpreted by some to be that way? The question is do you really care? Think about it, preventing bullying starts with you.L. Winslow is an Economic Advisor to the Online Think Tank, a Futurist and retired entreprenuer. Currently he is planning a bicycle ride across the US to raise money for charity and is sponsored by http://www.Calling-Plans.com and all the proceeds will go to various charities who sign up.