These are the three major requirements for being effective on screen. Simply believing in your character is insufficient, as what the camera (and therefore the viewer) observes may not be visible without certain techniques. After the shooting, the raw footage will be viewed and assessed in the editing room.
It is there that the decisions get made about which takes will be used. They may not be the best in acting terms; but rather the ones where the technical aspect of the acting is more advantageous to the overall rhythm of the scene.
This is where the stillness comes into play. An editor can always make a take shorter and eliminate pauses; but they can never stretch the take to add to the acting. And it is impossible to cut away from and back to an actor in movement. (Unless one is Kurosawa). Silence and the use of pauses will also provide the sound editor with possibilities as the dialogue can be shortened if necessary; but if the actor has not left a gap between the other actor’s and their own, splitting the dialogue will be impossible and sometimes rendering the take unusable.
These elements, stillness and silence, must appear to be sincere – which requires acting technique. In the workshops each participant will be given exercises that stretch their technique and allow them to investigate how to be effective on camera.
They are led by Colin David Reese, an actor with over 50 years experience in the industry and well over 100 appearances in film and TV. In 1967, during his first job in Rep, Colin was befriended by an older actor in the company (83 years old) and he passed on many tips and indications concerning the craft of acting. The actor had started his career at the age of 14 and the wealth of experience amassed over the intervening years was immense. Throughout his career Colin has worked with hundreds of actors – some famous and others less so, and has continued to learn from them.
Interested? Contact us about this workshop.