Emotional Preparation

How to Be An Actor

How to Be an Actor is the Essence of Acting is Interaction.  To understand how to become an actor an individual needs to understand how to improve their abilities to interact.  Interaction includes expressing what is internally inside yourself to others.  

How to Be an Actor has to do with how to access your emotion.

Some Key Quotes in this Acting Article:
“Begin with the Emotions List, to expand the emotions you work with in acting.”
“You will likely need between 20 – 30 hours per week of time set aside to learn acting.“

Copyright 2021-2022 Simon Blake
BEING Before DOING in acting is the key!
ACTING CLASSES INFO: HERE!

Gaining the becoming of Artistic talents such as Acting takes commitment to truthfully and fully explore your points of views and opinions.  You start to gain the ability to become an Actor by honestly expressing your actual points of view while under imaginary scenarios.  

The honest expression of your point of view baselines your reality as an upcoming Artist.  It is an essence to stay in tune with how you really feel while you are expressing yourself.  Honest expression has a bluntness about it that is often inconvenient to the circumstances when its expressed.

Learning Emotional Preparation Techniques is a key to learning acting.

QUICK: There is an Interactive PDF of 110 Classes worth of Activities (over 1100!).

Where to Begin

Find classes that you are interested in taking part in.  You have the ability to adjust classes or schools if you decide to so don’t be afraid to start with what interests you first.   The goal is about your growth as a person and gaining the ability to personally find real opinions that you have incorporating them into your work.  

If you can find classes where there are people who you would like to work with because those people are interesting to you even better.  Who you work with will make a difference with how you progress. 

Begin with the Emotions List, to expand the emotions you work with in acting.

What is the Acting Journey Like

The entire goal is to have a journey.  If you have a journey while you are acting or participating in a role you are achieving something that will show substance in its own arch.  

Your journey should be somewhat surprising to you as you develop your way through it.  You should expect to be surprised throughout while learning the craft of acting.  It is reasonable to expect that you will develop new opinions and beliefs about yourself.  You will learn about yourself in new conditions and although the acting conditions are imaginary there are great lessons you will learn.  

The acting journey is the incredible self-discovery process. The Journey in acting, music and Creating involves finding things within yourself emotionally to use in your work.

Who can Assist me in my Training?

An Acting classroom that is fluid enough to include you having your honest expression of what your experiencing can help you.  It is also helpful to gain some friends who can without teaching you go through work with you.  This means that you can all discuss your own points of view without expecting your own point of view to have to be the correct one way.  

You may be asked to play a role without knowing at first the real history. This is common for most parts and parts of why research is a key ingredient to learning acting training. You want to find parts that can match your inner emotions. Matching emotions to the scripts you select for both acting training as well as out in the industry.

Anyone who you can listen to and learn from can assist your Acting training.  You may be able to receive valuable experiences or glimpses of past experiences by listening to older people or visiting nursing homes.  There is so many opportunities to understand a person’s point of view without having to takes sides and agree with it.  

What kind of Training do I need

You need an improvisational approach to acting.  You need to be able to not fear moments where you do not have a planned outcome or a planned gesture. 

Modern acting is all about how you are able to internally stimulate yourself and then release what is internal to live in the alternate environment.  If you are training in ways that encourage the experiencing of a circumstance than you are on the right track. 

Many Actors rather than improvise work with a planned approach to their acting where they practice how to say certain lines or how to be.  The kind of training that you need is the intuitive approach not the regimented approach.  Planning all your actions and lines to go in order is a heay approach to acting rather than intuitive. 

You ‘need’ to be in training environments where you are able to gain better faculty of your own instinctual responses.  It is great to be able to sharpen your responsive ability.  

Is Becoming an Actor Hard work or is it Natural Talent?

It takes hard work and natural talent to achieve becoming an Actor.  If you can take the approach to find something to concentrate on and improve on that ability to concentrate on it then you will be growing your talent.  

Nature talent is truthfully the ability to let go into a free fall of circumstances not being sure where you are going to end up.  If you want to achieve ‘Natural’ in your talent than you need to practice the doing of letting, go of the result of your work.  

Practicing letting go and focusing on what you are able to concentrate on within your acting scene will grow you as an Actor.  You must be gaining the experiencing of the circumstances in real time in order for any hard work or natural talent to be released. 

How to deal with Lines in Acting?

Lines become easier with time spent understanding the meaning of what is said.  If you don’t understand the meaning of what is said than you will struggle to deal with the lines.  If you know what is said and how it works together than you will find it easier to deal with the lines. 

Any good writer writes in a sequence of thoughts.  Each scene is just a sequence of thoughts, ideals and opinionated feelings.  If you do the work to understand what the thoughts are and how they tie together you will find dealing with the lines much easier.  

It is important not to feel that you need to memorize the lines.  If you memorize the lines by wrote you could be cheating yourself from experiencing all the meaning that they represent.  Instead of going straight to memorizing the lines first move instead understand what the lines represent in meaning.  All lines in acting and dialogue in acting are representations which have an underline meaning beneath them. 

Memorizing lines by wrote missing having the experience is not an achievement.  All dialogue has to have a purpose that you are able to inwardly connect yourself with. 

How tough is entering the industry really?

Most of the industry is changing and becoming more widespread.  Traditionally the industry is a permission granted casting structure that you need to know someone or be part of particular families in order to have any real chance at larger parts.  

As the industry expands newer opportunities arise.  The pay structure is also changing.  To best be able to enter the industry you need to have consistency in your own life, if possible.  Gaining the ability to regularly rehearse or participate in acting is key.  You need to stay in a state of readiness that allows you to be able to capitalize on an opportunity when opportunities come. 

The reality to ‘breaking in’ to the industry is practical.  It will take persistence to continuously stay open to people you meet and keep yourself optimistic.  Many times, you will achieve very short notice auditions or meet and greets.  

Realizing that a large percentage of casting for roles happen outside of auditions is key.  Often through contacts opportunities come your way.  

In this day and age how easy realistically is it to become an Actor: 

It is very realistic to be able to after a couple years of effort to gain some kind of credit in the film industry.  If you train yourself in an honest approach of self-expression you will be able to achieve some sort of success onscreen.  

Realize that most parts and successes don’t pay well in Acting.  It takes a lot of negotiation and determination to keep persistent.  You may not be able to join the union in the first two years of your efforts learning acting but the 3^rd year you might be able to get enough credits to join the union if you wish. 

How much will it cost to Become an Actor?

It is realistic to expect to pay monthly between $500 – $1200 / mth for ongoing expenses towards pursuing acting.  This will include buying plays and materials and covering a bi-weekly acting class. 

If you are taking University Credited Acting or special accredited Acting classes or programs you may pay an additional 20,000 a year for the program and sometimes much more.  Getting a Job that will be able to pay and cover your rent plus additional monthly ongoing acting expenses is realistic.  

If you work to achieve your goal by persistent study and independently seeking out a studio to study at you will be able to realistically make some progress. 

How much committment will it be to Become an Actor. 

You will likely need between 20 – 30 hours per week of time set aside to learn acting.  If you are able to set aside 40 – 50 hours a week this is great.  The key is the consistency of time per week is more than the condensed amount of time spent. 

8 – 10 hours per week you may be studying classic films.  8 – 10 hours a week you may be in classes.  12 – 16 hours a week you may be studying plays, learning dialogue or rehearsing. 

Keep in mind when you prepare for a part you will need to read the entire script, not just the parts where you are in it.   When you get a part, you will need to take more time to concentrate on it than your regular training.  You may even do several full 15-hour days studying or filming the role. 

Copyright 2019, Simon Blake

 

Tags: acting, become an actor, How to Be an Actor, How to become an Actor