Saturday 3/26/2016
Peter Valentino Acting Studio
Actor training for film and television in Los Angeles
Bryce Harrison: Notes and Analysis
- In actor training we are in the pursuit of getting back to our autonomic responses. You are on the quest to unleashing your true instincts and spontaneity through relinquishing all of these habits and ideals that society foists upon us. Deepen your connection to nature and its true origins.
- Listening takes us out of our nervousness and it brings you into the moment. Just notice and respond.
- There’s no prize in saying your lines too fast. It is an intellectual mistake and the script must be slowed down and transformed into real/natural life through your actor instrument (YOU and your whole body: internally and externally).
- You’ve got to slow things down and take things in internally. Let things hurt, always play the love, and always start with the breath.
- Give things more space to discover. Discovery is essentially the search in your mind, it is also referred to as “doing the math” in your head; imagining and creating the life in your expressive mind.
- Get to feeling more natural by feeling more internally.
- Understand the triggers in life and in your scene. Perhaps touching that doorknob reminds you of your character’s wife that passed away so you take a second to breathe and make some discovering memory of her. (a hypothetical example). “That affects me, then I breathe into it.” – Peter Valentino.
- Let the emotional reality come in, let the emotional reality seep into you.
- Know every single detail in the script: Immense script analysis. But always keep the freedom to trust your instincts and be naturally original in construct.
- Develop actor power in your whole body. Physical dexterity and range is directly linked to emotional dexterity and range.
- Don’t go over the top with the things. Less theatrical stuff and make it as congruent to life as possible.
- An American actor by nature is egotistical and lacks articulation. Disdain this ideal and prove the stereotype wrong in your actor training if you are really after master of the craft.
- Learn the power of evoking through your performance projection.
- Find your level. Think and feel with your whole body.
- Paraphrasing lines in your own terms helps you further your grasp of understanding not only your characters, but the other characters and the story as a whole.
- Learn expressions from different cultures, socioeconomic classes, and the various personalities in human nature.
- Increase your neurotic impulse.
- Always keep escalating and deepening your internal emotions. Start with the breath and go internal first. The exterior projection of your character will fulfill itself if you start with the internal breath.