Types of Interactions help to Master Spontaneity. Mastering Types of Interaction means you have more options available to yourself when doing acting. Types of Interactions are key to study for a serious Actor. Learning about how you Interact with others is key.

How adjustable you are to others matters in your acting.

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Types of Interactions – Mastering Spontaneity in Acting Book

It is a great thing to have the discipline of learning techniques to be able to free yourself in your acting.

Copyright 2016-2019, Simon Blake
Draft Acting Book Copy

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Using Emotional Preparation in acting can influence the way you do Interactions in your acting. Being free enough to be able to be fluid in your acting responses is another key. Self activating an Emotion can leave you emotionally sparked. Even though you are emotionally sparked you need to receive the other actor.

Exploring types of interactions in acting help you build your own acting technique.

Types of Acting Interactions:

What we Aim for:
Motivated, Voluntary

What we don’t Aim for:
Involuntary, Forced Actions
(We understand that Involuntary motions and Forced Actions occur from ourselves sometimes, yet we don’t intend to not be responsible for them or permission ourselves as Artists to experiment with these two types of behaviors as we are learning Acting.)
Consider: Not attempting to meditate or prepare yourself on Involuntary Actions or Forced Actions on yourself or towards others.

-END of this section we want to train in the area of motivated and voluntary interaction _
INTERACTION – title section and review because the Type of Interaction is the breeding grounds for the artist to cultivate their talents and develop more. These are Motivated and Voluntary integrations. So, the training grounds of interactions will cultivate these two aspects of life which can do so with keeping absolute integrity and honesty still within the work.

Anyone who states that the interaction that only promotes Involuntary and Forced Actions is what makes interactions real is missing some ingredients on what makes life a real thing to live without those two ingredients.
Life does not need bullying and insensitivity sporadically injected into acting. Many actors when first learning force believing their conviction in a purposeful way is achieving acting.

It is a far more sensible approach to allow the trainings interactions at least in the beginning while first learning the techniques and possibly during the intermediary phases you can start to introduce interactions with the scripts that include those features of non-socialistic activities such as involuntary actions and forced actions.

Realism is going to continue to define itself as sensible interactions. Audiences are going to continue to appreciate sensible interactions and great Actors are going to continue to appreciate their abilities to have sensible and sensitive interactions.

The internal realization of our own adjustment to the other is reality. The moment of us adjusting internal is the actual moments of reality in film and art. In Art the Forcing of yourself or another is not reality. It may happen in life, but it art it has less of a value than if it never happened.

Actors could contribute more to their art form with nothing at all compared to a forced-out moment. Most forced moments don’t make sense unless the acting is all forced moments and a memorized choreography of art which is stylization in acting. Stylization is not au naturalistic acting. The more naturalistic you can be even when doing stylistic acting the better and more reality you will have. That reality comes from internal adjustments to the other that are not forced or controlled by your own will.

The forcing of action or involuntary movements of another does not gain the reality that is sought after in art. This is why when forced actions become part of artistic endeavors it can often backfire as to their intension because the inner dimension of the artistic form gets cut off. The Actor staying internally connected is the consistent road of the journey taken. Surprises may happen but are not realized until the Actor realizes another adjustment than the forced action.

_____

This is why in acting you can have all kinds of scripted actions between staged lines, and it is doing those script directions can cause the audiences to be taken out from the journey of experience. If the Actors adjust to each other after the forced action occurs the audience is brought back into the experience.

To start the trainings with staying within the range of Voluntary and Motivated Actions we teach the Actor the consistency they require to stay connected with audiences. Audiences must be able to follow the internal life of the Actor and they cannot do that if they do not know what is forced and what is voluntary. The training grounds of voluntary and motivated work gains the actor experience with the connected state that the audience needs to have with them as Actors.

The easiest way to learn is with the support and loving companionship of Motivation and Voluntary Will. Not anyone else’s will but our own Will. As supportive environments are the most constructive and ideal place of learning this is the initial aim of the classroom dynamics.

We want those starting or continuing their own journey in Acting to be able to adapt the loving companionship with Self in a way that works from these two senses of self. Motivated and Voluntary sense of being and achievement support a conscious and awake Actor who is present to what is taking place and not weighted down or dealing with other aspects of self that can hinder their awareness and sense of Being Present.

The deeper of a relationship an Actor can build with their own sense of motivation and voluntary action the deeper they will be able to dive into the results of their own involvement in acting and baseline their own comprehension of their experiences.

Motivated
Introduction –
What it is not –
What it is –

Motivated Interaction is not working with mindset. It is working with gut motivation and impulse to achieve an outcome.
When motivation crosses the line of doing something for someone else or forcing another person to become something or say something they do not want to say it becomes something other than motivation.
Motivation is stimulating but it is not the stimulation to overtake another’s functioning.

Example: during an exercise Johnny keeps finishing Sarah’s sentences. When she calls him out on it he says the excuse that he is motivated to complete her sentences. This creates an impulsive conflict within Sarah. She does not like, even hates it when people try to speak for her. Johnny starts to understand that he is annoying Sarah by finishing her sentences and telling her what she thinks but actually believes that this is his right to exercise in his acting.

The teacher stops the work. “You know you’re not working off of her a lot and she has made it clear to you and ignore what she is giving you”. Johnny is genuinely surprised. He wonders to himself then blurts out to the teacher. “I thought that we could express our motivations in this classroom”.
It is clear that Johnny has mistaken his right to be motivated with a misunderstanding that he has the right over other because he feels the impulse of something.

The motivation is the undercurrent to the functioning. When you turn the motivation into an action to pursue an agenda you are not working from the heart of motivation. When you pursue action due to your motivation you are flirting with manipulation.

Expressing yourself based off of an impulse is different than using Motivation as a crutch to do whatever you want to because of the mental excuse of motivation. Real motivation gives you the internal spark.
The teacher sits for a moment then speaks. “You know you were not getting much done there other than telling her what to do and what to say. What does that mean to you?”
After a long pause Johnny comes up with the brilliant idea. “I guess I wasn’t really working off of her because I thought I had to keep motivated.” The teacher nods.
Motivation is the internal response to achieving something or getting something done, not the excuse to make something happen that is stimulating you.

It is a common misunderstanding to mistaken your motivation with another persons interaction with you.

• Talk about how motivation is not a license to insist that the other has the motion you are directing.
  This type of acting is amateur hour and leads to two people in scene and exercise work trying to direct themselves and the moments.
  Utilizing motivation means you are motivated to exchange your presence with the other person. Starting and exchanging under motivated circumstances should only contribute to the aliveness of the scene or exercise.

Example 2:
Motivated example.
Motivation to interact and include.
Depending upon if you have something to do in a scene or an exercise you will have options on how Motivated self could influence the scene. If you have something to do then your motivated experience will include needing to complete what you are doing. Giving yourself a reason to do what you need to do that actually activates you into wanting to get it done.
If you don’t have anything to do to complete in the scene or exercise you will have the option to have your motivational energy towards interacting with the other person.
The keys are to give yourself the motivation that actually activate your desires to interact with the other person. At times a motivation can led to interacting desires that will cause the other to be annoyed by you. Allow yourself to adjust if you notice this but most importantly let your motivation flow through you to interact with the other person.

Example 3: Typical
Both students are motivated to respond off of each other – is typical beginning engagement towards improvisations or scenes.
Motivated to engage because they want to learn acting together.

Voluntary
Introduction –
What it is not –
What it is –

Is working off of your partner without manipulation. You adjust to what you experience, and they adjust to what they experience. The equality of voluntary interaction is usually fairly balanced. You may interact in ways that are entirely expressive about how you feel which might hurt the other emotionally, but you are still open to voluntarily express, as are they.
The Voluntary approach is an approach of freedom to be who you are when you are. It is a mindset that permits self-expression regardless of outcome.
Voluntary interaction is not cooperation. It is not sharing, it is voluntary. It is a level of which either party can express themselves freely regardless of how the other perceives it.

Voluntary work allows and permissions this quality of freedom to the work that helps to spawn spontaneity. This freedom of voluntary expressions gives an enormous platform for interacting that many other actors are not able to establish for themselves.
Professional film or theater can benefit from being able to create an environment of training and exercising that allow work to be explored in a voluntary environment. In many cases the scripts dictate non-voluntary environments but those are by design of the playwright. Allow yourself to explore the voluntary elements that are available to you, and you will be more likely to be responsive in your work.
For the classroom environment the baseline of the exercises are voluntary experiences. There are things that will happen that you do not wish to have happen to you such as an insult or a point of view from your partner. But as you are available to express your voluntary opinions so is your scene partners.
A voluntary environment does not stop involuntary experiences from happening.

What we do Not Aim for:

Involuntary
(includes if you limit or filter your own responses)
Introduction –
All examples are What it is not –

Example: Manipulation
The one student tries to make the other student admit an opinion that they have of them. The other student clearly is stating a contrary opinion, but the student is trying to involuntarily make the other student admit that they have the same opinion.
Sally is so new to the work that she starts to agree that her opinion is what Sarah wants her opinion to be.
The teacher stops the exercise asking Sally what she really feels about this. “If this was not an acting exercise, what do you feel about Sarah telling you that …. . “ Sally responds very clearly about her point of view.
The basics to acting are the fundamentals. This exercise was one where Sarah you made Sally involuntarily admit to your opinion instead of working off and accepting her own opinion. By pressuring her you were able to involuntarily get to to agree.
Now Sarah, how do you really feel about Sally’s opinion?” Sarah says she is shocked.
Teacher “so allow yourself to be shocked rather than make her agree. If you allow yourself to be shocked, then the exercise can continue to move into other organic directions”.
Both students are quite happy with the lesson and work for the day and thank each other for working together.

We want in acting to have clear and concise work which means that we want to stay away from pressuring involuntary opinions from each other. Involuntary expressions only convolute the actual experiencing of what is real impulse and expression.

We are going to be dealing with Motivated, Voluntary, and occasionally Involuntary actions., We do not train in Forced Actions yet, but later on classes could train for this type of work if the proper professionals are in place including Stunt Coordination Professionals and Choreographers.
The Aim of the training is to deal with Motivated and Voluntary Training ranges but occasionally to no one’s fault of their own Involuntary conditions will occur because of the experimentation quality of the work.
Examples of Involuntary Actions, – remembering an event of violence towards you as a child, remembering, incidental actions or threats that may incidentally occur out of bursts of anger between two people arguing. (Which is not to the point of force but only to the point of expression). Find the depth of the memory.

• this readies them to get ready for what to expect.
  Initially we find our motivations, find out our voluntary responses with others within classrooms which reignites our finding our own spontaneity and relations with others.
  We are not forcing people to remember Rapes, Assaults, and frankly not even intimidations. or limited intimidations. The point of the early work especially is to work in an environment free from violent actions and forced expressions finding the freedom of our own expressions and not the forcing of another’s on ourselves. Later in the work this could be a voluntary decision of the Actor if they choose it. and want to utilize their life experience from their own voluntary will.
• Many Actors will choose to work with intense emotions so they can test their expressions of that topic. This is done with the intension to feel good about themselves about getting over a heartache or terrible life happening.
  NOTE: In this book we acknowledge and teach the working from personal experiences thoroughly, but we encourage the abilities of the Actors to find their own expressions out of their own free will as their craft catches up with the Being.
  -both our own involuntary actions and others involuntary actions.
  When angry we say things that we don’t mean, and we do things that we don’t mean to say or imply. Because we are training being truthful and honest with ourselves and offer our honest responses, we need to be kind after the work to others who offend us or participate in involuntary actions that we neither appreciate or may even despise.
  During the acting work we will respond without apology and with pure instinct and truthful response as to how they are doing or saying things affects us.
• then after the work we can allow ourselves to be polite to each other and write about our experiences as we process what happened inside of our acting work. This can be quite intense and intriguing.
  Voluntary and Involuntary Interactions Listening and non-listening Breaking down Interactions
• Involuntary does not mean ‘forced’. They may just be receiving an involuntary expression that was not desired or intended to be used by the person expressing.
• great separator for topic.
  

• There are two types of interactions. Voluntary Interactions and Involuntary interactions. Involuntary interactions are forced events and occur in most dire of situations that typically are unacceptable to society. There are forced interactions with other where you are against your own will and there are interactions where you require the skill of listening so you can navigate a fairness of interaction through communication.
  
  Thus, the Communication skill of listening is a vital set of focus to learn and practice. The majority of the interactions are considered voluntary although the realism of the conditions surrounding the interactions may be heavily influenced by involuntary circumstances. The circumstances often force two individuals into a shared reality whether they want to be in interaction with each other or not, but they still have free will within that circumstance to handle it as they choose unless under involuntary interactions.
  
  Breaking down interactions are an integral process that immediately understanding will assist any Actor, Artist or Creator. Interactions occur both with people, places and things.
  People can affect us in many ways that we can explore by interrupting experiences that we are already involved in., or by adding to experiences that we are already having. People can also be the impetus of a reaction or experience that leads us to a series of exchanges with them.
  
  Places have the ability to bring out from within not only experiences but reminders of essences of what and who we are. We explore different parts of ourselves in different places as we find more comfort being in some places as others and find discomfort being in other places than ones that we are comfortable in.
  Things including possessions and materials can seem to obsess us or affect us in both positive and negative ways. We develop relationships with things in ways that can be surprising to the observer and seem very instinctual to ourselves.
  
  Many Interactions may jog memories or create new and fresh events. Interacting with the world around brings us to the human responses of Being and listening to the world around us.
  It is the impetus of how one effects or a place or thing effects one is an exploratory process which discovers a consistent unveiling of new results. Time also effects the longings for objects, people or places as we develop as human beings and artists. The baseline for which our Artistic and Acting endeavors fall within is that of Interactions and states of Being which are an effect of each of the things mentioned above.
  
  Authors (Simon’s) Note: Learning or attempting to learn in involuntary situations such as in times of war or involuntary circumstances can prove to be a more than difficult scenario for the learner. In this book and in the training of learning Acting we intentionally grant ourselves the easier pathway of learning which is voluntary interactions. This is also part of the dichotomy that occurs in students who live in involuntary circumstances and find the arts to become their only source of humane expression. It is their achievement of being that is achieved immediately from entering the work because it is a stark contrast to the reality of their involuntary life circumstances. later in the training we will tackle the tougher circumstances that train the involuntary conditions in life that not only exist but are rampant within society today and has been for lifetimes.
  
  If you are in an involuntary life situation and have found yourself in an improvisational classroom environment and doing the work in this book the classroom and work, you do for it may be your only form of personal expression. Have patience with yourself and understand that you are in a safer and freer environment than in life and enjoy the ride.
  If you are in these life positions such as positions in life where you have little expression or choice in movement understand that the work that is present in this book is for you and others like you as well as the general public. It will specifically teach you how to turn those circumstances of life into conditions of learning experiences towards your acting whether the world likes it or not and leave you in a more empowered state of condition capable of truthfully channeling your real conditions in life into an art form and not just a forced state of existence without being form or personal expression. The friends, real friendships that you will form along the way will be quite a surprise to you as well.
• The Learning of Acting is how to access the human condition. The Human condition of self is the first-person reality of being present from a point of view of involvement. In this book we will learn together even through the medium of these writings how to access your own personal human conditioning and how to set up your own human conditioning for preparation of a part.
  Goal: Leaving behind the threat and devastation of Forced Actions and creating a training ground for the Actor to have an environment where free expression is encouraged, and the Actor is protected of the threat of Forced Doings upon them or being punished for their expressions.

Forcing Acting Activities is What Not to Do

Involuntary or Forcing action – example –
Student keeps trying to grab at another student. This is forcing him into an involuntary action.

• Making something happen because they are actors on stage.
  Teacher “Just because your on stage doesn’t mean you have to make something happen. Instead, trust that something will happen.”
  “Forced Actions are for Stunt Association Members, not actors, unless you’ve worked it out before hand.”

Understanding Human Interactions:
Trusting that human interactions are enough is usually a learning process for Actors.

Humanly interacting is the identifying with another passions and interests rather than judging them. If you experience based off interacting with their passions or interest than you are working from the gut level of yourself, and your experience will actually be a reaction rather than judge-mental interaction.

The Human Interaction that we are working towards achieving is a connection of depth that is beyond superficial judgment. Imagine the surprise when two people who on the surface don’t seem to relate to each other start to build a relationship with each other with an interaction that is friendly or trust building.

Every single exercise in every single classroom aims to build on the premise of human interaction and honest undercurrent interaction. This means that the deeper aspects of of humanity connects to the deeper aspects of another’s humanity regardless of the conditions of the circumstances.

Emotional Preparation is the added self-stimulation that prepares you internally before the scene is actually happening. The goal is to bring to the scene work or classroom exercise the emotional preparations experience so it can have an initial and interactive experience with your scene or scene partner. You do not bring the Emotional Preparation experience to the scene work to control the experience but rather to color and allow it to have a life of its own because its spark ignites a grander experience based on the human interaction.

The moment that another interest other than what the stimulations of your Emotional Preparations starts to affect you, you need to receive it. Don’t waste your energy filtering judgments about what is already affecting you. If you are repulsed by what you are experiencing than you will experience the repulsion. If you judge something before you experience it, you will never feel the repulsion. The moments of the exercise will never build up if you do not live within them. What you consciously deny you will never experience.

The intrigue beyond the shock of differences is the humanity connection. The acceptance of the difference of circumstance is an early on breakthrough that many Actors have within the boutique learning environments that train in instinctual training.

Instinctual training takes you beyond the written words of thought. Preplanned interactions often don’t interact. The mere point of instinctual training is to get over your own judgments and mentality so to learn to trust that internally you will reflect automatically as you receive another’s point of view.

Your point of view will actually uniquely be expressed because your focus was receiving the others behavior. If you focus on your own behavior, you will lose the connection in receiving the others behavior which will lessen your interaction with your environment and take you out of the circumstances that you are within.

Human Interactions are involved living things, not dead spaced.
The buildup of humanity is what builds existence. The only difference between something happening anew and something that already has history is the buildup of humanity that comes from the actual work of the relationship between the two Actors. Emotional Preparation when used specifically can add dimensions to the work to start the buildup of the first moment of interaction within a specific range or at a specific moment.

If you extract the building up of relating to one another and lesson the connection of receiving what you have is a person who is only focused on themselves and their own actions. The identification of the others point of view is the connection to the human interaction.

We will explore how to both have a fullness of Emotional Preparation but also have a looseness about your preparation in a way to not self-indulge in your preparation. This way the work that you have done will actually merge with the interacting that you do in your scenes and the experience of living will actually occur in real time within your scenes. There will be no faking it because the Actor will have the craft of real experience and the knowledge with practice to actually be living an experience.

Give In:
Give in to the weakening of your knees when your affected by another. Fall into the vulnerabilities that are available in your scenes and exercises. Honest your opinions that are attached to feelings beneath. This is the way to find yourself into the discovery of Acting.
The more you learn about acting the more you realize that Acting is not acting at all. It is all about the experiencing of being and the giving in of yourself to what gets activated in your internals.

• Weak knee’s – shiver of expressions
• Helping the other realize their realities –

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Copyright 2016-2019, Simon Blake
Draft Acting Book Copy