Question for the Actors out there

J

jmoschner

Member
I was curious if when honing your craft if you go work more on:
1) conveying emotions and character
or 2) repetition of performance

Also anyone feel free to weigh in on the subject please.
 
Are you asking as an actor or as a director who wants to direct actors??? Neither option you offer is, in my opinion, an option. Character is the core...you work on your character so you can have a background to react on stage or on film. You cannot play an emotion. It is a result. If you create a strong enough character in your imagination then you will react accordingly to whatever happens in the scene...If you cannot react truthfully and in the moment you are dead as an actor...if you plan to react or emote then you are not in the moment and it is fake.

Very brief but I hope it gets you started or promotes some discussion for you...

Cheers,
Stan The Man
 
Stan I am glad you answered because his question confuses the heck out of me.

How you prepare depends on which medium your performance will be on. What order you prepare is also based on what medium.

If I am doing stage and have a lot of time, repetition comes first and character comes next (for me). If I am doing film, character come first BUT if there are a lot of lines...repetition may come first for locking things down and can also matter for camera work in case there are multiple set ups requiring the duplication of specifics.

But I am still not sure I am even answering him properly because I do not understand the purpose behind the questions and it is so general that I could give thousands of answers and still not be done.

Maybe the original poster could be more specific on what he needs to know and for what purpose? It would make it easier to address the question.
 
I apologize if the question is confusing.

I simply want to know in general which which of the two actors tend to focus on more.

There is no real purpose/motivation beyond idle curiosity.
 
I understand that you are merely curious, all I am saying is that neither option makes sense...you put character and emotion together then offer repetition as the alternative as to which an actor focusses on more...I don't know that a logical answer can be offered...also by repetiton of performance, what do you mean exaclty? in terms of learning lines? or the natural improvement gained by doing the scene over and over again?

Are you an actor?
 
ditto what Stan asked....

Most actors train for years, they do stage, indie film, they get involved in improv, scene study and a multitude of other things to 'prepare'. Acting is a personal thing and most actors do things differently over time. Each one develops their own methods once they have gotten the basics out of the way.


I have been teaching actors for over 25 years and answer questions all the time...but yours seem to make no sense at all. I hope you don't take wrong.

You have to get specific with why you are asking. If being 'curious' is your reason....it explains why you are not asking the right questions to begin with. No matter what you want to learn or why...there is a starting point...and your question is not a starting question and not defined enough to reply on.

If you are curious because you want to be an actor....go to an acting coach and take a few classes. I bet you come back with more defined questions!
 
there is no such thing as emotions of a character for an actor. The actor can only do what's on the page, if the character on the page is not in any emotional stage, then the actor won't be either! Also if the play or screenplay says that the actor is going through some emotions, that has to be understood in the logical sequence of the story, again, it has to be written that way, and the actor only has to play it so. Rehearsals, character motivation or backstory is just nonsense. These things only live in your head, and they won't do anything more for the audience if its not written in the story. Everything else its just funny voices!
 
Doing sound sometimes on sets, I learned a few things when watching actors. Like for very long dialogues, first just read the lines, like you're reading... Without acting. Then you often got the camera positions (actors/actresses don't stand "accidently" between 2 trees, or on a position).

Then trie to find something to play with, to handle. Or if you're a 2nd player or somethingn, or just to fill space. It's funny sometimes during rehearsal seeing actors/actresses looking for something and turning around :-p

And I don't know if all this makes sence in this topic, but I wanted to share it :-p
 
Some of the questions that come up here I think are a good reason for the forum...as with writing, acting seems to be relegated to some small accessory that is simply there for the director or filmmaker to make his movie with...where in fact, the content, ie. the writing and performance, should be considered the foundation of any film. I understand that being primarily a forum designed for those behind the camera that this is a natural consequence, but I think both actors and filmmakers need to remember that a movie is a story told in pictures...It is a story conveyed by actors...the technical side of the equation is also an art but you can't make strawberry shi* into strawberry jam...and if you think you can or think you have done so I would put it to you that it could have been even better with a better foundation...

Acting is a craft, and art, that takes a lifetime of training and is never perfected. You can do it off the cuffbut you can also shoot that way too...you can't ask an artist to boil down the craft to a simple what do you think of more, emotion of the character or repetition...its like saying do you think more of, light or focus.
 
Nuno Dias said:
Rehearsals, character motivation or backstory is just nonsense.
Click to expand...

Reharsing is nonsense? Back story is nonsense?

Ok, I am trying hard to hold my tongue right now because rehearsing is MAJOR important. If you don't lock it in, it is harder to duplicate over and over for multiple set ups on film. For stage if you don't rehearse, you will screw up the other actors on stage if you make mistakes. Maybe you meant something else by that.

And I am not a method actor so I hate the word motivation to begin with but back story does count in most roles except one liners. If you don't know where the character is coming from, you cannot take the character where it needs to go.

For instance...I was once cast to play a victim of abuse. Everyone who was reading did not think about the back story and part of why the director cast me WAS because I did some research and spoke to women who had been victims of abuse and understood where they were coming from and how they felt. Even though the script did not include the details on the abuse prior to the storyline itself...the character does have a backstory and understanding the basics of what that person went through was exactly what dictated how I played the scene when I auditioned. The director even asked if I had been a victim and was surprised I had not. I explained what I had done to understand the character better and she was impressed.

Back story can be fictional if it is true to what the character went through but if you don't understand WHY the character is reacting or behaving a certain way...you cannot play the part honestly.

stan harrington said:
Acting is a craft, and art, that takes a lifetime of training and is never perfected. You can do it off the cuff but you can also shoot that way too...you can't ask an artist to boil down the craft to a simple what do you think of more, emotion of the character or repetition...its like saying do you think more of, light or focus.
Click to expand...

Here here Stan!!!!
 
Nuno Dias said:
The actor can only do what's on the page
Click to expand...

I agree that what's on the page is of immense importance, arguably above all else, but the idea expressed above is much too limiting where acting is concerned. All you need to do is watch different actors play the same role in a play or movie to see what a difference it can make. Start with Bond - James Bond. If it's all on the page then there wouldn't have been much difference between Sean Connery's Bond and Roger Moore's. But boy, was there...

Regarding the OP's question I think the main problem is that he limited it by providing his own pair of answers in it, and neither is a particularly good one. It's sort of like asking "What makes BMWs so cool - the luggage capacity or the tires?".

Actors "hone their craft" in many different ways. What I learned from studying acting (largely Berghof/Hagen style, along with a generous sprinkling of Harold Guskin, Stanislavsky and others), has relatively little to do with how I prepare for an audition or role nowadays. I simply had to find my own process and personal 'way in' to the work in order to be successful at it. Everything I learned from the above folks was extremely useful, but ultimately I had to sift through, adapt from, partly discard, and add on to it to make it work consistently for me. And what works for me may very well not work at all for Stan, or Michelle, or most anyone else for that matter.

But to answer the question more directly, first of all I spend relatively little time focusing on repetition of performance details (thank you, Harold Guskin). I know this is heresy to some, and I don't mean to say I blow off consistency/continuity considerations altogether (only a fool would), but I focus more on getting inside the mind and meat and bones of the character overall, and then within the specific situation of each scene. I need to completely live inside that guy's world, and if I don't, I don't have it going on. Simple as that. Not easy, by any stretch, and it requires a lot of what Michelle described above in coming to an understanding of the exact world that that person lives in. Which, like she said, often requires a fair bit of self-created 'character extension' to fill in the blanks left on the page...

So for me it's a very internal process, and very imagination driven - what's referred to by Stanislavsky and others as "the magic if". So no, I don't work on "conveying emotions and character" exactly either, certainly not in any way directly. That would be 'capital A Acting' which is almost always 'capital B Bad'. But when (my) process works (for me), the result does have that effect (believeabilty of character and correspondingly connected emotional/physical life).

Regarding repetition and consistency, in my opinion (and that of Mr. Guskin, who is a bit of a revolutionary in this regard), a heavy focus on it is all too often a recipe for consistent staleness. Guskin advocates liberal use of improvisation (pretty much the antithesis of repetition), *even on the shoot*, which I have adapted (somewhat more moderately) into my own process. But what I did take away from him in a big way was the importance of not being over-concerned with consistency because it is inherently creatively self-limiting. Only one take of any of my lines will ever end up on the screen after all, and there's still no Oscar for "best continuity". If I free myself to experiment (within reason) from take to take I stand a much better chance of 'hitting it out of the park', hopefully repeatedly, but not *necessarily* the same way every time. It also launches a process of open-minded discovery that can be very fruitful even up to and including on the shoot itself if you let it. Certain continuity aspects are imperative of course - if you're holding the coffee cup in your left hand on the wide shot you darn well better be doing the same in all the others, etc., etc., etc. But otherwise, I've found what I described above to be pretty effective. Others' mileage will certainly vary...

The ultimate goal is to achieve suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience - in their minds you simply must *be* the person you're playing - not an actor, and certainly not you as you are personally (unless the character is exactly like you, which very rarely is the case). If you can consistently make the audience feel that way, and that the situation you're in seems equally real, congratulations. You're an actor.
 
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That was a pretty comprehensive answer. I think between Michelle, Ted and myself you have a pretty good idea of how trained actors think. That was a pretty good cross section of opinions and ideas.
 
agree with Stan...between the 3 of us we have covered a lot of ground.

Interesting to note that we all found our own way at some point. Basics in place...each of us finds what works for us. Acting is a very personal thing!

Ted...you covered some good points too! And I agree on staleness...I don't rehearse too much to avoid being stale but I still try to do enough to cover continuity and make sure I don't throw off the other actors. Such a fine line at times...
 
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