Imagination.

The mind's creativity and resourcefulness in using and inventing images, analogies, etc.; poetic or artistic genius or talent.

She moves in the higher realms of the creative imagination.  A. Noyes Pageant of Lett

All actors know how to access and use its great source of creativity. One of the four pillars of acting along with Memory, Immediate Response, and Observation.

Read More

Ease and Grace.

Ease: In comfort, without anxiety or annoyance, unconstrained, unembarrassed. Facility as opposed to difficulty.
Grace: Refined elegance of manner, expression, form, or movement. Regarded as natural or effortless.

She moved through the water with effortless grace.

A state where we play seemingly effortlessly and the scene just flies by. The highest level of work is done like this.

Read More

Unconscious.

The unconscious mind (or the unconscious) consists of the processes in the mind which occur automatically and are not available to introspection, and include thought processes, memories, interests, and motivations. Subconscious and unconscious are synonyms.

Unconscious creativity through conscious technique. Constantin Stanislavski

Making the affect of the unconscious on your acting a habit.

Read More

Space.

The volume or dimensional extent that is, or may be, occupied by a particular thing. The physical or mental sphere within which a person lives or operates; a mental position or state of mind.

The reason why I can say that so boldly is because they give me my space. They let me be me.
- Gossip, 1981

All our conceptions are defined by conditions of time and space.
- Gospel of Life, B. F. Westcott


It can be many things – the actual place where we are acting with out fellow actors, the movie industry including agents, casting and producers, and the actor’s mind that grows with experience. Where we work, live and practice. It’s where we are. What we need to occupy.

Read More

Protocol.

The original record or minutes of a transaction, negotiation, examination…a formal or official statement of a proceeding. In extended use: the accepted or established code of behaviour in any group, organization, or situation.

Environmentalists want Clinton..to go further by encouraging the immediate negotiation of a protocol that would commit industrialized nations to a 25 percent reduction of greenhouse gases..by 2005.
Mother Jones, January, 1973

To be professional means to follow protocol. The actor’s protocol is set partially by the union agreement, movie-making precedent and set etiquette. When the protocol is broken professionalism is difficult to maintain.

Read More

Iconic.

Of or pertaining to an icon, image, figure, or representation…memorial statues and busts executed according to a fixed or conventional type.

The opening scene of Ingmar Bergman's 1957 masterpiece is one of the most iconic images in cinema history.  Empire, December, 2002

Many Hollywood movies are similar. As working actors we need to quickly recognize what is typical – iconic – in order to fulfil the writer’s idea.

Read More

Repetition.

The action of repeating or reiterating something in order to fix or retain it in the memory.  Any of various training exercises or activities which are repeated as part of a series or set.

Of the new details he learned he could only retain a few, and those only by continual repetition.

One aspect of getting better is quantity and repetition gives you that. On set or in class the more you repeat, the more practice you have. Repetition is often boring and tiring.

Read More

Coherence.

Harmonious connection of the several parts, so that the whole ‘hangs together’. Consistency in reasoning, or relating, so that one part of the discourse does not destroy or contradict the rest

He says great and noble things with infinite wit, but with little or no coherence.

As we practice and work we move from incoherence to coherence.

Read More

Core.

The central or innermost part, the ‘heart’ of anything.

‘the little plot of ground in the very core of a capital’

This word means the essence of what you need to be in front of the camera – the seed. The source, the beginning, the base from which you let us see you. We can also call it our centre. This ‘core’ has to be developed first before one adds accents, character work, motion capture technique etc.

Read More