Good climaxes like this one from Rob Roy are not only exciting fights that are well performed, but also reflect the themes and actions in the rest of the story: What is the climax of a play or movie? It’s the point where the tension gets so high that something snaps. Psychological tension is released [...]
No Method Acting Many characters suffer and die in plays and films. Some actors consider it to be the most fun scene, others think it’s the most challenging. How do you play a realistic death? Well, you don’t do it like that scene from Enter the Ninja. So how do you research? I would not [...]
Why reading a book on a new martial art or stage combat will do very little for you: This image is from an article called Learn Anything on Litemind.com Why People Put Down Book Smarts Learning from a book is often frustrating precisely because it is limited. You know that you can’t fully learn a [...]
Most of the mainstream world has never heard the name Cyril Raffaelli. Even among fans of action films, he’s not a common name in North America. In my opinion, he’s one of the best things to happen to action films in recent years. Here’s a short promo of him: Just another parkour nut? The kind [...]
The famed Broadway and Hollywood casting director reveals everything an actor needs to know to get the part. When Streisand, Redford, Vereen, Tomlin, Midler and Hoffman got their first breaks, Michael Shurtliff was there. Michael Shurtleff has been casting director for Broadway shows like Chicago and Becket and for films like The Graduate and Jesus [...]
The Actor’s Survival Kit has been the backbone of Business of Acting courses and a constant resource for its many readers across Canada. But, after seven years and two editions, the business has changed. Peter Messaline and Miriam Newhouse have revised the original Actor’s Survival Kit and addressed a number of issues and areas of [...]
by Mark Westbrook Sense Memory and Emotional Recall (also known as Affective Memory) are closely related ideas in the theory of acting. These two terms are primarily connected to the Stanislavski School of acting and those schools that have derived themselves from Stanislavski’s systematic approach to acting and actor training. These schools each have points [...]