Ziyad

I never imagined myself becoming an actor and when I did the audition for an acting school, that was my idea of a fun day out. I did really badly. Two judges against, one for. I was eliminated. I did find out that "Acting is Fun".
The next year after a year of professional theater experience (granted, most of that experience was dancing), I decided to try it again. I actually prepared this time. I got three judges for and was one of the few to be allowed into this school.

I followed one year of acting at this film acting school. I loved it and I hated it. That's a really good sign for me.

I had some of the best teachers imaginable. They seemed to digest years of experience into sometimes just a single word of advice and it just clicked and turned my gears into the right motion. Were we living in different times, I would have shaved my air and offered to become a disciple to any one of them, just so I could learn from them on a daily basis, rather than just school days.

Some teachers, weren't that good. They played favorites blatantly. They digested hours of experience into years of talking. One of them connected with our group of ambitious actors and actresses so well that after a couple of lessons the only way he could get us to do something was to shout or threaten us.

At the end of each semester teachers would evaluate us and ask us for criticism towards them. I spoke my mind. I was honest where others were not.
I just read in another thread that in auditions directors always say that that the actor was good and the one who wrote it at first didn't and found out it was wrong to do it that way. Well I found out I was wrong to do it that way too.
In the end year film I had one of the best performances of our group. One actress said she would have liked to play her role opposite to me instead because then it would be easier to play (and I don't think she was hitting on me ), one teacher told me he thought my performance was better than the one that everybody seemed to love most. I wouldn't know. I liked me.

They didn't allow me into the next year. This made me pretty angry. I guess I never considered sucking up because quality trumps everything. I was wrong.

I'd like to get some honest thoughts about my situation, so I'm also going to add their side of the story, so I'll have to play devil's advocate. I'll repeat their best reasons and arguments that they told me.

Ziyad has to do his year again, because although he displayed brilliant quality of performance, he didn't open himself up to all the lessons. Each new teacher he stepped in with criticism mode on high alert and only when the teacher found a certain click in Ziyad, would he participate in the lesson. Granted, he really dove into those lessons far and deep. But the ones that he didn't deem worthwhile he never did and thus he didn't suck up and absorb the experience of those lessons. Because Ziyad has been doing so despite our warning against this, we feel it's necessary he will do the year again and to experience all the things he's missed because of his emotional wall.

So they want me to come back. I don't know if I will. I'd like your thoughts on this.

rconnew

You can never stop learning full stop. If you think you know everything then you will fail full stop. I know it's tough when you believe in yourself which you should but please listen to others they may have something worth saying. We are unusual in that we are a production company that grew out of an acting school purely because we wanted to make films. We run a production company (Yorkshire Video Production - Home), acting school (Film TV & Theatre Acting classes for children & young adults in the Leeds Yorkshire area - Tel +44 (0)1977 681949 - Home), and an acting agency (Acting Agency) so trust me when I say you need training as does any other actor no matter how good you think you are - don't believe me?

This film has one good and two poor actor/actress in our opinion. Yorkshire Video Production - Click on the VIDEO ICON to see - recent / current work in Low Quality/"BLITZ" - May 2008
All believe they are GOOD! which do you think will get a job?

This film has three good actor/actress's in our opinion
Yorkshire Video Production - Click on the VIDEO ICON to see - recent / current work in Low Quality/"Lots of Love Harry" - February 2008 - Top Ten finalist Babelgum International Film Festival 2008
All believe they are average!!! - BUT all have training as they believe they need it.

Richard

Ziyad

Thanks for your reply Richard. As you can see, this was almost 2 months ago and I've since auditioned to a theater group and decided that I'd hone my skills in practice as well as in lessons (it's a group that combines lessons with work, which is perfect for me). I think I'm through, but I don't know yet. If I'm not, I'll do this school again.

As for the first movie, I must say I found each three of them hard to believe, but the mother is the one who made the most choices and followed them through and I'm wondering what her performance would be like if there were 2 better actors for her to play with.
Which do I think will get the job? I don't know. If just one them will, the mother should get the job, but that doesn't mean she will.

I agree that those in the second one were quite good, although the guy didn't impress me as much. His running both at the beginning wasn't right.

I liked the second movie btw. This is your production company? Cool.

I definitely agree that you never have enough training. It's just sometimes hard to decide which training will be most effective and efficient. I think I need experience and I need to try things out next year, so that's what I'll focus on.

Thanks for your time! Let me know what you think of my analysis of your movies/actors.

rconnew

You were right the woman was the better. Main point I tried to make is that peoples own opinions of them selves often are miles away from reality. We do quite a few short films now to show people just what they are really like on screen! Many still think they are great - to quote one of the poor actors in BLITZ "but I've never done period before" sure deportment lessons may have made a difference but any actor should easily be able to act in any period in time. More recently we have opened up our training school for children to young adults as there doesn't seem to be many schools for adults these days - the odd workshop but nothing ongoing in the UK at least. Given we film much of their work and post it on the internet for them to see later it seems to be working quite well now. See Film TV & Theatre Acting classes for children & young adults in the Leeds Yorkshire area - Tel +44 (0)1977 681949 - Home > Northern Film and Drama Acting School - Acting classes for Film TV & Theatre for young people in the Leeds Yorkshire area - FIL

Ziyad

Two points that I would like to make.

I never said all acting schools suck, I was just rather disenfranchised with mine.

Just because other people's opinion about themselves are wrong, doesn't mean mine is.

That said, I am planning to go back to mine. An old colleague of mine has applied and was accepted and it'll be fun to act with him.

rconnew

Good for you - you can always learn no matter what age or how good you think you are - the more you learn the better you are - the better you are the better your chance of getting the part at your next audition.

Richard