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Acting Etudes Revisited With Love and Compassion

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“The more alive you are, the better, and that takes a lot of realization and spontaneity. That takes a trust in yourself, a trust in other actors, and a trust in the moment.”

~ Andrew Garfield1

The Etude’s Purpose

Etudes are to acting as scales are to music, and without mastery of scales you can never go on to play master pieces. You don’t just pick up a guitar for the first time and bust out Free Bird or try to perfect swan lake after just a few ballet lessons. This sounds quite normal when we look at these talents which we know require years of practice, but when we discuss acting we just think that anyone can do anything immediately. The reason it always looks so effortless is because the people we want to emulate are masters of their craft who have practiced for countless hours. So for this reason, in acting you shouldn’t really just start and try to tackle Chekov or Tennessee Williams. 

You must also continue to practice Etudes to maintain your instrument, and maintain your ability to really commit to/follow your first impulse. I can always tell how out of practice I am after a few weeks.

And for me, it is also really about establishing a connection with my partner, whom I may have either had very limited interaction with or have never met before. I don’t go searching for a particular relationship, I take them in with physiological breath and let my subconscious do the rest, whatever happens, happens. I am still learning to truly trust the process, and trust my instrument, because I know when I have either a preconceived idea of what will happen or an outcome I desire, I’ll try to force it, and when we force our acting, it becomes terrible. 

If you’ve found this blog post on etudes first, please check out my other blog on etudes that gives a bit more background information on the process here.

About the Title of this Blog

I have been doing twice weekly etude classes with the Demidov School London and it has fundamentally changed how I look at and experience etudes, and also changed how I view life, and therefore has changed my acting as well. The class is filled with talented people from all over the globe, and I highly recommend it.

At some point during class I asked my teacher, Andrei Biziorek, if I should go back and interrogate my thoughts/feelings/impulses in an etude to see where I could have done better. He told me that interrogate was too intense a word.  He said that when we look back we should do so with love and compassion in order to understand what we did and why we did it. So that is how I intend to reflect on the lessons that I have learned by taking part in an etude class for over a year now.

Below are new observations that I’ve had while practicing. It’s important to note that these are my observations and some quotes from my acting teacher that I found poignant in the moment. I have tried to give the quotes as much context as possible to ensure an accurate representation. If there is any inconsistency or things don’t flow very well, know that the fault lies with me. I hope that what I have observed can lead to better discussion on technique and the actor’s process.

My Etude Beginning

When I first started my acting journey, etudes were terrifying to me, not like monster scary but really a fear of the unknown. Between not knowing what was going to happen and not wanting to piss off my teacher by not doing a good job, as I sat in the class and waited for my turn I would think of interesting things to do, to think, and to convey when I was finally given the chance to perform.

This was not fair to myself or my partner. I did not give my whole self to the scene, effectively shutting out my scene partner, and therefore I robbed myself of moments to grow and learn. I know that it wasn’t until a few years later that I really let myself be free during an etude and found what my teacher was trying to cultivate. So if you take anything from my ramblings, it is to relax and let the process do its job.

Thoughts on having two classes per week

I consider myself a creative. I don’t work a 9-5 job, and honestly I don’t know if I ever could. But taking two classes (only six hours) a week really helped me up my game. 

  • Two classes a week forces me to be creative even when I don’t feel like it, and it is that kind of consistency that will move you forward, and prove to yourself that you are in fact a professional. 
  • I took more creative risks. I became less precious with my time in class. I no longer felt the need to be perfect because class time was no longer so rare, if I messed up I could do it again in a few days after thinking about what went wrong and actually improve/try a different way
  • I come straight home from work and within ten minutes I’m on the call for the class, this means I have to do vocal warm ups in my car. This has become very useful for days when I have self tapes that I need to do immediately after work.

Vulnerability and Connection

The biggest area that I think I need to improve on in my acting right now is in being emotionally vulnerable with my partners. It’s hard, the military and society have conditioned me to be the exact opposite. (Particularly, it is particularly harder for me to be vulnerable with other men, and I feel the same coming from them, which is really down to self limiting beliefs.) While I know I have come a long way, I still have light years to go.

I have found a correlation between vulnerability and connection though. There are etudes that sometimes feel like I am close enough to be their brother or boyfriend, and there are other etudes where I feel like I don’t know my partner at all.

After thinking about the difference between these extremes, I feel what separates the way these feel is the vulnerability each person allows. If both partners are emotionally vulnerable and open to their partner, really hearing what is being said, and being present the odds of connection are very high. Now this means that if an actor isn’t vulnerable or open, I believe that there can be no connection. With some of my partner’s I’ve felt like they were wearing a mask, not trying to be something they weren’t, but not giving of their whole selves. I think because of this my subconscious immediately calls bullshit because it can tell something about our interaction isn’t genuine, and I think that if I am not fully open the same thing happens to my partner, so its a bit of a death spiral.

How to Assign the Lines

The first step in an etude is assigning the lines, and we do this by repeating them. When we repeat the lines we are preparing the lines in your subconscious. The meaning is found in the moment without my interference.  The words are completely elastic and can mean anything depending on our emotional state.

I have seen how many people take in the lines and try to commit them to memory, and to me there has only been one way that makes sense and produces the results that we want, which is to be able to make the lines really mean anything when they’re said and to to have no preconceived (even unconscious) way that we want to say them. The way to say the lines is to be as neutral (I also say monotone sometimes) as possible. I don’t understand the reasoning behind it, but when done repeatedly it puts the lines into the back of your mind without any specific way that they’re supposed to come out. This is essential to the etude process.

I have seen other actors change the inflection into something unnatural when they repeat their lines, as if to be so unnatural that their mind cannot possibly believe that how they are saying it is how it’s supposed to come out. Now one reason this doesn’t work for me is that I am more focused on trying to change the inflection of my voice to throw off my mind than I am on my partner and what they are saying. In some instances my teacher will have us do one last repetition of the lines, slowly just to make sure that we really feel and hear our partner when they speak.

Stage directions within the lines:

You can actually assign actions the same time you assign lines. This is something that I still don’t truly understand and need more practice with, but from what I have experienced so far this plants a seed in your subconscious that will make you want to perform the action without thinking about it!

Some examples of stage directions you may encounter:

  • I come in
  • I am alone
  • I don’t speak for a moment
  • Dot dot dot

It is very important to remember that you can assign what action to perform, but not how you do it. If you assign how you will do something it becomes inorganic and stale because you’ll have a preconceived idea of what you want to happen.

Emptying

After you have learned your lines, you’ll empty, and being empty is hard. This means you close your eyes and shut off your brain for two to three seconds to clear your mind. The reason it is two to three seconds is because this is about as long as you can go without a thought. When you open your eyes it is almost like a fresh start and you take in your surroundings and your partner for the first time.

Now you may have a feeling of some kind before you empty, and after you empty it may still be there, that is fine. You are not trying to erase how you feel, but to give your mind a clear break and then picking up on whatever comes to it first after emptying. 

I have found that when I do not empty properly and I come in with an idea on how things should go there is an extreme disconnect with my partner and I, and it is very apparent during our discussion about the etude afterward and finding common ground about our experience within the etude is very difficult. While this may not always be the case I find when we have wildly varying experiences and ideas on our relationship then I had failed to let go of my preconceived notions.

Once you get good at emptying it will become super quick

Following your Impulses

“You see someone who is just following his impulses, every single impulse is raw, and it’s real, and it’s vulnerable and grotesque and beautiful, and it’s poetic.” – Andrew Garfield2

If you are unsure what impulses are as they refer to acting, you can check out this post here: https://kylejerichow.com/2019/04/01/acting-impulses/

In life we don’t act on our first impulse, so we need to relearn how to surrender to the first thing which may have been beaten out of us because of societal norms. Going with your impulses means going with that first feeling you get after you empty. This feeling could come immediately and be very well defined, or it could take a little bit to notice and then take even longer to define. A key to this is after emptying, don’t look for something – just exist, just wait, don’t rush. Remember, its not just patience, its faith.

We must learn to surrender to the most mundane things, there are no restrictions, your first impulse is your most honest so you must surrender to the truth of the experience as it comes to you. Some actors will have an impulse and then judge it and say “that isn’t an interesting impulse, I’ll wait for the next one.” Your first impulse is going to be the most organic, most truthful action you can take. Because of this you must surrender 100%, even if before you know what it is.

The first experience is the lens through which you see the etude, it can change, but it tints your outlook. For example if you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, the rest of your day will be tinted by that outlook and it will have an effect on how you experience your entire day.

As soon as the etude begins you are the character. Next you will perceive something, then you will have the urge to to perform an action, and this is a result. Now sometimes we will see our partner and be unaffected by them and they’re actions/feelings, and other times we will be affected by our partners. When this happens, it becomes a “Yes and” type of situation because all we have is our point of view as a person and as a character. This means that you can be affected by your partner, but you cannot lose the original emotional life that you created. I use the phrase “yes and” from improve to illustrate that it is a building process as you both discover the etude together.

Do not worry about the words

Now when speaking lines, the words are elastic and can mean anything depending on our emotional state. For example your line may be “I love you.” You could say this in a way where you convey that you actually do love them, but you could also say it in a way that illustrates the idea that you in fact hate them.

Do not worry about being a good scene partner

As actors we have it drilled into us to be good scene partners, but sometimes this can clash with our impulses. For example, you have the impulse to leave during the etude while your partner still has lines left. Most actors would ignore the impulse to leave in order to be present for their partner’s lines. With etudes, you don’t have to worry about that. If you have the impulse to leave, then you just leave, it will all work out.

I have been on both the giving and receiving end of someone walking out and there are still lines left to deliver and every time the etude has resolved itself!

Repeating without repeating

“I was really overwhelmed. This guy is really doing something on a deeper level. He was alive. He didn’t care about doing it the same way over and over again. He was listening. He was very present. He was spontaneous, he was surprising. He wasn’t trying to do those things, he was just being present.”

Andrew Garfield on working with Ryan Gosling during a screen test.3

When we repeat an etude, we don’t want to hang on to anything. When repeating the goal is not to do the exact same thing that you just did, but to experience the etude again as if for the fist time. This means that some things will inevitably be the same, and some will be different. What you are really diving into when repeating is the circumstances of the etude. Circumstances always exist in their entirety, whether or not we are aware of them! Now, for obvious reasons, most of the time it will feel as though you’ve had this conversation before, so you therefore now have more of a past with your partner, and you discover a deeper relationship. You will also be having a conversation in the present moment. Now because you have a past and a present, there is a future as well within these circumstances!

Final Thoughts

After over a year and a half of these classes I can honestly say that I am a better actor, and not just by a little bit. I am more open, more sensitive, and able to be in the moment so much better than I was before I started these classes. But I know that I am still only at the beginning of my journey, even though I have been studying acting for over five years now. I am excited to continue the exploration of the technique that Demidov taught, and to slowly become the actor that I know I can be.

Creating My Own Luck: How I Email Casting Directors

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I have been writing to more casting directors, associates, and assistants recently and I want to share how I do it. I haven’t had a lot of auditions the casting teams don’t really know I exist and I would like to change that.  I tried doing a lot of research on what to include, not to include, and what to say, but I was surprised at how little information there was out there. So my hope is that this post can be a good jumping off point for actors looking to introduce themselves to new casting directors 

Don’t Be Nervous

I was nervous about doing this for a long time, I was afraid of bugging them or upsetting them to the point where they would not want to see me. But from what I have l gathered as long as you don’t write too often, don’t say anything offensive, and don’t trick them into opening the email you’re going to be OK. Writing to the Casting teams us part of the game, and they understand that. 

Don’t Just Write to the Casting Directors

You should also really write to the associates and the assistants. These people are usually the people doing the hard work day to day casting projects. I’m not being derogatory to CDs, when you’re the boss you have a lot more high level tasks, meetings, and people to please; so they are more than likely are not doing all the nitty gritty parts of the casting the smaller roles and day players . That being said, some can be real hands on while in other offices they are more hands off, so there are no hard and fast rules. To me though I feel more on an equal playing field with associates and assistants because we came into the industry at similar times and may even have a few shared credits from our time. Plus they are more than likely those that I have done workshops with so I have actually met them in person.

Key points

  • Be Brief and relevant
  • Do not write too often
    • To introduce yourself
    • When you have new headshots/show reel
    • If you know they’re Casting a project or specific role you fit

My OUTLINE FOR MY EMAILS

After attending a lot of events/talks with Casting directors, associates, and assistants I have put together what I think is a good list of best practices. Something to note is that all of these items are opinions and not hard and fast rules, but I do think they are a great place to start!

  • Subject: Right now for most of my emails my subject line is “New Actor Introduction” or “Thank you” because I haven’t auditioned for most offices, or to thank people for workshops that I have attended.
  • Introduction: I will always try to find the name of the person I am writing to. Most of the time I have email addresses to specific people so its not an issue, but some casting offices have the dreaded “office@castingoffice.com.” That to me is very impersonal so I will always try to find out who works on the casting team and address it to them.
  • I give them a brief run down of who I am, what I do, and the more unique attributes about me. (I used to include my age, which I shouldn’t have done, let your headshot do the talking).
    • My current first sentence is: “My name is Kyle Jerichow and I am an American Actor with a Midwestern accent living in the just outside of London in the UK, 6.2” tall, and a former US Army officer with combat experience, and I currently work behind the scenes on Film and TV doing special effects or props, because I honestly believe that movies and TV can change the world.”
  • I talk about projects they are working on or have coming up that I think I would fit in. I also will mention any projects we both have worked on.
  • I then say whether or not I have auditioned for them, or if I have done a casting workshop with them. If I’ve auditioned I’ll mention the month, name of the project, and the character I auditioned for. If I have done a workshop with them I’ll mention the month and year.
  • Spotlight Link – ensure everything is one click, everyone in casting is a lot busier than they used to be so time is precious.
  • Direct link to my show reel – One associate said that a if you can embed your show reel in the email so he can watch it immediately. I have tried to embed my show reel using Vimeo, but what that amounted to was really just a photo of my opening frame with a direct link to Vimeo. (But it is still only one click!) (Attaching files has been a no no since they take up valuable space.)
  • Who you are represented by with a link to the agency website or an email link to your agent 
  • Include an embedded headshot in body of the email. This was brought up many times. It helps all of the people you write to know who is talking to them
  • My signature block which contains:
    • My Name
    • My headshot
    • My contact number
    • link to my website
    • Links to my: Spotlight, IMDB, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn

This may seem like a lot, but my emails are usually just a few sentences and then links to all of my relevant materials and I try to be as brief as possible.

tracking the emails i send

Odds are that you will not get a reply from any of the emails you send, and this can be disheartening. I found that using an email tracker (I use Mailtrack for Gmail) is a real moral booster. I use the free version and it tells me if my emails have been opened, and sometimes when it is showing me premium features it will even tell me how many times my email has been read.

I also track every email email I send in a spreadsheet. This ensures I don’t write anyone too often and allows me to see how many people I have written so I can keep up with my numbers goal for the year.

When to send your emails

Friday afternoon I think is the best. This is the time of the week where most people are looking for an excuse to not do real work, and maybe my email is a welcomed distraction. Though I have heard an agent say that Wednesday afternoon worked best for her.

Send your email during normal business hours. One of the most common pieces of advice is to ensure that you don’t send it so they will first see it Monday morning. They’ll already have to sort through a bunch of emails and adding to the pile isn’t helpful. If you find yourself writing at weird times, which is when I always tend to for some reason, you can schedule your emails really easily. I use Gmail so it’s just a few clicks 

Keep your head up

At the time of this writing out of all the CDs I’ve written I’ve only gotten two replies. So don’t get discouraged.

Do you have any helpful hints or guidelines that you use to write to Casting Directors? Please let me know in the comments!

Method Acting Foundation: Three Pieces of Material

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Talent is cheap, there’s plenty of talent out there, but the bright, canny and realistic actors understand you have to invest in training in order to have a sustained career. ~ Dee Cannon1

Author’s Note

Welcome to part three of my blog series of Method Acting Foundation. Because the order in which these exercise are done is important if you came here first, please check out part one Method Acting Foundation: Breakfast Drink Exercise and part two Method Acting Foundation: Mirror/Make-up and Shaving.

According to The Strasberg Notes, this third exercise is only done when an actor has a block, because “If the senses aren’t functioning and only the muscles are working, the actor can’t yet experience the other exercises.”2 With that being said, my acting teacher had everyone do this exercise, I assume because not everything will work for everyone, and I cannot see the harm in doing extra sensory exercises. Also, a reminder that this exercise is not meant to produce an emotional response, if it does acknowledge it, but then move on.

Three Pieces of Material

In comparing painting to acting I used to say that to paint an apple you have to see and to sense everything about the apple before you can come to a statement about it, and that if you combined that statement with your skill you might produce a canvas that had your mark. Picasso claimed you have to eat the apple first. He clearly wanted to come to full grips with his material and digest it before he gave it shape, before his statement came into being. ~ Uta Hagen 3

We wear clothes all the time, we touch pieces of material all the time, but we don’t really notice them let alone experience them, they’re just there. What this exercise is meant to do is to work with your sense memory skills. (See Method Acting Foundation: Breakfast Drink Exercise if you need an explanation or refresher on sense memory). This kind of work awakens your senses and makes you come into the moment, experience something in the right now as deeply as you can and then being able to recall that experience in detail at a later time.

I think that now, more than ever, being able to be present and block out the bullshit (to include what is going on around you and in your head) is just about the most important skill for an actor to have. And I think James Gunn, director of Guardians of the Galaxy, also believes that.

For this exercise you need three pieces of material: silk, cotton, and itchy wool. (I went to a fabric shop and got some fairly big pieces for really cheap.) These three different materials will have dramatically different sensory impacts, and while you know that on an intellectual level, getting to this at a sensorial level is what we’re looking for. Remember, as always, go slow. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

The Exercise

  1. Do your basic relaxation. You should do this before any exercise in order to get your mind and body into a proper creative and receptive state.
  2. While the exercise is meant to be more of a study in the sense of touch, remember to carry out an inspection of the material to include your other senses. “Pick up each piece of material, examine every inch of the fabric through your senses. Be inventive and think of things to do with each piece. Questioning is the best way to elicit ideas.”4
  3. Go to your room, and I cannot stress this enough, lock the door.
  4. Get naked and touch your entire body with each piece of fabric. Remember to take your time, really slow things down. (Author’s Note: This is weird, I know. Doing this the first time was extra strange. But remember what we are looking for. Different parts of your body will react differently to the deliberate touch of each of these fabrics. So the same fabric can have multiple different feelings depending on how and where it touches.) 
  5. Complete step 4 with each kind of fabric. After completing this step, the preparatory work for the exercise is complete.
  6. Now with your clothes back on, think back on your experience with each piece of fabric. Relive and recreate the experiences you had, but without using the material, do each material one at a time. This is just like the makeup and shaving exercise you are trying to recreate the sensations, and this takes time. Like the makeup and shaving exercise do not actually touch yourself when trying to remember the feeling because if you touch yourself you are actually creating a sensation rather than trying to recreate a past sensation. This is a bit more difficult because you now have your clothes back on which means you are having your clothes touch you all over, but this is a good way to begin to work with recreating a sensation while there is a competing sensation.

Adding Lines: Taking the Experience into Your Work

Remember that you should not add lines until you have done the exercise a few times. As an actor I know you want to get into the lines, but remember in screen acting most of what is conveyed in your acting actually has nothing to do with what you say and happens between the lines. Don’t be in a rush to get to the lines.

What we are trying to do here is distill the entire experience into just a single essence. “The main object of this exercise is to experience the materials fully and really express the difference between each in the lines you have to say. Don’t be coy. Real go for it.”5 In class Brian made it a point for us to really commit to our choices and be bold in them, because usually it is easier to reign in what you are doing than to try to become more expressive.

At this point it is necessary to mention to say, “Don’t decide to change the material in the middle of the exercise if it isn’t working. (this is true, incidentally of all the exercises.) You must stay with your original choice of material and fully investigate.”6

My Experience With the Exercise

When I did this exercise I used soft knit cotton. After the exercise, during the basic relaxation I concentrated on my experience with the material and made an immediate connection to the super comfy jersey sheets I used to own. So now if I focus my attention to thinking about jersey sheets and I began to yawn and feel tired. Its actually really cool to me to have a trigger word like that, its very good to have things like this in your kit bag.

When I did the exercise with itchy wool I distilled the experience to the random itches all over my body and it manifests itself in small jerks, odd muscle tension, aggressive scratching, and a bit too much energy because I am trying to suppress all of it.

Once you get the hang of this you can ask yourself what material represents the character I am portraying. This can lead to some interesting choices.

Links to Things Referenced in this Blog:

The Method Acting Exercises Handbook by Lola Cohen

The Method Acting Exercises Handbook by Lola Cohen

The Lee Strasberg Notes edited by Lola Cohen

The Ultimate Guide to Method Acting: How to make your acting powerful, authentic, exciting and moving by Brian Timoney

In-Depth Acting by Dee Cannon

Respect for Acting – Uta Hagen and Haskel Frankel

My Acting Warm Up: Part 3

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This is the third part in my acting warm up series. This is how I currently do things, but I know that how I warm up will evolve over time as I learn more about acting and about myself.

Just in case if you missed the first two here they are:

My Acting Warm Up: Part 1

My Acting Warm Up: Part 2

Essentially, acting process and voice work need to be unified; alignment needs to be linked to centre, identity, and assertion; breathing needs to become responsive to impulses, vocal onset needs to identify the actor with the character; and vocal response needs to reflect the experiences of the actor/character in the present moment”1

The Beginning

  • Start from the all fours position, with head in neutral.
  • Take a deep breath, feeling your diaphragm filling and stretching.
  • As you blow out you begin to bow you back.  The movement is like trying to get the top of you head to touch your tail bone.  Both are stretching to reach one another.
  • Once you have expelled all of your breath and are in the bowed back position, begin to inhale.
  • As you inhale start to arch your back. Get a very nice deep breath and feel the full curve of your spine.
  • Do this cycle a few times.

Adding in the vocals

  • Now we add sound to the exhale with a “vvvvvv” sound.
  • After completing this, we shift to ending the sound with a vowel sound, beginning with “vvvvvaaaaaa.”
  • Then we shift into “vvvveeee.”
  • I run through each sound three times, or a bit more if something doesn’t feel right.

Pairing the voice with explosive movement

  • Now we pair the voice with explosive movement. Throw your right arm out in front of you body as if you were trying to punch someone (you don’t have to make a fist) and the apex of the movement sound with “va.” Then do the the same with the left arm.
  • Next, move your right leg back with a mule kick like motion. Again at the apex of the movement make an explosive “va” sound. Remember to really connect to your diaphragm.
  • After you’ve done both legs several times, then move to using arms and legs at the same time. Punch and kick out with opposing arms and legs. Meaning if you punch out your right arm, you kick back with your left leg.  Again at the apex of the movement make an explosive “va” sound. Do this movement several times per side.
  • Now,  we will shift to throwing both arms up. Staying on all fours push your chest up and throw your hands to the sky. Making an explosive “va” sound at the apex. Do this movement several times.
  • Now, we move to the legs. Staying on all fours push your legs up so you are only on your hands momentarily. Making an explosive “va” sound at the apex. Do this movement several times.
  • Once completed, do the same movements again but with a “ve” sound.
  • This concludes waking up the voice.

Final Thoughts

You should never move into pain, so if you physically can’t do some of the movements, don’t worry.

I am going to go back and add some videos to these blog posts to make better sense of things, so next time I do a self tape I am going to block out time to make some movement GIFs.

Things Mentioned in this Blog Post

Voice into Acting

Voice into Acting: Integrating voice and the Stanislavski approach by Christina Gutekunst and John Gillett

My Acting Warm Up: Part 1

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In the next three posts I’m going to go over my basic warm up, including waking up the body with a modified roll down, voice warm up, then a voice and movement connection exercise.

The first part of my warm up is a modified roll down you’ll find very commonly in Pilates. This is a very good exercise for lengthening your spine and giving your central nervous system room to move, and a bit of a wake up call. This also is a process to see where your body is at physically in terms of tension, or anything else that may be interfering with your instrument.

“The best part of this exercise is really discovering your own body. You can really feel which areas of your spine are tight and need work… You can sense how you distribute your weight on your feet. Maybe you favour one foot over the other, or have your weight in your heels.”1

The Exercise

  • Stand with your feet slightly closer than shoulder width apart.
  • Next, we’re just going to loosen up the head, shoulders, and feet.
    • Turn head to the right then to the left, do this twice.
    • Next move your shoulders up and down, roll them backward and toward. Pick them up and drop them to release tension. do this twice.
    • Next, move down to the feet, shake them out one at a time.
    • Rock back and forth on the balls of your feet, finding your balance.
  • We will always work this way head to toe.
  • Next, imagine a string being pulled from the top of your head, and it runs through each vertebrae, but ensure you don’t lift your chin. This will help you stand up straight and align everything correctly. I still even grab the invisible string with my hand above my head and pull it tight. But if you just remember to do it, that’s enough.
  • Make sure you do not lock out your knees, we want to keep them loose, and keep your stomach loose.
  • Keep breathing throughout focusing on your diaphragm.
  • Now we start the spinal roll. first drop you chin to your chest, keep your jaw relaxed, and your arms and shoulders lose.
  • Now starting from the base of the spine where your head meets your neck, slowly start to roll down, vertebrae by vertebra. Trying to notice each vertebrae as you roll down. There are 33 bones in your spine, try to feel each one. Keep your knees soft, but not bent.
    • I have not yet been able to feel every bone, but I’m trying to listen to my body and really focus on it, and even if you never feel each vertebrae, if you’re doing that, its perfect.
  • We are going to roll until we feel our coccyx stretch. Then we’re going to just stay in this hanging position and take a few deep breaths. Feel your diaphragm expand and how it attaches to the base of your spine. Feel it stretch. Usually during this I’ll hear some cracks and pops from my lower back, as long as it doesn’t hurt, nothing to worry about. But please do remember, never move into pain.
  • Now, while still bent over, move your weight to your toes and let your back hang loosely.
  • Rock back to having the weight on the balls of your feet. Now give your arms a gentle swing and let them come to rest on their own.
  • From here start to slowly roll back up. Feeling from your coccyx each vertebrae as you roll up. Bringing your head of last.
  • Now let out a private “ha” sound. Don’t make it too loud, we’re just warming up the body, to me it sounds like a loud sigh.
  • Now, we’ll do this sequence a few times before we move on.
  • Once we’ve completed this a few times we’ll add the second part.
  • When you are at the bottom of the roll down, slowly walk your hands forward until you are in a downward dog position.  From here we do a calf stretch. I personally go right side, count to two thousand, switch to left side to two thousand and then repeat this stretch one more time.
  • After stretching the calves we move down on to all fours, making sure that our hands are under our shoulders and our knees are under our hips.
  • From here we breathe in as we bow our back. With this position you should attempt to touch your coccyx to the back of your head this will give you the correct shape (Only super humans can actually touch their coccyx to the back of their head, this is just to get you into the correct position). Then as we breathe out we shift to angry cat (arching your back). In this position try to bring your coccyx forward to your nose. Then we breathe in as we shift into the bowed back, then breathe out as go into angry cat, breath in to shift to bowed back, and finally breathe out into our last angry cat.
  • From this position we bring our feet back so that our toes are on the mat, and then we shift up into downward dog.
  • Slowly we walk our hands back until we come to the end of the roll down position where we start to slowly roll back up. Feeling from your coccyx each vertebrae as you roll up. Bringing your head of last.
  • Now let out a private “ha” sound.
  • Do this whole sequence a few times.

Final Thoughts

I hope these blogs are proving useful to people. Please let me know if they are or are not, so I can better tailor the content of the blog to meet people’s needs.

Its been a whirlwind few weeks for me, but opportunities are like buses, wait forever for one, and then BAM! My cup runneth over!

Never stop pushing. Never stop dreaming. Go get it.

Kyle

Notes

Etudes: Acting Basics

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If you find this blog post on etudes helpful, please check out my second blog on etudes containing insights gained from a year and a half of etude classes: Acting Etudes Revisted With Love and Compassion.

What is an Etude?

  • a short musical composition, typically for one instrument, designed as an exercise to improve the technique or demonstrate the skill of the player.

So how does this translate into acting? An etude is a small piece of work that over many repetitions teaches you the basic building blocks on which all of your future work will be built on. Demidov etudes – specially-designed exercises that establish an actor in the process of subconscious living onstage. The Demidov etudes foster creative spontaneity and emotional responsivity, and develop actors’ readiness to surrender to the given circumstances. In addition, Demidov etudes cultivate the habit of independent creativity.1


In a Demidov étude, a simple text is given to the actors, and nothing more. This text is designed in such a way that it is open to interpretation. It provides some of the given circumstances, but does not firmly dictate characters, relationships, place or time. The text is never discussed, but simply repeated several times by the actors. The instructor then asks partners to forget the text, to “toss it out of their heads,” and to remain empty for two to three seconds. The first impulse following the period of emptiness (be it thought, movement, sensation or mood) is obeyed by the actors – they passively surrender to it and continue to do so for the duration of the étude. What follows is a spontaneous improvisation of the circumstances (relationships, time, space, facts etc.) embodied by the actors in the course of the étude. The actors’ ability to imaginatively perceive the circumstances, the partner and the environment is cultivated in the Demidov études.2

Since the actual surroundings and the partner become the chief source for the actor’s imagination, the Demidov études – like no other exercises – open up the actors’ perceptive channels and develop their reflex of creative perception. Active behavior and emotional life occur in Demidov’s études just as they do in life – as reactions to the perceived circumstances. In addition to Demidov’s discoveries on the primacy of perception over action, his études also feature the signature “cultures” of the Demidov School, which include “emptiness” and “passivity.”3

On Creative Transformations in an Etude:4

  • Redirection into my own self
    • The actor is still himself. There has been no requirement to be any particular “character.”
  • A shift toward transformation.
    • The class environment, the teacher, the classmates, and the partner – all of this makes the actor prepare for the fact that he is entering a creative path. All of this has already “shifted” him off the fact that he is merely his own, personal self. He is already an actor.
    • Repeating the text and listening to the partner’s text “shifts” him even further.
    • And now, the text, the partner, his own state, and all the rest, evoke in the actor some first hints of new imaginary circumstances. Then the circumstances of his new life, created in his imagination solidify.
    • Alongside the circumstances and immediately following them an actor receives a new sense of self: he feels himself being somebody else – the circumstances, and new imaginary life have remade hi,.
  • Unity of the actor’s personal “self” and the emerging “character”
    • While experiencing himself as somebody else, he never loses his person “I.”
    • This total unity of the actor’s persona and of the character is a prerequisite to creative life on stage.

Etudes and the Actor’s Creative Process5

These etudes are the most accessible and direct way to explore an actor’s creative process.

A Mere observation of their flow enables us to establish:

  1. Conditions for the creative process.
  2. Conditions for its sound flow.
  3. Its errors.
  4. The scheme of the creative process: assignment – free reaction – perception – another involuntary reaction…
  5. These etudes alone made it clear that the creative process must not be compiled like a mosaic, by laying its fragments (the “elements”) together. Rather, one should not interfere with the creative process that already exists. The fact is, as soon as an actor steps out to do an etude, and the assignment has been given – creativity has already begun.
  6. When observing etudes, we notice that every attempt to break down the creative process into its constituent parts (as we used to do) leads to its destruction. Therefore, it is not just undesirable to do so, but it is impermissible.
  7. We used to make additions to what we saw in an actor. We added what we deemed missing: attention, a circle, an object, a task and so on and so forth. Our practice has taught us that, instead of adding what is not there, we must remove what interferes: excessive effort, haste, the “braking system” – “It’s correct…correct!”, “Give it a green light,” “Take your time,” etc. In short, we must proceed from the sound impulses that exists in a student; we must affirm them, rather than demand the non-existent, and thus extinguish the student’s creativity.

Key points for understanding etudes:

  • Etudes are organic character building. It’s about doing the work together
  • Don’t come into a scene and change yourself, know and understand how you are and take that to the scene.
  • No one can ever predict the directions of the etude. It will go the way it goes…
  • Tell me what happened/talk me through this one
    • Remember you are the only one that knows what is going on inside your head, so it is not what you are thinking about that is the chief concern, it is that you are thinking.  And by thinking the audience will see your process, and you won’t be focused on an end result.
  • Take your time, don’t rush.
    • These exercise are designed to help all actors, but they really help beginning actors learn what a real impulse is versus what a fake impulse is. This is a key building block for
    • When you’re living you are not expecting a scene to occur.
    • Understand why you’re saying the lines. The scene gets done itself – it will happen as a result of what happened.
    • Get your intellect out of the way → it will change everything
    • Be available to respond
  • You need to have depth to your explanations
    • If you can’t answer what do you think about that person, then you’re not doing the work.
      • Who is this person
      • What do they mean to me
      • What do they make me feel
    • All the answers are in you scene partner, actively seek what is going on with the other person. The answers are in front of you, that person is here to help you solve the problem.
      • Don’t play an idea, you’ll go blind to the other person
      • When you do a back story  it becomes harder to stay real/in the moment.
    • Perceive the person, not a character.
    • When looking to find out what’s going on
      • What is going on, and how can I take it further
      • What’s at stake
      • The relationship between the characters
      • Flights of fancy – this is where you create the imaginary circumstances in which you find yourself during the etude. It doesn’t matter if your partner has imagined different circumstances.  An individual artist is unique, has a unique perspective. What is important is that you take what your partner is giving you and then use that as you continue. The moment is a fluid process, not just at the beginning, keep constantly adapting.
      • Why is how we get deeper, we get better answers, and complexity. Keeping asking “why.”
      • What is taking my attention, why, then go further
  • You are the character:
    • All of the teacher’s questions suggest that my “I” – the seeing, feeling, thinking “I” of the actor – is always present and always participates in the creative process. Moreover, it is the main participant in the process.
  • Wipe the slate clean
    • When you wipe the slate clean, there can be similarities, but you are just playing what is in front of you.
    • There is no scenario, no given circumstances.
    • Accept reality first, accepting your actual reality will help you relax.
    • First accept reality before you can go into a fantasy world or you’ll reject the imaginary world.
    • Let go of preconceived notions, create.
  • Don’t judge your impulses, just feel them and execute them.Don’t judge the impulse – we need to take it so that it lives. If you judge an impulse you will not take it immediately, and then think about it if you should do it or not. If you start to think like this you’ll never actually do anything.
  • Follow through with the impulse, don’t judge it and stop halfway through.
  • Commit to it, don’t be wishy washy.
  • Things of high standard take time.

So here is this method, in general terms, speaking primitively:
6

  1. FIRST stage: calm repetition of the text (without “acting,” just to remember).
  2. SECOND stage: “putting the text out of your head” – so as to forget everything, as far as possible, for one-two-three seconds, to silence your imagination, to become “empty,” to turn into a virginally white sheet of paper on which nothing is written.
  3. THIRD stage: I quit interfering with myself- I no longer arrange for any “emptiness.” In this instance, my life begins or, rather, returns to me. When I interfered with myself, it was as if it were not there: I did not see or hear; there were no thoughts – it was a second of “confusion.” And now everything goes back to normal: thoughts come; I start to see objects; things I perceive evoke certain attitudes (as the aforementioned sunlight spot on the wall, and now this young actress). I begin to hear the noise of the street, the music next-door, the movement of the neighboring actor’s chair. I feel the cold or the heat; I experience my posture being comfortable or uncomfortable. None of it should be fought. There should be no interference: thoughts flow, feelings change from one to another – this is what life happens to be at the moment. Nothing more and nothing less. To this, and this alone, I must surrender. “Let all of this live on its own.” I have nothing to do with it. And here it comes.
  4. THE FOURTH stage: Apparently, the words of the etude you just repeated are not lost – they were just waiting for their time, and are starting to break out. Their first appearance is vague and indistinct; they don’t sit on the tip of your tongue; they do not even occupy your thoughts. Yet for some reason, your imagination arranges out of your surroundings – people and objects – a very particular set of circumstances. These circumstances will, in a minute or earlier, make all these words quite handy.  In short, the repeated text organizes the entire etude on its own, bypassing any conscious, rational fabrication. Apparently the text has not been forgotten, and it is doing its job. And here it comes.
  5. FIFTH stage: one must have the courage to give into all of this. To give in entirely, without looking back.

Perception Occurs Involuntarily, by Itself7

  • At times, an actor gets so carried away in the course of an etude, he misses the partner’s lines and responds to them at random. I would use this pretext and ask:
    • What did she really tell you when she said these words?
    • I don’t know, really…I missed it – he would frankly admit (Or else, he would say something incorrect – after all, he did not really hear her.)
    • No need to be embarrassed. Did you really make a mistake? You were busy with something else. You could not hear her.
  • If you forced yourself to listen, you would do something you did not want to do. This truly would have been a mistake. In life, when we are passionate about something, do we not often miss what we are told; do someone else’s words not fall on our deaf ears? This is a normal way of life.
  • Sometimes it is regrettable that he missed something significant coming from his partner, and this shortchanged the etude a bit. Nevertheless, it is best to make this temporary sacrifice – so far as the student is learning to live freely and naturally on stage. [A careful attitude toward the partner’s lines is developed later, by adding and clarifying the circumstances (as indicated in Part Four of this book). Author’s Note]
  • Even when we watch something keenly, it happens on its own, without any effort on our side. It happens when we find something particularly interesting.
  • Our senses are in perfect order: as long as there is something to see, hear, smell or touch – we certainly would see, hear, and so on. That is: perception would take care of itself. Life begins with that.
  • Therefore, the only thing we ever need to worry about, when in our normal state, is not interfering with perception.

Etudes with Stage Direction 8

When, prior to an etude, you repeat the lines, you must also say your stage directions: I leave, I sit down, I take a book, and so on. Otherwise, the words will get spoken on their own, yet the actor won’t feel like leaving or doing something else specified in the etude.

I would ask students: why didn’t you leave, or why didn’t you do this or that? The answer is the same: “I didn’t feel like it.” And they are right. They were correct to completely “green light” their desires and urges. There was no error there. There error was elsewhere – in the assigning. As it always turns out, assignments are to blame – students forget to say “I leave,” or “I do” this or that

An actor who clearly tells himself a stage direction – for example “I go to the window” – that actor will not notice how he finds himself by the window. Some force will inevitably lead him there.

There is nothing miraculous or supernatural here. This phenomenon is rather commonplace. Going to bed in the evening, fearing to oversleep, we say to ourselves: “Tomorrow I need to wake up at seven o’clock.” In the morning we wake up from some jerk or from some thought. We look at the clock… and the arrow points to seven.

The same thing happens with the assignment we practice in theatre, in our classes.

Examples:

A: Have you been to the Tate Gallery?
B: No, I have not. I am going tomorrow.
A: What time tomorrow?
B: At noon, Why do you ask?
A: Nothing, I just asked.9

A: Is it eight yet?
B: I think it’s after eight.
A: I have to go.
B: Will you be back soon?
A: Don’t wait for me. I won’t be back until after one.
B: Another meeting?
A: Another meeting…10

A: Are you mad at me?
B: I am.
A: Why?
B: You know perfectly well why.
A: This is exhausting.11

A: We need to have a serious talk.
B: I was expecting this for a while.
A: How could you be?
B: I just was.12

Links to Topics Mentioned in This Blog

Becoming an Actor-Creator Nikolai Demidov


About this Blog

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Hello, my name is Kyle and I am going to use this blog to help share what I know now and and what I will learn about acting and the business of acting as I progress through my career.
I want to provide value. I may not know a lot, but I know I know more than some, so I know I can help.

I will be publishing weekly blogs with the goal of compiling a resource for beginning actors and eventually creating a tribe of positive actors sharing their knowledge and supporting each other.

If you have questions let me know because I want this to be an interactive page so I can help as many people as I can.

I believe that films can change the world, and that is exactly what I intend to do.

Kyle