Last week I finished a 6-week course, based on the 12 Guideposts for auditions, from the book “Audition” (1978) by Michael Shurtleff. This is the thing I was missing when I started acting classes several months ago. Not having a clue as to which class was what, I jumped into one that fit my work schedule, a Scene Study class, and winged it as best I could… So, when our coach started asking me questions about my character like, “What does he love?”, “What is he fighting for?”, and “Where is the humor?”, I realized there was something I was missing. I had been so focused on learning the words and trying to “act” the way that seemed right to me. Worse was when I’d attempt to mimic another much more seasoned actor’s performance. While, it might have been okay, I was barely scratching the surface.
Here they are:
- Relationship
- Conflict
- The moment before
- Humor
- Opposites
- Discoveries
- Communication and Competition
- Importance
- Find the events
- Place
- Games and role-playing
- Mystery and secret
I was amazed when I thought I’d gotten a good story for my character. Did a first take with a reader. Then, coach starts asking questions about how each of the guideposts apply to my character in this scene… I heard a lot of “why?”. That simple question forced me to dig deeper. The coolest thing is that no one but me needs to know how I’ve created this character or how well my creation compares with that of the actual character.
On the second take of a scene I’d never seen, I was really connected and the “third eye” was mostly gone. And, that’s really the important thing.
Btw, it was the date scene from Dallas Buyer’s Club. Just reading it without any context is really strange, and my story was pretty far off the mark exactly, BUT IT STILL WORKED!
Not only is using these guideposts a great way to build a character based on limited information one gets from audition sides; you now have a fairly complete character for when you book. Then, add the details and circumstances from the complete script. Of course, this process gets easier and faster with practice. At some point, I hope to be able to do it in 10 or 15 minutes vs. several hours.
I highly recommend this book and using these guideposts for your next scene study class.