SCENE BREAKDOWN

The What’s Beyond is the scene that sets up a scenario where your character cannot exit the current scene until they learn something from the other character.

I realize that everyone comes from a different acting background, but I hope that what I am saying, although maybe using a different vernacular, are things you have all heard before. I use Spolin, from her book entitled, “Improvisation for the Theater”. I studied with Stella, but most of what I learned comes from W. Duncan Ross, the doyen of English acting teachers, with whom I studied at USC.

I have been working and hiring actors in Chicago and LA for over twenty years and there are a few constants. First, pick up your cues; simply picking up your cues can cover a great deal of bad acting. Second, stand still, internalize that energy; do not dissipate it by moving around—in film it is all in your eyes anyway. And, there are no extraneous movements when acting; everything you do is connected to achieving your intention in the scene. Each move an actor makes should come from the circumstances. Third, make and keep eye contact. Think of it this way, the first person to ‘break’—look away, loses. This works well when you are playing with unskilled actors, which is why it impresses casting people so much, it pulls them into the scene with you.

Try turning down the volume and watching a scene in a film or on TV. Is the acting real? Organic? Truthful? Well, on film, there is less movement than real life. Most acting you will do standing in place. And trust me if you move around in front of a filmmaker in an audition it will constantly cost you work, no matter how emotionally connected you are.

On Scene Breakdown, I wanted to write down a few things so it is clear.

When you get the scene ask yourself the big questions. What scene is it? Name it. What is going on? Is it a seduction? Disagreement? If you have only one minute to prepare a scene make sure that you at least know in a general sense what is going on in the scene so that you do not play the words. One way to tell if you are playing the words is to ask yourself, am I still playing the punctuation? Or are the lines coming out organically, attached to what I am trying to do with them.

Try and imagine—visualize, the ‘scene before’ or the What’s Beyond. Make it vivid and specific in your mind—raise the stakes. Ask yourself, what led directly to this scene? Make it immediate. Make the What’s Beyond, the moment before. Then ask yourself, what do I want from the other character in this scene that I cannot leave the scene without? And what will they do if I get what I want?

Ask yourself, what is the cost for my character to achieve their goal in the scene? You will usually find that on a scale of one to ten the cost is more like ten where most actors are working in the two to three range. This does not mean to be louder. It means being more focused, more intense if you will. When the stakes are high you cannot sit with your legs crossed casually or lounge around. When stakes are high you are on your toes, the edge of your seat, literally.

I am often asked about ‘taking chances’ in an audition. I prefer to think of it as stakes. You have my permission to raise the stakes to the level that the scene requires. In a good scene like the ones chosen for castings the stakes are pretty high and your going there will make casting people nervous, and drag lesser actors into the scene with you.

Think of it this way, if your character is not trying to advance their agenda in every scene then your scene is at risk of being cut; if nothing happens in a scene the editor will remove it. You should never play a scene without structuring your What’s Beyond so that you need something from the other character—before the scene the ends. Even if it is just to confirm a suspicion. This is sometimes called arcing a scene.

Then reveal it to the audience. How does your character feel about the information? Ask yourself, How does that make me feel? Let them see you think, not act. What you want is an organic reaction to what is happening in the scene, what the audience sees is happening in the scene, not you trying to nail some stage direction. If your mind is active in this way then you will not have to fill moments with ‘acting’.

Stop acting. Do not act when you are not talking, period: listen. Be. Trust me, when you see yourself  ‘acting’ you will not be pleased.

The trick finally is to have something happen each time you do the scene that never happened before. It is not to try and do it the same way every time. Until discovery occurs you are not in the circumstances, you are in your imagination. You’re in your head.

Technique, by the original Greek definition is ‘a productive capacity’ informed by an understanding of intrinsic rational. It is this ‘productive capacity’ we will practice and hone.

HOW TO LEARN A SCENE

You will find with practice that it takes only six or eight readings aloud of a three to four page scene to learn it. This will take thirty to forty minutes, whereas if you try to memorize it without reading it with another person it will take several hours.

Also, acting energy, or the ability to stay focused on your intention throughout the scene and not fall into merely saying the words, requires repetition. Just like running builds endurance for longer runs, reading aloud builds endurance for staying focused on your intention through several takes. The point is if you memorize a scene, you still have to repeat it enough so that you have the energy to stay focused on what you want from the other character, which is the only thing you can ‘play’ in a scene—that is, what do I want from the other character and what will they do if I get it?

You cannot play angry or hurt or amused. In other words you cannot play to the audience. The audience is not in the scene with you. The only person in a scene you can affect is the other character. If they are not making you angry how can you possible get angry? For this reason you should ignore all stage acting direction. No one is following along on the script watching that you are playing the line, pensively, or knowingly. They are only seeing what is going on between you and the other actor. If you are not getting something that would make you pensive to play pensive is a lie, in the sense that it is the opposite from being truthful in imaginary circumstances. You are in your head, not in the scene. You cannot play the scene in your head, because the rest of us are not there with you. You must play the scene in the circumstances with the other actor as your only reality.

Now, once you have repeated the scene six or eight times. Then put it aside and see if you can recall it from memory. The act of recalling it, without looking back for a line, will cement it into long-term memory—not the other way around. All you do when you memorize is load your short-term memory. Recall is what loads long term memory.

If you find yourself loosing it at some point, this is usually a transition within the line; in other words, you changed your intention without being prompted by and outside line or intention. You will find that dropping a line is usually one of these two situations. Go over that section of the text thoroughly, as it usually is an insight into your character’s real intentions. Remember, in acting we never say what we are really doing, what our real intension is.

Which is why good actors always say the lines exactly as written and play the subtext. A line may read, “We’re worried about you.” The subtext is, ‘you could lose your job.’ A novice actor will invariably say what they are playing, one for one. “We’re worried about you. You could lose your job.” Thereby taking away anything to play.

Often a thinly written scene is easier to play as it give you more room to do what you intend to do to the other character. Soup Operas are extremely hard to act because the dialog is so on-the-nose, nothing is left for the actor to play. Nothing is left to subtext.

Now when you are first reading the scene aloud you should just listen. Hear the scene. An actor's ear is his true skill, how soon can you hear what is going on. Think of it this way, when you see a play you have seen many times and know very well, you can hear it as it really is, even if the performers who are playing it may not. You laugh even though no one else in the audience does, you are hearing the scene, and they are merely listening to this performance. If you are really good you can hear the scene even if it is the first time you have seen the play, even when the actors are not playing it.

This ability to hear the scene is at the core of this technique, because you cannot hear the scene if you are memorizing it in your head. It needs to be said aloud and played before you can truly hear what is going on.

Then after a couple reads, when you begin to realize what you are doing, what you want before the scene is over, begin to play the scene. That is, try and affect the other actor. Once you begin playing an intention, listen some more, now, you will truly hear the scene and your line readings will lead you to understanding lines that until now you where unsure of their meaning. This is so critical; you will never really learn a scene until you start to hone the intention. It may start with a seduction. But then you may find that there is a deeper or more specific intention—one that cannot be so easily put into words. One that is more of a feeling, a feeling you have known before.

Now after four readings you should begin to do the scene. By now you can look the other actor in the eye and either feed off of them or feed them. Now, get up and do the scene. Move around as your character would with no regard for blocking. Physicalize it once or twice as kind of a Michael Chekhov Psychological Gesture.

Then, for the last two reads stand still as if you were shooting it on a set or audition studio. That is, stand on a mark and play it as if the camera is tight on your eyes—try and do all that movement in your eyes.

After these six focused read-throughs, take a break and sit with your eyes closed and the scene near at hand. Then recall it, the entire scene, both yours and the other actor’s lines. You will find in most scenes you will be able to recall the whole thing right away. If you do have to go back to the text once or twice you must then begin again and see if you can get to that same line and know it this time through.

You will find that this process of playing the scene cements it into memory. But DO NOT TRY TO MEMORIZE THE LINES WHILE YOU ARE BREAKING DOWN THE SCENE. You will never get to the heart of your character’s true intentions if you do not pay attention while you are reading it. Simply play the scene six or eight times and you will find that your body remembers it.

Now, I believe you should have the sides in your hand for any audition. The stakes in the casting agent’s office are high and it is likely you will drop one of the transition lines that you had trouble recalling in the above exercise. No harm in looking down at the page, but make sure that you don’t drop any lines that require eye contact. The only lines you should highlight are the ones that you must remain in eye contact with the other character. If you are playing lovers and the other character says, “I love you” you don’t want to be caught looking at the page to come up with “I love you” in response. For this reason the only lines I highlight are those lines that I must retain eye contact.

Also, most pros will never learn a scene for an audition. Think of it this way, you may read four or five times a week and there is no way you can learn five scenes at that pace. So act like a pro. That is act like you are too busy to learn a scene just for an audition. Coming in with a scene memorized so that you can play all the words, proves only that you can play the words, that you are an amateur.

I highly recommend watching casting tapes from dramatic television. They are usually included at the end of the first season. Check Lost and The Shield and see how the pros read for their castings.

Once you know the scene you will generally find a line of dialog later on that says what you are playing or why you came. This is a hint into what you are doing. You may have a lot of dialog before you finally get to the line, “Where were you last night?” but that is the reason you came, that is your moment before, that is what you came to find out. That is what you play.

Lead with that as your subtext so that when you get to the line the audience is validated. If they can see what you are playing they are paid off when you say it. They get that wonderful feeling of ‘I knew it’ ‘I knew something was wrong’ or ‘I knew he was going to propose’ or whatever. This is at the heart of Viola Spolin’s line, “If the audience can’t see you’re struggled to achieve something, they cannot root for you to achieve it.”

When you are playing an intention you discover what the stakes are. And they are usually high. If the intention is to find out if your wife or husband had an affair, what are the stakes one to ten in this character’s life—a ten. You will need to bring that throughout the scene. You cannot be flip or silly if you are dealing with death for example. If you are playing it well the other character will ‘sense’ that something is wrong. If your intention is for them to admit that they have been unfaithful they may begin playing it before you even get to the line. That is affecting the other actor—getting them to do something when you haven’t even said it is your goal. Play that. Play to win.

TAKING ON A BAD SCENE

Ask yourself honestly. Can you tell the difference between a good scene and a bad scene? Knowing the difference cannot only save embarrassment it can save time and money.
 
The focus of this workshop is to learn to play the scene, good or bad, deep or shallow, fun to read or just plain dull.
 
What is a good scene? What is a bad scene? How do you know? At the end of this workshop actors will know the difference. Can a good actor fix bad writing?
We’ll find that out too.

In this class we take real scenes from current castings and make them so good we can actually showcase them in front of a live audience so you'll know it works. In a short time the actors will get so they enjoy breaking down new scenes so much they will fight to be first to show it. Learning to break down and attack the kind of scenes you get to read in actual auditions will give you a leg up on booking.
 
Think of it. Getting a ten-page audition scene and being excited to do it. Really excited, knowing you’re playing a scene, not reading words. Once the actor learns to forget the words and play the scene with the other actor, not on the page, they will see how easy acting really is. They are having fun in the challenge instead of surviving the process, playing to win.

If you have had a high level of Meisner or Adler or Strasburg or Hagen, this workshop is for you. Robin is well versed in these techniques and employs Viola Spolin's advanced acting exercises dealing with what is beyond the words and how to structure scenes so that you are always feeding off the other actor. The audience sees the character struggling to achieve something then roots for them to achieve it. Do this and audiences will always empathize with your characters.