Principles of Acting

Thursday 12th January 2012

Today we learnt about The Stanislavski System. It has 10 Elements.
1. The Given Circumstances
2. The magic if
3. Imagination
4. Concentration - Outter, Inner, Outter World.
5. Relaxation
6. Truth or disbelief
7. Units of objectives
8. Effective sense memory
9. Communion
10. Adaptation.

We also learnt the 7 levels of tension
1. The Jellyfish
2. The Californian
3. Neutral
4. Alert
5. Suspense
6. Passionate
7. Tragic

We learnt to improvise, firstly some people had to open a letter and react on the spot to what it said, whether it was good or bad news. Then we were told to sit on a chair and get into a zone where we could imagine sitting in a french cafe. French music was on in the background which helped us connect. We then had to pick up our cups of coffee from the floor and examine it. Smell it, taste it, the texture of the cup and the coffee. Then Gavin gave us dark chocolate and we had to do the same with that. After that exercise we put the coffee and chocolate under our chairs and then had to go back into that zone in the french cafe and pretend we had the cup of coffee and chocolate in our hands. We had to imagine we could smell, feel and taste it. This was helping our imaginations as actors.