When you are breaking down Questions 3, there is an external experience (previous Acting Tip) and there is an internal experience.  Today I’m talking about internal experience.

When you get a scene that is not so physically engaging or demanding, you have to look into yourself and ask ‘What does that feel like?’.  You need to take a moment to let yourself really feel what is happening.  Take a look at the video to see an example of a scene that explores the internal experience.

Question 3: What is the experience of the scenes?

External

Today I’m talking about Question 3; What is the experience of the scene?  There is the internal experience and the external experience.  Today, it’s all about the External!

Ask yourself: What is the experience of riding on a roller coaster?  I bet you felt a lot, right there, just thinking about it.  Watch this video to see how to get specific about the external experience of a scene.

Question 1: Part 4; What is the conflict between the Characters?

Watch this Vlog Here

Conflict is the basis of all story telling.  It is essential.  It is the most important part of story telling.  Without conflict, we really don’t have a lot of story.  Every single movie has a conflict.  If the Joker didn’t create conflict for Batman, then Batman would have no reason to go save the world.   There would be no story.  Even if you’re not into the super hero movies, you’ll see conflict in other stories like between two lovers.  Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again.

The problem I see actors do so often is over-complicate the conflict in the scene.  So keep it really simple.  Great example; Sally wants John to apologize.  John doesn’t want to apologize.  The way I see actors over-complicated it, is they might say “There is a war going on”.  John and Sally are in a war.  But the problem is outside of them.  We want the conflict to be directly between the characters.  It creates a connection and it gives you something to do.  Remember, Acting is Doing.

Nearly every scene has a conflict, but there are some that don’t.  One example might be John wants Sally to marry him, and Sally wants to marry him.  In there, there is no conflict.  They both want the same thing and it’s all about love.  When you get that in a scene, you then want to go to ‘Question 3; What is the Experience of the Scene?’.  I’ll explain it deeper in later videos, but I’ll give you a taste of it for now.

When there is no conflict in a scene, then we’ve got to have the experience of the scene.  When two people are in love and want to get married, then we are watching the scene and the experience HAS to be there.  If we’re not getting that experience and the feeling of two people who love each other and want to get married, then that scene doesn’t work.   Just like if there is no conflict in the scene, then that scene isn’t going to work either.

Always make sure your conflicts are simple and very, very clear.  Because remember in Question 1, you want to be able to look at it like a fly on the wall or from the 3^rd person.   You want to be able to see the story on the screen and you want to be able to clearly be able see what is happening.

Question 1: Part 3, What Happened The Moment Before?

Watch this Between The Scenes Vlog Here

It’s really important to have a strong moment before, for 2 reasons.   For one, as an actor it’s going to help jump start and get you into the scene.  And two, it helps get the audience involved really quickly because they see the story already happening and they just have to follow along and get in there.

So how do you create a moment before? Or where does the moment before come from?  You have to start by looking at the script.  Sometimes it’s on the page and sometimes it’s not.  I have 2 scripts from under 5 cold reads we have done in class.  In the first script, it says:  ‘Susie tears through a rack of clothes.  A saleslady carefully approaches. “Miss, what’s happening?”‘.  Let’s assume you are the saleslady.  Your moment before is you see Susie tearing through a rack of clothes and then you carefully approach before you say “Miss, what’s happening?”  So as an actor, you’ve got to create the moment.  You’ve got to see that.  You’ve got to see this lead actress tearing through all this stuff and it’s all becoming disarray.  And then you might be careful as you walk over to her because she looks kind of important.  You have to create all of the story before you say your first line.

In the other script, it says Hotel Guest Start.  And then the hotel guest says their first line which is “Have we met?”.  That’s it.  There is no description of what happens the moment before.  There is nothing to introduce the hotel guest.  The hotel guest just says their first line.  In this case, as an actor, you have to create that moment before for you.  But make sure you create it based on information in the script.   In this script, it later says that ‘such and such is suing you.’  The hotel guest is serving papers.  So what’s important is that you know this is a hotel guest but it’s kind of a trick.  You’re tricking them by asking if you’ve met and then you’re serving them papers.  So what is the moment before?  Even though the hotel guest has to look like it’s really casual when they say “Have we met?”, they are looking for this other character, specifically, so they can serve the papers. So as an actor, you have to create that space.  You’re in a hotel lobby, and you’re looking around to see if the other character is there, and then you see them and say “Have we met?”.

You might not get a lot of time to create that moment before in the audition room, but what you can do, is start to create it before they even say action.  Instead of waiting for them to say action, thinking of your first line, thinking is the camera ready, thinking should I start, you can be creating that moment before.  If you’re thinking about all those other things, that is what will come through on the camera.  Instead, you can immediately see yourself in the hotel lobby and you will be ready for when they call action.  When you’ve already created the experience and the moment, that shines through and they can see that in the camera and in your audition.

So when you get your next audition, I want you to look at “What is the moment before?”  Make a strong choice.  Look at the script, see if it’s there.  If it’s not on the script, then create it based on the story in the script.  Don’t go make up something that isn’t there.