Do you offer screen acting training? In this blog we hear from Shelley Lowry, Principal at the Shelley Lowry School, about how they approach preparing their students for Acting for Screen exams. If you’re considering getting started with Trinity College London’s Acting for Screen exams, this post offers invaluable insights into how to prepare candidates for success and support them to get the most from their screen acting journey with Trinity.
The Shelley Lowry School, based in Northern Ireland, has been teaching acting for over 20 years, they are a Trinity Champion Centre and have delivered a range of Trinity drama exams. Shelley also runs a successful casting agency.
Getting started
Our first step when approaching delivering Acting for Screen exams was to look at the Trinity syllabus and, in particular, how many teaching and independent learning hours the candidates should have. We could then work out our delivery plan, with a clear and distinct idea of what we wanted to achieve in terms 1, 2 and 3.
We generally start term 1 in much the same way we would when we prepare candidates for Trinity’s graded exams; by exploring the fundamentals of acting. For example, vocal and physical techniques, and drama practitioners such as Stanislavski, Meisner, and Uta Hagen. A substantial part of the beginning of the term is about getting to know each other and feeling comfortable, confident, and relaxed with performing in front of one another. Every class we start with icebreakers, and we do tongue twisters for diction and clarity, which is really important for television and film.
We perform exercises such as improvisation and hot seating, and explore techniques to help students get to know their characters better. Through these exercises you are helping the students to create their own actor’s toolbox so they can pull upon things to help them with characterisation, understanding the challenges of the monologue, and the demands of the scene that they've chosen. For example, how do we understand what the character is trying to achieve?
By building these skills in term 1, in term 2 the candidates are ready to choose their material and start preparing for the exam tasks. This also means that when they come to reflect on their preparation in the ‘Playback review’ task, they can talk in real depth about the techniques that they have used.
Exam tasks
The Monologue task is always a great place to start. Monologues are performed in a close-up shot, so we start talking to the students about the techniques that are used on camera when using this type of shot. Acting for stage and screen is very different; for screen it has to be much more naturalistic and pared back so we spend time exploring this. We film the candidates performing their monologues and watch them back in class, looking at how they can apply the techniques that we've talked about, and the research they have done into their character.
For the Dialogue task another person acts off screen and feeds in the lines to you, which works well in class because students can be paired up to rehearse and perform the scene, acting for each other when the scene is recorded. This task is filmed in a mid-shot, which is slightly different in approach, because it allows for more movement, if the candidate moves their hands, for example, it will be seen and so they need to be aware of every gesture. And of course candidates are directing the lines to another player which is really important for the performance. We encourage our candidates to be aware of the lighting, the framing, and particularly the eye line when filming this task.
At Screen 2 and Screen 3 (the top two levels of the qualification) there is an additional Listening task, where the candidate needs to react to something off camera. This is a really challenging task as the candidate has to show a range of emotions, but nonverbally. The expressions and movement needed for this are very different to how you might prepare your candidate for a ‘traditional’ graded exam. For example, when you're performing for the stage, you're encouraged to use as much of the theatrical space as possible, and your movements should be big. If you're in the room with the examiner, you are encouraged to think about where the other character in the scene is, and where would you move to. Whereas, in this task, all that can be seen are your head and shoulders. We worked with our candidates on things like ‘how do you internalise the emotion? How do you show your emotions - and your thoughts - through the eyes, without speaking?’
The candidates need to learn that the camera picks up absolutely everything so if you rub your nose, or you scratch your head, it can be distracting. Every eyebrow move, every twitch of the eye, every movement of the mouth must have purpose.
The Playback Review task is really key to developing the skills you have been working on in other elements of the exam. In this task the candidate has to talk straight down the camera lens for 3-5 minutes about their rehearsal process, why they chose their pieces, and what the challenges were. Talking directly to the camera is a skill in itself, and through doing this we found candidates built their confidence and felt more comfortable with being in front of the camera for a prolonged period.
Encouraging reflection
When we film the tasks, we do this in front of the group because on a film set you would need to perform in front of a lot of people so it is good practice to get used to it. We normally schedule one day of filming and then next week we will watch the recordings back. We arrange the chairs theatre style and make an occasion of it.
I lead the discussion, starting with positive open questions such as ‘What did you like?’ and the children will always respond enthusiastically and say things like ‘He looks brilliant’, ‘He sounded great’, ‘I really believed him!’ And then we discuss how we could make it more effective, for example what's the framing like? What's the lighting like? What's the sound like? Are there a lot of distractions in the background? What's your eyeline like? We found doing this as a group really helpful and it is motivating for candidates to hear their peers feedback, and have a chance to celebrate each other, because everybody tends to find it challenging to watch themselves on screen!
When they see the recording, some students will respond negatively - ‘I don’t like the sound of my voice. I don’t like seeing myself up there’ - but we encourage them to see that that your face and voice are your unique selling points, so you have to fall in love with them! And by watching themselves a few times they soon understand that they bring something of themselves to every role.
On watching back their performance, some students realise that they move their hands a lot when they're speaking, or that they tend to shift their weight instead of staying on the mark they have been given. Through the Playback Review task candidates realise ‘I need more stillness for the Monologue task’, and then stay on their mark when they do the task again.
Selecting appropriate scripts
Candidates need to select monologues and scenes from television and film scripts, not from stage plays, which focuses students on inhabiting the character in an appropriate way for screen performance. To support our candidates to select appropriate monologues, we create a Dropbox link where both teachers and candidates can upload and share script ideas. Great places we have found to find scripts are the BBC Writer’s room, and a resource called Script Slug. And of course, you can also encourage candidates to think about what they have watched on film and TV recently, or if there is something on screen that they really love.
Benefits to students
The Acting for Screen exams have had a tangible impact on our students. All of the skills the candidate develops through the exam train them to make the best possible self-tape, which is crucial for employability. Increasingly submitting self-tapes can also be a part of drama school applications so it is an important skill to master.
For students who don’t feel confident on stage, this can be a more appropriate qualification than graded exams, as it is more intimate and supportive, and often delivered in a smaller class.
Casting can be a mysterious process, and these exams can help students to feel more confident with submitting audition tapes and understanding ‘I might not have got it this time but that’s totally fine, and I’ll keep honing my skills and continue with the exam’. The Acting for Screen exam gives them something achievable at the end, because you aren’t going to get every audition you go for, but you can still achieve your qualification. We also really value the examiner feedback for student development.
As a teacher or pupil, you can also keep the recording of your exam pieces in order to send to casting directors when you are interested in reaching out to them.
Benefits to our school
Acting for Screen exams have helped our school to grow, as we now have adults who want to develop their screen acting skills and do Trinity Acting for Screen exams which are open to adults too. As adult learners, not everyone has the time to be part of an am-dram production, but they do have time to spend an hour or two in class.
Being able to offer these qualifications has allowed us to grow the students we work with and represent as an agency. Self-tapes have changed the world of casting so much, where once casting directors might have seen 70 people in the room for a role, they could now see 700. If you want your students to stand out, they need to know how to approach their self-tape properly. Taking this exam can focus them so, when the sides arrive from the casting director, they know exactly what to do, and if they can’t come into the studio they can film from home, because they have the skills. This way when the opportunity arises, they are ready!
If you are interested in delivering our Acting for Screen exams why not download our Teacher's Guide to learn more.
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