Acting. It looks all natural and straight forward. I've done some self-tapes and done some acting and discovered that it's really hard to appear natural.
This is why I can't dance unless it's choreographed. I'm suddenly aware of my entire body and unable to make it do more than "look like many neurons misfiring all at once."
I used to work at a Shakespeare company, and we had a senior member who liked to say to young actors, moments before we made an entrance, "Don't think about your hands."
Absolutely. Someone did an analysis’s of Martin Freeman’s acting and my god the number of factors involved in a very plain scene of him doing nothing were crazy. The way he leans, uses his eyes and mouth and so many other micro expressions that contributed to making the scene normal.
It came up on YouTube sometime after his after his Fargo season. I can’t seem to find it now. It wasn’t a big channel I don’t think, maybe it’ll popup on my feed randomly again hopefully.
There’s a scene in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where he’s just walking into a room, but he’s doing this dopey little point with one finger and it’s very funny.
It's kind of harder to see in this YouTube transfer, but how Harrison Ford handles his hands in this scene while walking away from the tape machine made go "this guy is a genius". The way he leaves his fingers on it and then lets one stay on and then slide off was definitely intentional.
For people who dont know the movie, the whole premise of the move is based around the tape recording.
One thing I try to do, as a casual improv actor, is have a prop with my hands.
I did an audition tape for an unpaid thing recently, and I held a piece of paper that was supposed to look like a script, but had a visual joke printed on it.
When you have something to do with your hands, even to start with, it helps you know what to do with your hands when you don't have anything in them.
Studying Charlie Chaplin helped me to understand physical acting. How to embody a character. But it was the realization that for the most part good acting comes down to a certain level of twitchiness... tensing the eyes at the right time, the fraction of a second snarl, subtle tiny movements that people don't usually think about because they occur naturally. Go back and watch some of your favorite actors, odds are you notice those twitchy micro expessions, really study the actors subtle little twitches. Then watch bad acting and note the lack of such subtle nuances.
In my acting experience (lots, but no big movie roles, but a lot of masterclasses and lessons etc), it’s about becoming the character.
“Method acting” is really the main kind of acting. Setting aside all the flashy “I’m the joker even off set” stuff, it’s about understanding the character, their background, their motivations, their temperament. You have to set aside “You”, and become the kind of character/person who would do X thing.
Why would a mother be willing to risk her life and even her values for her child? 🤔 what would such a character be capable of?
Or a cowardly character, what is their main driving force? Self preservation? Even at the cost of betraying your friends? How would they think? How would they move?
It’s all about exploring different roles and temperaments. :) playing pretend, like with imaginary objects and places that aren’t visually there, but emotionally there. An actor shouldn’t need the flashy car explosions to express the true fear of dying—so it’s paramount that they get into the scene mentally and emotionally.
“In the zone”, “flowstate”. When doing certain scenes, even if im just in front of a camera or class in an otherwise empty room, if you did it right, an emotionally charged scene should leave you moved. Fearful, tearful, shaky, anxious, whatever emotions you’re trying to convey. It’s best if you really can BECOME that character. You cant just decide “oh i know this character is stupid but that’s dumb so im going to do whatever i want”. You have to be willing to understand your character, even if they do things you never would.
This is what lets an actor get into their character to the point that you’re not rehearsing your movements and “lip quivers”, it’s real. It’s not about timing an eye twitch.
It’s about feeling so driven with emotion that the twitch happens because of it.
I hope that explains it a bit! 😁 there’s always more to it but that’s how actors do it.
Ive seen scene partners be too preoccupied about whether the camera gets their “good side” or if they look pretty as they cry, and it’s obvious, every time.
Sure, but again good actors achieve the twitchiness. Acting is emoting, emotions express themselves as subtle twitches, an involuntary catch in the throat as you speak. If you ain't twitching nobody cares.
There are many bad actors who think that conveying intensity just requires them to look rapidly from one eye to the other (of the person they’re talking to) repeatedly. It’s so vampire diaries.
I just get entirely distracted by the fact that I'm shaking from head to toe, and by the fact that everybody hates me and will mock me for years to come. So saying lines and moving it's not an issue, since inside my head my soul is begging for death.
It’s like when you have to walk on stage to accept an award or do a speech or something and you suddenly realise you have no idea how to walk, how to swing your arms and what to do with your head.
The more I see accomplished VAs at work, the more I notice them act as they would if they were on camera - there’s a lot of physicality in good voice acting
A lot of them are trained theater actors or just regular film actors who never landed big roles. The competition for getting VA work is insane and doesn't pay very well unless you're one of the dozen or so mega stars that end up in EVERY project.
Even doing impressions can be hard. Anybody who says they can do impressions it's always the same culprits. Mickey mouse where they just do a high voice and the laugh, goofy where they jsut say gwarsh and schwartzenger where they jsut yell GOT TO DA CHOPPA.
I entertained my kids by imitating a late Finnish comedian Jope Ruonansuu and best anchor phrase to find his accent was apparently really throaty "öhö öhö". I think you could spell it in English like "a her a her" with silent r:s.
Not really. A really good arnold impressionist is Josh robert Thompson who's great at doing an arnold impression because he can do Arnold just talking.
skip to around the 40 seconds and you can hear it. Also Red Letter media is great and he's been a great guest when he goes on. He does a good George lucas too.
i think you don't even get the immersion of being in a set or even surrounded by other actors and bouncing off of them.
idk if all voice acting is the same but i saw some people say they're handed a large stack of papers and with no context they have to act out these scenarios doing the same take dozens of times
It varies.. Much of the time, the animation for what's being voiced is available in a rough sketch/wireframe form (and on rare occasions fairly complete animation), so they can see the action behind what's being said, which is a major prompt for how to do the performance.
Other times, it's just pure studio work, and the animators will have to work in the action to match the final voice lines.
Voice acting for a game design class was how I discovered I’m not just monotonous, I’m the noticeably autistic kind of monotonous. Doesn’t matter how expressive I try to be, deadpan is all I’ve got.
Unfortunately I am very expressive and have great inflection in my own head but apparently not out loud. I can come out sounding very harsh, not at all excited, upset, deadpan instead of sarcastic, you get the point. It’s led to some insane misunderstandings over the years.
I have read books upon books to my child for years, always trying to really voice the characters. I finally realized I'm a competent narrator, which is NOT the same as being a good VA. It's SO HARD.
Which is funny cause the dude is an incredible actor. First wrestling (which is a huge live performance) and then his film career.
Obviously he plays a lot of similar characters over and over but when you see him flip to something else like in the Jumanji movies etc he absolutely nails it.
Some are typecast, some are mediocre actors, and some just take the roles they enjoy at this point in their career.
Also, some of those mediocre actors have a lot of charisma/screen presence as that one character, so they're great at what they do, even if what they do isn't to lose themselves into every character.
On the flip side it's amazing how much acting, even at extremely amateur levels, can help you with speaking to people, speaking in front of people, job interviews, etc.
It’s so true. Part of the reason I have my current job is because my acting background made me a good public speaker. I can speak clearly confidently, and I have zero stage fright as long as I know what I’m talking about.
Acting is an art in that it's not really supposed to resemble real life. Attempting to takes a lot of effort like life drawing. And even that isn't "real real" life. Acting is supposed to have a purpose. Tell a story. Say as much as possible with as little as possible. It's very intentional. Like any art. The illusion is that it is "believable" that someone can behave that way. So that's the key word. Art is not "real" it's "believable."
And "real" natural behaviors doesn't necessarily look good on screen.
Like if you just video real people they're not achieving any of the things acting is supposed to do.
Being "natural" is more like a flavor of acting. Because it doesn't at all feel natural to do. And if you really think about it it doesn't seem natural. It's just a style that is more common nowadays. That's way it's so hard because people think it means to try to not seem like your acting. You have to LEARN to act then learn to act in this style. If you were actually being natural then you're not acting. It makes sense when you think of it that way I think.
It’s similar to realism in prose fiction. Writing a ‘realistic’ novel still takes an incredible amount of groundwork and application. It’s not the ‘default’ style that pours out when you sit down to write. It’s an achieved effect just as much as fantastical or lyrical prose is, when the writer noticeably ‘turns it up’.
Realism or naturalism is the height of artifice in the arts.
Maybe it’s my ADHD and problems with daydreaming lol but I always thought I’d be really good at absolutely absorbing myself into a story and really becoming that character. I can cry easily just imagining that I’m in a particular situation, or I’m a particular person in a particular situation.
The problem ofc, is being able to do that while 20 cameras are on you on a busy set and a director and co-actors that don’t want to have to do too many takes if they don’t have to, all counting on you.
So basically one of the most crucial skills for being an actor, the ability to perform in front of an audience and not just alone or with a few others lol
As an actor the brutal reality is that you just have to be naturally good at it. If you are you are and if you aren't you aren't and no amount of lessons can change that.
You can get better sure but honestly you will still be mediocre at best I'm afraid. Thats really why only 1 or 2 people in every year at drama school make a career out of acting.
It's funny you say that because I actually ran this experiment.
I had always been an awful singer. I spent only a few weeks learning the basics of vocal techniques and vocal exercises and the results really surprised me.
It clearly moved me from awful singer to actually pretty good territory. Not nearly as good as someone who studied opera or voice for 4 years at a high level, but a very solid starting point. I stopped there because I lived in an apartment at the time and I wasn't going to become the annoying singing neighbor.
Now I actually really enjoy singing but only if I take the time to warm up first. Otherwise I can't control pitch, tone, or volume very well, which was a huge part of why I thought I couldn't sing.
But it's clear that, like anything else, if you train properly and for long enough you can sing. Barring, of course, physical problems that prevent you from using your muscles, or hearing your voice properly, etc.
Speaking as a professional singer, I think this is only partially true.
Think of it like kicking a football. Some people have a natural coordination with it, and some people seem to find it really challenging. Oftentimes, that initial aptitude then determines how much you pursue it further, which in turn affects skill level. Singing is the same - it’s just a specific kind of physical coordination that some folks have an aptitude for.
It’s almost a joke in my industry (opera) that most of the professionals were actually not the “amazing singer” in their high school or even college / university.
Back at uni my girlfriend was doing a psychology class and they had to do a video interview of someone with an addiction, or someone pretending to have one. The point was to assess the students questions not the other persons acting ability so it really didn't matter how they performed.
So we did an interview about me quitting smoking. I've never smoked in my life, I just pretended. Apparently her teacher was also right into theatre and straight up couldn't believe I'd never smoked and was just making it up, wanted her to get me to come do plays and stuff.
My best theory is I'm on the spectrum and grew up when unless you had severe behavioural issues you were at best "the weird kid", so I started learning to act normal super early. No idea how well that would translate into actual acting as I've never tried but turns out I have zero issues taking on a personality and acting it out in front of a camera at least in a casual setting.
I get nervous in front of a camera but have also been acting basically every day of my life just to be normal and very few people ever picked up on it. I was always the friend nominated to do all the talking if anyone ever needed anything lied about though like to a parent or a creepy guy, but most people just called that good people skills. I’ve got boatloads of charisma but I spend a lot of time alone so it’s not of much use.
So what’s with Juilliard and Meisner and all the other names I don’t remember, what are they teaching? There must be a way to improve — we’ve seen it happen with certain actors, especially over something like a seasons long tv show.
You do realise Julliard is a school and Meisner was a teacher. What's your point? You have talent and you study and you go out there and maybe have a career (if luck hits you). If you don't have it you don't have it. If they are cast in the first place then you clearly have something.
Moves to LA to become a musician, becomes semi-interested in acting simply because he's drinking buddies with a pre-fame Nicholas Cage.
Goes to an audition to support his friend (who is actually trying to get the role), auditions and gets picked because the directors daughter thought he was good looking. Lands nightmare on elm street with essentially zero professional training.
This was always crazy to me until I had to make student films with terrible actors. It seems so simple to just be you, or stay in a character, but some people genuinely lose all charisma when you get a camera in front of them. I still don't understand how someone with a big personality can turn into a mouse on a dime, it baffles me. Acting is like the easiest thing to do, you just read lines, but some people just freeze up.
Also, once you get in to it, it's almost like stage acting and screen acting are totally different disciplines. If you really whisper naturally on stage, even the front row is probably going to miss your lines. Yet if you do a stage whisper while inches away from the face of a scene partner in film or television, it's going to play badly in close up shots. Perhaps the main reason they haven't properly diverged is the tradition of "live before a studio audience" productions where screen actors had to incorporate some stage techniques to engage with those live audiences.
It's the listening part that really separates amateurs from the pros. Most people when they try it are just visibly waiting for their cue so they can say their next line, whereas great actors look like they're hearing the words for the very first time on take 20.
I was the actor/drama queen of my family as a kid and then I took an actual acting class in college and almost failed 😭 my professor was like a director or something. One of my classmates was even in a Doritos commercial.
I can confirm. Acted when I was younger, saw myself on tape and it was Yogurt commercial levels of acting. It is extraordinarily hard.
Mostly we think it is easy because we are usually exposed to the best of the best who make it look easy, but I recommend you watch some straight to DVD shlock and you will be appalled at what you see, then remember those are people who have been taking acting lessons and working at their craft for years.
Seriously. I'm reminded of various critiques of some actors over the years, where they get all particular, saying that he/she has no range and always play themselves and what not. Um, no, man. Even doing that bit and being the single likable personality that they are is a skill.
I’ve tried it too, and yeah, acting is one of those things that looks effortless right up until you actually have to do it. Making something feel natural on purpose is ridiculously hard.
I read the Micheal Richards memoir recently and the way he came about basing Kramer on being a dog was pretty neat but the thought process into action is quite incredible.
This part. I’ve studied it and worked at it for nearly 30 years now and it is incredibly difficult to maintain presence in the moment, not try to “do” something.
Im not an actor and not the person you’re asking. But I’ve gathered acting is supposed to be a natural dialogue. If you’re just repeating your lines you’re doing it wrong. It’s about getting into the actual conversation in front of you and being invested in feeling what the character is feeling at that moment and truly reacting to the other character as if their emotion is real. It should all be a flow of just being in a real situation but the lines are already written.
That is, don’t act. Just be the character and react to your partners as that character. We all play characters in real life if you think about it long enough.
Actors need to be focused on their partner rather than themselves is a subtle part of it.
Similarly, lying. People think they can do it when needed, but the vast majority are pretty terrible at it, especially when pressed by anyone who knows how to dig a little.
Whenever you think acting is easy, ask yourself how Steve Buscemi commands the kind of money he does. Ask yourself why Ben Affleck is as terrible at acting as he is. It's not like he doesn't have access to great acting teachers. It's not like he can't afford great teachers. It's not like he hasn't been doing this for a very long time. So why is he bad at it?
Acting isn't easy. Most people are terrible at it.
Everyone thinks they can act, until they have to act. They have no idea the level of skill involved. People like Olivia Colman are gods as far as I’m concerned.
Same, or perhaps even more so, with voice acting as well. I have one of the deepest voices in the world, so fuckin' EVERYONE tells me I should be a voice actor. I ended up doing some fandub of a badass video game boss for fun, and it ended up being significantly harder than I expected to simply make it sound decent. In fact, I really had to BECOME the character. If I found myself trying to SOUND like a badass character, I would basically delete that recording without even checking to see if it sounded good, and I had to put myself in the mind of that character and BECOME it, which was not easy. Needless to say, I don't have enough passion to put effort into becoming a voice actor, and that fandub will forever be a one-time thing.
I was watching La La Land recently, and the scene where Emma Stone is doing the audition with her phone really brought home to me what an absolute skill acting is. https://youtu.be/AbhNXMPP4eI
I think that's why so many famous actors are known for just playing themselves. Tom Cruise, Jason Statham, the Rock, Ryan Reynolds, etc. Meanwhile the real actors, the chameleons, are guys like Daniel Day Lewis. There's not many of them.
Everyone imagines how easy it would be to act when you're on set surrounded by world class actors. They don't understand that all those people are there because they can act that good while alone in a white box
It’s really apparent when you get (non-actor) celebrity cameos on TV shows and some of them are just so incredibly stilted and wooden and unnatural sounding. Even bad actors tend to be better than that.
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u/1tacoshort 1d ago
Acting. It looks all natural and straight forward. I've done some self-tapes and done some acting and discovered that it's really hard to appear natural.