Types of Acting Classes – Which Acting Course You Should Choose?
Joining an acting class is probably the first step for a wannabe actor. It creates a firm base for your career. If you are serious about your path, you should learn some acting lessons from the experts. You should choose the right skill to learn and stick to it. It will help you choose the right course. Here are some of the acting classes to choose from –
1. Auditioning
First of all, keep in mind that auditioning is an art. No matter when you perform, the director or someone else will always be in front of you to perform for. You should seek approval from the director, producers, casting crews, and writers. This course will focus on how to crack the audition and proceed to the next step.
2. Improvisation
Aspiring actors can choose this course if they want to improve. Creativity and a sense of humor are critical skills to pursue your dreams. Along with comic timing, you would also learn how to think on your feet in this class.
3. Commercials
As the name suggests, this class is aimed to teach you how to make a promising career in commercial acting. For better results, you may take both improvisation and commercial classes. It will explain how to behave in a shoot, whether for a play, movie, TV show, or commercials.
4. Voiceover
Many people confuse vocal-acting with voiceovers. Voiceover graduates add life to film, TV, and commercials’ characters. Disney’s “Frozen” was the classic example of that. Voiceover artists give their voice to animated characters. If you have already learned acting, you can still learn this skill and add it to your portfolio and impress the casting directors.
5. Scene Study
You can get acting tips in various fields like play, TV, and films in this course. In addition, you will also learn how to rehearse, get used to the scene, block it, and act it. Most acting schools provide this type of course. It helps an actor to seriously look at the craft and act at their best.
6. Vocal Acting
Unless you wish to join theater, you should learn to make your vocal cords flexible. It is one of the essential skills to become an actor. You will learn breathing techniques and even how to sing in a natural way.
7. On-Camera Classes
No matter how much you are prepared to go for auditions, you should still learn on-screen techniques. You have to expand your reach to come out as the master in your craft. Make the most of your career by preparing for more opportunities. This class will teach you on-camera acting, such as making the best use of the props, improving your voice, where to stand, get in and go, etc.
8. Cold Reading
It is another essential class to make your career in projects like commercials where you have to review the script and get used to it within minutes. You won’t have all day exploring and figuring out. You would be expected to do basic things quickly.
9. Body and movement
It will help you nurture your talent to express in your body language. Your movements are also your props, along with instruments. You will learn how to move your arms, head, legs and interact with other actors.
10. Classical Acting
Many actors are inspired by the films and plays inspired by Shakespeare novels and poetry to join this course. It will fuel your skills and talent for a classical acting project. You will learn the Shakespearean technique.
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What are the Drawbacks of Method Acting?
After a few hit movies, stars instantly become a household name and the paparazzis suddenly start following them to provide every small detail to their fans about their lifestyle. But there are some actors who are down-to-earth and are known for their passion in acting.
Though superstars charge hundreds of crores as their fees to act in a film or even a commercial, the best actor is the one who makes all the efforts to be popular and dives into the character. An ideal actor is not the one who charges heavy amounts to be featured in a blockbuster hit. Instead, they are the ones who have improved their craft on all mediums, be it a small screen or big screen, and learned various acting techniques over time.
What is Method Acting?
Method acting is one of the most popular and controversial acting techniques in the world. The effectiveness of this technique is still the matter of debate, but it is also important to know a better insight to the history, nature, and context of anything before making an opinion. Lee Strasberg was the visionary Polish director and actor who originated method acting and redefined the way today’s actors perform.
Actually, there is nothing wrong in method acting. But it is simply not required. Here are some of the reasons why most experts criticize Method Acting –
- It’s about the actor
Theatre was always focused on storytelling. The centre of the Method is the actor and their creativity, instead of the play itself. It leads to self-centered performance that doesn’t focus on the play and author’s efforts.
2. Not so practical
An acting technique must have practicable tools and you must be able to use them quickly. It is not the acting that takes a performer off the scene. There is a lack of practicable points.
3. Pointless and Forced Emotion
Emotion has nothing to do with action. Obviously, we cannot control emotions and we can barely control them, especially when the actor is under any stress. If humans could control their emotions, they wouldn’t be humans. Why did we need counselling or therapy? One can force out their tears or fake emotions. But they cannot overdo it for acting. It’s the acting that wins the heart of the audience, not an actor.
4. There is nothing real
Method Acting is often believed as a fake work. Obviously, it seems like something creative or busy. But when a performer goes for a rehearsal, there is no practicable use of it. People may perceive their character, topic, or epoch harder and it takes a lot of time. But it doesn’t do anything good to play the scene.
5. Doesn’t look fun
You may definitely not want to make acting a complex task. Do you? Acting must be fun for determined and passionate actors. Why waste a lot of time by making it so daunting? Enjoy the process, the training, and the performance.
There are so many brilliant actors without the Method. They know how to use their talents. Method isn’t wrong, it’s worthless!
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Performance Arts vs. Performing Arts – What You Should Know?
The terms “Performance Arts” and “Performing Arts” sound similar and many people still confuse between both of these phrases. Hence, they use these terms interchangeably. If we look further, they are two different things. The differences and similarities often confuse and make the distinction complex. Are there any similarities or what are the functional, intentional or important definitions?
What is Performance Art?
Performance art is performed by an artist or other participants. It may be performed through documentation, live performance, written, or spontaneously in front of the public in the context of Fine Arts. It has its own genre over the years. There are four important elements of performance art – artist’s presence, space, body, and the bond between the public and the creator.
What is Performing Art?
The performing art is performed for the audience in the form of dance, music, and drama. It consists of several disciplines to be performed in theatre, dance and music in front of the audience.
Performing Arts vs. Performance Arts
Performing Arts usually consists of music, dancing, and acting. It includes conventional performance and conservatories. On the other side, performance arts is rooted from the art school and it usually takes places in found spaces, galleries and in the given locations.
Performance art is based on concept while performing art is based on skills. Performance artists are highly skilled because performing artists work as per the concepts. The message is served to the audience by performers in the performing arts but the art is the message and performer itself in performance art.
The performance artist is usually at the given location to perform instead of an environment, while a performing artist usually performs in an opera house, a theatre, or a concert hall.
Musicians, actors, and dancers are skilled professionals and are backed by third parties. On the other side, a performance artist is usually the performer, creator, and performance himself.
Performance art expects and asks the spectators, audience, or viewers to engage with the artist like Fine Arts. But the performing artists barely interact with the audience.
Performing arts tell stories and are narrative naturally, but performance art is completely non-narrative. Artists can also do the storytelling in performance arts but they choose different methods to tell these stories.
Performance art is usually based on an artist but it can be collaborative. On the other side, performing arts rely on collaboration. Sometimes, performing art can be based on solo performance, especially when a writer acts and stages their creation.
In performance art, the artist represents something else. However, performing artists usually represent themselves. As an actor, you might be expected to be yourself (with some restrictions and limitations). Performance artists don’t want to look like fictional characters most of the time, while performing artists want to be perceived as characters.
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COVID Rocks Bollywood
From the Los Angeles Times 20 November, 2020 – All of this makes being successful as an film actor much harder.Fewer roles, fewer films, more risk to your health.
MUMBAI, India —
Bollywood director Shakun Batra originally envisioned the beaches of Sri Lanka as the location for his latest film, a relationship drama for one of India’s biggest studios.
But with the COVID-19 pandemic making international travel nearly impossible, he had to quickly choose somewhere else.
“All I could think was, it’s like you’re a sportsman and the rules of the game have changed,” Batra said by phone from Goa, a coastal state south of Mumbai, which he had settled on as a backup location.
After months of lockdown and uncertainty, the world’s biggest movie industry is finally running again. But with the pandemic still raging, Bollywood casts and crews are still figuring out how to work — and how to pull off the sumptuous locations and dance sequences it’s known for — without getting many people sick.
Shooting is taking place against the backdrop of a COVID-19 outbreak that India has struggled to control, with nearly 9 million recorded infections, second most after the U.S. Scientists estimate that hundreds of thousands of new infections are going undetected every week due to a widespread inability to observe social distancing.
“It’s tough because you have to hold on to that same creative vision, but react to a whole new set of conditions,” Batra said.
After picking new locations for his still-untitled film, due out in April from Dharma Productions, he had to contend with another issue: a series of COVID-19 cases on set. Batra declined to go into details, citing privacy concerns, but said the infections slowed down shooting because people had to be quarantined and the sets shut down and sanitized.
Movie sets have instituted a variety of precautions.
Among the most elaborate are sprinkler systems that douse costumes in disinfectant and unproven sterilization rooms that apply ultraviolet light to camera kits and crew members.
Directors are shooting with skeleton crews, makeup artists are working without assistants, and stars have been asked to leave their entourages at home. Multiple productions denied a Times reporter’s request to attend filming.
The production team of “Dostana 2,” the sequel to a 2008 romantic comedy blockbuster, was trying to figure out how to make a wedding sequence — one of the signature scenes of Bollywood films — look lavish with just 50 dancers instead of 300.
“Those big numbers that have hundreds of backup dancers — they’re definitely in jeopardy,” said the film’s assistant director, Jehan Handa.
“In Bollywood, the number of people you have in a song is associated with its budget — if you can afford hundreds of dancers and all their costumes then it comes across as a very, big important song. Anything less, and it can look a bit cheap.”
Actors and crew members are tested for COVID-19 and undergo daily temperature checks, but testing is spotty after that — and every shoot carries risk.
“You have to stay close to each other when filming, otherwise it won’t look real,” said actress Neha Sharma. “Inevitably you feel quite vulnerable. I guess all we can do is have some faith.”
In May, the state government of Maharashtra, which includes the film hub Mumbai, released guidelines requiring crews to operate at one-third their usual size and for members to remain six feet apart and wear masks and gloves at all times. Those appearing on camera are exempt, but the state said “no extravagant scenes” should be filmed until the pandemic threat subsides.
Still, safety levels vary widely from set to set. Some crews are put up in five-star hotels, quarantine for a week before filming and are ordered to wear full-body protective gear throughout 12 hours or more of shooting a day.
Others take far fewer precautions, which has been blamed for a series of COVID-19 outbreaks on sets. After cases were reported among the cast and crew of Hindi TV soap operas earlier this fall, the productions endured numerous shutdowns and skyrocketing costs.
“The fact of the matter is people need to work regardless if they feel safe — you can’t afford not to,” said one member of a production team who requested anonymity to protect his job. “In the Bollywood hierarchy only stars and directors have the clout to stop shooting or start up again. I’ve heard of some actors saying, ‘I don’t have symptoms, let’s carry on.’”
Though India is a center of visual-effects outsourcing for Hollywood — and recent hits such as “Padmaavat” and “Baahubali” have featured elaborate digital scenes — the process is too expensive to be an option for most Indian producers.
“The West can allocate $10 million just to special effects — that’s pretty much the whole budget for some films” in India, said producer Konark Gowariker.
Usually a film’s biggest source of revenue is its theatrical release. But restrictions on theaters — only some states have reopened them, and most are allowed to operate at only half-capacity — have dissuaded production companies from investing in big-budget movies.
More films are being released directly to streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video, with big-screen legends including Amitabh Bachchan — who recovered from COVID-19 in August — making their straight-to-digital debuts.
The industry’s hope is that theaters will rebound, and that Indians’ fascination with movie stars will make it worth the wait.
“In America, people watch a film once, maybe twice,” Gowariker said. “In India, if people like a film they go five times. If they like the actor but the film’s bad they might go three times.”
In the meantime, the restrictions could result in smaller-scale family dramas with simpler sets, the sort of films that until now have only been made by India’s few independent directors.
“Now we’ll see mainstream producers give this the green light because it’s safe and COVID-friendly,” said Rohan Narula, a Mumbai-based screenwriter.
After the pandemic exposed India’s rampant social inequalities — with millions of migrant laborers left destitute and forced to walk home when a nationwide lockdown was declared in March — some filmmakers believe audiences may have less appetite for the all-singing, all-dancing, high-glam fare that Bollywood typically churns out.
“Star value has really taken a hit, whereas the ordinary guy and his value has risen exponentially,” Handa said. “They were the ones out there during the pandemic, who didn’t have the luxury of staying home.”
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Barry John- Lifetime Achievement Award at META
Barry John was awarded by the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards in a virtual event on 30 August, 2020. The Lifetime Achievement Award honors Barry John’s 30+ years in Indian theatre and cinema as a writer, director and actor.
The full ceremony can be viewed here: https://www.facebook.com/MahindraExcellenceInTheatreAwards/videos/307604130667699/
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