What is the climax of a play or movie?

It’s the point where the tension gets so high that something snaps. Psychological tension is released by physical action. It’s usually either a fight or a kiss. In a romance, the two lovers are kept apart by their own misunderstandings or by forces outside their control until they overcome the odds, and embrace. In most other forms of drama, the climax is an explosive fight. Even in romances, there are often fights along the way as mini-climaxes or complications to the plot.

Characters talk and tension builds up, they form goals, and they meet obstacles. Eventually, things get physical. In order to achieve, they have to overcome their greatest obstacle. That obstacle is the villain, and vanquishing the villain is usually done in combat.

High Stakes

Remember that the play is the most important time in your character’s life. The climax is the single most important moment within that story, and is usually a life-or-death struggle.

The question for actors, directors, and anyone in the process is this: If the climax of your production is a fight, and that is the most important part of your show, wouldn’t you want to devote more time, energy and resources to that moment than to any other?

Or think about the opposite question: Is the fight in your play a disappointment?

Beyond Genre

Maybe you have a kitchen-sink drama, and the climactic violence is a single slap. The slap is the culmination of frustrations of both characters. It is the physical release of every emotional step before it. It is the turning point and the instant when words fail. That slap has to be perfectly executed, because if it looks fake it has ruined your show.

Maybe you’re doing Hamlet. You have four hours of internal conflict and interpersonal drama that culminates in a duel between Hamlet and Laertes. In that scene, everyone important dies. Earlier, we had the death of Polonius, but that merely heightened the tension. We had Ophelia going mad and we hear that she drowned herself. Important events, but we are still waiting for the moment when Hamlet will avenge his father. We can’t bear him to choose “not to be” and give up. In the critical fight at the end, Hamlet overcomes. Although he dies, he takes all the evildoers with him.

The fight is 5 minutes compared to the rest of the play’s 240 minutes. Does that determine its importance? No way. The fight and the deaths in the final act have to be planned from the first rehearsal, with plenty of time to choreograph and perfect the moves. Otherwise the audience will feel cheated of those arduous 240 minutes if you don’t give them a spectacular final fight.

Proportion

I’d go so far as to say that the longer the build-up — the more time is spent on talking and non-fighting — the more time must be spent rehearsing the fight scene. If you have a 5-minute skit, spend a few minutes on the fight. If you have a 60-minute Fringe show, devote a few hours with a fight choreographer to getting the violence right. If you’re doing a full-length play, spend one out of every 4 hours of rehearsal on stage combat. And if you’re doing a fight-heavy show, consider that maybe that’s what the audience came to see, and spend more time on fights than you do on acting.

I’m not exaggerating or thinking only of a fight director’s ideal world… think about The Three Muskateers. People go to that play to see the swordfights. People bring their kids because they know it will be exciting because of the action and the fights. And if that’s the major draw, then make it the majority of the rehearsal time.

Reality Check

Directors: give yourself a reality check. Your mind is full of each character’s motivations, the set construction, the symbolism of your chosen props, and all kinds of details. Take a step back and just focus on the climax of your story. If it’s a fight, will it be a fizzle? If so, all your other work will be for nothing.

No Method Acting

Many characters suffer and die in plays and films. Some actors consider it to be the most fun scene, others think it’s the most challenging. How do you play a realistic death?

Well, you don’t do it like that scene from Enter the Ninja. So how do you research? I would not recommend Method Acting this one. You don’t need to experience dying to portray it for an audience. Instead, you can read about it from New Scientist.

Science and Speculation About Morbid Events

The researchers at New Scientist took evidence from various sources to create subjective descriptions of the events leading to death for a number of scenarios. The information came from known medical processes, accounts from near-death survivors, and autopsy data.

Death: Scientists Reveal What It’s Like To Die | Sky News:

Drowning:
Victims first panic and try to hold their breath, typically for 30 to 90 seconds. Survivors have reported a “tearing and burning” sensation as water enters the lungs – but it is quickly followed by a feeling of calmness and tranquility. Oxygen deprivation results in loss of consciousness, the heart stopping and brain death.

Heart attack:
A “squeezing” chest pain, or feeling of pressure, is the most common symptom as the heart muscle struggles for oxygen. Disruption of the normal heart rhythm effectively stops the heart beating. Loss of consciousness can occur in about 10 seconds and death can follow minutes later.

Loss of blood:
Marked by several stages of “haemorrhagic shock”. Anyone losing 1.5 litres of blood feels weak, thirsty and anxious. By the time two litres are lost, people experience dizziness, confusion and eventual unconsciousness.

Electrocution:
A household electric shock might stop the heart, leading to unconsciousness after around 10 seconds. Higher currents through the heart or brain can produce almost immediate unconsciousness. However, it has been claimed that prisoners executed with the electric chair may actually have died from heating of the brain or suffocation.

Fall from a height:
Survivors of great falls often report the sensation of time slowing down. A study of 100 suicide jumps from San Francisco’s 246-ft-high Golden Gate Bridge found numerous cases of instantaneous death involving collapsed lungs, exploded hearts or damage to organs from broken ribs.

Hanging:
Hanging suicides and old-fashioned executions cause death by strangulation. This can lead to unconsciousness in 10 seconds but a poorly placed noose may result in many minutes of suffering. “Long drop” hangings are designed to break the neck. But a study of the remains of 34 prisoners executed in this way found that four-fifths died partly from asphyxiation.

Fire:
Burns inflict intense pain, and boost the skin’s pain sensitivity. As superficial nerves are destroyed, some feeling is lost – but not much, according to experts. But most people who die in fires are actually killed by inhaling toxic gases and asphyxiation.

Decapitation:
Beheading can be swift and painless but consciousness is believed to continue for a short time after the spinal cord is severed. Experts have calculated that the brain might remain functioning for seven seconds. Reports from guillotine executions in France cited cases where movements of the eyes and mouth were seen for up to 30 seconds.

Death From Combat

For those who die fighting (my speciality), whether in battles or duels or assassinations, take a close read of the section on Loss of blood. It mentions haemorrhagic shock, and here’s a reference table:


Classification of Hemorrhagic Shock (adapted from SOGC Clinical Practice Guidelines, #115, June 2002):

I would describe this to an actor as a whole body progression (mind, breathing, and physical strength) from Elevated to Irregular to Depressed, then unconsciousness and death. At first, breathing is faster – even faster than when fighting – the mind is racing as well, which might be shown as darting eyes or faster speech. Next, everything gets messy: Breathing is irregular, speech may be halting or stuttering, and if the person is not already on the floor, they will fall down from weakness in the legs and dizzyness. In their final moments of consciousness, play the slowing of the breath, slow speech, slow movement.

For wounds in general, remember that almost everyone tries to cover a puncture or cut of any size. Wherever the character was injured, put your hands there and push. This will also focus your mind on the source of your pain while the audience clearly understands what’s going on. As a bonus, we can conveniently use less stage blood (or no blood), and still have a believable death scene. For added detail, remember that the loss of blood is a loss of fluid, so the character will be thirsty.

If you’re lucky enough that your director gives you a lengthy death scene, I hope these tips help you sell it.

The Cone of Learning

This image is from an article called Learn Anything on Litemind.com

Why People Put Down Book Smarts

Learning from a book is often frustrating precisely because it is limited. You know that you can’t fully learn a skill from a book, especially if it is only described in words. Many classic books on slight of hand have few images, they’re all description. It’s up to the illusionist to interpret the words, and work in front of a mirror to achieve their version of the trick.

Fortunately, producing images in books has come a long way since the first magic manuals. New books have lots of pictures and diagrams. But if you’ve tried to learn a complicated skill from a book, such as a martial art, you know that you still need description, because you can’t get a good sense of movement from still pictures.

Video Training

So, knowing that people are frustrated with books, a huge video market has sprung up. This is not just a “money grab” by marketers… learning by video really is better. They teach all kinds of skills by video, even accounting and psychology. And that works because of the learning pyramid: the combo of hearing and seeing (and reading slides if they use that) means that you remember things better, and for a longer time.

The biggest value comes from learning physical skills from a video because you can see the movement. You don’t have to follow picture 1A, 1B, 2, 3… and read the descriptions of each one to get the flow of a technique. You watch the expert and listen to the voiceover simultaneously. What an excellent way to learn!

But that’s not the best way…

Teaching

It has been said that to truly be a master at anything, you must teach it. That’s because you actually learn by teaching. If you’ve never taught your skill to a student, try it. You’ll find that you have to explain things in more than one way to get them to truly understand it. You may have to invent a metaphor by saying “It’s like painting a fence… up, down.” And by trying different approaches, you solidify your own knowledge.

Just Do It

If you like the shiny books, put them into practice with a training partner. Better yet, take a class. Your instructor will be able to correct your form… the book just sits there. Video instruction is obviously better, given this learning theory. Still, the video can’t correct you. Only an expert instructor with a good eye can tell you if you’re doing it properly.

When you think you’ve got a combat skill down pretty good, try simulating a real fight scenario. It will teach you where your skill might be weak, and solidify the motion into your body even better.

Warning:
Never start learning a skill in a high stress situation or when tired. You’ll learn it wrong and teach your body to do it badly. It will be difficult to correct yourself later. When learning a new skill, warm up (not to exhaustion), then slowly perform the movement. If you have a teacher, get corrected on your form before you try to go faster. If you have a book or video, watch yourself in the mirror and see if you match the image. When you think it’s right, go faster. Then do it with a partner slowly. Then faster and controlled. Only after going through these steps should you try to do it “for real”.

Cyril Raffaelli

Here’s a short promo of him:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]
Just another parkour nut? The kind of guy who jumps from rooftops, balances on rails, and flips around? He started early, and made a career of it. Gymnastics, martial arts (started with Shotokan Karate, then later Wu Shu), and the guts to be one of those few who decide to climb and jump off of high places before there were freerunning tutorials and videos online.

District 13

Many of you will recognize this stuntman from his most famous role in the film Banlieue 13 (District 13 in English). I know the first year students at George Brown certainly know him from there. But even then, he was overshadowed by the star, David Belle. Belle was the originator of Parkour, and the main reason the film was made. I daresay it was also the reason for its success, since his name drew attention to the film from the growing Parkour community.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Not impressed yet?

I saw him for the first time in Kiss the Dragon, a Jet Li vehicle. He was one of the “twin” bad guys, and their big fight was in an office filled with glass walls and desks. It was the highlight of the movie for me, and the reason it’s on my DVD shelf.

Many talented stuntmen can do the tricks, but can’t design or teach fights. Cyril can do both. I know, I’m making him sound like a real-life Chuck Norris. Did you like the fights in the last Transporter movie? He did that:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Hamster?

He was also one of the most dynamic bad guys in the last Die Hard movie. Forget the awful martial arts fight in the control room with the girl. Cyril was leaping around pipes, hanging and flipping all over. John Maclaine calls him a hamster. He was underused. As you’ve seen from the previous clips, that’s an understatement:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Coming Soon

Looking to the future, fans of Banlieue 13 should know that Cyril is in the sequel: Ultimatum. As with the original, he will also be the fight coordinator. He’s also the fight choreographer for the upcoming Tekken movie. It’s a good year for Cyril, and a great year for martial arts movies because of him.

How many videos can you fit in one post? How about one more: a teaser (in French):
[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

When Streisand, Redford, Vereen, Tomlin, Midler and Hoffman got their first breaks, Michael Shurtliff was there.

Michael Shurtleff has been casting director for Broadway shows like Chicago and Becket and for films like The Graduate and Jesus Christ Superstar. His legendary course on auditioning has launched hundreds of successful careers. Now in this book he tells the all-important how for all aspiring actors, from the beginning student of acting to the proven talent trying out for that chance-in-a-million role!

What a book! Yet it’s so simple that you learn without feeling it happen. Thank you, Michael; we needed it. —Joshua Logan

Contents

1. Practical Aspects of the Audition
2. The Twelve Guideposts
   1. Relationship
   2. What Are You Fighting For? Conflict
   3. The Moment Before
   4. Humour
   5. Opposites
   6. Discoveries
   7. Communication and Competition
   8. Importance
   9. Find the Events
   10. Place
   11. Game Playing and Role Playing
   12. Mystery and Secret
3. Consistency
4. Some Things an Actor Needs to Know
5. Monologues, Soliloquies, Style
6. Pace
7. Romance
8. Musical Theatre
9. Comedy
10. Simplicity
11. Observations from a Life in the Theatre

About the Author

Besides working as a casting director with Joshua Logan, Bob Fosse, Tom O’Horgan, Mike Nichols, Jerome Robbins, Gower Champion, Stewart Ostrow, David Merrick, and others, Michael Shurtleff still finds time to write plays and novels, direct films, teach his famous auditioning course, and regularly see at least a dozen plays and films every week. He does as he advises his readers: “Every day, learn. Learn enough so you can do good theatre.”

Click here to buy Audition by Michael Shurtleff

The Actor’s Survival Kit

About the Author

Peter Messaline is often seen in Canadian and American commercials. He is seen, but rarely recognized, in bad-guy roles. He has performed at both the Stratford and Shaw festivals, and on stages from Vancouver to Montreal, from Fort McMurray to Niagara Falls, and in half a dozen U.S. regional theatres. He is a performers’ tax preparer and college seminar host on the Business of Acting. Miriam Newhouse has acted and directed in Canada, the United States, Britain, Denmark, and Holland. She has performed in theatres large and small across the country, and has played principal roles in television, radio, and feature film. She continues to be a guest lecturer at Toronto-area colleges, and is the Labour Co-chair of the Ontario Ministry of Labour Advisory Committee for Health and Safety in the Performing Arts.

Contents

1. Taking Charge: Art is business. Make smart business decisions.
2. Gloomy Reality: Low pay, unemployment, discrimination, rejection.
3. Working to Get Work: Investment, research, networking, persistance.
4. Show and Tell: Resume, photographs and video
5. The Art of Auditioning: Theatre, musicals, film/video, commercials, voiceover
6. Be Prepared: Fees, negotiation, contracts, conflicts
7. Hi Ho, Hi Ho: Day to day, what it’s like to work in each industry
8. Job Etiquette
9. The Ten Percent Solution: What an agent does, what an agent doesn’t do, getting an agent, leaving an agent, do you need an agent?
10. All for One – But is it for You? Unions
11. Fitness: Health, physical fitness, skill training
12. Grownups: Multiple jobs, making work, government and taxes

Bonus material:

• 15-page Glossary
• 12 pages of Addresses (Unions, Agents, Publications, Companies, etc.)

The Actor’s Survival Kit: Third Edition

Sense Memory and Emotional Recall (also known as Affective Memory) are closely related ideas in the theory of acting. These two terms are primarily connected to the Stanislavski School of acting and those schools that have derived themselves from Stanislavski’s systematic approach to acting and actor training. These schools each have points of divergence with Stanislavski’s own ideas; this is what has given those schools their own slant on Stanislavski’s work and their own identity. It is not helpful to adjudge these schools as more or less true to Stanislavski, only acknowledge their relationship. It is often the case that Stanislavski-related acting terminology has slightly varying meaning and application from school to school as the methodology changes, transforms, and evolves.

Sense Memory is a training tool that helps to develop the dramatic imagination or what Stanislavski referred to as ‘Creative Fantasy’. The ability to create a ‘sense of truth’ around the make-believe circumstances of the play is an essential skill for the Stanislavski trained actor. In Sense Memory exercises, the actor trains their imagination to respond to the memory of their five senses. Using the actor’s memory, the aim is to connect the imagination to the memory of the real sense. It is claimed that the actor who does not use Sense Memory only pretends or indicates through representation that they are cold. It is claimed therefore that the actor using Sense Memory can recreate, relive or re-experience that cold sensation and therefore their acting is more truthful. In other word connecting real sensations to a pretend scenario can help the actor to experience the make believe world of the play as real.

Our senses do not work equally well as triggers for the recall of specific memories. Whilst our sense of smell is the most powerfully connected to our memory, touch, taste sight and hearing may each affect an individual differently. Finding the sense that most strongly triggers a response is part of the Sense Memory training.

Have you ever been hungry and the thought of a cheeseburger, or some other food has caused your mouth to water? The connection between a real cheeseburger and the memory of the taste, smell, sight of a cheeseburger from you past creates a real response in you. This is because the human mind is highly suggestible. This suggestibility can be employed by the actor to create truthful reactions to remembered stimulus.

Psychologists call this S-R Theory, Stimulus-Response Theory. The most famous example of how S-R Theory works in practice will give you a better idea of how sense memory can work. The Nobel Prize winning psychologist Dr Ivan Pavlov developed his famous S-R experiment with dogs whilst investigating an unrelated digestive matter. He would feed the dogs every day at the same time but noticed that if he entered the room with the dogs at any other time, they would salivate as if they were about to be fed. Pavlov posited that the dogs were responding to the white lab coat that he wore and their salivation was occurring as a direct result of this. He then set up an exercise where he would ring a bell during the feeding of the dogs. After a while, the dogs would salivate on just the sound of the bell. This type of response to stimulus is called conditioning. Both humans and animals can be conditioned to respond to stimulus. Stanislavski was aware of Pavlov but was most influenced by another S-R psychologist named Theodule Ribot whose theories support Stanislavski’s work on Emotion Memory.

By training the actor in Sense Memory, Stanislavski believed that their capacity to treat the imaginary world as if it were real would be increased and honed. Furthermore, he believed that a flexible and malleable sense of creative fantasy could assist the actor in connecting deeply to their stored emotions. Sense Memory trains the actor to treat their sense memories as real and use them within the Emotional Recall exercise to stimulate or trigger certain truthful emotional responses.

Jean Benedetti, the foremost British scholar on Stanislavski suggests in his book Stanislavski and the Actor the following Sense Memory exercises to try:

SIGHT: Picture the following:

A house where you once lived or visited
• A starry sky
• One of the most famous buildings that you ever visited
• Your Mother’s face in detail

SOUND: Hear the following:

• Rain against a window pane
• The buzzing of a bee
• A dog barking
• Feet crunching on snow

SMELL: Smell the following:

• The Sea
• An Apple, Orange or Lemon
• Smoke from a wood fire
• Bacon

TASTE: Taste in your mouth

• Roast Chicken
• Chocolate
• Butter
• Milk

TOUCH: Imagine the feel of:

• Stroking a cat or a dog
• Hot tea on your tongue
• The surface of a wet fish
• Taking a hot shower

Developing the dramatic imagination in this way helps the actor to believe in the make believe world of the play with more investment. The culmination of this work is to combine the five senses together.

During Sense Memory, the actor develops their capacity to recall actual experience. It is possible that the actor will sit with a cup of coffee in their hands. They will note for themselves the taste, touch, smell, hearing and sight sensations that are produced from quietly taking in the coffee. In a later session, the actor will recall these senses from memory and again note their real responses. Exponents of Sense Memory claim that through constant practise, it is possible to recall strong sense-led memories and use these to develop the dramatic imagination, the dramatic sense of truth and real emotion.

The next stage is to use what you have learned in your Sense Memory training to assist you in recalling REAL events or occurrences. No memory should be forced, the mind is suggestible but it refuses to be function at will.

Try to recall a simple memory, keep it simple, not dramatic. Whilst you are recalling the memory, work your way through your senses, filling in as much detail as possible. As stimulus for this work, recall:

• A highly enjoyable party
• Something that made you very angry
• When you felt ashamed
• When you felt you were poorly treated by someone
• When something made you joyful

Emotional Recall aims to help the actor to connect to their own feelings and emotions. The technique of Emotion Recall (also known by Stanislavski was Emotion Memory) is the most highly controversial aspect of Stanislavski’s work and was made even more controversial as it has come to be the fulcrum of the Stanislavski off-shoot known as ‘the Method’. In the Method, this exercise is referred to as Affective Memory.

In an emotional memory exercise, the actor first seats themselves and uses Relaxation techniques in order to reduce any physical, mental or emotional tension. The next stage is to begin performing some simple Sense Memory work and then to turn that work towards the chosen memory of a moment from the actor’s life. Strasberg advised that the memory should be at least seven years old so that it’s rawness did not distract the actor from their task. The actor must choose a moment to remember that is analogous with the emotion that the character is experiencing.

It is important to know that despite the massive emphasis on the production of emotion from real truthful memories, Stanislavski did not insist that the stimulus was actually experienced by the actor first hand. If you had cried when you saw the planes ploughing into the World Trade Center Towers, this was probably not experienced in New York, but your response to it was really experienced.

It is finally essential to note that Stanislavski all but gave up his use of Emotion Memory in the final stages of his work. He felt that the work was exhausting to actors and that it produced negative side-effects such as tension and hysteria. He opted to focus his work on physical action as he believed that this would provide a more solid basis for the actor’s work, rather than the ‘fickleness of emotion’.

To make a summary of these ideas:

In order to act under the imaginary circumstances of the script, it is important for the Stanislavski trained actor to develop faith in their sense of dramatic truth. They must be able to believe in the imaginary factors of the play in order to react truthfully on stage with true feeling. Sense Memory is used to assist in the recall of real past occurrences and in turn this is employed in the performance of the Emotional Recall exercises.

To learn a practicable acting technique, why not visit http://www.actingcoachscotland.co.uk

About the Author

Professional Acting Coach and Director

Are their brains bigger than ours? In a public discussion held at New York’s Columbia University this month, the RSC’s Michael Boyd and Dr Oliver Sacks compared notes

Michael Boyd: We worked with about 30 actors over nearly three years on the RSC’s last complete cycle of the history plays. All the actors were in at least seven of those plays and learnt a huge number of roles. Halfway through the project, we left the first four plays behind for nearly a year. And we had to revive them. The actors began to get anxious about whether they would remember them: not only their principal roles, but the roles they understudied – thousands of lines, hundreds of states of emotions. An extraordinary feat of spatial memory was required, too: they had to remember where to go. Where am I? Backstage or front of house?

[Read More...]

Photo: Manuel Harlan

by Sarah Maslin Nir
Patrick Stewart is on a Shakespearian high, playing a host of the Bard’s greats in back-to-back-to-back productions: Last summer he dazzled British critics as Twelfth Night’s Malvolio, and next year he’s taking on Hamlet’s uncle for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In between, he continues his role as the ambition-addled Macbeth, as BAM’s 1984-esque reimagining of the play moves to Broadway. Trekkies be warned: Macbeth may be a commander, but Stewart’s not reprising his famous stint as Jean-Luc Picard — Captain Picard was far too nice of a guy. Stewart, proudly, is not. And he’ll probably break our kneecaps for saying so. [Read More...]

The idea is that you purchase their hardware to prompt yourself with your pre-recorded speech while performing. It consists of a tiny earpiece which gets audio by a radio signal from a mini-tape recorder hidden somewhere on your body. You can pause and resume the playback with a separate button you can put in your hand or hide somewhere else in your costume.

How much would you pay for such a thing? For the wireless version, you’re looking at $799. They also want to sell you training at $2500 for a half-day, or just get the Interactive Training DVD for $99.

Great For Presentations

I think it’s an obvious choice for public speaking, where the speaker wants to be free of notes and look spontaneous, but also wants to deliver every line exactly the way they wrote it. I love watching good speeches, and this device could give you a major boost to your public speaking performance.

Not For Actors

Even if we ignore questions of “authenticity” or “cheating”, I still would not advise using this for acting. Foremost, there are interruptions on stage that you can’t control. If another person on stage skips a line, a good actor should be able to continue the scene as if nothing happened… you can’t stand there saying “Hmm…” and fiddle with your costume while you try to fast-forward the tape to the right spot.

Secondly, you can’t keep the pause button in your hand, but you also don’t want to keep touching the same part of your body at the start and end of each of your lines. You’d look like a compulsive. Maybe they teach you how to avoid that in the training half-day.

Finally, you rob yourself of discovering new moments or going with your instinct on stage. Yes, you can record the line exactly how you plan to say it from your rehearsals, but thereafter in every performance you’re listening and repeating with the same pauses, the same tones, the same energy as when you recorded it. What if you discover something you want to change in your delivery? You have to remember that when you hear the forceful reading in your ear, you have to modify it to a creepy slow performance while it’s happening.

So How Is ScenePartner Different?

With ScenePartner, you actually learn your lines. You download the audio that we’ve recorded, and use your computer or mp3 player to aid your memorization. No hardware to buy. No special training needed, just press “play” and repeat at the sound of the bell.

Most importantly, you retain the freedom to react to other actors. If you’ve learned your lines and cues well, when they skip a line you can go straight on without hesitation. If you discover a new moment, the words are in your head, not broadcast into your ear, so you can change your delivery and be more fully present on stage.