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Acting Classes Tips
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Acting classes are not only a great way to hone your craft in between jobs, but they are a great way to meet other actors and network with industry professionals. Besides the obvious benefits of learning techniques to improve your acting skills, attending regular classes can be like attending a support group. By interacting with others in your field, you can share experiences (both good and bad!), exchange contacts, share creative ideas and delve deeper into the ins and outs of a career in acting.
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Keep Taking Acting Classes
School for Film and Television Tip: If you think acting classes are just for beginners, think again. Many working actors, including some well-known stars, continue taking classes despite their successful careers. Acting is a skill. The more you hone it, the better you will be. Acting classes help keep you active between jobs so that you don't get rusty, but more importantly classes are a great way to stretch yourself as an actor. You can take the kinds of risks in a class that you'd hesitate to indulge in during a shoot. If you bomb in the safety of a class, who cares? Nobody's losing precious daylight or loads of money while you play around with different possibilities. A class is all about exploring and learning.
One of the best gifts you can give yourself as an actor is the freedom to fall on your face. The lessons learned from being bad are priceless, often richer than those learned from being consistently good. How will you ever grasp the fruit of your labors if you never allow yourself to go out on a limb? So go ahead—sign up for a class and shake things up!
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The Basic Acting Classes
Everybody has to start with the basics in acting class. Your first classes should teach you the basics of movement and voice. Learn how to hold your body for maximum breath control and healthy posture. Improv classes are also a wonderful way to learn to use your body effectively. When studying voice, practice projection, annunciation, and breathing. Basic classes will cover these skills. Once you have your instrument tuned, you should move onto scene study courses.
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Developing New Skills
School for Film and Television: Do you have plenty of stage experience, but dream of breaking into film? Are you interested in supplementing your income with commercials and voice work? Would you like to expand your repertoire? Consider an acting workshop.
Acting workshops are great for developing a new skill, such as conquering the cold reading, fine-tuning your comedic timing, or nailing your dialects and accents.
When looking for acting workshops, here are a few guidelines to keep in mind:
- Don't worry too much about reputation, and don't assume a more expensive workshop is necessarily better.
- The workshop should be large enough for creative exchange, but small enough to allow you plenty of practice time.
- Ask about the teacher's experience. Does she have industry experience in the skill being taught? Talk to the students, if you can. Find out what they think about the teacher and the class.
- Choose a workshop that challenges you. If the teacher always praises the students without providing constructive criticism or if you already excel in the skills being taught, you won't learn anything. Choose a workshop that pushes you beyond your comfort zone.
- Make sure the workshop is about learning and growing, not about tearing the students down. The class should feel creative and collaborative, not like a psychological war zone.
- If you are allowed to audit the workshop, jump on the opportunity. It's a great way to get a feel for the teacher and the other students.
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Beginning Training in Acting Class
Your early acting trainingshould cover a course on improvisation. Improvisation skills will build much needed flexibility as a creative thinker in your craft. They can also give you some experience with comedy work, which is very marketable in terms of film and television. Not all Improv classes are comedic in nature. Many simply give you exercises to loosen your body and relax your critical brain. Those skills are imperative as they allow your performances to remain fresh.
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Learning Your Craft in New York
School for Film and Television Tip: With its rich theater culture and long acting tradition, New York City is a fantastic place to study acting. The most reputable acting programs in New York have strong industry ties, and many of their graduates go on to successful film and television careers. New York acting classes have trained the likes of Robert De Niro, Julia Roberts, and James Gandolfini, to name just a few. Whether you're enrolled in a four-year college program or study with a private acting coach, New York City's many theaters, cinemas, film festivals, and comedy clubs will provide plenty of opportunities to perform, network, and learn your craft.
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Preparationg For Acting Class
Scenes practiced in acting class should not be taken lightly. Prepare each scene as if you are training for a comprehensive production. Any new skills that you are taught in class should be implemented immediately. Use them in class and student projects in order to become more comfortable with them. During presentation of scenes, stay open to direction from your instructor. Don't argue about your motivation or why you chose to employ a certain technique. The instructor may be trying to teach you a new angle or break you of a habit you're not aware of, thereby making you a better actor.
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To Be, That Is The Trick
School for Film and Television Tip: The secret of coming across realistically and naturally in front of a camera is to be rather than to act. Sound easy? Well it's not. It may seem like a paradox, but it takes a tremendous amount of acting training to look like you're not acting at all.
When we see a believable character, we get caught up in that character's trials and tribulations, that character's world. We forget about the actor. That's great acting. On the other hand, if we catch the actor "performing," we lose the character and become aware of the actor. That's not so great acting.
On film, unlike in the theater, small reactions, gestures, and facial expressions go a long way. The camera is very sensitive. It picks up even the tiniest details. It's enough to change the thought in your mind to change the expression in your eyes. After all, that's how it works in real life. We don't deliberately change our eyes according to our emotions—they change automatically. Remember, be the character, don't act the character, and you'll go a long way to improving your chances of success.
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Trying New Acting Classes
Choose acting courses that best suit your needs. You should be seeking acting training that will help you to develop your strengths and assuage your weaknesses. Don't be afraid to try new things. Every chance to add new and different skills and training to your repertoire is a good one; you may discover new strengths that you never knew you had. Take a look at classes that scare you or put you off. These are often the best indicators of where you need to improve, so why not dive in?
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Selecting Acting Classes
Eventually, training and feedback will begin to teach you which new skills you need to acquire. Use this knowledge to guide your selection of acting classes. Before enrolling in a class, check out the teacher's prior experience and qualifications. Is s/he known for fostering talent? Talk to other students, and find out if the teacher makes himself or herself available to student's questions. If possible, find out if you can audit the course before fully committing to it.
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Meeting Pros in Acting Class
The SFT offers excellent acting classes that help you to gain advice and feedback from professional actors. The school's Tuesday evening “Meet the Pros” session allows students to meet face-to-face with some of the very professionals they will be auditioning for. It's a great way for students to gain a handle on current industry trends and make connections. Each session has a Q&A portion, allowing students to pick the brains of industry pros. Most importantly, at the end of each session, students are given an opportunity to meet with the speakers individually for a feedback session.
