Top 5 Techniques for accessing emotion in your acting

Top 5 Techniques for accessing emotion in your acting


1) TARGETS

     When we are asking the question, "how do act emotionally" our focus is on ourselves, instead of the things in the world around us. Declan Donnellan (author of The Actor and the Target) would call these things' around us targets. and he implores us actors to take our attention off ourselves and onto them.
   In the target is all the energy and emotion our character needs. There is nothing within us which will incite a more powerful response from us than external stimuli from a target.


2) ALLOW

     Allow yourself to be wherever you are on the particular day you have come to act. I know this sounds counterintuitive. But there is great power in allowing ourselves to be and feel whatever it is we are Currently feeling. If we are feeling a great sense of inadequacy at our inability to reach certain emotional heights - there's energy to be found in that state! By allowing rather than forcing. we are giving the chance for dozens and dozens of exciting choices to arise which may not have been thought of before.

3) SUBSTITUTION

     This one comes from lvana Chubbuck though many other acting teachers encourage/discourage methods similar to that of substitution. Substitution is replacing the circumstances of a scene. with memories and emotions which you have experienced in your life.
     If you do decide to pursue substitution as a method. then please look after yourself Prioritise self care. If you're substituting for something which brings you close to unresolved personal trauma, you're really playing with fire, and putting the safety of yourself and the actors around you at risk.


4) TRANSLATE OBSTACLE INTO ACTION

     Say the function of our character is to cry or get angry. One thing we can do to achieve this is to take the emotional result and translate it into an action for us to use.
    What is the character hoping to achieve? Translate the emotional result into a transitive verb: an action you can play on the other character. Instead of playing that state of anger, which is a self-fulfilling and self-focussed task. play the tactic to intimidate.

5) MANUFACTURE PLAY PRETEND

     If it is unavoidable in the function of your character and you must reach an emotional place that you do not feel you can truthfully get to, then manufacture the experience.
    What do you need to do to ensure you're where you need to be. per formatively and emotionally? Create a tried and tested ritual backstage or on set. for when you feel like you don't have it in you to do your character justice.

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