Reconsider that common response!

Posted by SmartActors | Leave a comment

I started my day surfing the internet, for nothing in particular. As many have experienced, with the internet you can Google one thing and end up looking up something completely different. I ran upon a Youtube video of Sir Michael Caine giving tips to actors. I found this video to be incredibly enlightening. He spoke about such important things that every actor should know, all in about four minutes. I'm going to share with you what I learned from Sir Michael Caine.

"It's not about being an actor, it's about dealing with reality"

CRYING: Men in particular, will do anything to not cry. They fight tears are try to mcremain strong. In acting, you must fight the tears. The struggle to fight back tears will then help the audience to connect with you emotionally. Then. the audience will cry for you. I believe this applies to female and male to a certain extent. I took an acting class with Alexia Robinson, one thing I knew I could do was cry on cue. Every scene that I cried in, she was not satisfied. She explained to me that I had given up, because I had no fight in me during those scenes. The scene turned into me just boohooing while others just watched a crying girl. Without that fight or that struggle, the scene flat lined. The audience was unable to connect to me or become drawn in because in that scene I had already given up. There's no where to go in a scene once you have given up. NUDITY: Full frontal nudity is not recommended. Once the audience sees you in complete nude, you have lost their focus. They are no longer engaged in the scene. Instead they are focused on your body parts. Whether your breast are too large or too small. Whether your body is boyish or curvaceous. The audience has completely lost interested in the story. There's a foreign film I watched on Netflix called The Hidden Face (La Cara Oculta).  Although it is a fantastic movie (I recommend you watch it) there are two actresses who are completely nude. Every time I watch that movie with someone new, they comment on the women's breast. For that moment, people lose focus on the passion between to people due to the moments of nudity. Here's the trailer for your entertainment:   INTOXICATION: A lot of actors believe the key to playing drunk is to do just that. Play drunk. Walk crooked, slur words, fall all over the place. Well, A drunk is a man trying to walk straight and talk properly. CLOSE UPS: When filming close ups, look at the actor (opposite you) with one eye. Reason being, if you look at the actor with both eyes, the camera has lost you. You want to give one eye to the camera, one eye to the actor. It is important not to switch eyes because that is not reality. In dramas, it is important not to blink because blinking can be read as nerves. If your character is a strong character, you want to avoid excessive blinking.   If the audience is sitting there saying, "Isn't Michael Caine a good actor?" Then I've done it all wrong. They should be saying, "I wonder what's going to happen to Harry Brown now." That's the difference.    

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