Kline Eric Stephan - Acting for the Camera

ACTING FOR THE CAMERA . Copyright 1997 by Tony Barr.

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EPub Edition SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 978-0-062-23756-9

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FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barr, Tony.
Acting for the camera / Tony Barr; exercises by Eric Stephan
Kline. Rev. ed.
p. cm.
Originally published: New York : Perennial Library, 1986.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-06-092819-0
1. Motion picture acting. I. Kline, Eric Stephan. II. Title.
PN1995.9.A26B37 1997
791.43028dc21

97-993

11 RRD 40 39 38 37 36

DEIDRE HALL, Peoples Choice Award winner
Tony Barrs Acting for the Camera is the clearest and most practical acting book Ive ever read.

JERRY LONDON, Director, Shogun
Tony is a top notch director himself, and Acting For the Camera is realistic and easy to understand for the pro or the novice.

JEFFREY HAYDEN, Director
Acting for the Camera is a godsend, and Ive re-read it from cover to cover. Its still the best book written on the subject, and I owe you a great debt for it.

ELLIOT SILVERSTEIN, Director
A helluva book for the newcomer, especially the section on The Machinery of Film.

ERNEST FRANKEL, Frankel Films,
Director / Producer / Writer
I believe actors will find it invaluable. Congratulations on a superb job.

HENRY WINKLER
Its always fabulous when someone can finally write a coherent, helpful guide to what acting on film is all about without losing the understandig of the craft. TONY BARR HAS DONE IT, FOLKS!

If youre a theater-trained actor, you need this book in order to learn how to work in front of the camera. Although the foundation of good acting is the same in both medialisteningas an actor, you need to understand what the screen requires from you and what creative adjustments you need to make to achieve your best performance.

These pages explain it all in detail.

Actors are always looking for that teacher or that book which will supply the magic that transforms them from aspiring young talents to geniuses. When I was starting out, I was one of those actors, and I did my share of reading. Im still reading, and one book I just read is Tony Barrs Acting for the Camera.

There is no teacher like performing. Whether the performance is on Broadway, in a little theater in a small town, in summer stock, or in dinner theater; whether it is in a major feature for MGM, in a little nonunion film, or in a student film; whether it is in a commercial or industrial film or documentary or religious filmwhatever and wherever, there is nothing better for the actor than to do it.

The questions actors must ask themselves are, How do I do it better? And sooner? And thats where the teachers and books come in.

Ive read a lot of material about acting and actors. Ive certainly talked enough about them during my lifetime to fill volumes, because the subject of acting never fails to get me excited. What it all must boil down to eventually is, What have I learned that I truly understand, and that I can actually put to use?

When doing Ages of Man, Sir John Gielgud was asked what was the most difficult thing for him in acting, and he replied, Making it simple. Tony Barr has made it eloquently simple with Acting for the Camera. It is fast reading, easily understood, and beautifully laid out. Now I understand what I do.

Ed Asner

In 1960, a talented director friend of mine, David Alexander, approached me to find out if I would form an acting school with him. I agreed.

One of the principal reasons behind the decision was that Hollywood was full of charlatans and con men passing themselves off as teachers, publicists, agents, etc., and unwary neophytes had no way of knowing when they were being bilked by these exploiters who prey on the unsuspecting and innocent. A reputable school would certainly be a plus.

We started the Workshop (David left it soon after to direct full time), devoting ourselves to teaching acting as we had been taught it and as we had applied it in our years in the theater. Our teachers had used Stanislavsky literally; we used Michael Chekhov, Lee Strasberg, Robert Lewis, and a number of other lesser and greater exponents of what had become known as the Method. And David had his own technique.

I soon became aware that every teacher had his or her own pet tools and, consciously or otherwise, eliminated those teaching and acting tools that did not fit into a particular mold. I was as guilty as everyone else, focusing primarily on intention and emotion-recall exercises. It took about five years for me to realize that something was missing, and that what we were teaching, however effective it might be from time to time, was too limited.

As the years passed, I also realized that there was virtually no professional acting work to be found on the stage if one was based in Hollywood; careers and livelihood depended on television and feature films. It became painfully clear that my teaching focus was wrong. I bought videotape equipment and began to study the specifics of working in the film media and to teach my students what I learned about the difference between stage and camera. The inner drives (that is, the emotions, the sensory responses) are the same for the actor whichever medium he is working in, since under given circumstances the same stimulus will cause the same reaction in a person no matter what the medium. For example, if I kill your mother, your feelings would be the same for television as for the Hollywood Bowl.

On the stage, the actor must work through the other actor so as to project to the back row of the theater, wherever it might be. On camera, in a close-up, the back row of the theater is, in effect, on the shoulder of the off-camera actor. In a master shot, the back row is only a few feet away, where the lens is. In other words, the only major technical difference lies in the