Thursday, June 28, 2012

Acting Workshops in Los Angeles- Creating Personas

By Kirk Baltz


When it comes to acting, great abilities cannot be formed overnight. It is only through rigorous study and training that actors can reach their goals. To do this, actors are required to face themselves as they truly are, vulnerabilities and strengths alike, to uncover their true selves and create lifelike characters.

Every character that an actor creates is multi-dimensional as are the actors themselves. These dimensions consist of the individual or character's public persona, his or her deep-seated fears and vulnerabilities, and the tragic flaw. Working with an acting coach has been shown to be highly effective in helping an actor to see past his own exterior and that of his character to reveal the heart of the person within and create characters that are both real and relatable.

Our public persona, according to Carl Jung, is the image that we present to the rest of society and is designed to mask our true feelings, emotions, and insecurities. Expression of this persona occurs in all areas of our lives. Characters also have personas that they create to protect their true selves from the rest of the world and actors must learn to utilize their own personas to create those of their characters.

Although the public persona is the dimension that is the most easily recognizable and obvious in a character, it is only an exterior facade and not the core of the individual. However, the true identity of a person dwells within the difficulties, insecurities, and vulnerabilities that inevitably work to form each individual. Acting coaches are trained to teach actors to come face to face with their own childhood fears and issues in order to create a truly believable character with great depth and dimension.

That which affects us in childhood remains a part of our lives until the day we die, whether we allow it to surface or not. The same is true of created characters. Both actual persons and characters use this public persona to cover up their insecurities and fears so as to reduce their helplessness in the world.

The mark of a great actor is his or her ability to dig past both their own and their character's public persona to the actual person within. The best coaches will aid their students in both uncovering and portraying the inner workings of the human condition.

Every member of the audience has both a public persona as well as a deeper substance that has worked to create the exterior. Presenting a character of similar dimensions is sure to create a bond between the audience and the story being told. All great actors must learn to succeed in this form of character creation.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment