Film Acting Classes

by Ruth Kulerman

LIGHTS! CAMERA! STOP ACTING!

Why is it so hard to believe that the best on-camera classes I ever had cost a dime each, plus a nickel for a bag of popcorn? I'm dead serious.

And that led to film roles shot from Denver to Amsterdam. A dime.

Here are two questions which many students ask about film acting:

(1) Are there classes just for film or TV acting?

(2) What is the difference between acting on stage and acting on camera?

Easy part first: Yes, indeed there are classes for film acting all over the world. In fact, look under a vine in the Brazilian Rain Forest and you'll find a come-on ad for an expensive class in camera technique! In the world of scams, film acting classes rate top ten. Be careful out there. Lots of sharks.

Now my LA experience consists of living in Santa Monica for a year in the ninth grade. Which means I have no business talking about film on the West Coast. But knowing the scam artist's slimey little heart, I will categorically pronounce that whatever schemes have been birthed in Manhattan have crossed country heading West faster than the red eye.

Here in New York there are many many many acting classes which specialize in just about everything: mime, improv, soap operas, commercials, martial arts, stage combat, auditioning, sit-com, Shakespeare and yes, acting on camera. You name it. Somewhere in New York it is being taught! Look in Backstage or Craigslist or numerous Internet audition sites. Ask message boards. Speak to acting friends. Just don't plunk down a fortune until you have really checked out the coach/school/class. Film acting rip-off stories fill every acting message board.

In fact within the past hour I received an e-mail announcement of a six week film class, which meets for two hours once a week for the mere price of $550 with a promise of an audition upon finishing the course. The class is limited to 15 students. Golly! The sad thing is that the class will be filled in a few days!

Yes, that is cynicism you are hearing. And more than just a tad! That's a lot of money for something you can more or less teach yourself. Probably.

Perhaps. (To be explored further.)

Film acting classes outside of NYC

1. If you have any colleges near you, call and see if they have a theatre department. Their curriculum will probably include a film course.

2. If your town has a community theatre group, talk to the artistic director, who probably can steer you toward on-camera classes.

3. Somewhere, in some city near you, someone is interested in making movies. Graduate schools in film making are excellent places to find would-be directors/writers. And they are ALWAYS looking for actors. On-camera experience is a great teacher, better than a dozen classes. And you just never know what heights that newcomer directing the film will rise to!

4. There are also videos on film acting you can buy. Go on-line and see what Amazon.com has to offer. Michael Caine has one out which received good critical response.

5. There are books about on-camera acting. Not quite the same as working "on-camera" but some are excellent. Go browsing in a bookstore or on-line.

6. Having read these books, get a Camcorder and practice in front of it. Do monologues, just talk and watch yourself talking. Do cold readings in front of your video camera. Watch yourself carefully and critically. Teach yourself. There is no better teacher in film work than you watching yourself on camera.

The best lessons I've ever had in camera work have come from watching tapes of my own work. Ouch, even that tiny little glance was too deliberate! It smacked of ACTING!!! Wow, that was interesting (didn't realize during the shoot that I had done anything. But that slight turn of the head WORKED. Why? It was not ACTED.) You and your camera are your best teachers. In Film.

My Best Film Teacher Ever

(Just about as far away from the world of New York as you can get and still be in America.):

I was raised in a rural backwoods Southern hamlet which had one movie house that played Westerns on Saturday afternoon for the kids and "real" stuff Saturday night for the adults. Only we didn't call them movies. They were "picture shows." (Pronounced "Pitchershows.") And week after week, month after month, year after year, from age seven to eleven, Saturday afternoons I sat in the dark, glued to the magic screen of the picture show in the Crystal Movie House in a small country town where the paved road hit the dirt road five blocks from the Crystal Movie House. Saturday afternoons I learned film acting. For a dime.

It is my deepest belief that the Crystal Movie House in the rural South was my "training school" for movie acting. That's 5,500 picture shows for the price of one NYC film class!

7. With videos, your generation can watch a film over and over and over. First the story--get that out of the way. THEN start watching for the acting. Just watch and watch and watch until you finally start to SEE what the actors are doing. Or mostly see what they are NOT doing.

8. Look at their face. Especially the eyes. The lead in "Cold Case" has superb acting eyes. You don't have to like her, her eyes, or the show. Just watch her eyes. They are about as good as the small screen gets. See what makes so many actors' eyes look like they are acting. Then look at the real TV or film pros whose eyes seem to live naturally, not live like an acting teacher told them to.

9. Listen to the voices. What happens at the end of a sentence? Hear the rhythm of their delivery. Where do they speed up, slow down? All the CSI clones seem to have attended the same "pause" class. But it's hard to beat Caruso for unique delivery. Watch and listen. You are not there to judge whether you like someone. You are watching and listening to learn how the pros act on camera. I think I absorbed those details through osmosis. In the Crystal Movie House.

10. Look to see if something looks "actory." Why did it look that way? Be sure and watch the "great" older actors also, even though they are a different generation and may act differently.

11. And watch TV. Notice how many actors are whispering in your ear. Listen to them. Contrast their vocal and facial performances. What is the difference, if any, between the line delivery of the soap stars and the detective shows? Watch different sit-coms. Do they all sound the same? That is, are they all loud, aim for making faces to get laughs. Contrast the acting of the people in the smaller roles on several TV shows. How important is vocal variety? Do they all have the same rhythm in their delivery? In short, what do film and TV actors sound like? What do they look like. Where are their eyes when they deliver their lines? When they are being spoken to?

Once you have mastered really watching actors on film, you are half way home in learning how to act on film yourself. I am totally convinced that watching the best actors -- I mean really watching, not criticizing, not judging, WATCHING, is the way to learn film acting. Then bring out the Camcorder and practice what you have learned. You will eventually discover your own eyes and voice and pauses.

So to wind up "Can you take classes in on-camera acting?" Yes, of course. It just depends on where you take them: in a $550 six-lesson class or watching a video over and over or watching yourself in a graduate film. Or the Crystal Movie House.

Ruth Kulerman is an actress and acting coach in New York.