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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Contrary in nature, character, or tendency; the converse of a fact. diametrically different; having or expressing a contrary view, argument, etc.

Ariel is the extreme opposite of Caliban.

Opposites always serve us well in acting. It allows us to ask a most useful question that expands the work – what is the opposite of this?

Aristotle, in his Poetics, defines peripeteia as "a change by which the action veers round to its opposite, subject always to our rule of probability or necessity." ... Aristotle says that peripeteia is the most powerful part of a plot in a tragedy along with discovery.

The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world.

‘consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain’

We talk of proper practice or deliberate practice when we are in acting class. Consciousness is a key element to have while participating – while practicing. The old adage of - how do you get to Carnegie Hall? practice, practice, practice - doesn’t hold up as one needs to have proper practice – which includes consciousness.