Michael Chekhov

"An actor has to burn inside with an outer ease."

Michael Chekhov was nephew to playwright Anton Chekhov. Considered as a great acting influence of his time, he was considered to be the best student of Stanislavsky. He started off in Russia where he studied in the first studio of the Moscow Art Theatre. Under Stanislavsky's teachings, Chekhov acted in, and directed Stanislavsky's play. It is believed that Chekhov experienced emotional breakdowns during his progress with emotion memory. He soon went on to work in the second studio of the Moscow Art Theatre but due to Soviet Russia suspicions of Chekhov, he moved to Europe for eight years.

After moving to Europe, Chekhov continued to direct, act and teach but was hindered to political factors as well as language barriers. However, in 1936, Beatrice Straight invited Michael Chekhov to establish the Chekhov Theatre Studio. This was a programme designed for actors at Dartington hall in England

His career saw that he became a teacher of 'The Method' and soon became teacher to some of the most prominent figures in the early history of Hollywood. He moved to Hollywood in 1942 after relocating from Europe due to the war. Stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Clint Eastwood have been students of Chekhov. Such popular celebrities of the time would have exposed Chekhov's ideas into stardom and popularity. His ideas on Method acting were developed from the ideas of Stanislavsky. He developed the idea that emotions were not only the actors internal emotions from past events but they could also be based on imagination and the physical. This helped to create a larger range of emotion which actors craved at a time where silent films were in the process of being replaced by true naturalistic acting technique.

Chekhov died in the mid fifties where his influence was only just becoming as strong as it is considered today. 


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http://www.michaelchekhov.org/michael_chekhov.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chekhov
http://www.ace-your-audition.com/acting-quotes.html
http://www.jbactors.com/actingreading/actingteacherbiographies/michaelchekhov.html

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Marlon Brando

"Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It's a bum's life. Quitting acting, that's the sign of maturity"

The quote from Marlon Brando briefly enlightens us to the sort of man who he was. Self loathing, vain and in many senses, a maverick. Yet to the arts, Brando introduced the world to 'The Method' which gained him huge critical acclaim to the point where even today, 8 years after his death, is considered as one of the best actors ever.

Growing up with two alcoholic parents, Brando was a lonely child. Both of his siblings have gone onto acting or other arts related careers. They were all influenced by their mother who engages in amateur dramatics. His father was rarely at home and this fuelled Brando's poor childhood. His attitude towards school was indifferent and even when he moved to Shattuck Military Academy he was expelled for being uncontrolled and inattentive. He always knew he was good at acting over anything else he tried and this gave him the drive to go into acting.After being rejected from joining the army, his break came from the actor's studio in New York where he studied with Stella Adler, one of the member who co founded Group theatre alongside Lee Strasbourg, a student of Stanislavsky. 

His early career highlight is considered to be the role of Stanley Kowalski from ' A Street Car Named Desire'. As mentioned in my previous blog, Brando's performance in the stage adaptation of Tennessee Williams magnificent play defined a generation and marked a drastic change in acting techniques of the time. The idea of method acting brought naturalism to the front of acting and Brando was the man to do this. However, it was his stage performance that not only developed acting style but increased its audience. Brando became an icon to all. Although fame went to his head and he swirled down the path of misfortune, there are points in his career which showed promise such as his performance of Stanley.

Street Car was the catalyst to Brando's career. Although he was a part of many disappointing films, his performances in films such as 'The Godfather' and 'The Last Tango in Paris' depict his skills as an actor who adapts the method technique. He considered the smallest aspects of detail in line delivery such as utterances and mumbles and his eye contact to characters are met well with the demands of the character who he played. Although as a self loathing person, Brando disappeared into oblivion, his legacy as an actor is unbeatable. He is a legend in the world of drama and even so in 1950's Hollywood.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2004/jul/02/world.news1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlon_Brando
http://www.marlonbrando.com/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000008/bio
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg08JqVzrY7zthXVyx79ONNNbVc_y4zXriw_XFrUYEceFIN6_9VxOHk2N8_NusGawB2BV4JYaw9FmLieCueNX1bu02pMZ9eZKiK1aD77Zzbv18d60d4zMFD1pxm3y2osNMge-hDjK48K8U/s1600/marlon-brando1.jpg
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/marlon_brando.html

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The Influence of Television

As a society, we take television for granted. It's easy to 'vege' out against the screen after a hards day work but did you know that on average viewing time for television can mount up to four hours per person? This got me thinking just how did television become so dominant in society and why was it invented?

Television was a development from radio. It was set up by the government as a means to communicate with the army. The idea that a spinning disc would project still images on screen was slowly developed into the twentieth century. Baird developed this technology and in 1925, the first television was showcased at Selfridges in London. This era soon developed into what was known as the 'Mechanical Television Era' where the still image, minuscule screen television was developed into the basics of an electronic television. This meant that still images were developed into 40 lines where pictures could start moving. Televisions didn't go on general sale in this format until 1946 after disruptions such as World War Two hindered technological advances.



From the broadcast of the Queen's coronation.



Television soon took the nation by storm. Although it was a quality product to own and it was released during times of economic hardship, the television allowed access to current affairs and entertained those who were lucky enough to own one. Events such as the Queen's coronation were watched by the whole nation and it was also broadcasted in colour, a rarity during its time in the mid twentieth century.

Technological advancements became more frequent towards the end of the twentieth century:  where digital became more efficient than analogue frequencies and satellite become more developed than terrestrial broadcasting. Soon after networks such as Sky were created, changes to the quality of the actual screen soon came into place such as High Definition and Third Dimensional TV. On demand services also came into place and now access to television can come from computers, phones, public places, ipads, iphones, in fact, a large proportion of electronic devices are now capable of broadcasting television programmes.

Television has become a pinnacle in the nations life. From watching 24 hour news coverage or reality shows, all the way to period dramas and blockbuster films, it is clear that the development of television comes from both technological as well as commercial purposes. Many networks seek to make a profit but one broadcaster in particular have different aims. The BBC is now regarded as one of the most powerful broadcasters world wide whilst its website is considered as the best in the world. It was founded in October 1922. It is funded through taxation and the TV licence which must be paid by all adults who own a television or radio. The money acquired through this pays for programmes which under the Royal Charter aims to 'inform, educate and entertain'. The money also pays for other parts of the BBC such as the radio, Internet and on demand services along with the red button services on the television.

The BBC has values which is stands for such as educating the nation, enhancing its communication of current affairs, bringing the UK to the world and vice verse. It also stands for stimulating creativity, enhancing the counties exposure to technological advances and finally representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities. It is so significant because it represents the  nation in terms of media and is so easily recognisable across the developing world.

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Acknowledgements as of 14/5/12

History of television.ppt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_television

http://www.tvhistory.tv/

http://www.tvhistory.btinternet.co.uk/html/landmark.html.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/index.shtml

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_was_television_made

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Lee Strasberg: An influence on TV and Film

Considered as the 'father of method acting', Lee Strasberg was a pioneer to theatre. Influenced by the practitioner Stanislavsky, Strasberg career spans occupations such as Actor, Director, Teacher and writer. He was first mesmerized by the works of Stanislavsky and his Moscow Theatre Company. Intrigued at the fact that all actors on stage put all their effort in, regardless of the importance of their character, Strasberg went on to study with the The American Laboratory theate in 1925.

His first performance as a professional actor occurred in 1924 where he played the role of '1st solider' in 'Processional'. He went on to be the stage manager for 'Guardsmen'. He co founded Group Theatre in 1931 which aimed to create socially conscious plays using the techniques of Stanislavsky whilst creating a secure system of acting technique. After the group disbanded, Strasberg lectured at many universities accross America and in 1949, he joined the Actors studio and soon after became the Creative director where he remained so for the next thirty years.

Although this briefly summarised the life of Strasberg, his technique into method acting is often associated with TV and Film. In his own words, it is described as 'what all actors have always done whenever they have acted well'. It includes the use of a persons own personal experiences where certain emotions will have arisen. They are then put into the relevant performance to consolidate a realistic and capturing performance. In other words, '[the] creative play of the affective memory in the actors imagination is the foundation for experiencing in acting'. There are five elements needed to be considered when using method acting

                          

1. 1.) RELAXATION: An actor must be relaxed on stage for best performance possible.
   2.) CONCENTRATION: An actor must always concentrate in order to be
   'in the moment'
   3.) AFFECTIVE MEMORY: The recollection of personal emotions applied into
   a performance to achieve naturalism and realistic performance.
   4.)SENSE MEMORY: The use of the human senses to achieve realistic recollection and
   effective use of relevant senses.
   5.) IMPROVISATION: Influences the actor to think like the character and will prepare
   them for any possible problems that may happen on-stage such as lines or
   technical mistakes.

These techniques are both affective on stage and on screen. But when we are looking at the techniques for stage we see how Strasberg looks at how the internal emotions and feelings matter a lot more than the physical. The camera will capture the most tender of facial expressions to which the viewers can instantly interpret whereas on stage actions tend to have slight exaggeration for the audience to follow. Every day actions are done realistically as though it were real and expressions can be analysed from the eyes to the mouth.

Actors such as Marlon Brando use method acting. Marlon Brando is considered as one of the most inspirational actors of the 20th century, If we look at one of his performances, say 'A Streetcar Named Desire' we can see how he adapts method acting into his legendary performance.

From this selection of scenes, we can see how Marlon uses method acting. He plays the character known as Stanley, a brutal man who mistreats his wife and manipulate her sister, Blanche into madness out of suspicion that she is taking advantage of Stella, his wife. The way he plays the character is effective for he doesn't pace about playing some form of demoniacal mad man, instead he is calm and has an almost poker face which creates an ominous and tense atmosphere, particularly between Blanche and Stanley, He is in character all the way through each of those clips from the vocals to the physical stance of a working class man in 1940's America. It is from performances such as this that we can see how actors such as Brando were influenced by the works of Strasberg.

So, in all,  we can see how method acting creates a convincing and thought provoked performance and how it is effective for TV and Film as it shows how internal feelings and thoughts can be interpreted through the smallest of gestures unlike on stage where acting is sometimes more exaggerated in naturalistic pieces, the screen creates an environment where it almost seems that the performances are real.

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Acknowledgements

•  http://www.cothespians.com/leestrasberg.htm
• http://www.methodactingstrasberg.com/legacymission
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_acting
• http://www.methodactingstrasberg.com/history
• http://www.jbactors.com/actingreading/actingteacherbiographies/leestrasberg.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Strasberg
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Art_Theatre

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Welcome

Hello!

I've created this blog as part of the TV and Film unit which I'm studying as part of the Performing Arts course. I'll be posting up details about what I learn in acting for TV and Film, along with research into individuals responsible for the advancement of acting for the camera.

Enjoy!