Transcript

So you’ve done your investigation and your connection work, you’ve run the scene a couple times and feel like it’s ready to go. If you stop there, you risk becoming a few things: undirectable -which casting directors and directors don’t like so much- robotic where each line comes out the way it’s always come out, which is boring as hell to watch, and emotionless where your triggers (your inner movies) just won’t work.

So before any of that happens, don’t be done yet. what if there’s a better way? more interesting way? What if you missed something? What if it’s how you always do this kind of scene or how everyone else is gonna do it? Don’t get stuck in your first choice, and for God’s sake, don’t run the scene a thousand times in the exact same way, that’s what we call over-rehearsing and it’s baaaaddd. Explore. Look for other clues or put them together in new ways, change any of the four elements, change how you’re getting connected. Screw it, just do the scene laughing one time, or bored, or flirt the whole time, it might be wrong, it might be fake which is okay when exploring, but you might find something that works that you can go back and justify through the technique. Exploring like this will provide you with a deeper understanding of the character and the material, and it will be much more difficult to fall into being a stuck, emotionless robot.

And then, when the moment comes, whether it’s in a class or an audition or on set, don’t go after giving a certain performance, that’ll put your focus on you and the piece will suffer. Go after putting yourself in a mental emotional space and then getting the other person to do what you want them to do. Focus on them. You always want to focus on the other person or the environment that you’re in, whether you’re looking at them or not, that’s what your brain should be thinking about, not about the lines or your voice or your body, but them. This whole technique is designed to get you not thinking about yourself, which means don’t write down adjectives about your character or about how to say lines, the script will do that, you don’t. You should use the script ones as guidelines, but if it says annoyed on a line, don’t play annoyed, it’s like playing sad, it’s fake. You gotta make the other person annoying, and/or have a thought go off like “shut the hell up” when you say the line.

In fact, try this: just look at me or look at anything or anyone around you and think or say I’m angry at you. just over and over again out loud, quietly if you need to, and put a little sauce on it, okay, it’s a little manufactured, but just try it. I’m angry at you I’m angry at you I’m angry at you. Okay so that feels a certain way to you. Now look at that same person or thing, and let it be, “you need to freaking stop” over again, with sauce, right? you need to freaking stop, you need to freaking stop, you need to freaking stop. That should feel a totally different way, and the difference between those two feelings is the difference between being focused on yourself -I am angry- and being focused on them -you need to stop. it’s all the difference in the world and it’s what this technique aims to achieve.

So you’ve done all your work, you’ve explored a bunch, you’ve decided what you want to aim for, so you give yourself a trigger into the top of the scene, and you trust that work and deal with what’s in front of you. You don’t deal with your performance, you don’t deal with the scene, you deal with them.

So that is the end of what is affectively season one of this tutorial. I will be releasing more seasons in the future on Udemy.com where I’ll be going in-depth on all these elements as well as audition techniques and far more advanced work. if you would like to be notified as to when they are dropped, as well as some other free videos, just subscribe to this channel. If you would like to work with me, whether in-person or over video chat, feel free to send me an email. Whatever the case, put in the time, put in the work, and not only will your chances of booking jobs skyrocket, but so will your chances of being great.