Bryce Harrison 5/27/2016
PETER VALENTINO ACTING STUDIO
Key student notes: observations and analysis
- The “Yes And” strategy: Everything in acting stems from the foundational understanding of the practicum of “yes and.” “Yes” is the acknowledgement of what your scene partner just said. “And” is the inventive content you improvise that spins off something specific your scene partner has previously said in the improvisation.
- The Actor must be in tuned with their ears as they listen and pay attention to all details of the proximity, even the elements not visible in the proximity.
- Go further with the new elements being introduced in the improvisational conversation, add something new based off the specificity of your listening.
- The Actor must be working towards increasing their IQ. This will build a broader subconscious pool of information to draw upon during an improvisation
- The actor must be able to think on their feet efficiently.
- “We don’t stay on one topic in a normal human conversation. We are working towards naturalness.” – Peter Valentino.
- “Improvisation is writing.” – Peter Valentino.
- Adapt the complete physical behavior of your character. The Actor must always keep reference to that.” – Peter Valentino.
- Amplify your emotional engagement, for your body will instinctually follow your emphasis on the emotional breath.
- Each script is a new form of magic.
- Each experience is the envelopment into a new threshold.
- The actor listens with their eyes, body, and mind; Employ the breath to drop you into the flow.
- Breathe accordingly to the details of the proximity.
- The actor is constantly training their minds eye.
- “What’s the moment before? You’ve got to know what literally just happened.” – Peter Valentino.
- Listen to your scene partner, they will give you the answers that spark your authentic response.
- Acting is hard work, and if it was easy then everyone would be an actor. Which is particularly interesting because everyone in their life is an actor. In fact, we are all actors. All humans are public performers. The actor is mirroring life, so increase your study of human nature and play closer attention to detail.
- “Specificity is the essence of art, and generality is the death of it.” – Peter Valentino.
- The actors body speaks. It is through the physicality and breathing of the character that makes it believable and authentic.
- “Be fully committed with the body.” – Peter Valentino.
- “We play scripts here; not actors.” – Peter Valentino.
- “More often than not the scene contains some sort of status game.” – Peter Valentino.
- The Actor is cooperatively creating as an organic piece to a bigger whole: their scene partners, proximity, scene, story, and authentic being.