Lesson 8: Layering Emotional Preparation
Layering Emotional Preparation is an Acting Technique is key. Layering literally puts layers of emotions on top of emotions in your acting. After Activating one Emotion, you rest it, and go get another emotion activate it. This way you have more than one activated emotion current. Your real time experience will have two activated emotional ranges. This takes knowing Relaxation techniques.
Do you Blame the Playwright for writing more than one emotional current? How do you handle scenes with more than one emotion? Have you learned the acting technique of Layering Emotional Preparations?
Some Main Quotes from this Acting Article: “Layering Emotional Preparation takes patience and timing with Relaxation.” “Layering an emotional life of an experience is a key in acting”
“Emotions on top of each other will intensifying the desired Emotional Ball Park.”
Copyright 2022 Simon Blake
Why Do Actors Need to Layer Their Emotions
Acting is a complex art form and requires the actor to be able to layer their emotions. By layering their emotions, actors are able to be realistic. The more reality of emotions bring you to life in a way that more you connect with an audience. Layering also helps actors to show subtle changes in emotion. Emotions build as the story progresses. Actors must express a wide range of feelings without relying on being extreme. Facial expressions or large gestures should come out of your emotions.
Many Playwrights Have Interlaced Different Emotional Elements in the scripted Characters. The Actors job is to find within themselves the Emotional Life to live a real time experience. The Actor can’t go on stage prepared without having activated personal emotion.
Layering also allows for different interpretations. Each Actors adds their unique emotion to the same scene. Uniqueness Depends on the performer’s personal preferences or direction from the director. Layering emotions requires practice and skill. It is necessary for any actor who wants to be successful in their craft.
Lesson 8: Layering Emotional Preparation
Technique 8: Layering Emotional Preparation
Quick Note: As the Arts and Acting grow these techniques become more relevant. IF there is no art in your acting then you do not need Emotional Preparation. There are many projects (most) that don’t have much emotionally artistic value.
Working Actors rely on their Directors and the Script Writers. Script Writers task themselves to add Emotional Layering in their scripts. Much of the industry type casts because Actors struggle to gain Acting Techniques. If you don’t exercise their own talents you won’t grow. With these helpful techniques you will only book emotional acting parts.
Learning to do this yourself builds your talent levels higher. If you handle emotional capabilities you are in a different league. Good script, writings and materials have undercurrent emotional elements.
Common Understanding:
Simon himself will spend a couple weeks on an Emotional Layering. Loving the ability to reengage in an Imaginary Emotional World builds talent.
Layered Emotional Preparations come in all shapes and sizes. They can do this as a short exercise before working. Layered Preparations can be lengthy preparations towards an entire film script.
In some cases it will be at least a two-week process to achieve. It may take several weeks to months to gain the Emotional Concoction desired for a certain role. Layering the Emotional Preparation techniques will skillfully intwine the complex scenarios. Complex Scenarios are part of the emotional influences with audiences in acting.
Few Actors ever achieve complex Layered Emotional Preparations as a regular acting technique. It is the cream of the crop Actor that persists with Layering their emotions towards an acting role.
Layering Emotional Preparations Builds Depth
Layering your Emotional Preparations usually occur one layer at a time. In this section Simon aims to help you learn how to begin to layer your own Emotional Preparations. It is important to understand that layering emotional preparations. Layering is often a needed process. You do not need to Layer emotions to be successful with Emotional Preparations.
Far simpler single emotion techniques are just easier to utilize and function with. As practical as Multiple Preparation Techniques are, it is an advanced process. It is however important to know that Multiple Preparation Techniques exist. Knowing Multiple Layering Emotional Preparation Techniques exist is important. Often you could end up creating them by your own default you will know what to do if it happens by accident. Pay attention to the technique you are creating. Do not discard your growth because something feels stuck.
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Instructions: 4 Short STEPS to Emotional Preparation
Layering of Emotional Preparations is an advancement in the process of Emotional Preparation. The building up of the life inside of the Actors emotional world is a by adding personal emotion. It is easier adding the complexity of emotion before a scene commences. Gaining the necessity of the scene is not the purposes of making it more complex.
Let’s take a Look: If you are doing a role as an alcoholic. That is a complex topic and scenario. If you gain the emotions needed it simplifies the process for your acting. The goal of Emotional Preparations is to make your acting more simple. Emotion is not logical or more complex. Adding emotion takes hard work to add to your acting.
The purpose of the complexity is in the Playwrights hands. The Playwright has already thought out the outcomes. The overall method to communicate to the audience. Adding emotion remains for the reason of function. You want to function at a higher level in your acting.
Doing Emotional Preparation is not for the purpose of exploring fanciful complications. Adding Emotions is the simple way of entering a complicated Imaginary Circumstance. The more straight forward the emotional diversity the easier it is. Expressed emotion is often more enabled in expression when the Actor relaxes.
The Richness of inner life that can be entail by structuring your layers. Preparation is more incredible than most of the work combined. A realness that translates in raw format on camera and is a shock to audiences. Audiences see the real life of a scene that can surpass expectation.
Layering Emotional life may take place over several days or weeks. On occasion Layering Emotional Preparation could take place over a month period. The longer Preparations take is pending upon the work that the Actor is involved in. The part most often dictates the complexity of preparation.
STEP 1: Determine Two Single Emotions to active
STEP 2: Self Activate the First Emotion
STEP 3: Wait until you have a solid affect from the first emotion
STEP 4: In a Relaxed State activate a Second Emotion
Benefits of Layering Emotional Preparation Technique
The Layering Emotional Preparation Technique (LEPT) is a powerful approach. Helping people ready their emotions for acting is very personal. It involves breaking down large emotional tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks. Normally you would identify the larger emotional range of the scene. The issue is, often there are more than one single emotional ranges. So this technique bridges the gap to include self activating more than a single emotion.
This technique can be used to help people overcome fears and anxieties. Emotional Preparation Technique is not therapy. The process of difficult memories and experiences, build resilience and emotional intelligence. Intelligence is needed to determine which emotional ranges work for you. How well do you do in self activating an certain emotion. Intelligence is not needed as Logic within your acting.
By breaking down the task of acting into into smaller emotional parts. You can start to identify your emotions in chunks. What emotions do to you keep you in a “range” during acting. This helps reduce the potential for overwhelm and increase the chances of success. This also achieve the Playwrights emotional intentions. The Actor can be authentic and natural with the active emotion working for them.
LEPT works by layering on new skills, techniques, and understandings that can help. A person’s perspective on a situation or experience is their value. Simon teaches to be open and vulnerable to an undetermined outcome. You want to be open to what is really happening not what is suppose to happen.
Increasing your capacity to cope with difficult emotions is healthier. The critical ways to having a longer career is to get to know yourself. Being able to have an experience without numbing out is important. Avoiding certain emotions altogether is often a result of a block. If you avoid certain emotions you may have emotional blocks you need to solve. You may need to release in order to be able to work freely with that specific emotion.
Ultimately, this Layering technique can help people gain better insight. Insight into why you feel the way they do is critical. You can also learn about what ranges you find easier to access. You want to manage your feelings in more helpful ways towards your expressing them. Expression is the ideal outcome, not controlling how you express your emotions.
Difficulties To Watch For When Layering Emotions
Layering emotions can be a difficult process to navigate, with many potential pitfalls. One of the biggest challenges is not over-loading the emotional weight of a scene. This is especially true for scenes that contain multiple emotions. It’s important to ensure that each emotion is given enough time and space first before layering them.
Realize Each Emotional Layer to your contentment then work on adding another. The key is to be expressive without overpowering any emotion is key.
- It Takes Time to Learn
- It Doesn’t work with Emotions you Don’t know well
- It can quickly take you into unexpected emotions
- It is easy for your feelings to shut down and fear to take over
The key in acting is to go with the unexpected.
Additionally, it’s important to make sure all of the emotions are authentic. Being realistic and accurate is another key. Otherwise, emotions can come across as forced or unnatural. It’s also important to pay attention to how the different expressions interact. With one your scene partner allow their affect to work within you. The Difficulty is in getting your emotions to build off your partner.
How emotions build on each other throughout the scene will build a career in acting. When layering emotions, it’s essential to be mindful of pacing and timing. When you feel overwhelmed relax into that until it is more manageable. The Difficulty and goal is to make sure each emotion has enough time to develop before moving on to the next one.
How to Do Layering Emotional Preparation:
Learning how to do Layering Emotional Preparation takes more work. Working with only one emotion is still a lot of hard work. Working with more than one emotion takes even more work. Each emotional current is an additional activation of emotion.
You are the Actor. You don’t need ANY Guru’s technique! You need your own Technique!
We start by breaking down the scripted materials and answering the questions. What is the overall essence of the script> Do we support or contrast the stories Essence? Is the part we play in the script contrast or support the theme of the story?
After we know how we support the scripts storyline we add our own personal emotion. We add to ourselves the essence of the entire script. The Essence is the overall mood and emotion. Actors arrive in scenes not by changing the words, but by adding our personal emotion.
If we contrast the script then we isolate our emotional feature. The script may be about how there is no corruption in the world and we are the only corrupt thing in it. Or The storyline is about how the news channels only broadcast the truth and we are the only lying part of it. Whatever our function we understand the emotion to fit it. Then we put our own personal emotion behind it.
Contrasting a storyline is a really fun thing to do as an Actor. Often times we start the work on our part and depend upon the Director. The Director will adjust or contrast our purpose within the material. BUT, We as Actors must find our own emotion to add to the Directors Direction. The Director does not give us our acting technique. The Director does not give us our Emotional Preparation. We find our own personal emotion by ourselves through journalling. Discovering what moves us. Exploring our life’s meanings. Then we have that underlying participation in the project.
When novice at Acting you start on where you understand the dynamics to be they try to play the dynamics. Playing the dynamics will pretend rather then authentically get the emotion. YOU and Your Emotional Activation go into the project. It’s important to participate without changing the lines of the script!
If anyone corrects your understanding of the script, work with it. The Director often makes changes, then you have to readjust. Each time the Director changes your understanding of the script, you adjust. It is normal that you need to adjust your Emotional Preparation. Make sure the emotion you will activate is your desired choice. Then adjust yourself to their reality with the new understanding of the script. Often times you will need to feel safe to go deeper.
Copyright 2019 -2022 Simon Blake
