Self criticism is the engine of improvement

The Words of Wisdom this week are self criticism is the engine of improvement. To get better at your craft, indeed at anything, you need to work hard at every aspect of its performance. If you do so, by gradual increments you will improve. Great effort is required for small gains and if you are too easily satisfied with yourself you will not make it. No-one ever became a great artist without having a level of discontent with what they were. So you must examine yourself and use the results of this self criticism to drive yourself. Self criticism is the engine of improvement. But there is a rider to this. You do need to recognise when you’ve done something well, pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself. Even a donkey needs carrots as well as the stick. So, recognise when you’ve done well and say to yourself "Well done."

Be A Magpie

Let’s start with the Words of Wisdom: Be a Magpie. Those dapper little birds, supposed to bring good luck or bad, depending on their numbers, are reputed to make their nests by stealing any bright object that catches their eye from anywhere. Notoriously they are supposed to steal the tops from bottles of milk. Actors have to be a bit like that. They never know what the next part might be, so the more general knowledge they have about all walks of life, the better. Try and learn about psychology, history, politics, war, buildings, medicine, the law, the wealthy, people living on benefits, finance, manufacturing, education, clothes and fashion, sport, aviation, fishing, cars … I could go on, but you get the idea: let the whole world be your subject. You can learn a lot from reading and television, but also take any opportunity of mixing with people with a different background from your own: observe their behaviour, their speech, their body language, their unspoken assumptions. Watch people in the streets and on the underground and at the airport: how much can you guess about their lives? Be a Magpie.

Don't dissect the skylark to see the source of its song

The Words of Wisdom this week are a little strange, but bear with me. They are ‘Don’t dissect the skylark to see the source of its song.’ Where I am coming from, with this, is that we can never fully understand ourselves or each other. We can never predict anyone else’s actions with complete certainty, nor even our own. Many things in the world are amenable to analysis but nothing can be totally analysed. There is always a degree of uncertainty. That is, in fact, a scientific fact.

Remember that I am a scientist by training, and believe that knowledge comes from experience, but even so there are limits to how much we can cut things up and reduce them before we change their nature. A skylark is a living creature and it only sings while it is alive. Cut it up and it will die. It is, you see, more than the sum of the atoms of which it is composed.

This same principle applies to acting, particularly comedy. If you make people laugh, or cry, you may find it impossible to understand exactly why you are having such a strong effect on them. If you try too hard to work out why you are getting such results you may be in danger of destroying the thing that makes it work. Comedians and comics who get all serious and try to theorise about what they do suddenly cease to be funny. You may be able to think of a few names of them.

Sometimes it’s best to simply accept that you do things that give an audience pleasure and not to worry about how it is happening. Don’t dissect the skylark to see the source of its song.

Enhance your Watchability

The secrets of making people like looking at you are encapsulated in our Words of Wisdom this week: Enhance your Watchability. What are the factors that give some people that elusive star quality? Dazzling good looks are certainly a help, if you are lucky enough to have them, but plenty of big stars are far from being beautiful or handsome, and some are what is most kindly described as ‘interesting.’ So why are they good to look at? Inner confidence is a big factor and this you can work on by congratulating yourself and remembering every little thing you achieve, however small, and marking up every little thing you learn today that you didn’t know yesterday. That will help and you will find that self confidence is cumulative. But, technically, what can you do to make people want to watch you? How can you acquire a little of that star quality stardust pzazz?
Here are five things that help. 1. Be still. Avoid fidgety movements, particularly moving your hands to your face. These little displacement activities are signs that you are submitting to stress and displaying them reduces your dominance, so be still. 2. Use strong gaze. Our eyes give out our most powerful non verbal signals. Hold gaze a little longer than you normally do and you will feel a mix of emotions. You will feel daring and powerful but exposed. The person you’re looking at and the third parties in the audience will read these emotions. You will become a little bit dangerous. Drop your gaze and you will turn them off. You will feel safe, but dull. 3. Raise your voice and add presence to it. Project your voice to indicate the importance of what you are saying. Don’t swallow your words as if they were insignificant. Remember that your voice is a musical instrument, not only when you are singing but also when you are speaking. Get accustomed to using a range of tone, rhythm, pitch and emphasis. It will become automatic to add expression to what you are saying. It won’t seem stagy or artificial. 4. Display physical energy. If your body is physically energised this transmits to an audience, even when you are stationary. Physical energy adds excitement, so make all your movements decisive and purposeful. Make your head movements definite and strong. 5. This is a rather mysterious one, but it works. Think of a wonderful secret you might have. Imagine you have it. Hold this wonderful inner secret and you will look amazing. Strange but true. Practice these five things and you may be sure you will … Enhance your Watchability.

Learn your lines by living them

The Words of Wisdom this week are Learn your lines by living them. All actors have to learn lines, the bigger the part the more lines there are to learn, and few things cause more anxiety than the fear of 'drying' - forgetting what you have to say next.

How do we learn and how do we remember? One thing we know is that we learn from repetition. If we repeat a skill again and again we get better at it, particularly if we make the repetition progressive, that is, if we start with easy things and step by step move on to harder ones. But how do we apply this to learning and remembering lines of dialogue? Well, there are different aspects of memory involved.

First of all there is factual memory. This is the system we have that remembers phone numbers or names. Recall is usually precise and quick, or else not there at all. It can be helped by associations of the kind used by memory experts, for example, if someone is called Donald, imagining them as Donald Duck will help you to remember their name. This kind of memory is of slight use when learning a script, but not much.

Then there is emotional memory. This is slightly more useful. When acting, if we have to show emotions of fear, say, or anger, it is helpful to produce these feelings inside ourselves. It can be helpful to remember a time we really felt that emotion. This gives us a stream of feeling to work on and experience the ebb and flow of a script. This is important but emotional memory cannot always be conjured up reliably and it is not as quick to access as factual memory.

Most important of all is procedural memory. This is the system by which we learn to walk, or cycle, or hit a tennis ball, by developing an automatic and unconscious routine so that we can do them without conscious thought. In order to use this type of memory, work through the words, associating them with your body language, your moves and what you are doing, how you look at the other characters and what they do, so you are remembering the play and your part in it as a whole. You will find that the words will just fit in with everything else and you will remember them far better. You don't have to have the rest of the cast there with you for this, because you can use visualisation, and even if the script is cut or altered you will find you can edit your memory of it and produce the new version.

Try this method, accessing procedural memory, the next time you have a script to learn. Learn your lines by living them.

Every setback is an opportunity

If you are involved in the arts, and particularly if you are an actor, your life will be full of setbacks. You are in an overcrowded profession; there are a lot of people who are rather like you who want to do what you do; the statistics are against you.

Of course, you will study, train and prepare yourself just as thoroughly as you can, but, if you are called to read for a part, you will probably be one of several, or many, people competing for it and you may not be chosen.

This will not necessarily be your fault. A lot of casting depends on physical appearance, the way you speak, height, weight, hair colour, everything in your persona that contributes to your type. If you are inexpreienced you may find yourself at a disadvantage because casters tend to play safe with someone with more of a track record than you have. So the first thing to do is to recognise that your failing to get the part may not be your fault. Don't punish yourself unnecessarily.

Now comes the next stage. Every setback is an opportunity. Use your annoyance at not having got the part to energise yourself. Review the audition: was there anything you could have done differently, or better? Could you have prepared better? You have now made a new contact. They will remember you. How might you be able to revive that contact in the future? What can you study to develop your knowledge and capabilities? How can you get yourself noticed and make yourself heard?

You are running a one person business, so you must be businesslike. You must develop yourself and promote yourself. Life is full of setbacks, but every setback is an opportunity.

Be nice to people on the way up - you may need them on the way down

The Words of Wisdom this week are an old theatre saying: Be nice to people on the way up – you may need them on the way down. That speaks for itself really. People in this business have some success – often a very small amount of success – and they can quickly become arrogant, conceited and all too full of themselves. Don’t let it happen to you, when you become successful. Be nice to people on the way up – you may need them on the way down.