All Posts by Richard Sarell

YOUR GROWING LIST OF ACTING TIPS

AS OF 05/08/2019 2019

These tips are profoundly simple and very practical. They are not an acting lesson in themselves but they will clearly point the way to the concepts and skills you need to work on. They will also raise your awareness of the mindset that is required to manage the exciting and rewarding job of being an actor.

For $20 (AUS) you can have ongoing access for 12 months to this ever-growing list of tips – emails will update you as new tips become available. Enrol for the tips here.  Or purchase "Creating a Character in 10 Seconds - PREMIER"  and you will immediately have access to "Tips to Inspire" for free for 12 months.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS EMAIL … Richard@rehearsalroom.com (put “Online Question” in the subject line)

TIP 1: An Important Difference
The key foundation of this approach to acting is to be able to separate a character’s conscious and unconscious impulses. No other process makes this important separation so clear. ACTING TECHNIQUE CHARACTER

Tip 2: The Importance of the Story
Understanding the Importance of the Story – acting techniques focus on lots of specific processes but none of them focus on how to deliver the story – that’s The Rehearsal Room difference. STORY TECHNIQUE

Tip 3 Being Totally Real
The key to being totally real is connected to managing the relationship and conversation as separate entities. ACTING TECHNIQUE CHARACTER
Read the blog "I Got the Job"

Tip 4: Beginnings and Endings
Relaxation – is a big deal for any performer but so are beginnings and endings. ACTING TECHNIQUE

Tip 5: Instigating and Responding in a Conversation
Keeping an audience engaged through the middle of a scene is the next important step once you have engaged them with the beginning of the story. ACTING TECHNIQUE

Tip 6: Conversation Structure
Understanding that conversations have a structure and how that structure works is a fundamental skill for an actor. Conversations always have an ‘Instigator’. ACTING TECHNIQUE

Tip 7: The Importance of Listening
Listening is the key to being real. ACTING TECHNIQUE
(This tip was recorded in 2017 in a different format)

Tip 8: The Key to Great Listening
Actors often confusing hearing with listening. This tip clearly defines the difference. ACTING TECHNIQUE

Tip 9: The Importance of Owning the Space
A simple fundamental of acting can be easily corrupted if the actor doesn’t understand how their mind might works. ACTING TECHNIQUE

Tip 10: A Professional Choice
Never stop a take if you can keep going. The professional choice is to keep going. Your feeling that a performance isn’t going well is notoriously unreliable. ACTING TECHNIQUE

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Managing the actor’s mind.

Tip 11: Mind Management
There is a problem with overloading the mind with too much information. For the actor, stoking the fire too much can mean you block up the chimney. ACTING TECHNIQUE

Tip 12: A Fundamental of this Technique
The importance of managing the actor’s mind when making acting decisions is important territory that is often overlooked – this is the focus of The Rehearsal Room technique. ACTING TECHNIQUE

Tip 13: Making the Best Choices
Psychologists tell us how our minds function in life and when actors understand how our minds make decisions then they can work at applying those processes to their acting. ACTING TECHNIQUE & STORY TECHNIQUE

Tip 14 The Reading Problem
The actor’s reading skills can sometimes be more of a hindrance than a help. One important tool to manage this problem is to move away from literary intuitive choices and get specific with the details. ACTING TECHNIQUE & STORY TECHNIQUE

Tip 15:   Fear Vs Logic
Fears and self-doubts run our lives. Don’t let fears or self-doubts tell you there is a problem. Use your logic. It might tell you there isn’t a problem at all. ACTING TECHNIQUE

Tip 16 Measuring Your Success
Acting is such an ephemeral task that no one offers specific ways of measuring your achievements – if the audience says they like it that’s the best you are likely to get. But MEASURING SUCCESS is an essential skill for the actor. It can only be done by understanding the practicalities of the actor’s craft. ACTING TECHNIQUE

Tip 17 Patterns are a Problem
Many of the techniques actors use for learning lines or movement result in them getting locked into patterns. The result is that the acting looks controlled rather than spontaneous. This tip evolved from a very successful application of this technique to a production of Shelagh Stephenson’s “The Memory of Water” which I directed in 2017.  ACTING TECHNIQUE & STORY TECHNIQUE

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Tip 18 Playing a Three Hander
The way people behave in groups is fascinating. The challenge for the actor is creating group behaviour in a logically organized way. ACTING TECHNIQUE

Tip 19 A Challenge for You
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman in his book “Thinking fast and slow” tells us that in life we “We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our own blindness.” So … how good are we at assessing our choices?
ACTING TECHNIQUE & STORY TECHNIQUE

Tip 20 Measuring Your Performance in an Audition
The greatest moment of uncertainty for any actor is as they walk out of the audition room. How do you know how you went?? Here’s a simple checklist that achieves a very clear performance assessment of your audition or any performance. It works!!
When you come out of an audition you can assess how you went.
ACTING TECHNIQUE & STORY TECHNIQUE

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TIPS TO INSPIRE 2:

Tip 21 A Path to Being Real
Understanding the core elements of what you are doing provides the foundations on which true achievement is built. A core process element is that acting isn’t about what you are doing, acting is all about what the other person is doing.
ACTING TECHNIQUE CHARACTER

Tip 22 The Importance of Listening to Relationship
This is one essential skill area that has traditionally been left to chance in every acting process until now. The Rehearsal Room’s analysis of how we listen and the development of techniques to generate skills that parallel the way we actually do it in life are unique.
ACTING TECHNIQUE CHARACTER

PROMOTION ONE: Learn more about this acting process
An opportunity to find out more about the nuts and bolts of this approach to acting and what makes it so unique and so practical. Sophia who was doing “Creating a Character in 10 Seconds” explains a discovery she made. She found, to her surprise, that she could completely change the focus of her listening.

Tip 23 19.9 What Makes a Good Audition
Understanding what makes an audition good is the key to being able to put the elements in place to make sure your next one hits the spot.
AUDITION SKILLS
Posted 12/7/2019

TIP 24 Making Your Character Real
It is very easy to over-complicate simple tasks. A simple reality is that Constantine Stanislavski, for all his genius, is too complicated to manage effectively. This is a brilliant simplification of Stanislavski process to make it actionable in a modern world.
ACTING TECHNIQUE CHARACTER
Posted 14/7/2019

TIP 25 A Great Lesson Via Uta Hagen
I often see actors refusing to follow their natural impulses because they are waiting for their ‘cue’. An actor who is waiting for a cue is dysfunctional. A script is only a graph that lays out the dialogue it isn’t a description of how the character should listen and behave. This great thought from German actor Alfred Bassermann (1867 – 1952) comes from Uta Hagen’s experience of working with him.
ACTING TECHNIQUE
Posted 16/7/2019

Tip 26  The Choice to Look Away
Often Casting Directors are heard to say “Don’t just stare at the other character, look away, the way we do in life.” But do you know why you look away in life? Do you understand what impulses drive your choices in a conversation? There is a simple way to decide if you should look away or not.
This tip also explores the challenges of learning acting from books.
ACTING TECHNIQUE
Posted 17/7/2019

Tip 27  How to Action Your Script
'Actioning’ your script with an appropriate verb is a long-standing technique that has been taught in major tertiary acting academies around the world. This is an incisive analysis of its value and a very powerful tip on managing its deficits.
ACTING TECHNIQUE
Posted 5/8/201

Whether in the audition room or on the set, for the actor, it is the quality of the listening that determines the quality of the performance. How to listen to all the meaning in the dialogue is the focus of this tip very useful tip. When you can do this your performance will be FOUR TIMES BETTER.
ACTING TECHNIQUE

1.       In acquiring “Creating a Character in 10 Seconds – PREMIER” you will have ongoing access to this material. You will also have ongoing access to any updates that occur to the material. In addition, there will be bonus offers available to you at a discounted rate for new supplementary exercises that relate to this acting technique.

ONGOING UPDATES ARE AUTOMATICALLY EMAILED TO YOU

2.       You will also have ongoing access to “Tips to Inspire” for 12 months, as you have acquired access to this ever-expanding list simultaneously with your purchase of “Creating a Character in 10 Seconds – PREMIER”.

3.       In acquiring access to "Creating a Character in 10 Seconds - PREMIER" you give The Rehearsal Room permission to keep you informed about updates and new opportunities that emerge. 

4.       In acquiring access you also give The Rehearsal Room permission to use your contributions of ideas, images, voice, comments and performance to help explain techniques or to promote these workshops. (The Rehearsal Room will not ever use your ideas, images, voice, comments or performance without first notifying you of the intended use.)

4       ONE-ON-ONE TRAINING
The one-on-one training that is associated with this course is available for 12-weeks. Your aim should be to complete the course in 10 weeks – doing one tutorial and the associated exercises a week. So, with this plan you have two extra weeks up your sleeve  if it eventuates that you need the extra time.

However, it is my strong recommendation that you commit to completing one tutorial a week (or more) to make the most of this very cleverly structured learning experience.

Once the twelve-week period has expired you may apply for a two-week extension to enable completion. That extension will be granted based on The Rehearsal Room’s availability to provide that extra one-on-one coaching.

Once that time has expired private one-on-one coaching can be acquired by paying the current hourly rate.

1) A supportive environment to explore your chosen goal

Experienced actors know what they need to work on.  Sometimes they just want to keep working.  That's what The Salon provides - a chance to follow the creative performance path each individual wants to explore.

2) Professional advice and support

Guidance can be helpful to expand challenges or suggest solutions.  Richard Sarell's professional expertise enables him to offer encouragement or alternative options to a variety of performance processes.  Often the best guidance simply clarifies that the actor is on the right path.  Richard will support in actor in their goals.

3) Well organised and productive sessions

A professional working space makes sure that individuals are respected and that goals are clearly organised.  The Salon operates on the basis that actors are clear about their purpose so that they can assess their progress or achievements.

4) Logical and professional strategies will apply

Assessments by other actors and Richard will be logical and clearly argued.  That way they are supportive and the critique is helpful.  Statements such as "I feel that worked" or "I feel that didn't work" are not specific enough.  Debate will be based on clear reasons.

5) Opportunity to expand techniques

Richard specializes in very effective and efficient techniques that have evolved to work at the speed required for TV and screen.  One technique equips actors with between 2 - 10 minutes preparation to attend an audition with 9 options to offer. And switching between those options during an audition takes between 10 - 20 seconds.  Actors interested in exploring those and similar techniques can choose to do so.

6) Flexible use of the time and space

Actors will be supported in using the time and space in the most efficient way to make sure they gain maximum benefit from the sessions

The Challenge for You 

The concept was started in 2018 when two actors turned up for a private coaching session at The Rehearsal Room. They brought a scene from the “The Room”. Their goal was to see if they could play it as straight drama and make it believable. They had a one-hour booking and after 45 minutes rehearsal we shot it. (They were still carrying their scripts.)

1) It is fun

Part of The Rehearsal Room philosophy is that acting should be fun.

2) It is simple to do

The actor's job in the view of The Rehearsal Room is to tell the story and be believable.  This script provides an entertaining challenge to fulfill both those tasks.

3) To make sure you are always practising your skills

It is important that an actor keeps working at building skill.  Skill has two components - the first is knowledge and the second is experience.  This is an easy way to build experience and in taking on the task you will increase your knowledge base, too.

4) Define the issues that are important for a scene

Clearly defining the ingredients that drive the story and the relationship between the characters is the key to a good performance.  This script throws up a number of good challenges in both those areas.

5) Practice working at the fast pace required for television

The original exercise was learnt, rehearsed, shot and reviewed within 60 minutes.  Kyahl and Daniel had read the scene a couple of times but hadn't actively started learning it until they arrived at the class.  A key ingredient of the acting skills taught at The Rehearsal Room is making effective decisions quickly.  You don't have to work that way for this exercise but it is important to keep in mind that on a modern set rehearsal times are short and actors need to be able to quickly make big changes to their preparation if they are going to be able to take direction effectively

Our first Friday Play Reading produced a very successful exploration of an engaging  Australian play.

The standard of the read increased and increased as we progressed and by the time we got to the final act it was really flying. With actors who had trained at NIDA, the VCA and some Rehearsal Room veterans present the performance standard was high. The outcome was a very entertaining evening with a lot of laughs.

BRING SOME NIBBLES
The reading started at 6.30pm and by the time we had finished many of us were quite hungry. Bringing something to nibble on is a good plan for the next Friday evening event.

NEXT FRIDAY SOCIAL
The next opportunity will be on Friday 16 November and is a "Monologue Night".

Bring a new monologue you would like to try out or one you have done before but want to test a different approach to. It’s an informal evening of creative play amongst friends.

If there is time, actors may be able to run a second version of their monologue to try something different. Keep your monologues to a maximum of 5 minutes.

You don't have to perform to attend. Come along and socialise. Bring a friend - everyone is welcome.

$5 for the night – drinks are $5 – chips provided – bring your own nibbles.
164 Kings Way, South Melbourne (front entrance) or 24 Tope Street (back entrance).

If you would like some more information about attending or if you are a writer that would like us to read your script contact Richard@rehearsalroom.com

Everyone wants to learn quickly.  No one wants to waste time.  You need a learning system that explains techniques clearly and that arouses your interest.  This process will excite you to explore more and expand your understandings.  It is an approach to acting and learning that engages your participation and stimulates your imagination.  It is a very effective skill builder.  

GET ONE-ON-ONE FEEDBACK

In the ‘PREMIER’ format you will have ONE-ON-ONE coaching and feedback.  Just upload your recordings of your exercises for very personal assessment by professional director Richard Sarell.  

1) Learn how to build a character effectively

Throughout the history of acting tools that create a character are complicated and vague. These new techniques will enable you to create a believable character quickly. Managing character choices efficiently is the key to being an effective TV actor. You can learn to do it in seconds.

2) Be able to change the character without affecting other content

Character is a separate entity that should be managed in its own right.  You will be able to make huge changes to character if your director or casting director is looking for something different without changing the character's role in the story.

3) Understand how to create a character that audiences like

Casting Directors and Directors know that actors who deliver engaging performances are hard to find. If you can totally engage an audience with your performance, the professionals who want to hire you will instantly recognize your skills.

4) Gain a modern understanding of Stanislavski techniques

This is a no bullshit approach to traditional theories. It cuts through the complexities of other acting processes and explains them in a simple common sense language. You will be empowered by your new understanding of Stanislavski process. This is an acting process that makes sense.

5) Try exercises that develop your expertise

Amazingly effective exercises will both build your skill and expand your understanding.  This is an inventive and productive approach to learning how to create a character.

1) Essential performance skills for communicating to an audience

Relating to the camera in a way that engages the audience makes it clear what the key to all good public speaking is

2) Keeping an open and spotaneous approach to charm your audience

Often the techniques that are taught are artificial.  Here you will learn simple practical skills that utilize the strengths of your personality

3) How to cope with stresses and distractions so you stay relaxed and real

Managing nerves and understanding what generates them is a fast track to success.

4) Understanding the production process and how a presenter fits into it

Working with a director who has experience directing current affairs and documentary means you will learn a professional approach to dealing with time constraints and other distractions.

5) Interviewing skills that give polished engaging results

Understanding the interviewers job is the key to doing engaging, spontaneous and entertaining interview whether on stage or on screen.  

6) Performing promos, coping with voice overs and autocue

Some specific areas require specific skills.  This course introduces a practical approach to these issues.