hello welcome to organic acting I'm Chris Conway and this is Stanislavski exercises so
what I'm gonna do here is give you a breakdown of Stanislavski it's not really a biography as
such and what I'm gonna do is give you the top five in my opinion the top five techniques from
his system so Stanislavski was an actor director theater practitioner who in the late 19th century
became involved in the theatrical world and became a little bit disillusioned by what was
going on he took a look around him and everything revolved around melodrama if you were a performer
it was all about showing how well you could act how many emotions you had in your little toolkit
you know showing how angry you could be or how tragically you could be and the audience would
sit there and they would applaud and they go oh that person is a fantastic actor and Stanislavski
said to himself there's got to be a better way a more effective way of tapping into emotion and
tapping into reality actually presenting something to an audience that is that is happening that is
organic that's why we call the channel organic acting because that's what we're striving for
be sure to stay tuned for tip number one which I would argue is the most important Stanislavski and
technique so at number five we have emotion memory so emotion memory is something that Stanislavski
incorporated into his system for an actor to kind of fall back on if he's really struggling to feel
what a character is feeling perhaps there's a block somewhere an actor can use their own
experiences in life to reach an emotional peak so for example if the actor were playing a character
who's just lost a loved one the actor could recall a time perhaps in their own life when they'd lost
someone or lost something important to them and through doing that organic emotion is created and
that's emotion memory it's kind of like setting off a little firework in your head that can
just get you to that moment and get you to that emotional place next one is something called the
method of physical action this is something that Stanislavski emphasized later on in his career he
said through actually doing through actually physically perform in as that character in a
physical way taking on their physical attributes you could feel more at one with that character so
Stanislavski said that an actor should really explore the physical attributes of a character
so their tempo was the first thing did they move slowly did they have a fast tempo did they have
any disabilities something that would affect their walk or their gait in one of his books
he emphasizes that if for example you're a young person and you're playing an old person you don't
play a stereotype you don't play the stereotype of all I'm older than my backers you know I can't
see very well that stereotypes have got no place in Stanislavski and teachings or or the psycho
technique or the system in general you should always be looking at the given circumstances if
you'd like more information on given circumstances be sure to check out my other video acting tips
for beginners and number three we have the magic F and imagination now obviously as actors we
know how important imagination is we've we've got to have an imagination or how we go into
pourcel's into these imaginary circumstances but Stanislavski said the word if was magical that we
as actors could say what if this situation were really happening how would I and more importantly
the character respond so in an actor prepares Stanislavski puts forward the scenario of a madman
approaching the door and he says to his students how would you act how would you all your carrot to
respond if a madman had broken out a Verne asylum somewhere I was coming up to the door right now
and was standing outside of the door how would you react what would you do now this is so important
because just through this magic if you are no longer force in your imagination and that's why
the if is so magical you can say to yourself okay I'm not forcing myself to believe this I'm not
forcing my imagination but if this were happening how would I respond how would my carrot to respond
if this were happening what would it feel like and then the imagination just starts to work
on its own it's a very very freeing technique to use at number two we have units so quite a
straightforward one this but a fantastic one to use basically Stanislavski said rather than trying
to deal with an entire text let's say an entire play and becoming overwhelmed with that you should
break it down into manageable chunks or units so the way this works is at the beginning of every
scene is a new unit the end of every scene is the end of the unit whenever a character leaves or
enters that creates a new unit because the action of the piece has been affected by the entrance or
exit of that character or whenever there's a big dramatic change in the action that should
be a new unit it helps you to tear the chicken apart I think that's a metaphor that you used
one of her stanislavski's books rather than having to consume a whole chicken sorry few vegetarians
out there but rather than consuming the whole bird you break it down you take off the wings you cut
off the me and it's so it's in manageable chunks and that can really help you to get through the
text that you're dealing with and finally number one objectives I've made this as a number one in
my previous video acting tips for beginners the reason why I've done it again is because it's so
important in Stanislavski teachings we do not try to play emotion that is one of the biggest
no knows the reason for those Stanislavski said you can't play emotion this it's impossible you
can try sometimes it works but a lot of time it doesn't and if you're trying to be angry
for example you are just putting across an idea of what angry is an idea what that emotion is you are
putting forward a stiff mechanical melodramatic version of angry that's what Stanislavski was
trying to get away from melodrama so he said that with a clear want or a clear objective you as an
actor comply that and through either getting what you want not getting what you want encountering
conflict that will create the emotion the emotion will actually happen organically
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leave me a comment below maybe ask me a question I will get back to you until next time see ya