AUTHENTICITY

One of the fundamental tools of The CAPTURES Method is AUTHENTICITY. We watched a few videos and had a great discussion about what authenticity is, how to practice it in life and how we can bring it to our acting.

I spoke about how we can sometimes be beholden to our "adaptive self" when we find ourselves in situations that may seem scary or out of our comfort zone. Instead of allowing our authentic selves to come through, we put on the mask, hiding our vulnerabilities.

As actors on film and tv, I believe we have to cultivate vulnerability and authenticity both in life and in front of the camera. I think the camera captures our truth as we express it and the closer we can get to our true selves or the character's true self, the more captivating what we are doing becomes.

We looked at a few actors reaction shots - Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness, Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street, Tom Holland and Robert Downey Jr. in Avengers Endgame, and a few others based on this video:
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We also talked a bit about RELATIONSHIP and how if you don't have a truthful relationship to the other person you are speaking to and trying to change, you won't have an authentic REACTION to what they are saying. You need to know how you are trying to change that other person and whether or not they are starting to change in order to authentically react to what they are saying.

We took a break and worked on our scenes, and I have to say, I think EVERYONE in the room that night had a big breakthrough in their scene work. That's the power of being a listening for AUTHENTICITY. Great work, everyone! I'm really looking forward to seeing what you bring to your next session. 

HERE'S THE LINK TO YOUR FILES

Here's another quick video from CHARISMA ON COMMAND (highly recommended) about PRESENCE that has some really important concepts relating to AUTHENTICITY! Even though he's talking about social skills, we can apply these concepts to our acting. Keep working on those other CAPTURES tools and I'll see you next Tuesday.

A quick recap of the concepts in the video:

1. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, YOU'LL BE OKAY
2. YOU HAVE TO CARE MORE ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER (YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF) THAN HOW PEOPLE PERCEIVE YOU
3. YOU HAVE TO WORK ON HAVING IMPECCABLE INTEGRITY and HONESTY (LIES CRUSH YOUR SELF-ESTEEM)
4. YOU DON'T NEED TO CONVINCE ANYONE OF ANYTHING (JUST ASK - NO NEEDINESS - ACCEPT OR MOVE ON)
5. YOU HAVE TO START COMMUNICATING YOUR PURPOSE (REPEATEDLY)
6. YOU NEED TO START GOING THERE FIRST (BE THE FIRST TO...)

​So important and if you incorporate these ideas, they will make a difference!