LB Acting Studio: Foundation Series Blogs

So what is this technique? It starts with a premise and the premise is the following: the goal is to be authentic. If the goal is to be authentic, the only way to be authentic is to be authentic. Therefore, any acting technique that creates even a line, (however small) between you and the character is going to be seen as “acting” and therefore, (in the 21st century), good acting, but not real. We have a conundrum. If we have to have an acting technique to do this, it cannot be seen. So, then how can this be done? Now, back in...

We come to the last of the 4 elements of human communication. This one is a little more complex and harder to define. I call it the invisible element because it is something we don’t see as much as sense. It is like the air we breathe but do not see. Thought, Action, Behavior are buoyed by it. We all have different rhythms and each of us has different rhythms depending on our mood, what we think, if we are hungry or have just had a big meal. If somebody you know comes into work or comes home, and you pick something up about their movement...

Behavior more often than not the most honest “tell” that reveals what we are feeling and thinking without us uttering a word. It reinforces what we are saying or betrays us. We often decide whether someone is lying to us or telling the truth on the basis of observation. Our very safety and well-being dependents on how swiftly we can read another’s behavior. Over the span of human history literally thousands of behaviors and gestures have evolved and imprinted themselves into our genetic coding. This guarantees our ability to communicate with one another. Language may be localized, but behavior is...

Directors say action they don't say feel, imagine, or  pretend. To act is to do not to pretend. When I say an “action”, I don't mean necessarily just banging on something, hitting or kissing someone, shooting something. An action is teasing, mocking, pleading, seducing etc. Action is how we acquire things. If it weren’t for action we never would have moved out of the oceans onto land. We wouldn’t have invented the wheel and the tools to make them. We wouldn’t have built cites or travelled to the moon and back again. We are a 3 billion year old success story of a will...