Listening with Your Whole Body

Listening isn’t just about using your ears.  It’s about taking in information.

Since the actual words that we hear are only 7% of the information being communicated to us, what is the other 93%?  55% is what is seen with the eyes, and 38% is in the sounds perceived by the ear.  That means we listen more with our eyes than we do with our ears.  And we are listening to more than just the speaker.  We are listening to the room we are in, to ourselves, to everything that could possibly inform the situation.  To listen more fully, think of increasing your awareness, and using all of your senses to absorb information. 

Picking and Perfecting Monologues

Pick a monologue that fits the application, the place and your character type.  Most importantly, you want it to be one you love, and can’t wait to pick up again and again.  Monologues are empowering. 

Without stage, acting partner, lights, costume or call-time, the right monologue allows you to instantly  “strut your stuff”.

Many actors dislike performing monologues.  I love it.  The first step to enjoying them yourself is to have a monologue you really like.  I can help you discover monologues that will demonstrate to the auditors that you are right for the roles you are interested in. Unusual materials that bring out your best and follow all the rules – that’s what we use. Then building the performance with organic movement, specified eye-line, placement, contrasting elements, etc.  If that monologue audition is important to you – then my help is important to its success.

Finding Your Personal Niche

Your uniqueness sets you apart visually. It could be the gap between your teeth or you bushy eyebrows.

Your unique look might also be the thing that worries you the most – for the very reason that it does set you apart. When we are ready to embrace our “nichyness”, then it works in our behalf.  Start thinking “It’s about time someone portrayed this character as someone with bushy eyebrows”, or “The world is ready for this character to be portrayed as a woman my age.”  Then you will see how your uniqueness makes you the perfect choice for the role.  Cookie cutter looks certainly serve in a number of industries, but as actors it also serves to be unique.  Audiences want the stories to be about them – so prepare yourself for the role by seeing yourself in it.

Making Right Choices

We are so accustomed to thinking in terms of “the right” answer, that we assume that in acting there is a “right choice” for the character or the scene.

So many times I hear the desperate plea – “How do I make the right choice?”  There are so many “right” ways to do it and so few that don’t work.  I won’t even call them wrong.  They may be messy or uncomfortable, but they may also lead to a discovery or an idea that’s much more interesting than a safe and simple choice would have been.  It’s really about having fun and surprising yourself in your choice-making. 

Always be prepared with several right choices.—those that are fun to do and those that make sense coming from different angles.  This keeps you malleable and directable so you won’t get stuck with just the one idea – typically a predictable one.  Eventually a “final choice” will be made as a result of creative collaboration, but having the courage and the ability to make different choices makes you a choice candidate for that collaborative process.

Inside-out, Outside-in

The character is going to live in the body you already occupy, expressing itself along pathways already mapped in your psyche. 

Changing a thought (inside out) or changing your clothes (outside in) can begin the process of discovering that character for yourself. Getting to know yourself as the character can begin in a number of different ways.

On the inside – the inside of us - we have thoughts, feelings, reactions, history, impulses that come from choices that are there for us to make for our character in any given moment.  We can choose a thought, an attitude, a reaction. And after making the choice, we can observe how that choice works its way to the outside, affecting muscles, body angles, energy flow. This is inside-out work.

Outside –in work can be putting on a costume.  It can also be putting on a gesture, or tightening a muscle, changing vocal tone or vocal weight.  It’s working from the effect into the cause.  Either way, we want to tap into our most creative options and work with whatever idea is at hand to expand our availability to create character.

Being Intimate with Your Character

Instead of wearing your character like a mask or costume, you can find that character deeply inside yourself.

First determine and solidify your sameness – the ways you and your character are alike. Use this commonality as an established root, a depth of being that you can trust as real and established – like a master gardener would with a mature rosebush. Then graft onto it by adding the new idea – the story, the experiences, the events of this character’s life onto what is already in place in you.  The new branch will grow a new bloom, nourished and supported by the history of your own older roots. You are the same, but different. You have embodied the character intimately within your own history

Getting Inside the Story

We are only given a hint, a few lines, a character description. 

So make the rest up.  Build the story big enough to climb into.

The safest place for an actor to be is inside the story.  Remember that acting is having a very real experience in an imagined circumstance.  That imagined circumstance is the story.  So create your story big, deep, specific and important, so that it’s easy for you to climb inside.  Once inside you don’t need to wonder what your character would do.  All the possibilities become apparent in the story. 

Decide where you are and why you are there. Create and examine relationship, places, and justify, justify, justify.  Building the story is the childlike activity of acting and the more you do it the better you become at doing it.   You will get so good at it that you can throw a story up around you as you move through the script that very first time.  So grab a script and start growing your imagination.

Tricks for Learning those Lines

Remember that memory is a muscle, and the more we use it the stronger it becomes.

Some people are auditory learners, others are visual – and many are kinesthetic like myself.

I will teach you tools to help with learning lines, based on your own personal learning style.  

There are lots of ways to get those lines into your body and your brain – auditory triggers and patterns, visualizing detail, memory games, placement, muscle memory,   Don’t worry if you aren’t quick at learning them.  The process itself can be fun, and it is time well spent.  Within the learning process you are introduced to your character in language.  Don’t under-estimate how much attention this step requires to truly own the lines.  You will want them to be readily accessible when you are under stress  – when there are lights in your eyes and all those distractions.

Tools for the Craft of Acting

Color

Subtext

Focus

Preceding moment

Focal point

Intention

Through-line

Effort shapes

(BYOB - bring your own bag)

Gather the tools to build your career.  There are many tools that work differently for each person in each situation.  Just as a painter may have several different kinds of brushes and paints, you as an actor will want to have on hand a variety of different tools for your trade.

Voiceover Work – Getting It and Doing It

Are you sure you want to do this, or that you’re ready? 

Creating a demo reel is the proof and the pudding!

Voice acting can be so delightful, whether it’s character work, spokesperson or commercial, it’s just another type of acting and you can wear your slippers to work.

I can help you select material for your voiceover demo reel that will serve as your ongoing audition.  And as we create your tape, you will be preparing for the work that follows.

How to Impress the Director

Delivering a smorgasbord of options.  Speaking their language.  Collaborating without threatening.

If you were the director, what would impress you, aside from the common standards of professionalism, promptness, courtesy, dependability, and integrity. Directors notice someone who really listens; someone who cares; someone who is professional and fun to be around. And directors notice impressive work as an artist?  They notice those who are able to collaborate?  And they notice those who are creative enough to bring their own ideas to the table with a willingness to play?

Less is More, Right?

Right – unless you are Robin Williams or Eddie Murphy, and still . . .

Each piece of work has a style, and the size of an expression doesn’t determine its truthfulness or authenticity.  Transparency is usually the best policy.  Think it and let it show without insistence.  Then be willing to let that truth expand into a larger space within and without you.  Empty work feels and looks phony, so keep it full and real.

Unleashing Intuitive Expression

Getting out of your own way.

Most of us were socialized at an early age – “Be nice,” “Don’t act like that in here,” “Let’s see that smile!”  We have been taught to suppress our instinctive response to most situations.  So, if that buried response is indeed still in there somewhere, how do we rediscover it?  Get ready to know yourself.  The body holds memory in every cell – and that serves the actor well. 

I have created an emotional vocabulary I call “the Color List.” It’s a way of using a single descriptive word as a switch for responsive choice.  It explores where in our physical body an idea begins and how it moves.  This tool can trigger what is already there so that you can express yourself in your own particular way.  At first it might seem like reaching for a light switch in an unfamiliar dark room, when you aren’t even sure which wall it’s on.  But once located and accessed regularly, using that switch becomes instinctive. When you can easily and quickly deliver an alternantive at the director’s request, it sure looks good on you.

When the Camera is Your Audience

It’s right in your face.

Have you ever had the experience of talking to someone who is literally right in your face?  While you talked to them with their face just inches away, you might have felt your own face become still, your lips barely moving.  Try it now – hold your hand where that face might be and talk to your hand. You have a natural limiting response when your audience is that close.  As the audience moves away, your own body loosens and the information and impulses of your communication move down your limbs into gestures with more animation.  Someone standing yards away would elicit a larger move to come closer, along with a louder voice.  The body already knows exactly what is appropriate for audiences at different distances.  Our job is to remind the body where that audience is, even when it isn’t necessarily apparent.  A camera can be far away and still hold us in close-up.  A good estimation of our frame can be had by noticing where the microphone is located on the boom.  It is just outside the frame, so let your voice and body adjust accordingly.  (And you can always ask!)

Staying Sane in a Crazy Business

Resumes, Agents, the Business

Thinking like a can of beans. That’s right - my crazy metaphor will make it all so simple.

Practical information about putting your materials together and understand the agency relationship.

Doing it All, Even if You’re Shy

What can you do when you have the jitters? How can you create a shining personal presence?  I’ll give you a personalized program for recovering your power.

Out of Focus and Into Awareness
Stop focusing.  

I know - it’s the last thing anyone would expect to hear from a teacher.  You’ve been told to “focus” for so long.  But. think about it.  Focus is about pulling our attention away from everything else and putting it all into one point. Focus frees us from the distractions of everything else.  But we aren't cameras.  We are equipped to take in and process information periferally.  And what if our interpretation of that one thing requires information offered by "everything else"?  What if we can only understand it within the context of its existence?  Even when we want to examine only one thing - it is how that one thing relates to everything else that really concerns us.

Imagine focusing on one car on the freeway. It might seem to be going too slow, or making random adjustments in speed that aren’t efficient. Then imagine that car in the midst of traffic. Its relationship to all the other cars, to the road, to the weather all play a part in it’s driving choices.

We need perspective, and that comes from being aware.  Awareness is about opening up, not closing down.  Awareness isn’t about wearing blinders, but taking them off.  Awareness welcomes us into the broader experience – all the sensations, the responses to, the reactions, the indications, the suggestions and nuances. It’s all there to inform us.  Awareness is the actors connecting tool.

In fact - focusing can be dangerous for the actor.  Imagine driving down the road.  We are most in danger of injuring ourselves and others when we focus on the radio, or the speed, or even the car in front of us - at the expense of all else.  When one thing warrants our greatest attention as an actor, then we are challenged to give it that attention without losing our awareness of everything else.  Focus is misguided when it limits us. It’s really the expanded experience that is fun to watch.

copyright 2009 Arita Trahan

livepage.apple.com