by Daniel Bradford
What even is an ‘Acting Technique’?
Let me start by saying that all of the different techniques, concepts and paradigms we use in order to conceptualise and approach acting (or any activity for that matter) are not ultimately true. They are mere representations and conceptualisations of the ‘thing’ itself. They are as we say, ‘fingers pointing to the moon, they are not the moon’. Meaning no technique can ever fully encompass the entirety of the actual experience of acting. They are abstractions, useful though they may be. The idea is to choose the most useful ones for you and to keep upgrading your set of tools as you progress throughout your life and career. By continuing to occupy a ‘beginner’s mind’ you will be humble enough to gently discard old concepts in favour of new, more subtle and useful ones. Eventually you’ll be able to let go of them completely, however, only once you have truly mastered them. Here’s a couple ways we can think of it.
Acting and Human Behaviour
Acting techniques in their best forms, are abstractions of human behaviour. They are ways of breaking down and codifying the behaviour we already do as humans. Its a kind of reverse engineering. We see the end result and we work backwards from there to figure out what led there in the first place. We can then use this new blueprint to lead us there again. It’s a kind of psychology but with a specific purpose, different to that of the traditionally therapeutic setting. Its goal is slightly different, though one could still argue both are attempting to ‘hold the mirror up to our own nature’.
Essentially the process is about making the unconscious conscious and then letting that new understanding or approach become unconscious again. See ‘Four Stages of Competance’ in Glossary
The Fundamentals of Acting
Larry Moss* breaks down the formation of human behaviour and therefore acting into three main areas:
- Objective/goal – What a person wants
- Obstacle – What is in the way of what they want
- Intention/action – What they do in order to overcome the obstacle and get what they want
To me, this is really as simple as it gets when breaking down not just human but any animal behaviour, even bacteria!
The idea is that if you reflect upon your own behaviour and that of others, you will see that this paradigm is simply a breakdown of how humans behave moment-to-moment. It’s not meant to be some lofty confusing system of magic that bears no resemblance to reality. Nor does it promise, that somehow, if one learns these complicated spells and incarnations, one will become a great actor.
Acting Techniques as Tools
The idea is that we begin to view the world through the lens of the paradigm we employ, we see how it fits quite well to some extent and gives us a foundation to work from. Now the danger of this is becoming too attached to any one paradigm or abstraction and treating it AS reality, or trying to make reality fit IT. It is at the end of the day, as all words and concepts are, merely a tool to help us along the way towards our goal. An example from clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson goes something like this:
‘If you are attempting to chop down a tree, a knife is better than your hand. But if you come across an axe, discard the knife in favour of the axe. If you then come across a chain-saw, discard the axe’ and so on.