Each aspiring actor wants to immediately go on stage in a serious role and create to the sound of applause. But to dream, unfortunately, is not enough, the stage triumph begins long before receiving the role and not by reading the play, but by painstaking and hard work. Indeed, talent is 99% hard work and only 1% divine spark.
Of course, no matter how much you work, you won’t get a hundred without one percent, but you won’t get far on one. To shine on the stage and in the cinema, you need to clearly understand what acting is from the very beginning.
Where does it all begin
In order not to hear the famous “I do not believe it!” Stanislavsky, a young man or a girl who is embarking on the thorny path of life in his work, will have to work hard on himself. In the actors' game, not only true experiences are important, but also how the actor expresses them. After all, you can feel everything at least ten times, be at a break, but the viewer will not see anything but sluggish movements and incomprehensible, weak facial expressions. To convey a thought or emotion to the viewer, you need to have an expressive acting apparatus, that is, a body and a face.
The first exercise for a novice actor, chess player or musician, of course, will be the easiest. But only after achieving perfect execution, you can proceed to the next task.
In many educational institutions that teach young talents according to the Stanislavsky system, acting classes begin with taking the chair to the stage. This task often causes bewilderment among students, because they want to become actors, not stage workers! But only having achieved ease and accuracy in such a simple (at first glance) exercise, you can go further. You always need to start somewhere, and taking out a chair is the first step on the stage.
What is the working apparatus of the actor
Exercise for a novice actor should develop all parts of the body and soul in a complex. This complex consists of:
- articulation;
- facial expressions;
- breathing
- vote;
- movements;
- imagination;
- the ability to feel and sympathize.
All these necessary skills are developed with the help of acting training.
Articulation
Exercises in acting and stage speech begin precisely with the articulation apparatus. These are our lips, jaw, tongue and everything that participates in the process of forming the words that we say out loud. If the actor has a sluggish articulation apparatus, his words from the stage will not be understandable to the audience, they will not sound clearly. Therefore, the speech apparatus not only warms up before the performance, but also constantly develops and improves.
The warm-up always starts with the jaw, because what determines the promise of the pronunciation depends on how well the actor’s mouth opens.
Jaw exercises
- Up down.
- To the side.
- Back and forth
- Round.
It is worth starting slowly so that in the first lesson you do not dislocate anything and do not overwork. With an increase in the number of workouts, the speed of work will increase.
Lip exercises
- The tube is up and down.
- The tube to the sides.
- The tube in a circle.
- The tube is a smile.
- Pulling the upper lip onto the upper teeth.
- Pulling the lower lip onto the lower teeth.
- Lip relaxation with the utterance of “Tprrru”.
Lips are directly involved in the formation of spoken words, therefore, how clearly words and phrases will be pronounced and how understandable they will be to the viewer depend on their mobility and tension.
Language exercises
- Needle-spatula-tube with tongue alternately.
- Hanging tongue from side to side, up and down.
- Stresses on the cheek: 1 time, 2, 3.
- Cleaning the external surface of the teeth with the tongue.
- Clatter.
- Chewing tongue.
An articulating exercise for a novice actor for the tongue is just as important as for the lips. Together, the tongue and lips create sounds and words that should be high-quality, clear and loud.
Exercises for the larynx and upper palate
- Massage of the upper palate with the tongue.
- Swallowing an imaginary egg.
- Yawn with closed mouth.
The larynx and the upper palate are very important when delivering the text, as they create sound, and the message directly depends on them. If an actor can talk in a small hall without particularly straining, then speaking on a large stage, every word he said, even in a whisper, should be heard on the last row.
Facial expressions
Exercises for facial expressions in acting training are not included in a separate category. But moving facial expressions are no less important than moving articulating apparatus. Indeed, in order for the viewer to empathize with the hero, he must understand what feelings and passions possess him at this moment, and to express the internal state of one eye is not enough. This involved facial expressions, and posture, and movement. Of course, showing feelings with the help of facial expressions will not cause - it should be supported by real feelings that the actor is currently experiencing in the form of a hero.
To develop facial expressions and give mobility to facial features, it is enough just to curl in front of the mirror, to portray either joy, now sadness, now fright, then anger. What kind of muscles work in this case, a novice actor can see in life - for this, he makes observations, and everything he sees is carefully recorded in a personal diary.
Breath
Half the success depends on proper breathing on the stage, as in sports. First of all, breathing creates a message that brings sounds to the very last rows. Also, exercises for acting training include tasks to increase lung capacity. The actor does not look very beautiful and organic on the stage, who, during a long monologue, begins to suffocate - this immediately “knocks out” the viewer, and it is very difficult to return him to the performance. Also, the actor needs to be able to pronounce the words clearly and with a message at the moment when he does various acrobatic stunts or physical exercises. At the same time, holding your breath at one level is quite difficult, and you also need to learn this by performing certain exercises.
- “Balloon” - with the help of breathing we maintain an imaginary (or real) balloon in the air.
- “Lumberjack” - we exhale sharply at the same time as moving our hands, as if we were chopping wood.
- “Cross-country skiing” - at each exhalation we make arms and legs movements, as if we are skiing, with a long exhalation we move down the mountain.
- “Candle” - imagine that a light is burning on the tip of the index finger, we extinguish it with our breath, taking the finger further and further.
- “Squat” - slowly (for 10 counts) we sit down with an exhalation, we take a breath below, we also get up with an exhalation slowly.
Vote
There is no point in talking about the importance of voice for an actor. A modern actor must be able to sing and voice films and cartoons. Exercise for a novice actor on the correct mastery of the voice is included in the stage speech, and in vocals.
Movement
A good actor is now unthinkable without full possession of his body. And in the cinema, and in the theater, he can play a role with difficult tricks and considerable physical exertion. In addition to acting classes, the capabilities of the body are also developed in the classes on stage movement. They include general warm-up and muscle stretching, removal of clamps and stiffness, acrobatics, balancing, practicing stage combat, slaps, blows, kisses and so on, part of the circus art. All these exercises begin with simple workouts and end with complex plastic productions, when the actors express their thoughts without words, only with the help of plastic.
Exercise for a novice actor related to the movement in the future will help him to empathize with the audience, express thoughts and emotions in all available ways: not only with facial expressions and voice, but also with plastic.
Imagination
It is difficult to imagine an actor whose imagination and imagination are not developed. After all, he constantly needs to believe in what is actually not there. Only the true faith of the actor himself, his complete immersion in the role and in the situation will make the viewer believe that this is Hamlet, and not a strange boy in funny pants; King Lear, not a grandfather like Santa Claus, and so on.
There are no people who have no imagination at all. But there are people in whom it is underdeveloped. To imagine the truthfulness of the situation and yourself as the main character in it, imagination needs to be developed. First of all, this is done with the help of observations, writing fairy tales, poems, stories, reading good authors. Then begins work with acting studies. An etude is a small sketch in which an actor must act organically, which means he must believe.
We can say that the main exercise for a novice actor is a study. It can be different: on pointless action, in conditions of justified silence, with words and with objects, single and double. The main thing is that the sketch has a plot and an event. In this case, the actor himself must come up with a situation (or work in a given) and behave in it naturally and organically, and for this he must believe that he in the image of a hero really got into such a situation.