HOW TO ANALYZE A SCRIPT OR AUDITION SPEECH (Acting Coach nyc)

hello thank you very much for watching I'm John winter Cunningham this video is about how to analyze a scene or an audition speech and if you don't like the word analyze or the sound of the word analyze because it sounds like thinking too much about the lines you've got to say well I just mean how to understand exactly what the damn lines you've got to say mean there are many ways of doing this you can ask yourself why a character is doing whatever they're doing why they're jealous and just think it through and work it out or you can think about what the objective in the speech or the scene is what they're really aiming at if they're talking to this person but really trying to seduce them or you can look at the subtext of what a line has got underneath it so if you've got a line like I love you the line quite probably means do you love me and then there's research so that if you're playing a nurse in a scene you might want to look up how nurses are trained to speak to patients but there's one particular way of looking at lines of understanding them which in order to understand it may be helpful if I tell you a story I heard from Anthony Hopkins Anton Hopkins was sitting at a table with a group of actors about to read the first scene of a play sitting down the first time together and he was answering all sorts of questions about the difficulty of acting and he said sometimes at a first reading there will be people here even as a reading of a screenplay which sometimes happens where some actors in the room and everyone's welcome to work on the play in it or a scene anyway they want to if it works for them but there'll be sometimes people who've read the entire play 20 times the entire thing and he said I don't understand that I just don't understand it because everyone's welcome to work in their own way but it wouldn't enter my head it wouldn't enter my head wouldn't enter my head to do that to read a script in advance 20 times because it wouldn't enter my head to turn up at a first rehearsal of a play or a film without having read it at least 120 times and we were sitting around and we thought what the hell's he talking about how can you read something hundred in 20 times really and two things struck me one was that maybe if the other actors around him were able to study their script hundred 20 times they'd be as good as he is and the other was how the hell do you do it and this particular way that I want to push now of analyzing a script of understanding what the lines mean is a very simple idea but it may help and it's to work out what is the most important word in each line if you don't do it then you're probably hitting lots of words in that line which is going to make it rather boring apart from not really understanding it so that for instance the line from a TV series here at a lawyer's office and one lawyer turns to another and says how does John's mother know if her son is innocent how does John's mother know if a son is innocent but to get at the depth of the line to understand it you have to read it quite a few times quite a few times just this line on its own so it can be how does John's mother know that her son is innocent or how does John's mother know that her son is innocent or - how does John's mother know her son is innocent or how does HAMP John's mother know her son is innocent the police does the sound of a police car in the background inspire any thoughts at all when we hear a police siren like that there's one moment when we first hear it yet is irritating maybe all the time it's there but it's the first moment that stands out it varies in any way anyway I'm just picking at any possible thing to push this idea at you that really really really if you have a very very very long sentence and it's going on like the one I'm saying now there's really only going to be one point in the sentence however long it does go on where a particular word needs emphasizing not a particular word needs emphasizing so that's the point look at sentences find out what is the most important word in them because if you're not doing that you probably don't understand the sentence there's only ever one word that is the most important word in a sentence of course you're still going to make it truthful I'm not just saying find a pick or choose the word in the line and then hit it and it'll be real you've got to find what that truth is what you've got to know that you're turning onto the other lawyer in the office and saying how does John's mother know if a son is innocent or however you want to say it just just just look at scripts if you know if you're not hitting the most important word in the line in the sentence each time then what the hell are you doing there cannot be more than one important word in a sentence there can't be you I can be terribly ill and do for an important operation in a hospital tomorrow and finding it very difficult to get hold of my best friend in New York to speak to because I may not be alive to speak to her again and I may have many other thoughts on my mind but there will be one thing which matters more than anything and that will be that I've already spoken to her and when you say the sentence with just the word spoken it it's wonderful to hit all the other things firmly as much as that they won't be okay thanks thanks very much for watching I'm not going into hospital tomorrow and I don't need her far as I know uh-huh and hey any operation you

Channel: John Windsor-Cunningham

Views: 73,591

Rating: 4.9731307 out of 5

Keywords: actors, help, Lee Strasberg, New York, actresses, acting-coach, how to, Stella Adler, free, Stanislavsky, Meisner, John WIndsor-Cunningham, teacher., Uta Hagen, Michael Chekhov, talent, Premiere_Elements_11, drama lessons, advice, http://www.windsor-cunningham.com/

Id: 5qjFbK4BvdQ

Length: 7min 19sec (439 seconds)

Published: Tue May 26 2015