A leading Los Angeles acting school instructor describes a recent class session he held with students teaching acting technique and production. According to the instructor, working with students in these acting classes in Los Angeles is very rewarding– he says it’s a joy to watch his students grow and steadily develop their craft.
The class’s exercises were oriented around emphasizing actors staying "in the moment"/not anticipating results. One of the first exercises they did at the acting school was called "The Box". Each student had to imagine some kind of animal in the box that looked really hungry- the goal was to go really slowly so as to explore all the details (what else was inside the box? what were the sounds? the look on the animal's face, etc.). At some point the student was supposed to put their hand in the box and feed the animal a cracker- at which point the animal would bite the student's hand (or lick it).
The point of the exercise was to get the students not to anticipate the result (animal biting your hand), but to focus on the moment-to-moment details of observing other animals, hearing the sound emanating from box, and then seeing the animal. The more the actor explored each of these details, the stronger the final moment became.
The next exercise we did was called "The Lost Script" (a variation on an Uta Hagen exercise).The exercise consisted of a student being in their room and trying to find a lost script for a very big Los Angeles acting school audition. The first time around the student has no idea of where the script actually is- however, the second time around the students do know where the script is but have to recreate what they did the first time. This exercise also centered around an actor not "playing the result" and also about stakes. Stakes are basically the amount of importance we attribute to a given moment/scene/situation. The more the actor raised the stakes of this lost script, the more dramatic/intense it became. If the script was a really big deal to them then we as an audience would care a lot more.
Memorization is also strongly emphasized. Blocking is similarly stressed for all of the scenes- this allows students to really explore each of these scenes/monologues beat by beat. The instructors try to emphasize place work with the scenes so that students have a level of comfort in their material. Additionally, the instructors want their students to be able to find substitutions for particularly important objects/people in their scene. For more information about professional acting classes in the Los Angeles area, please contact http://www.youngactorsstudio.com/ to learn more.
Tags: Acting Classes In Los Angeles Acting School Los Angeles Acting Los Angel
