Teen Actors – Master Talent Teachers

How to Clarify Your Acting Niche

September 22, 2014/in Newsletter /by MTT

By Diane Christiansen

Finding your “niche” or your “brand” or your “type” seems to be daunting for most actors, including kids and teens. Yet it really can be a fun process. Possibly the reason for any difficulty is because actors have this idea that they can play anything. However, Agents and Managers have to market you, to them you are a commodity. Our intention is to make it easy for them to do.

Here is a great exercise that we do in our classes to help you know how to market yourself before you showcase your work and/or interview with Agents and Managers.

You can do this with any group of 5 or 6 people. Try this; have 5 or 6 people watch you walk into the room, the more objective they are, the better. Ask each one of them to tell you what kind of role you look like you can play. Each of us carries ourselves a certain way, and each of us give off a certain “vibe”. They are going to say things like “The Jock, the Nerd, the Cheerleader, the boy next door, the Prom Queen, the smarty girl, the Best friend, the leading lady, the Social Worker, the Cop, the Detective, the Urban Professional, a Gang member, the Politician, the Doctor, the Lawyer, the blue collar worker, and on and on. Once you’ve collected those five or six ideas, you should be on track with your obvious “Type.”

At that point, you can package yourself that way to Reps and if they are seeking that type, bingo! You’ve hit the mark. I know you don’t want to be type cast, but that’s how careers get jump-started. You have to get your foot in the door. Once you’ve been the Nerd fifteen times, you can expand your range and convince your Reps to try a new look or photo. But in the meantime, go for what you are, it’s the perfect way to start your career!

Four Resources Available To Actors Part 2 – Observation

May 14, 2013/in Kids & Teens /by MTT

Observation

One of the things I have observed over the years are the various processes American Actors and British Actors use to becoming/creating a character. The Americans tend to work from the inside out and the Brits often work from the outside in. I believe we must use everything we can to bring a character to Life for a performance.

I’d like to introduce Observation as a way of Life for any Actor of any Age. Specifically Kids and Teens, because the sooner a young actor begins to approach the work in this way, the more natural it becomes as they grow into full fledged actors and conscious human beings. Awareness must become a way of Life for the Actor.

We have exercises in our classes for younger child actors to do outside of class that are simple and fun. They begin to take on observation as a natural part of their daily lives, illuminating human behavior. One of the things younger actors can do is this.

Choose three people to study, and make sure you take notes, but don’t tell the people you are examining that you are doing this. It can be anyone, and it needs to be three completely different types. For example, a child actor can observe a teacher, a parent, sibling, the grocery store man, a homeless person, someone at Church or a Bus Stop. Ask yourself the following:

How does this person look? What do they wear? What are they doing?

How do they speak, eat, write, and walk?

What are their quirks, idiosyncrasy’s, or patterns? Do they smile easily, laugh, frown, scowl or grin a lot? Do they hide or show their teeth?

Do they twitch or have nervous eyes, hands feet or mannerisms? Do they fidget or are they calm, cool and collected? Are they direct or do they avert their gaze when addressing people? Are they confident or shy?

Do they seem happy or sad? What is their general vibe? Do they walk or run funny or normally or do they limp, use a can, wheelchair or crutches? Do they have nervous speaking patterns or are they articulate? Do they have a large vocabulary or are they limited in their communications?

Once you have observed people, I recommend taking notes and keeping a file on various types of people. You can give each different person a file title like, The cute guy in Spanish class, The nerd at the pharmacy, the Queen, the President of the U.S., the popular cheerleader, the jock. My Mom, my Rabbi, my little brother, the ditzy girl, my favorite cousin, my Grandpa, my Aunt at my Uncle’s funeral. You get the picture.

Now that you have a catalogue of characters to draw from and you find a role that you will be playing, you now have observations to help you begin to create a character that has layers. People watching is fun, creative work. We aren’t paid to guess, we are paid to make playable choices and deliver magic that is believable.

Much of what we play will be ourselves, that is always the most accurate, but for those characters that are not like us, we must look outside of ourselves, go on task, and use your Observation Files. Not only will you have wonderful details to use in your study of the human condition, you will be come a much more expanded person along the way. What a wonderful quality. This really is sacred work we are doing and it is so much fun!