Consistent Technique

So, yesterday, I criticised the lamentable state of Pick’n’Mix training in UK Drama Schools and Colleges. And today, I want to talk about what I believe should be offered instead at these institutions.

Training should have a guiding, unifying through-line to it, with a consistent philosophy, out of the practice of which it is possible for the graduate to stand on their own two feet.  This type of training must be learnable, and what I mean is that they must be practicably applicable in real life work situations.

This way is not immediate. It takes months, perhaps years, but it is infinitely more reliable than the Pick’n’Mix’ approach, which teaches the student practically nothing that they can rely upon.

The Pick’n’Mix system doesn’t given the student any time to learn their craft. They learn bits here and there and in the end, INSPITE of the training, they muddle through.

I’m talking about a simple system of training that all points in the same direction. The philosophy should be easy to grasp and the training should be learnable.

I say this again because I believe that many schools do not have a philosophy of training and that the skills they claim to teach are taught through games and exercises through which only one thing is learnable, obeisance to the teacher.

A technique that is learnable means that it can be reproduced. It must be make sense, not just to the teacher, but through time the students.

Added to that, we must not be scared of learning a technique, it will only help to develop and bloom your existing gift for acting, skill grows when it has something to keep challenging it, like a tomato plant grows up the vine.

By having a consistent through-line thread, the students can understand how they are developing along the line. In the P&M version of training, they have no clue at all.

My suggestion is simple. Train your acting students in a coherent technique of acting and then challenge them to work with a bunch of different directors on a lot of material.

Then challenge a group of Pick’n’Mixers to the same competition. Given that rehearsals on average are only 3 weeks long in the UK, shorten it to 1 week and see who has the tools to do the job.

My own students have proven over and over again that their talent is unleashed by having a thread to follow.

If you don’t have a thread, I can imagine you are frustrated, confused and in the end, I’m sorry to say, you will probably give up or muddle through it, convincing yourself that actor training was mainly fun and interesting crap that you could have done without.