The Actor's Secret

Author: Betsy Polatin
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583946837
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Book Description
Offering revolutionary new training for the actor, The Actor's Secret teaches actors and performers how to incorporate the fundamentals of the Alexander Technique, Somatic Experiencing®, and Breathing Coordination in order to reduce performance anxiety and stress; improve stage presence, breathing, and vocal production; and restore well-being and healthy functioning. These three kinesthetic disciplines are designed to lead to profound change and healing through body-mind reeducation. Part I explains in detail the principles of the three techniques. A practical method for self-improvement and neuromuscular reeducation, the Alexander Technique focuses on changing inefficient habits of movement and patterns of tension that inhibit the ability to move easily. Breathing Coordination helps increase breathing capacity and awareness. A method for resolving emotional trauma, Somatic Experiencing® follows a process of tracking bodily sensations to restore vitality and health. Enhanced with over 100 instructive photos, Parts II and III present explorations and exercises that draw on elements of the three methods. Topics covered include the importance of presence and non-doing; the proper mechanics of vocalization and singing; the understanding of character and role; and the actor's journey from auditions to performance, including initial script preparation, rehearsal, monologue, and scene work. Developed by Betsy Polatin, a movement specialist and master lecturer at Boston University's College of Fine Arts, the book's exercises provide the actor with simple tools for exploring his or her acting work. Most techniques and self-help books teach a new way of "doing." The secret of this book lies in "non-doing." When the actor learns to first recognize and then suspend habitual patterns, he or she opens the door to deeper artistic choices. "I have worked with many fine Alexander Technique teachers over the years and Betsy Polatin is far and away one of the finest. Her touch, her instincts, and her knowledge are miraculous."—Andre Gregory, actor and director, My Dinner with Andre

The Actor's Secret

Author: Betsy Polatin
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583946829
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Secrets of Voice-over Success

Author: Joan Baker
Publisher: Sentient Publications
ISBN: 1591810337
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Book Description
The inside how-to scoop on the lucrative career of voice-over acting told by the top talents in the field, including voice-over actors from Law and Order, ABC News, The Today Show, and the Sopranos. An inspirational, real-world, practical handbook for anyone seeking a career in the highly lucrative field of voice-over acting.

The Hollywood Survival Guide for Aussie Actors

Author: Kym Jackson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780987231604
Category : Acting
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
"The Hollywood Survival Guide reveals the insider information necessary to navigate each step of your acting career in L.A. Aussie actress Kym Jackson explains how each facet of the film and TV industry works and how it affects you. From visas to auditions, from getting an agent to what happens behind the casting curtain ... it's everything you need to become a successful actor in Hollywood". -- Back cover.

Actions

Author: Marina Caldarone
Publisher: Nick Hern Books
ISBN: 9781854596741
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
An essential companion for actors in rehearsal - a thesaurus of action words to revitalise performance. Actors need actions. They cannot act moods. They need to be doing something with every line. They need verbs. They need an aim to achieve, and an action selected to help achieve that aim. 'Actions' are active verbs. 'I tempt you.' 'You taunt me.' In order to perform an action truthfully and therefore convincingly, an actor needs to find exactly the right action to suit that particular situation and that particular line. That is where this book comes in ... It is a thesaurus of active verbs, with which the actor can refine the action-word until s/he hits exactly the right one to help make the action come alive. It looks like this: taunt insult, tease, torment, provoke, ridicule, mock, poke, needle tempt influence, attract, entice, cajole, coax, seduce, lure, fascinate It is well known in the acting community that random lists of action-words circulate rehearsal rooms in dog-eared photocopies - as a sort of actor's crib. This book makes them available for the first time in an organised and comprehensive form.

Truth

Author: Susan Batson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Book Description
I first met Susan Batson in New York just a week before I made Peacemaker. We worked together in earnest for two years on Eyes Wide Shut in London and on every film I've done since, wherever they've taken us. This book you hold is called Truth, and that title precisely describes the core of the work Susan Batson and I do together. I can't create unless I have truth-I have to feel it. Susan helps me to find the truth in myself and use its purity, intimacy, and honesty to make my work real. She's helped me to nurture and protect truth in myself and in the characters that I've played. What I've learned from Susan is how to keep the truth alive no matter what. There's so much more to acting than just creative success. It runs thicker and deeper than that. It has to-it's in my blood, it beats through me. I know that it's in Susan's blood, too. I feel like we've been together my whole life. A great teacher can make anything seem possible. So many of the actors I've admired and idolized and, in a few lucky instances, been blessed to work with, were shaped and inspired by teachers who opened them to the possibilities of their art. Among actors, Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner, and Jeff Corey are just as legendary as their pupils Marilyn Monroe, Robert Duvall, and Jack Nicholson. I am confident that Susan Batson will go down in history as one of acting's legendary teachers. I only hope that my work can contribute to her legend. I'll always be grateful that I found her. And now, through this book, you've found her, too. Book jacket.

Bad Actors

Author: Mick Herron
Publisher: Soho Press
ISBN: 1641293373
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 361

Book Description
Mick Herron, “the le Carré of the future” (BBC), expands his world of bad spies with an even shadier cast of characters: the politicians, lobbyists, and misinformation agents pulling the levers of government policy. “Confirms Mick Herron as the best spy novelist now working.”—NPR's Fresh Air Now an Apple TV+ series starring Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas. In London's MI5 headquarters a scandal is brewing that could disgrace the entire intelligence community. The Downing Street superforecaster—a specialist who advises the Prime Minister's office on how policy is likely to be received by the electorate—has disappeared without a trace. Claude Whelan, who was once head of MI5, has been tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads him straight back to Regent's Park itself, with First Desk Diana Taverner as chief suspect. Has Taverner overplayed her hand at last? Meanwhile, her Russian counterpart, Moscow intelligence's First Desk, has cheekily showed up in London and shaken off his escort. Are the two unfortunate events connected? Over at Slough House, where Jackson Lamb presides over some of MI5's most embittered demoted agents, the slow horses are doing what they do best, and adding a little bit of chaos to an already unstable situation . . . There are bad actors everywhere, and they usually get their comeuppance before the credits roll. But politics is a dirty business, and in a world where lying, cheating and backstabbing are the norm, sometimes the good guys can find themselves outgunned.

True and False

Author: David Mamet
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307806499
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 139

Book Description
One of our most brilliantly iconoclastic playwrights takes on the art of profession of acting with these words: invent nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school. Acting schools, “interpretation,” “sense memory,” “The Method”—David Mamet takes a jackhammer to the idols of contemporary acting, while revealing the true heroism and nobility of the craft. He shows actors how to undertake auditions and rehearsals, deal with agents and directors, engage audiences, and stay faithful to the script, while rejecting the temptations that seduce so many of their colleagues. Bracing in its clarity, exhilarating in its common sense, True and False is as shocking as it is practical, as witty as it is instructive, and as irreverent as it is inspiring.

Ask an Agent

Author: Jason Lockhart
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 138

Book Description
This book is no bull, straight from the mouth of a blunt talent agent, currently hustling for over 500 clients and closing deals daily. His words are legit instructions on how to be a working actor in film and TV. Organized into three sections: Getting an Agent, Working with Your Agent, and Thriving with Your Agent, this Q&A format addresses actor questions at all stages of a career. After nearly a decade of sitting on panels and acknowledging that the majority of raised hands are never called upon, Jason Lockhart decided to answer them ALL, right here, right now, in an energetic, honest, and organized place. Getting inside the mind of an agent is crucial, as they are generally the first gatekeeper to an actor's success. Consider this book your secret weapon to breaking in or leveling up.

The Power of the Actor

Author: Ivana Chubbuck
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781592401536
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 404

Book Description
In The Power of the Actor, a Los Angeles Times bestseller, premier acting teacher and coach Ivana Chubbuck reveals her cutting-edge technique, which has launched some of the most successful acting careers in Hollywood. The first book from the instructor who has taught Charlize Theron, Brad Pitt, Elisabeth Shue, Djimon Hounsou, and Halle Berry, The Power of the Actor guides you to dynamic and effective results. For many of today’s major talents, the Chubbuck Technique is the leading edge of acting for the twenty-first century. Ivana Chubbuck has developed a curriculum that takes the theories of the acting masters, such as Stanislavski, Meisner, and Hagen, to the next step by utilizing inner pain and emotions, not as an end in itself, but rather as a way to drive and win a goal. In addition to the powerful twelve-step process, the book takes well-known scripts, both classic and contemporary, and demonstrates how to precisely apply Chubbuck’s script-analysis process. The Power of the Actor is filled with fascinating and inspiring behind-the-scenes accounts of how noted actors have mastered their craft and have accomplished success in such a difficult and competitive field.