Emotional Preparation

Being Present in Acting is an important skillset to learn. Okay um look there is a major absolute major difference between um how to when you learn how to do acting and you start building up that confidence level in yourself as an actor you start to be able to learn yourself almost by like an inclination where you can feel a sense about your work in acting where you’re actually able to actually you’re able to understand that you’re in

The present moment versus not in the present moment now i know it takes a minute to spit out but here’s the reason why it’s so important when you can learn to trust that element that small element that’s this like thing that i’m going to describe there’s this there’s like this nut and bolt that just clicks in you and all of a sudden you get it and what will happen is that you’ll just have this thing where you’ll have this understanding that’s not like logical

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Necessarily it’s more like just like you just can feel it you just hit this thing and all of a sudden you know that you’re in the present real time experience of acting this is key now a lot a lot of people first of all there’s a lot of techniques in acting and you know a lot of great interesting things when you’re looking at doing acting you’re able to achieve the real-time experience you’re going to have the

Ability to be more of yourself and you’re going to have the ability to be able to receive more of the other person so you’re going to literally be able to amplify your own talent because you have been able to position yourself in this present moment right what is the present moment of acting and this is absolutely key so let’s get into this so i’ve got some notes here let’s look at them um the first thing i have. Being Present in Acting will make a huge difference to how you receive moments from the other.

On my on my other note is you gotta understand one simple simple simple thing and this is an ongoing understanding so you could look at at people that have been doing a lot of work over the years and you can say well what’s the difference between them and somebody who’s just starting out or somebody that’s kind of been doing this for a few years but there’s still adjustments to make there’s always adjustments to make an acting

This is a big one though the difference between having an active emotion and having an idea right so you’ve got an active emotion rather than just the idea of what you’re what you’re doing you’ve got an activated emotion so you’ve already decided within that emotional preparation what you’re actually going to do that’s key it’s key you’ve decided what the emotional range is going to be

And then you do the work just to activate that emotion it’s very important so then you get the difference of how to be able to work off of an active emotion versus working off of no emotion at all and when you have no motion at all you’re not going to be under any kind of emotional influence when you’re acting and that’s rather uh important note because when you’re understanding that see a lot of people and i’ve seen all

Types of different uh celebrities and all this other one of nonsense but the reality is it’s it works to be able to understand the acting technique which is what i’m describing the acting technique is the thing that i’m interested in not the fame or celebrities or whatever it’s called so we’re working to be able to get the ability to be able to self-activate our own emotion with an influence so when we listen we listen

Under the influence of the emotion okay so now the difference to be able to tell when you’re present in your acting and when you’re not present in your acting is that there’s going to be that influence and that’s when you’re working with emotional preparation which most people are starting to it’s going to start to i’m going to keep doing stuff other people are doing stuff if they are or not i have no idea but i know that

There’s a lot of teachers out there that are working and to be frank emotional preparation is a very sought after and very difficult thing to be able to achieve which is why i’ve got so much stuff on it so you input outside influences when you’re actually receiving a real-time experience that is enormously important the next one is your moments come off of

Others moments come off of other people then you do not fully know the direction of the scene that’s true you might know the result of the scene but you’re not result objective right you’re not an objective to get to the end of the scene you’re in a situation where you’ve got this balance that you’re doing where you’re also trying to be able to be

Inclusive of every single thing that you can be receptive of when you’re acting see that’s what’s going to make up that synergistic component of acting so you’ve got this synergy that just comes in and all of a sudden you’ve got this honestly what it feels like as an actor is it feels like you’ve built up this bubble this emotional bubble just comes in all of a sudden you’re like well you

Know you’ve got this thing activated and you know you got this thing activated and then all of a sudden you go you know you’re working with the other actor and you’ve got all of a sudden they’ve got something going on and it adds to what you’re doing and another thing happens and then the script has a an idea or something that that affects everything and then that gets received and then all of a sudden it just bubble and bubble and bubble bigger and bigger. You need to develop your technique of Being Present in Acting.

You get the point so that’s the key absolutely key the next point here is you want to accept detours right so there are absolutely detours in acting it is key you want to be willing to take the detours as long as they’re not like too far off now in rehearsals you want to be able to take wider detours uh for scenes to be able to add and find the depth needed to be able to self activate that specific area or that specific depth when you find that that’s

A piece that maybe the writer might have intended or maybe you as an artist wants to be able to put into your acting and then that is how you’re able to find those emotional brush strokes is by having those wide detours but when you’re working on the actual scene you want to have the detours happen but you want to have them more a little bit more narrow so the next one is your malleability your malleability is the ability see

Sometimes you know you’ll work and you’ll think that the uh set of ideas or set of expressions that um you’ve worked on as an actor where you’ve worked on the depth of emotion and you’re expecting that you know you’re likely you’re going to go in the order of a b c d e f g right however that’s not like that in acting in acting you might start off on a and then you switch to f and then go back to g and then go forward and then go

Backwards and then all of a sudden you’re on e f because things move around in real time and this is exactly how life happens this is the exact reason why you want to be able to consider yourself to be a real time actor a real time actor being somebody that actually takes in real moments the next thing here is um awake to differences this is a big note big note when you are

Awake to differences you are not only logically taking in the difference you are actually in a situation where you are receiving as much of that as possible so look you could be in a situation where you’ve got this huge huge despair and you’ve got that despair activated and that’s part of your the part of your scene however then you’re still open to be able to try and add to that and that’s where um

There’s this like emotional preparation meter that you want to have in yourself where you don’t fully fully fully fill yourself right up to your chin because you’ve got to remember you want to receive the other actor too you want to receive the the outside influence into your acting so you’ve got to be able to receive stuff so you’ve got to leave a little bit of space there so that you’ve got to have that ability to be able to have some ebb

And flow which is key so you awake to the differences and then you’re going to get to the point where you have ebb and flow which is the ebb and flow in acting is the ability to adjust in real time there is all kinds of great things that can happen in rehearsals and you’ll be like well i wish that that had been on camera or i wish that this had been part

Of the production well and then you might say well maybe it will maybe it won’t but if you’re able to keep adjusting in real time you’re going to always find something fresh and new and it’s just going to get more rich the more you rehearse it if you’re rehearsing it in a way that has freedom it has to have freedom all right the last thing here let me go through these notes first is very quick um the

Difference of emotions is activation and emotion okay we got that we have no emotion um versus weak feeling so you if you’re chasing a feeling that’s uh something that you want to be aware of a feeling is an inclination uh it’s very useful inclinations but they don’t have the depth of emotion work off of your depth now the biggest thing here that we’re going to talk about next is there’s going to be some

Stuff about reacting now so being present with an emotional weight emotional weight is going to be different with the different emotional range uh how mo emo how moments happen in acting how moments happen in acting are is very very key um and that’s going to be a separate separate topic because there there’s a

Specific way of how moments happen and you want to make sure that you have that you know exactly how to be able to know that when you’re receiving you’re actually in more real time when you’re blocked off and you’re just executing a doing then you’re in a situation where you’re not uh really acting because you’re not interacting acting is interaction it’s key trust me i know that that much

I can say absolutely absolutely for a fact fact fact that is such an important thing if you are doing because you are implementing you are actually ruining your acting in my opinion so next one is relaxation this is two major last points major keys major keys one is relaxation equals reaction real reaction comes from your ability to relax into

The stimulated impulse so somebody comes out your face and you don’t know what the heck is going on and you don’t even know why they’re upset with you you relax into it because that’s your reaction that’s how you get your full reaction you realize that because you relax yeah what i said was a huge huge huge so the next point is

A planned reaction equals bad acting it can unless you find a way to take that planned uh reaction and make it interactive the only reason why performers are really good with planned reactions especially in theater or other other mediums too even on film is because they find a way to interact with their planned reaction and every single time it’s subtly subtly different and that’s the key that’s the

Key and and you talk to people that have been doing this like me for over 20 years and you realize okay that there’s there’s a point there that’s that’s very massive and take that adapt it for yourself work with it this is the point is to be able to expand your human talent net last point here is doing is interaction do off of the other person not only off of yourself so when you’ve got to Being Present in Acting.

Copyright 2022 Simon Blake

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