How does acting school help?

Question

Can't you just do the same thing that you always do when your with friends, family, whoever. Why do you need acting school?

I took drama class in school for 3 years and everything that I learned seemed almost ridiculous, as if the things that they try to teach you about acting don't seem right. Maybe its just me. Does acting school maybe help you with stage/camera fright?

Answer 1

Maybe not horrible teachers, but perhaps the techniques (or lack thereof) was not for you. It is certainly not the same thing you do with family and friends unless you make it an organized thing, someone assigns scene studies, you critique each other, someone films it at least periodically so you can see what you're doing, etc. I think you spent three years in a place that wasn't right for you. The thing with classes is that you need to look around to find the right fit and once you find that, you learn everything you can there and move on to learn somewhere else. You have to keep expanding. If you're feeling like all you ever do is play improv games then they're not teaching you enough or whatever their technique is, it's just not working for you and it's time to move on.

Aside from acting classes, I think you need to get involved in theatre, readings, all aspects of the thing which you want to be a part of. If it's TV and film, then student films, indies, etc. Anything you can do to gain experience. Even if it's a bad experience, it's experience :-) You can always draw on that for something you do later.

Don't give up on classes. Just find the right ones.

Answer 2

Based on what you wrote, I can only assume that you've had horrible teachers in the past. (No offence.) Because if you'd ever had a decent acting teacher, you'd be humbled by just how much there is to learn. Acting techniques are complex and profound and make a HUGE difference when properly used. Even the most talented actors alive are constantly searching for ways to improve their craft. Otherwise, you stagnate and become stale and bland. Maybe a better question is where to find a good acting school/teacher. In order to answer that question, age and location become key elements.

Answer 3

What you do with your friends and family is not acting - it's showing off in front of people with whom you have a history and who have a strong desire to make you feel good. Not your typical audience. You're also probably not going off a script that someone else has written. I know very few actors who learned to act in college. There are good acting classes and there are bad acting classes. The one that works for you is good, the ones that don't are bad. Acting is not exhibitionism. It's much more technical than you apparently suspect; everything from how to breakdown and arc a scene to how to work differently between a close-up and a long shot. Most actors don't know most of that. Most actors don't work.

Answer 4

Perhaps try to think of it this way:

If you were writing on a piece of paper and used your normal style of writing, well you could do that pretty easily no matter where you were.

Now if I told you to perfectly duplicate 3rd century Anglo-Roman script and put you in front of 100 people and they were all watching to see if you could do it only to mock you when you couldn't... Well that would be a different story.

The skill of acting is not just in entertaining people, it's in taking a character and making it your own person and portraying that with skill and confidence whether in front of 1 person or 1000. All while bringing your self to the role in a way that only you can.

Perhaps your teacher just wasn't teaching correctly or perhaps you weren't getting what he/she was saying.

Either way, you should see if you can figure out the difference for yourself.

Answer 5

If your friends and family are people with years of experience in the performing arts, and if you trust them to critique the minutest detail of your performance work, then...yes, I suppose that's as good as acting school.

But, that's probably not the case.

The ONLY value of any course of actor training is the dynamic that's created as between student and instructor. A good acting teacher reinforces those things a student does well, addresses SPECIFICALLY those areas in which a student's work is deficient, and labors to move the student towards deeper and more affecting performances.

Answer 6

well, im assuming if in three years you still dont think they are teaching the right things, that is not the acting class for you. you should look carefully for classes and talk to the teachers about what is taught as welll as possibly sit on a lesson or two to see if you like it.