When you go to an audition,
they're gonna be several things that you're going to be graded on,
and that's what I want to talk about today. The first thing
that they grade you on is the acting.
Are you a good actor? Do you,
when you perform, become the character?
Now at most auditions you only get a minute,
and if it's a minute audition maybe only get fifty seconds.
Because you give your name and your number,
transition, and then you become the character.
And they're looking when you do that is
how complete, how far do you go,
to become that character. It's not the person who did the name and number.
You are the character, and that's one of the things that they're gonna judge you
on.
The second thing that they're gonna judge you on
are your communication skills. In other words,
how well do you speak?
Do you enunciate?
Do you project? Could they hear you?
Is it clear? Do you understand the subtext of what you're talking about?
And do you make that clear?Communication skills.
Next is movement.
How well do you move? How well do you use your body?
Are you making lots of gestures
that have no meaning? Are you
wandering around the stage
is though you're nervous? Or are you standing still
and making a stand and you move only
when it's necessary, but when you move
its absolutely right for the character and for that moment
in the scene that you're portraying. Movement is really really important.
Lot of actors get out there and they do what's called the PP dance,
which I'll demonstrate later, but between you
shift from side to side, and you look like you have to go to the bathroom.
That takes focus away, again what we talked about before, from the eyes.
Everything we do we want to bring focus back to the eyes.
You need some gestures, but make sure the gestures are motivated.
Make sure they're right for the character. Movement.
The last thing that they grade you on is the hardest
I think to to understand.
It's called stage presence.
Uda Hoggin, in her book on acting,
call this the undefinable quality of an actor.
She did so because
it is. It's hard to define, but stage presence
is do you look comfortable on stage?
Do you make this look like it's your home?
That you're so well prepared that you're just
totally relaxed as you go into your character.
To understand stage presence, you have to look at people who have it.
One of the people that always comes to mind for me was the actress Marilyn Monroe.
Marilyn Monroe had great stage presence.
Now you might say, "Well, she was attractive." Well, yeah she was an
attractive woman, but she was no more attractive than many of the other
actresses
of her day who might have even been more attractive,
but they didn't have her presence. But when Marilyn Monroe
walked into a scene,
all eyes are on her.
And that's what stage presence is.
You are the person that everyone remembers.
You are the person that everyone wants to talk to.
You are the person who takes focus.
You don't try to take it; you just do.
A lot of man and women have it.
Now my friend, Pat Cronin,
has great stage presence. It's one reason he's had such a great career in film. Not
only if he very talented,
but you don't meet Pat Cronin and walk away not remembering Pat Cronin.
You will remember him long after you've talked to him.
And you can be sure that casting directors have done that over the year.
There is something about him
that makes you want to talk to him. There's something about him that makes you want
to know him
and to work with him. Now part of stage presence is being very polite,
and it's also about being very open. Looking into people's eyes,
talking to them, not at them. Not mumbling,
shaking hands. One of the things that I've heard casting directors talk about
is
you walk into say a film audition.
And you walk, they tell you to go hit your mark.
Before hitting your mark, you don't talk to the technicians
who are trying to help you. Talk to them!
Shake their hands, get to know them.
I mean, that doesn't mean start a long conversation.
But show them that you care about them and the job that they do.
This will help you be remembered. Same way for the stage.
There's a casting director in Alabama
and her name is Marie Prater. I'm gonna talk more about Marie and I talk about her in
the book.
But Marie does a lot of the casting
in the Birmingham area, also in Atlanta.
She cast industrial film, she cast
regular movies and some TV shows.
And when I went to auditions
were Marie was running auditions,
I always met a lady, always the same lady,
who was there handing out forms for you to fill out
on when you first check in or she would hand out your script
that you were going to read. And
I found out later that that lady was Marie's sister.
And she was watching people when they came in.
And if they treated her nicely,
she would let Marie know it before you went back to audition.
If someone was being a jerk, they were told that, too. I actually saw Marie
shoot some auditions without the camera being turned on
because of the way that people treated her sister
when they first arrived at the audition. Remember the addition begins
when you arrive. And that ties into that stage presence.
Are you a nice person? Do you look them directly in the eye?
Do you shake their hand? Do you speak with confidence?
That will get you remembered.
That's all we're gonna talk about for today.