The Actor's Survival Handbook

Patrick Tucker, Christine Ozanne

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135470418
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Worried about short rehearsal time? Think that fluffing your lines will be the end of your career? Are you afraid you'll be typecast? Is there such a thing as acting too much? How should a stage actor adjust performance for a camera? And how should an actor behave backstage?

The Actor's Survival Handbook gives you answers to all these questions and many more. Written with verve and humor, this utterly essential tool speaks to every actor's deepest concerns. Drawing upon their years of experience on stage, backstage, and with the camera, Patrick Tucker and Christine Ozanne offer forthright advice on topics from breathing to props, commitment to learning lines, audience response to simply landing the job in the first place. The book is rich with examples - both technical and inspirational. And because a director and an actor won't always agree, the two writers sometimes even offer alternative responses to a dilemma, giving the reader both an actor's take and a director's take on a particular point.

Like Patrick Tucker's Secrets of Screen Acting, this new book is written with wit and passion, conveying the authors' powerful conviction that success is within every actor's grasp.

Family Trees

The “Training” Family Tree

Training deals with all matters to do with becoming an actor, maintaining skills as an actor, and learning new ones. It has six main branches, with some twigs.

Tree: Branches: Twigs:

Training

• Amateur dramatics
  • Example: Mr. and Mrs. Noah fight
• Conservatories and drama schools
  • Teaching acting
• Further training
  • Radio acting
  • Screen acting
• No training
  • Be yourself (plus!)
  • Fellow actors
  • Jobs requiring acting skills
• Starting off
  • Acting: What is it?
• University courses
  • Qualifications

The “Getting Work” Family Tree

Getting work is the journey from first contact to actually landing the job, and has five main branches, lots of twigs, and four leaves.

Tree: Branches: Twigs: Leaves:

Getting Work

• Agents
  • Photographs
  • Resumes
• Auditions
  • Interviews
    • Anecdotes and jokes
  • Open auditions
  • Over the top
  • Readings
  • Rejection
• Casting directors
  • Commercial casting sessions
• It’s not what it used to be
  • Money is probably the answer
    • Hierarchy
    • Producers
  • Never say no
• Typecasting
  • Know your image
    • Attitude
  • Versatility

The “Homework” Family Tree

Homework is all the preparation you do at home, the results of which you take into the rehearsals or to the performances, and has six main branches, with lots of twigs, and a cluster of leaves that includes examples from plays to illustrate the points made.

Tree: Branches: Twigs: Leaves:

Homework

• Instinct versus intellect
  • Don’t give up
  • Good and bad taste
• Journey
  • Consistency
  • Less is more?
    • Example: Anna Christie and her dad
  • Step-by-step
• Movement and gestures
  • Example: Signs of the times
• Style
  • Comedy and farce
• Text
  • Example: Broadway versus Hollywood
  • Gear changes
  • Learning lines
  • Let the wrords do the work
    • Example: Brother and sister act
    • Example: Lady Bracknell’s handbag
    • Example: Valuable verbals
    • Example: You, thee—and the gold
  • Opposites
    • Example: Noël Coward on the phone
      ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• How to Use This Book
• Family Trees
• Acting: What Is It?
• Agents
• Amateur Dramatics
• Anecdotes and Jokes
• Attitude
• Audience
• Auditions
• Battle of the Sexes
• Be Yourself (Plus!)
• Believability
• Blowing Your Nose
• Breaking Up (Corpsing)
• Business (Biz)
• Casting Directors
• Comedy and Farce
• Commercial Casting Sessions
• Commitment
• Conservatories and Drama Schools
• Consistency
• Costumes, Wigs, and Shoes
• Crew
• Designers
• Dialects and Accents
• Directors
• Discussions
• Don’t Ask for Permission
• Don’t Give Up
• Drugs
• Editing and Acting
• Example: Al and Bob’s First Meeting
• Example: Anna Christie and Her Dad
• Example: Broadway versus Hollywood
• Example: Brother and Sister Act
• Example: Kate and Corpsing
• Example: Lady Brchnell’s Handbag
• Example: Mr. and Mrs. Noah Fight
• Example: Mr. Horner Is Exactly That
• Example: Noël Coward on the Phone
• Example: Olivia’s Ends
• Example: Plunging in the Deep End
• Example: Princely Business
• Example: Signs of the Times
• Example: The Silence of the Lads
• Example: Valuable Verbals
• Example: You, Thee—and the Gold
• Eye-to-Eye Contact
• Fellow Actors
• Film versus Television
• Forgetting Lines
• Further Training
• Gear Changes
• Getting Work
• Good and Bad Taste
• Hierarchy
• Homework
• Illness
• Improvisation
• Instinct versus Intellect
• Interviews
• It’s Not What It Used To Be
• Jobs Requiring Acting Skills
• Journey
• Know Your Image
• Laughter
• Learning Lines
• Less Is More?
• Let the Words Do the Work
• Medieval Acting
• Melodrama Acting
• Method Acting
• Mistakes
• Modern Contemporary Acting
• Money Is Probably the Answer
• Movement and Gestures
• Multicamera versus Single Camera
• Never Say No
• No Training
• Notes
• Open Auditions
• Opposites
• Outside-in versus Inside-out
• Over the Top
• Pauses
• Performing
• Photographs
• Problems
• Producers
• Projection
• Properties (Props)
• Pulling Focus
• Punctuality
• Qualifications
• Radio Acting
• Readings
• Rehearsals (Long, Short, or None)
• Rehearsing
• Rejection
• Restoration Acting
• Resumes
• Role-Play
• Screen Acting
• Screen Cheating
• Screen Reactions
• Screen Vocal Levels
• Sex and Violence
• Shakespeare Acting
• Shakespeare: First Folio
• Shakespeare: Prose or Poetry
• Shakespeare: Simple or Complicated
• Shakespeare: Verse
• Shakespeare: What You Call People
• Shakespeare: Wordplay
• Shooting and Acting
• Stars
• Starting Off
• Step-by-Step
• Style
• Teaching Acting
• Technical and Dress Rehearsals
• Technique
• Ten-Second Rule
• Text
• The Team
• Thinking
• Training
• Truth
• Typecasting
• University Courses
• Versatility
• Voice
• Whatever Works
• You (Your Other Life)
• Biographies