tron7ft@abwag.com

Everything I have written at this site on acting came out of the mouth of my late drama coach Don Richardson.

Being honest: absolute honest in feeling and objective.
How to Act: feel, think, do technique is the way the actor wants to act
Hot tip: all theatre is foreplay.		in the imaginary world.
Received e-mail:               "After reading the book I believe that I understand more about (ABWAG) web site and the motives behind its creation."        Modern acting begins with honesty.
Leave reality outside acting workshop.		Photo by Bob Karr

          Everything comes from your imagination. Don't do things that physically can hurt you.

Actors are trained in the world of illusion.

        ABWAG to learn acting is a place to learn acting with no pain to you mentally or physically.

          An actor must be trained in the skill of acting. It is a craft with a toolkit full of tools. The individual tools are acquired through the learning of the art.

1. Becoming other people.
2. Approach your work with body relaxed so the emotion can take over.
3. Acting is not about talking, it is about behaving.
4. Think your objective, leave your body alone.
5. As an actor you must accept the world of illusion.
6. Entering a dream, you must stay in the dream.
7. An actor has to serve the audience and work for the author.
8. Director says, "show me what you've got."
9. Audience has to see body language, make everything physical.
10. Remember, half of your performance comes from the other person.
11. Tell your body to do something, that's acting.
12. Sharing an illusion.
13. Let go, don't act carefully.

14. Simple, simple, simple.

          The modern way to act is to learn all of the principles of acting, then forget that you know them.

          The fundamentals of acting is to not flounder around, but look at the resources of principles. Principles never change. It's not, "I have a great idea".

            Staging from principles.

To heck with the rules, heck with the standards and heck with the principles, I will make the audience love me. That is all wrong, you can't trick it.

Don't love your performance, love...

In order to control an audience you must first learn to master yourself.

To act we are talking about skills, you just don't throw yourself into it.

         When you are very good in a scene and you come off and you're not sure exactly where you were, that is when you are good. When you come off and say, "oh, was I terrible," you weren't in the scene. If you come off and you say, "boy, was I great," you weren't in the scene. If you can step off into space and not know where you are for a moment and trust your talent to take over and everything you have learned to date and allow that to propel you, then you come off in doubt, you come off like, "where was I?" That is when you are very good in the scene. That is what really acting has to feel like. It is like taking a trip. It is being somewhere else and being someone else. As long as you stay you, it is never going to happen. That is the trick you try to achieve.

Talent will take care of you, don't just perfect skills.

Act down to your finger tips.

The secret: Give up the controls, hardest thing to learn in acting.

            In acting in the movies a lot of big star actors are always there, they are a pain in the side. They are all over the place. But rich good acting, that is not what happens. The actor disappears, and that is what the actor should do, you work up closely to your character and then you step back, step back, step back and leave the character alone. You give the character your mind, your body and you buzz off. All you do is collect the check.

Storytelling and reveal character, that is what it is all about.

          We are storytellers. I'm not talking about logic, I am talking about the skill of telling a story. We all try to act with our intellect, you can't do it, acting is an emotional experience. It's only a partial mental experience. Don't look for psychological conclusion as an actor. A good actor knows when to do it, how to do it and make the right choices. Use all the resources you've learned from life and then you say, this can work in terms of the audience. You have to be theatrical. It won't work if you don't have no smarts. Consider the material in depth. What is the reading in it that will interest an audience. That is what they are looking for when they hire you.

          There is rarely anyone to help you out there. You have to know what to do to help yourself. Actor in this industry has to be ruthless, selfish, aware of everything that is going on. Actor has to be self-resilient, self-reliant and self-sufficient. Work-up a standard of excellence. Train your own instincts.

          Never be nothing as an actor... ...acting talent is the ability to imagine things and let them happen in your feelings.

            Naturalism is dull, you have to give the audience a circus. Every moment should be full. Take an emotion and make it big without strain.

          First, get yourself into that emotional state where you have to get your body feeling the peak of exercise: you are out of breathe, the adrenalin is going through you and your heart is beating. Then the director yells action and don't recover.

          When you do things like feeling emotion and thinking objective you don't even have to think about doing it. It all becomes subliminal in your acting. Don't be conscious of all the principles of acting once you learn them. Trust your body, your body can do many things for you. Your body remembers.

          To make acting look real through the quality of the accidental.

          Joy of doing the work is ART, not from torment, forget armchair psychology used by many actors and directors. To the actor a director says, 'I want this result, do it however you do it', is a better way instead of all that psycho therapy stuff in Method acting.

           Method acting is too cumbersome.

          Something methody: people will tell you they do not teach method acting, but be careful there are many different branches of method acting out there.

          No interest in neurasthenic acting.

Theatre is never life.

          It all comes from principles, that is the MAGIC you see in acting.

Actors are spell binders and entertainers.

An actor's job is storytelling.

Actors must learn to understand screenplays.

If they don't know what the story is about, their acting is trash.

           Purpose of film today: play each moment fully. Don't over simplify in just dealing with plot.

          Actors must know what story they are telling to be able to use all their resources.

Love the craft and principles, not the image.

          The character isn't simply an extension of yourself.

 Top ten items in acting a scene.

          Audience should never know actor is scared.

          An actor must:

                                    1. light up the screen,

                                    2. have a buzz in themselves,

                                    3. be on,

                                    4. use energy for entertainment,

                                    5. look into special interesting things of the character,

                                    6. love them self; I'm great and I'm amazing,

                                    7. leave their talent alone and

                                    8. learn instant acting.

          Be aware of what is going on in the inside and the outside of the character.

Learning the camera

How to stand on stage.

         Acting on the stage and for the camera are the same, the difference is proportions.

         Each actor has to develop their own study habits.

is difficulty, that's the secret.

         When you do a drama look for the things that are ingratiating, look for the fun in it, and most of all look for the humanity in it.

Humanity is the secret in all acting.

Read books on anthropology.

Art is a suggestion, art isn't thrown at you.

          Actor must know about humanity to make the character real. Humanity is the whole principle of theatre.

          What makes an important actor? Find what other people don't. Actor has to have a profound understanding of humans.

          In acting don't do the opposite to humanity.

          How to plan the scene from a showmanship point of view?

          How to make a scene special, how to illuminate it? As an actor be a chef, be decorative. Acting a scene is like a chef planning a meal. He doesn't serve you the same thing. If you start with a asparagus, is the main course asparagus, does he give you asparagus fruit, and does he end up with asparagus cake.

Learn to act and how to sell it to generate money. If you can generate money, they will pay you money.

            Acting is being other people. It has nothing to do with you -- the actor is not the character.

          Find yourself in the skin or world of your character.

            Actor can't pretend things, it has to be emotional experience.

How to find emotions? We know what words mean: anger, envy, horror, anxiety, joy, etc.

         The emotion like "anger" is all the times you had this emotion in life, not just one instance in your life.

         Here is THE EXERCISE to learn how to make the emotion big enough to act with.

         Acting is having the emotion that best fits the scene. An actor can not try to play effects of scene. If actor works without emotion, it will look like acting. An actor can't lie or do it without passion. It is about true feelings and true objectives: do not to be artificial, but be real.

         An emotion isn't a constant, an emotion goes up and down, it goes all different ways.

         The whole idea is to see how much emotion and inner life actors can give their characters. The actors must give themselves over to the moment, they must soak themselves to be real.

         Approach your work with body relaxed so the emotion can take over.

Definition of an objective: Objective is in character's words.

         Objective should be simple, active phrase, starting with the word "to".

         The objective is the conscious intent of the character.

         Objective must always be in the language of the character, limited to his own background and education.

         There's no one correct answer when you're looking for the objective of the character. Pick the one that seems best for the character and one that 'turns you on' as the actor.

          Objectives must always be difficult to attain.

Difficulty is the fuel that lights our acting fires.

          Actor must think of character's objective over and over to be oblivious of everybody; crew, director, etc.

          When you act you should concentrate on your character's objective and nothing else. Your discipline has to be complete, that is how you stay in character.

          The discipline in your mind is not to think, how am I doing? Because you'll forget. Instead, it is to concentrate on the character's objective. Thinking just that is: controlled obsession.

          Objective is not just what you think, but what you do.

          Think objective - the body knows what to do!

          People tell you to focus, but never tell you what to focus on. Focus on your objective.

          Learning how to listen in a scene: you can't make your mind a blank, keep thinking objective and stay with the emotion, you'll hear the way we do in life.

The only other acting book I recommend to read besides 'Acting Without Agony: An Alternative to the Method' is Michael Caine's acting book 'Acting in Film', which tells us "to occupy yourself while you listen, think of what you would say, but don't say it". This is an over-generalized objective.

Fill the silences is actor's job.

           One of the cardinal rules is... stay with one emotion and one objective until something occurs to change it. (You don't drift off because of the dialogue.) You only change because of new information or a new event.

          Have an attitude for the character, then you would have their personality.

          Attitude without an emotion will never work, you must vibrate inside.

          Also, find another attitude for character from new information.

          Acting attitude can control audience. You are the performer, a lecturer, you have to control the audience.

          Characters don't go around showing what's really inside of them, they wear a mask for protection.

          When re-doing a scene, don't repeat what you just did, but go back to cause of it (the emotion and the objective,) then hoping your talent will even make it better.

          Never do anything without a plan.

          Not reality, but creditability. Principle is "that its got to be completely creditable" otherwise it can't work, it's not possible. What is the story?

..... Hot Tips .....

          Know the perimeter of what you can do, so you aren't miscast. Perimeters of what you are right for, what you suggest to the audience, otherwise, it's work, work and it still doesn't work.

          Actors never ask themselves, "what would I do," but need only to think "who am I", who the character thinks he/she is. Acting is being other people, the actor doesn't come into it.

            Performance is like a strip tease. The whole thing is foreplay, just maybe, not yes.

          If the behavior is correct, even a deaf audience will understand it.

          Your talent will work, how advanced you are will show.

            Just the most important note:          

Learn how to juggle only three things when acting:

                                                1. feel::::::::::emotion

                                                2. think:::::::objective

                                                3. the~~~~~~~wire

                     An actor can only control their conscience for acting purposes, they can not control their sub-conscience. What the sub-conscience does is it does things to the actor.

          In acting get yourself where you don't know what is coming next.

          Don't get ready to do anything, your body will do it.

          Trust your talent, don't instruct yourself.

          Acting can not be absorbed, you have to do it.

          If you teach the body how to act, it will act.

          Character out of control, but actor has to be in control.

          Knowledge when to do nothing is a powerful weapon.

          An actor's mind and body rebel, they refuse to leave reality for illusion.

The Art of Directing
Director is the pilot of the story in a lighthouse to keep the actors off the rocks.
Actor and director's work is storytelling.      In the house of entertainment the actor and director have to serve the audience and work for the author.      An actor or a director should definitely follow and learn the list on scene analysis.       Actor thinks of causes. Director thinks of results.      Actor has to make the right choices. For director it is casting.      Just have a general idea of scene. Ammo given to actors is the emotion and objective. Director then let's the actors go.
Director favors the one who can act when filming.

          Don't make bad choices. If the choices are wrong, scene won't work.

          In making choices, it is where you are in the story and how much the audience should know.

          Recognize traps of scenes when they are there, so you know how to avoid them.

            Acting is the only art you cannot be caught doing.

No awareness of self is good acting.

          If actors go back in their past, they are aware of self. Total abandon must come from an actor while his/her instrument (body) is vibrating with feeling.

            Understanding Discipline of Acting - Actor must give up self-thoughts.

          Audience doesn't care about the actor's problems, only the character.

          An actor must turn their body over to the character, if they can't do that, they can't act.

          When you act you have to act not just with your will, not just with your thoughts and feelings, you have to act with your whole body.

Condition reflex = Teach your body

          Act with your whole body, the feelings are going, and use your voice without burying dialogue trying to be natural. Use color and don't mumble.

          An actor must have a good vocal instrument, but not fall in love with it.

          The more inventive you are, the better actor you are.

          Overall effect in movies is seeing. We are a watching creature.

The dialogue is the ornament on the garment of the actor.

Click Here for NEWSFLASH about acting

             Secrets of drama: what is recognizable to audience.

          Who is doing what to whom? That is the rubber band stretched in a scene.

          Audience like to watch people try to save themselves.

          Recall things in life that the audience has forgotten.

          For a scene to resemble reality, it has to be conspired reality. A planned reality is not organized, it has a ragged edge, it is not smooth. That is the human dilemma. Do everything organized, but in life nothing is organized.

           Turn on all your lights: bigger than you are and still look real.

       The wonder of acting is to present a human being to other human beings, so the audience get glimpses of themselves.

          The actor must be simple, honest, and vocal: you will learn how to do it and then you will trust that you know how to do it and leave it alone and just do it.

         The director turn actors loose on set, then lock it in for camera. Director's job is to make a scene work. If it works, it works, don't worry about the logic.

          The writer gives story, character and dialogue. Actor then gives it life. Truth of the author. Remember not to act dialogue.

          Actors must make choices from what scene should do to audience.

          Chose emotion and objective your body will behave in the character.

          From the emotion comes the imagination and from the objective comes the staging.

          Emotion (feelings) are separate from objectives (thoughts).

          The biggest principle of them all:

         When you are a star you have to be aware of certain things. If a moment is important, take your time. Clock in your head.

         An actor's job is to create people in an imaginary world.

         Acting natural won't get you anywhere. You have to be above the mob. You have to have fire in the belly. If you carry dullness, you're doomed. Stand-up there and vibrate, forget reality and just look for the theatrical.

Theatrical sense, not psychological conclusions.

Don't think up clever things.

Do all acting on impulse.
Use your sensitivity from your heart.
Body vibrating with feeling.
Brain to brain acting.

          Turn your acting into something to watch. Recognize the moments, they are the lifeblood of drama.

          Each moment must be played with a beginning, middle and end.

          Scene isn't worth anything unless there is conflict.

          Conversation is not a scene, no matter how witty: a confrontation is a scene.

          You have to explore every moment with all your energy. Play all the values. To turn on your lights also means to turn on all your awareness. Every moment is brand new. Nothing has been rehearsed.

Acting is the work of imagination.

          Enjoy acting in the world of imagination. Remember you are putting on an entertainment.

          World of imagination is also known as having the actor stay inside the imaginary fourth wall of illusion.

            Feel, think, do technique is the way the actor wants to act in the imaginary world.

            Mesmerizing yourself with your character's objective.

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