Acting: Develop Your Voice

Acting

Develop Your Voice

Dramatically Improve Your Acting Skills

By Actor Academy

All material contained herein is Copyright

Copyright © Actor Academy, 2022

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Paperback ISBN: 979-8-3922708-9-7

ePub ISBN: 979-8-2017404-1-2

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Written by Actor Academy

Published by Royal Hawaiian Press

Cover art by Tyrone Roshantha

Publishing Assistance by Dorota Reszke

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For more works by this author, please visit:

www.royalhawaiianpress.com

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without prior written permission of the Author.

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Table of Contents

1.1 What to expect

1.2 Introduction to acting

1.3 Get Ready to work

2.1 What is the technique?

3.1 Lesson – Facts

3.2 Scene Review – Facts

4.1 Lesson: Environment

4.2 Scene review – Environment

5.1 Lesson Relationship

5.2 Scene Review Relationship

6.1 Lesson Story Want

6.2 Scene Review – Story Want

7.1 Lesson – Want

7.2 Scene Review – Want

8.1 Lesson – Masks

8.2 Scene Review – Masks

9.1 Lesson – Stakes

9.2 Scene Review – Stakes

10.1 Lesson – Barriers

10.2 Scene Review – Barriers

11.1 Lesson – Moment Before

11.2 Scene Review - Moment Before

12.1 Lesson – Discoveries

12.2 Scene Review – Discoveries

13.1 Lesson – Actions

13.2 Scene Review – Actions

14.1 Lesson – Thoughts

14.2 Scene Review – Thoughts

15.1 Lessons – Movies

15.2 Scene Review – Movies

16.1  Lesson - Blocking

16.2 Scene Review – Blocking

17.1 Lesson – Leaving It in Rehearsal

17.2 Scene Review – Leaving It In Rehearsal

18.1 Wrapping it Up

19.1 Self-Tape

19.2 Equipment

19.3 Basic editing

19.4 Unwritten Rules

19.5 Apparel

Join us as we walk you through every step it takes to become a successful, professional actor! By the time you finish this book, you'll have all the tools necessary to master any scene. We share insider knowledge about acting techniques, walk you through tailored scene exercises, share helpful tips for crushing your next audition, and much more. With fifteen lessons with custom scenes, this book will benefit everyone from the beginning actor to the seasoned pro!

What you’ll learn

•  How to create a strong foundation for your acting technique

•  Learn the skills necessary to consistently perform every time you step in front of the camera

•  Drastically improve your acting skills through hands on exercises

•  Practical, NOT philosophical lessons

•  How to crush your next audition

•  The best way to film self-tapes

•  How to dissect a scene from our 15 custom scene exercises

•  A video review of each scene, where I show you how I would've approached it

•  How do let your child-like curiosity in and sideline your self-consciousness

Who this book is for:

•  The experienced actor who is looking for an efficient plan

•  The beginner actor who is looking for a solid foundation

•  Actors looking to transition from theatre to film and TV

1.1 What to expect

Welcome to our acting course. We’re going to teach you everything you need to know to create a strong foundation in your acting technique.

Everything we give you is going to be tangible, immediate, and practical. We've got a lot of students over the years, and we have never had a student who has not benefited from this when they've read it through.

A lot of these clients who came to us are actually series regulars on their own shows and have leading roles in feature films. Everything that we’re going to share with you today, we've been using for a very long time now and I've seen how it works and I think it can work for you.

Many of our students came to us as beginners or children, or maybe they were adults who'd been doing this a long time, but they felt a little bit stuck in their careers and really wanted to learn some new skills to open new doors or just figure out how to get to that next level.

See, who exactly is this book for? This book is going to be for many different types of actors at many different stages in their career and learning. Maybe you're an experienced actor and you're just looking for something consistent to come to, so that you can get ready for an audition in an efficient amount of time.

This was me when I first started acting in Los Angeles. I relied mostly on natural instincts, and I studied a little bit everywhere in town. What this meant was that I did really well at the things that came naturally to me, but things that I hadn't really experienced in my life, or maybe with an accent or really high stakes. It was kind of hard for me to connect to. And it certainly wasn't something that I could connect to in a short amount of time.

So, I sought out something that I could find, that would work every time. Then when I was fairly young, I became a mother and suddenly all my free time went out the window. I had to know exactly how long it would take me to get ready for any audition. And I needed to have tools that I could do step by step every time that would guarantee that in the two-hour window that I had free, I could be ready and raring to go.

Maybe you're a beginning actor while this book is for you to. In fact, beginners are some of my favorite students because you don't have bad habits yet that we need to undo. Whether this is your very first experience acting ever or you've done a little bit of community theater or taken a class in school, you'll find everything you need here to create a solid foundation that you can just continue to keep building as you move forward.

Maybe you have plenty of experience, but you don't really have a set specific thing that you do every time. And you're looking for that consistency and that efficiency. What I'm going to give you is a set of tools that you can sit down and use and that you may find your own way and you may find your own order. You may find that sometimes you do parts and other parts aren't really necessary. But you'll have that toolkit with you every time and you'll know that in a certain amount of time you can sit down and get consistent results.

Maybe you're an experienced theater actor and you're looking to translate your career into one that's also on TV and film. This is going to be great for you. Theater training, TV training, film training, voice-over training, you name it. Good acting is good acting. But there definitely are some roles that apply when you're going from the big stage in the big theater to that tiny, tiny close up. And so, we're going to focus on that today and how you can make sure that your performances work in both places.

1.2 Introduction to acting

A couple examples of how acting on stage is going to be different than acting in film and TV one. Most of your work, specifically in auditions, is going to be extremely close up. You might be used to having to really project things physically to reach that last person in the back or the audience.

In TV and film and definitely in those auditions that are going to get you on the set, you're going to be so tight that you're not going to have your body to use. And also, the camera can pick up your thoughts. That's how much they're seeing. You're going to want to figure out how you can translate all that physical work you do into internal work so that it shows through your eyes and not just through your body.

If you're used to doing plays all the time, you've had a lot of time to rehearse, sometimes even months. You're not going to get that for an audition. You're not going to get that on set. Sometimes when you're on set, maybe it's one to rehearsal. You're filming auditions. You might have less than 24 hours. Maybe you've been used to the process of finding it as you rehearse with your scene partner and you're just not going to get that here. This is going to help you take those tools that you already use and figure out how to make them efficient, quick and consistent.

Writers and directors. This book is for you to!

One of the best ways for a writer to create a full character is to be able to see the world from the character's eyes, doing this work, figuring out how we create these complex characters, and these three-dimensional worlds, is going to help you write fuller characters.

To directors, you're dealing with us actors all the time, and we know it's in both of our best interest to get the best performance possible. Sometimes we don't speak the same language. If you learn to really use the terminology in the way that we work, you're going to find that you're going to get inexperienced actors who can translate what you're saying, give you those performances you're looking for, and time is money. Everybody's going to work a lot faster.

Experienced actors like me are used to translating, bad direction and knowing what you mean when you say bigger, angrier, faster. But if you learn to speak the way we do, you're going to be able to give specific notes, to get exactly what you want from your actors.

The myth, natural acting versus technique

Actors come to me, especially those who've gotten pretty far with just their natural instincts and their talent, and they're afraid of getting in their head if they learn some sort of acting technique or that there will be something artificial about it that happens. I totally hear you. And for some people, they find that not having technique takes them pretty far.

A great example of this are really young kids. A lot of really young kids just so intuitively are tapped into their imagination. They don't get in their heads. They're not thinking about, oh, what would it sound like if I did this? What are they trying to get in this moment? Do they need to see me cry on this line? You say to a kid, hey, you're a saber tooth tiger and a kid's like, I'm a saber tooth tiger rock. And that's it. They don't even question it. They just become a saber tooth tiger. However, by the age of 10, 11, 12, most of us kind of lose that sense of confidence and bravery and just that mystical connection to creating those things.

This is going to help you get back to that childlike ability to truly believe things that maybe our imagined circumstances, a good complete education and technique is going to allow you to be that natural, truthful actor that you want to be while still honoring the specific circumstances of the character that you're going to play.

Many actors who have found the technique is them in their head, never really finished learning it. At the end of it. We're going to teach you how to throw it away, how to step out of those pushups of the technique and create something new and truthful. If you leave without learning that part, it's really like leaving surgery without being sewn up. You're going to walk around, not complete, not finished. And in fact, what just happened to you is probably going to hurt you more than it's going to help you.

Different teachers, different lessons. I'm not reinventing the wheel here. There are only so many different ways that you can communicate these lessons and acting. And I've spent a lot of time studying from those that came before me. The best that you can do is learn everything and then stand on the shoulders of those who have taught you before.

I will say one thing that I do that's different than a lot of teachers is I teach children the same way that I teach adults, especially those kids that are about 11, 12, maybe 13. They seem to have a great understanding of the stuff and often will learn it faster than adults.

Many teachers teach kids a different way, and then once in their career, they get to a point where they're 15, 16, and people are writing more complex adult things for them. They really struggle. This is going to work for the young actor, the older actor, the experienced actor and the inexperienced actor. Like while we're on it, beware any teacher that says, that their way is the only way. I think my way is pretty great. Not going to lie, but I know there are many other ways to do it. And I've learned from so many different teachers.

Beware of those teachers that want to treat it like a cult or a society and want to make you completely start over from where you've come from or only do things their way. That's just not how this is. This isn't rocket science. This is playing with our imaginations. It's art. It's creative. And in any creative endeavor, there is not just one way to do it. There are many great ways.

If you've taken an acting class before, there's a lot of specific names for different things. I'll be using specific names, too. However, that doesn't really matter. Call it whatever you want. Any place that we get to