Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Techniques for Warming Up

December 2nd, 2008 Shaka

Entertain and Events Tips >> Acting >> Acting Techniques Tips

Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Techniques for Warming Up
A common warm-up acting exercise involves re-naming your surroundings. The point of the exercise is to break down external barriers in the hopes of challenging any inner barriers that you may have. Follow these instructions: Take a deep breath. Choose an object in the room, and rename it. It doesn’t have to be a special name, just different. Move on to the next object, rename it, and repeat the new name of the first object. Repeat until you have renamed everything in the room.

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Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Tips: Playing for Status

December 2nd, 2008 Shaka

Entertain and Events Tips >> Acting >> Acting Techniques Tips

Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Tips: Playing for Status
Status is a huge part of acting technique. Much of human interaction can be broken down in to shifting issues of status. During the course of a normal conversation, a person’s status my shift from high to low, and back again, depending on the topic of the conversation. In order to be an effective actor, these status changes must be replicated on screen or on stage. Be conscious of your body language. What kind of status is your body projecting? You should also take note of the timbre of your voice. Is it clear and confident or low and quavering? These factors help determine your status in a scene, and thereby establish your position and goals within it.

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Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Tips: Stanislavsky Method

December 2nd, 2008 Shaka

Entertain and Events Tips >> Acting >> Acting Techniques Tips

Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Tips: Stanislavsky Method
The Stanislavsky method, or method acting, is one of the most common acting strategies. It involves studying and living as the character you are portraying. Essentially, with the Stanislavsky Method, you are working to find common emotional experiences with the character. Once those common emotions are identified, you draw on your own experiences of those emotions to fill out your character. In this way the emotions of your character become more genuine.

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Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Tips: Alexander Method

December 2nd, 2008 Shaka

Entertain and Events Tips >> Acting >> Acting Techniques Tips

Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Tips: Alexander Method
Alexander technique is another way of approaching acting. It involves a complete restructuring of the way your body responds to stimuli, re-realizing how your mind and body integrate through retaining breathing and movement. It was Alexander’s belief that breathing and vocalization determine how the body functions as a whole. The technique allows actors to retrain any bad physical habits they may have developed and create more efficient ways of moving and breathing.

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Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Technique: The Relaxation Warm-up

December 2nd, 2008 Shaka

Entertain and Events Tips >> Acting >> Acting Techniques Tips

Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Technique: The Relaxation Warm-up

Acting training isn’t all about learning lines and how to move around on the stage. One of the most vital acting techniques is preparing the body and mind before you set foot on the stage or in front of the camera.

The first part of any warm-up exercise is relaxation. This may seem counterintuitive, as you will want to have lots of energy to perform. What the relaxation exercise does is turn your body and mind into a blank slate, ridding you of…you, for lack of a better term. You want to remove all thoughts and tensions in order to rebuild a new person who will then take on the role he or she has been assigned.

Try this; Lie down in a quiet area, arms at your side, palms facing upward. Take several long deep breaths. With each inhale, imagine you are breathing in pure energy. With each exhale, push out all toxicity and negative thoughts. Allow every muscle in your body to unclench and relax. do this for five minutes, then slowly revive yourself by wiggling fingers and toes before you slowly sit up.

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Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Techniques: Showing v. Telling

December 2nd, 2008 Shaka

Entertain and Events Tips >> Acting >> Acting Techniques Tips

Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Techniques: Showing v. Telling
A critical acting tip is to remember that you are showing a story, not telling it. The advice may sound simple at first, but it’s harder than you migh think to engage your audience. Simply reciting your lines and obeying stage directions won’t be enough. Acting involves the whole of your persona. Each movement, each breath, and each spoken line contribute to your performance. When you are on screen or on stage, know that your actions must be deliberate. Everything you do (your “stage business,” in other words) must work to show the audience the story.

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Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Technique: The Vocal Warm-up

December 2nd, 2008 Shaka

Entertain and Events Tips >> Acting >> Acting Techniques Tips

Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Technique: The Vocal Warm-up

Part of any serious actor training involves training the voice to articulate and project. Here’s a great exercise to get your pipes in tip-top shape for performance time.

Begin by standing up straight, knees unlocked. Breathe long and deeply. Exhale through your lips in a sigh.

Open your mouth very wide, and stick your tongue out. Then pull in pack in and purse your lips very small.

Next, blow air through your loosely closed lips so that they flap like a horse.

Stick your tongue out and move it in all four directions.

Then try a tongue-twister. You can find lots of tongue-twisters online, or ask your friends for their favorites.

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Acting Techniques Tips: Relaxed Acting Techniques

December 2nd, 2008 Shaka

Entertain and Events Tips >> Acting >> Acting Techniques Tips

Acting Techniques Tips: Relaxed Acting Techniques
A crucial acting tip is to always remain relaxed and confident. Granted, you may play characters that display the extreme opposites of these emotions. What matters is that you approach the role with these attitudes. Learning to be relaxed within your role helps you to be a more flexible actor, allowing you to respond instinctively. Being confident helps to you develop your character more fully, even if you are playing a role that calls for a doubtful personality.

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Acting Techniques Tips: Lose the Script!

December 2nd, 2008 Shaka

Entertain and Events Tips >> Acting >> Acting Techniques Tips

Acting Techniques Tips: Lose the Script!

Scripts are great to have your nose in when you’re sitting around before rehearsal, or waiting for your turn, but get rid of it before you hit the stage. Many actors have become so accustomed to have an off-book date set for them that they will cling to every available second of script they can get during rehearsals until that date arrives. Trust me, don’t wait, ditch the script fast. Learn your lines for a given scene in a given day. If you’re blocking Act I, Scene 1 then memorize that and nothing else for that day. It’s hard to do if you’re unaccustomed to it, but I swear by this method. It lets you learn your lines sooner, lets you become accustomed to moving in character without something in your hands and it lets you look your partners in the eye from day one. And if you can’t remember all those lines? Well, that’s why there are those wonderful Assistant Directors. “LINE!” Just stick to and remember all of your acting training and you will be just fine.

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Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Techniques for the Jitters

December 2nd, 2008 Shaka

Entertain and Events Tips >> Acting >> Acting Techniques Tips

Acting Techniques Tips: Acting Techniques for the Jitters
First night jitters affect almost all actors. (Ed Sullivan was sick before every show he ever did!) As an actor, you need to develop your own personal strategy for defeating the jitters. Your method can be something as simple as going over your lines again or as complex as crocheting. Meditation and other breath control techniques often helps. What matters most, however, is that you come up with your own personal way of managing anxiety and stick to it.

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