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I've taken some Meisner technique workshops, and this is what changed my view of acting: > “Acting is the ability to behave absolutely truthfully under the ima

I've taken some Meisner technique workshops, and this is what changed my view of acting: > “Acting is the ability to behave absolutely truthfully under the imaginary circumstances.” The Meisner Technique is a brick-by-brick process designed to get you out of your head and into your gut. For that to happen, you must learn to put your focus and attention on the most important thing: the other actor." Actors under this don't pretend, they are. A lot of actors will practice their lines with just reading and reciting, no attempt at tone or inflection -- just flat recitation -- because if you aren't responding to the other actors you are just pretending. A lot of the warmup exercises are based around just responding to the other person in front of you. And they are a great way to get better at talking to people -- that's why I took the classes. Stella Adler has a great quote: "Growth as an actor and as a human being are synonymous.” I find it so much easier to remember lines with the other person in front of me - I don't memorize random facts well. They always have a connection to something else and I have hop from stone to stone of thoughts sometimes to remember what I was trying to sometimes.

barbariangrunge 2y ago
I’d love to hear any other details you or anyone else would care to share. I’m making an audio drama as a hobby and have never directed before, and most of my actors will be untrained volunteers. Posts like yours are so interesting
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
gottorf 2y ago
> you must learn to put your focus and attention on the most important thing: the other actor. Famously, Sir Ian McKellen had an emotional breakdown while filming The Hobbit due to extended stretches of talking not to other actors, but a greenscreen.
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  Even without greenscreen, actors in film and TV have to split their attention in unnatural ways. To preserve eyeline continuity in close-ups, actors often have to address themselves to a tennis ball or something near the camera lens, while their partner in the scene stands behind the camera. In the worst case scenario, sometimes the other actor is not even there when the closeups are being shot.
  - burningChrome 2y ago
    I remember an interview with Chevy Chase who said Dan Aykroyd was an expert at this and he said he was able to read cue cards out of his peripheral vision when they were at SNL so he could read lines without turning his head in the direction of the car holder. Chevy said he never met any actor that could do it as easily as Aykroyd could.
- sandworm101 2y ago
  Because he is a Stanislavski-type method actor. He struggled because he, internally, was processing those emotions. Other actors do not do this. Think of a model posing for a photo shoot. They don't alternate between being happy/sad/pouty on command. They alternate between those looks without processing any underlying emotion. Watch some standup comedians. They can repeat the same joke down to every intonation and body twitch night after night. So too a dancer in a chorus line. They are not processing emotion when they do this, rather their external appearance is a total fraud disconnected from their actual emotional state. McKellen is acting from the inside out, from an internal emotion to the portrayal of that emotion externally. Others are good at just portraying emotion without that internal process, acting "from the outside out" as a Kabuki artist might.
  - EGreg 2y ago
    This is literally what AI is doing Trusting AI is impossible because it can have a backdoor and easily switch on a dime at any time, violating all your assumptions (that are made because of your intuitions about living animals and their costly signals) NO MATTER HOW LONG IT HAS BEEN EARNING YOUR TRUST. Not only that, but it can actually do it in the background, imperceptibly, across thousands of instances, and shift opinion of many people. The movie Her shows that Samantha had been speaking to thousands of people at once. The abrupt leaving is actually a very benign scenario, compared to the myriad other things it could abrutly change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZS8xBvgLaQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZS8xBvgLaQ
    - daveguy 2y ago
      AI literally does none of that. The current state of AI has no comprehension of any other conversation, only the output of a numerical model and the context / system prompt entered. AI has no motivation or ability to "earn trust". The end result is the same though -- you can't trust it past what you can verify.
      - EGreg 2y ago
        You're totally wrong. Just because most AI doesn't do that right now doesn't mean it can be trusted over years. It's not about AI's motivation. It's about the people behind the AI programming it. They can make it behave well but at the same time it can turn on a dime. Meaning, if an animal or a person is showing up every day and giving you a lot of their attention, emotion and love, proving themselves over time, you can be reasonably sure that they are genuinely like that. But an AI can just as easily fake it all for a year or two, and then drop it a second later. There is nothing an AI can do to prove that it doesn't have a backdoor somewhere in its billions of weights, to go rogue. It's like the Ken Thompson hack, but much more organic (https://wiki.c2.com/?TheKenThompsonHack https://wiki.c2.com/?TheKenThompsonHack) https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~mpkim/pubs/undetectable.pdf https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~mpkim/pubs/undetectable.pdf Unlike an animal or human, the AI performing as you want is no indication it will continue to perform like that in the following second. As people and organizations come to rely more and more on AI, they will become more and more vulnerable to any number of backdoors.
- IndySun 2y ago
  It was distinctly more of an outburst of anger and frustration with the green screen rather than an 'emotional' breakdown. I wasn't there but a colleague was. See what you did? Now all those replies to your skewed sentence are voided!
  - satiric 2y ago
    To be fair, the behind-the-scenes footage seemed to show it as more of a breakdown (of course, the behind-the-scenes footage might be bending the truth a bit. And the two aren't mutually exclusive).
  - rexpop 2y ago
    Since when are anger and frustration not 'emotional'?
    - IndySun 2y ago
      You missed out the bit where I explained the context and object of an 'emotional' outburst. I removed 'breakdown' too. You're doing what I saw as emphasising just one part of what happened for the biggest headline. But yes, somewhat pedantically, you're right to describe both anger and frustration as emotional. The point is the 'emotional breakdown' is used originally (in press reports) as an attempt to enflame a not so enflamed event. Footage of an event will often lend itself to various interpretations from different viewers.
      - hairy_callous 2y ago
        You seem to be the pedantic one. Emotional can appropriately describe McKellan’s reaction and like you say can “lend itself to various interpretations” of what emotional means - anger, frustration, whatever else the viewer observes and feels.
        IndySun 2y ago
        I think you're referring to me pedantically pointing out specifics in what happened, not the use of emotive language. I must take therefore 'emotional breakdown' suggesting a myriad of outcomes in the readers mind is ok with you. It appears so. I wasn't ok with it. I didn't want 'emotional breakdown' left hanging with all of its broad connotations, without the important reference to the green screen.
throw4847285 2y ago
You reminded me of the Meisner workshop scene in Asteroid City (you can't wake up if you don't fall asleep). The more I think about it, the more the Meisner Technique seems like a central theme of the whole movie. The scene with Margot Robbie and Jason Schwartzman drives home the difference between recitation and acting. Cool stuff.
- abracadaniel 2y ago
  I’m not sure I will ever fully understand that movie, but I loved it anyway.
  - throw4847285 2y ago
    That's the neat part, you won't! But in all seriousness, there's a current of irrationality flowing under that movie that is oddly satisfying. Why does Augie burn his hand on the quickie griddle? I feel like Anderson has honed his craft so much that for the people who aren't instantly turned off by his antics, he can create these incredibly emotionally evocative nonsense scenes. I'm not entirely sure Anderson understands how he does it. He's tapping into something deep in his subconscious that resonates with some select set of other people. I guess that's art!
interludead 2y ago
Good acting requires the actor to fully inhabit their character and respond to the imaginary world as if it were real.. Without that I think it's impossible to trully understand the story.

barbariangrunge 2y ago

I’d love to hear any other details you or anyone else would care to share. I’m making an audio drama as a hobby and have never directed before, and most of my actors will be untrained volunteers. Posts like yours are so interesting

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

gottorf 2y ago

> you must learn to put your focus and attention on the most important thing: the other actor. Famously, Sir Ian McKellen had an emotional breakdown while filming The Hobbit due to extended stretches of talking not to other actors, but a greenscreen.

anigbrowl 2y ago
Even without greenscreen, actors in film and TV have to split their attention in unnatural ways. To preserve eyeline continuity in close-ups, actors often have to address themselves to a tennis ball or something near the camera lens, while their partner in the scene stands behind the camera. In the worst case scenario, sometimes the other actor is not even there when the closeups are being shot.
- burningChrome 2y ago
  I remember an interview with Chevy Chase who said Dan Aykroyd was an expert at this and he said he was able to read cue cards out of his peripheral vision when they were at SNL so he could read lines without turning his head in the direction of the car holder. Chevy said he never met any actor that could do it as easily as Aykroyd could.
sandworm101 2y ago
Because he is a Stanislavski-type method actor. He struggled because he, internally, was processing those emotions. Other actors do not do this. Think of a model posing for a photo shoot. They don't alternate between being happy/sad/pouty on command. They alternate between those looks without processing any underlying emotion. Watch some standup comedians. They can repeat the same joke down to every intonation and body twitch night after night. So too a dancer in a chorus line. They are not processing emotion when they do this, rather their external appearance is a total fraud disconnected from their actual emotional state. McKellen is acting from the inside out, from an internal emotion to the portrayal of that emotion externally. Others are good at just portraying emotion without that internal process, acting "from the outside out" as a Kabuki artist might.
- EGreg 2y ago
  This is literally what AI is doing Trusting AI is impossible because it can have a backdoor and easily switch on a dime at any time, violating all your assumptions (that are made because of your intuitions about living animals and their costly signals) NO MATTER HOW LONG IT HAS BEEN EARNING YOUR TRUST. Not only that, but it can actually do it in the background, imperceptibly, across thousands of instances, and shift opinion of many people. The movie Her shows that Samantha had been speaking to thousands of people at once. The abrupt leaving is actually a very benign scenario, compared to the myriad other things it could abrutly change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZS8xBvgLaQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZS8xBvgLaQ
  - daveguy 2y ago
    AI literally does none of that. The current state of AI has no comprehension of any other conversation, only the output of a numerical model and the context / system prompt entered. AI has no motivation or ability to "earn trust". The end result is the same though -- you can't trust it past what you can verify.
    - EGreg 2y ago
      You're totally wrong. Just because most AI doesn't do that right now doesn't mean it can be trusted over years. It's not about AI's motivation. It's about the people behind the AI programming it. They can make it behave well but at the same time it can turn on a dime. Meaning, if an animal or a person is showing up every day and giving you a lot of their attention, emotion and love, proving themselves over time, you can be reasonably sure that they are genuinely like that. But an AI can just as easily fake it all for a year or two, and then drop it a second later. There is nothing an AI can do to prove that it doesn't have a backdoor somewhere in its billions of weights, to go rogue. It's like the Ken Thompson hack, but much more organic (https://wiki.c2.com/?TheKenThompsonHack https://wiki.c2.com/?TheKenThompsonHack) https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~mpkim/pubs/undetectable.pdf https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~mpkim/pubs/undetectable.pdf Unlike an animal or human, the AI performing as you want is no indication it will continue to perform like that in the following second. As people and organizations come to rely more and more on AI, they will become more and more vulnerable to any number of backdoors.
IndySun 2y ago
It was distinctly more of an outburst of anger and frustration with the green screen rather than an 'emotional' breakdown. I wasn't there but a colleague was. See what you did? Now all those replies to your skewed sentence are voided!
- satiric 2y ago
  To be fair, the behind-the-scenes footage seemed to show it as more of a breakdown (of course, the behind-the-scenes footage might be bending the truth a bit. And the two aren't mutually exclusive).
- rexpop 2y ago
  Since when are anger and frustration not 'emotional'?
  - IndySun 2y ago
    You missed out the bit where I explained the context and object of an 'emotional' outburst. I removed 'breakdown' too. You're doing what I saw as emphasising just one part of what happened for the biggest headline. But yes, somewhat pedantically, you're right to describe both anger and frustration as emotional. The point is the 'emotional breakdown' is used originally (in press reports) as an attempt to enflame a not so enflamed event. Footage of an event will often lend itself to various interpretations from different viewers.
    - hairy_callous 2y ago
      You seem to be the pedantic one. Emotional can appropriately describe McKellan’s reaction and like you say can “lend itself to various interpretations” of what emotional means - anger, frustration, whatever else the viewer observes and feels.
      - IndySun 2y ago
        I think you're referring to me pedantically pointing out specifics in what happened, not the use of emotive language. I must take therefore 'emotional breakdown' suggesting a myriad of outcomes in the readers mind is ok with you. It appears so. I wasn't ok with it. I didn't want 'emotional breakdown' left hanging with all of its broad connotations, without the important reference to the green screen.

throw4847285 2y ago

You reminded me of the Meisner workshop scene in Asteroid City (you can't wake up if you don't fall asleep). The more I think about it, the more the Meisner Technique seems like a central theme of the whole movie. The scene with Margot Robbie and Jason Schwartzman drives home the difference between recitation and acting. Cool stuff.

abracadaniel 2y ago
I’m not sure I will ever fully understand that movie, but I loved it anyway.
- throw4847285 2y ago
  That's the neat part, you won't! But in all seriousness, there's a current of irrationality flowing under that movie that is oddly satisfying. Why does Augie burn his hand on the quickie griddle? I feel like Anderson has honed his craft so much that for the people who aren't instantly turned off by his antics, he can create these incredibly emotionally evocative nonsense scenes. I'm not entirely sure Anderson understands how he does it. He's tapping into something deep in his subconscious that resonates with some select set of other people. I guess that's art!

interludead 2y ago

Good acting requires the actor to fully inhabit their character and respond to the imaginary world as if it were real.. Without that I think it's impossible to trully understand the story.