Introduction
In Portugal, we have an expression – Há males que vêm por bem – which roughly translates to “every cloud has a silver lining.” After careful reflection of the Specialist Skills module, pondering which could broaden my performance and employment net, I chose Stage Combat. I felt it would be a valuable addition to my Spotlight, considering not only my potentially more exotic casting bracket, but the exponential increase in action-fantasy television and cinema being produced. I was disappointed when that option eventually did not open, and ended up on Advanced Acting instead. My thoughts were that acting was an asset we would continually nurture and develop across our entire professional lives, through different natures of work, and learning a completely new skillset like combat at this point would be more beneficial. I am pleased to say that, over time, I felt the benefits of Advanced Acting, deepening my knowledge of Shakespeare, as well as several Acting techniques from practitioners we had not addressed before. In addition, the classes opened my eyes to a completely different style of delivery, with knowledge and practical techniques in order to adapt my acting from the generally larger platform of the stage, to the more subtle requirements of the screen.
I will use this time to reflect on these developments of my skills, as a result of the Specialist Skills module.
Acting for Camera
On this aspect, I was both excited and apprehensive. The notion that ‘the camera sees all,’ every micro-expression, seemed challenging for someone who considers themselves a very facially expressive actor with a loud stage voice, both of which – while not redundant for all screen work – would not be considered the baseline foundation.
We began by assuming the varying roles and requirements on a typical set. Every week, we would rotate the duties of actor, director, 1st AD, camera operator, art department, director of photography, continuity, and runner. Since the room contained fixed lighting and sound equipment, we did not explore the role of light and sound quite so much.
My first role was that of actor, whereby it quickly became clear I needed to refine my default performance delivery and size, being used to always vocally projecting. These classes taught me that, for camera, this must be a decision, justified by the scene or nature of the character. We have a microphone, so we don’t have to talk as loudly, as this can misrepresent the scene, even if we didn’t put any emotion into it; the microphone amplifies every trace of dialogue. To combat my vocal projection instinct, I was challenged to feel the initial intention with only a whisper, before then branching out to fully voiced speech.
Gallery 1 contains the scene covered in class, in which I played the role of Maddie. Though I understood the character and I how I wanted to play it, during recording I realised it was far more complex than I had anticipated, with the character building in anger and frustration, and with that, the volume of my voice proportionately rising which, as mentioned, I was trying to control and avoid. In addition, I found myself having to tame certain subconscious movement impulses, adapting what I was doing to fit the required camera frame. I realised that sometimes what feels natural doesn’t necessarily translate as such onscreen. Video 1 is the result of this exercise, of which I don’t feel particularly proud. I realised that my acting choices weren’t coming across the way I felt they would, and recognise that I still have room for improvement in adapting them to better suit the screen.
The next class task involved carrying out mock auditions based around real breakdowns sent by agents. These classes showed me how much I need to practice sight reading. English being my second language, I need time to examine and understand what I am reading, which in an audition would be reasonably short. I can memorise text quickly, so I need to use that to my advantage prior to the audition.Video 2 is one of these mock auditions. I think I could have done a much better job had I learned the text beforehand. It would have helped with nerves and diction, as well as not stopping the scene before the director called ‘cut.’
Lastly, in these classes, we recorded monologues for showreel/spotlight. I decided on “It’s terrible being nice” from Goodbye Charles by Gabriel Davis and, after working on it with different teachers, I better understood what was I needed to achieve results for screen delivery. The first time I recorded (Video 3), it was still very loud and my face was far too animated for the proposed frame. After watching the result I requested to try again (Video 4) and – with the help of the teacher Keeley Forsyth, who challenged me to do it in the complete opposite manner of which I had been doing it so far – I made a big discovery on how to make everything smaller to fit the screen, while still feeling connected and engaging.The difference is huge and even though, personally, I feel video three doesn’t have the emotion of four, the feedback from my teachers and peers says otherwise and I now know what I have to change in order to achieve this.
I discovered that the difference between acting for stage and screen lies largely in the level of precision required. Stage performance often demands broader physicality and vocal projection, whereas screen acting requires a far more detailed and contained approach. On camera, even the smallest expression can be magnified through framing, editing, and sound, meaning that subtle choices often carry greater impact. By offering less externally, the actor allows the audience more space to project their own interpretations and emotions onto the performance, creating a deeper and more personal connection with the character.
Advanced Acting – Uta Hagen
I feel I have learned and understood Uta Hagen’s technique and will definitely use them in the future. Alex Palmer challenged us to prepare, practice, and present a new exercise each week, part of Uta Hagen’s technique. Due to this organisation and preparation, I knew fully what I would be required to learn, which helped in my personal process as far as time to digest and fully examine the material.
Uta Hagen developed a total of 10 exercises: Physical destination; The Fourth side; Changes of Self; Moment to Moment; Endowment; Bringing the Outside in; Finding an occupation while waiting; Talking to self; Talking to an Audience and Historical Imagination. In our classes, we practised 8 of them and I found some more challenging than others. I will cite the exercises I felt made the biggest impact on my personal development.
Physical Destination is used to teach the actor that we are never just in one place, we are always either coming from somewhere or are going toward something. This helps to create a sense of purpose and authenticity in their performances and is deeply connected to questioning – what did I just do, what am I doing now and what do I want – rather than a character who seemingly only exists within the timeframe of the scene.
Exercise 4, Moment to Moment – an exercise in uncovering the actions and the behaviours of the character. We hid an object within the room. We know where the object is, but must practice how we are going to look for it in a fresh and truthful way. I found this exercise to be incredibly useful, though much more challenging than I initially expected.
Exercise 5, Endowment – This class was the first time I had ever heard this word, and how it can be divided into categories. Examples: any type of burn, stubbing your toe, getting shot, being soaking wet, opening a tight bottle lid, being drunk.
For my exercise, I chose to begin with being drunk. I am returning home after a night out, and my ankle starts to hurt while I am walking. I sit in my sofa and take my shoes off, made more difficult by being drunk. The phone rings, my mom is calling, but I feel an urge to go to the toilet, so I am trying to talk to my mom without her realising I am drunk and that I need the toilet. I take my tasks very seriously, which can sometimes manifest into some sense of restraint, but for some reason I let go during this exercise and had fun with it, and the feedback was quite positive. Moving forward I have to allow myself to enjoy what I’m doing more frequently, while still maintaining control and clear choices. To grant myself the freedom to fully embrace an acting decision or situation.
Exercise 6, Bring the outside in – For this exercise we had to pick an environment to bring to the space, thinking about what the body does within that space. Is it physically different? When it’s hot, or cold, how do I convey and overcome it? That is what the audience will recognise as being hot / cold, etc
In video 5 we see that I decided to bring the beach, planning all the steps carefully in order to make my audience believe I was in fact at the beach. My peers and teacher gave me some great feedback and made me think about the fact that even though I was at the beach, it is usually hot and I should use that to my advantage and do all the gestures I would do in that a much higher temperature to show the audience this. Another interesting taking from that class was that usually in scripts you have the indication to where you are, entering or leaving the scene, but the way you do it to make it more believable is up to you to create. The example in class was that in my scene I had to leave, but before I did that I cleaned my feet with the towel before putting my sock in because my feet were wet, even though in a script it would most likely simply say the character ‘exits’.
Exercise 9, Talking to an audience – The purpose of this exercise is to help actors develop a direct connection with the audience while staying true to their character. For this we also used the fourth wall exercise and had to talk to our peers (the audience) while looking to the three dots (places) in the room. Looking directly to people while talking can present dangers in a way that people can react to you and their reactions can throw you off, so instead of looking at them we should look above them and have 3 to 4 key focal points in the room in order for everyone to feel included. This exercise also showed me how easily I break character and lose my focus during the act of sharing across the audience. During my presentation, my peers started to react and laugh, and because I wasn’t expecting it I broke character and starting laughing as well. I need to improve my concentration skills in order to absorb their reaction, and steer my performance accordingly, whether I want them to laugh more or less, without directly breaking the scene.
Being 18 in a room, we only had approximately 4 minutes per person to present our exercises and receive feedback, which can sound unproductive learning-wise, but I found watching my peers work quite enlightening especially exercise number 2 – The Fourth Wall. I felt that I learned the purpose of the exercise better by watching my colleagues than actually doing the exercise, allowing me to fully witness the outcome and effect.
Uta Hagen also talks about repetition, and our teacher advised us to practice each exercise at least 20 times. I found it quite challenging to keep the acting fresh and spontaneous after planning all the details and rehearsing it so many times, which is another thing to work on, being able to reset the part of my mind that dictates reactions of a through-line, while still maintaining the part of the mind that carries me through with practiced dialogue and motion.
Overall I identify well with Uta Hagen’s methodology. We are storytellers. Our objective is to make people feel something and sometimes that’s not achievable simply by simply feeling that emotion ourselves. According to her technique, an actor should show the emotion rather then feel it. We should observe what our body, face and voice do, and find a way to convey that on stage, which may not always manifest how we imagined.
Advanced Acting – Shakespeare
Being an international student, I had never had much contact with Shakespeare before beginning here. Last year, we worked on the topic for two weeks, which sparked my curiosity, and I was looking forward to learning more about it and having the opportunity to practice the very specific writing and acting styles associated with Shakespeare.
Classes were very well structured, with a clear theme and objective every week. I feel that perhaps we did not have enough time to work individually with the teacher, present our monologues and receive feedback. I finished the module feeling I still had work to do to feel more confident when performing a Shakespeare piece. I am not afraid of it anymore, and I know what I have to do to deliver a good performance, but I still don’t feel 100%.
We started by exploring what Shakespeare’s stories mean and how they are relatable today. Understanding the story is a big step towards dissecting text and the characters objectives. It was curious how some of his plays were so easily adaptable for modern day. Also, to help us understand the wants and emotions, we studied the imagery within the texts, selecting a monologue and drawing every image written in the text. Picture 1 is the result of my exploration this. In my opinion, this exercise was interesting to do but not the most useful to me, at least not the drawing aspect. Every time I read Shakespeare for the first time, the images in the text are the first thing I retain in my memory because they are what I can visualise first in my brain.
Moving forward, we discussed whether Shakespeare’s plays better suited RP, or our own accent, as well as learning about the OP accent (Original Pronunciation), which is how people probably talked at the time. As an exercise, we tried the monologues in our own accent to deepen the connection with the text, which was very interesting to see my classmates better connecting better to the text just from engaging their native accents. I was challenged to do mine in Portuguese. Video 6 shows my interpretation of this, while in Video 7I am playing it in English. When playing it in my own language, the text resonated with me more, I automatically knew what I was saying and feeling. When saying it in English there are more layers pre-delivery, I have to remember it, translate the meaning of what I am saying in my head, attach the emotion, and then say it.
Finally, we covered the Shakespeare canon, how the plays are divided into four periods, each one reflecting different life stages of the author and differing in themes accordingly. Knowing about these periods proved most useful to understand the text and the overall themes of the play. It is also a useful tool when choosing a monologue for an audition. If we know within which period the play we are auditioning for is set, we can choose a monologue from this period that relates to the same themes.
Advanced Acting – Monologue Bootcamp
This stage allowed us to practice all acting techniques studied so far, and test our ability to prepare a monologue by ourselves. The teacher gave us some direction in the room, but it was more about presenting what we practised at home, solidifying our own technique rather than learning new ones. It was useful to have these classes to give us the time to work on our monologue repertoire and refine it for potential auditions in the future.
We started with our Shakespearean monologues, and after reading week we moved on to our contemporary. I felt the Shakespeare part was more useful. We spent some time doing exercises to practice thinking on the line, where we would walk around the room or stop every time we encountered a full stop in the text. A full stop means a change of thought so we would change our action. I felt that exercise was rather useful to experience how quickly some of the thoughts change and how focused we have to be to adapt. Another interesting topic we learned was to look for and use the dialectic present in Shakespeare’s writing.
Something the teacher told me, which I will apply every time I act from now on, is that I must slow down the pace of my speech. English is a slower language and being European, when I feel comfortable with what I am saying, I tend to speed up as I would do in my own language.
Conclusion
Looking back at the Specialist Skills module, I feel it was a valuable and transformative learning experience. Although Advanced Acting was not my first choice, it challenged me in ways I did not anticipate and ultimately strengthened my versatility as a performer. Through acting for camera, I became more aware of how subtlety, stillness, and vocal control are essential for screen work, pushing me to adapt habits rooted in stage performance and develop a more contained and truthful approach.
The work on Uta Hagen’s technique deepened my understanding of preparation, specificity, and storytelling, while also reminding me of the importance of enjoyment and play within disciplined work. Shakespeare became more accessible through textual analysis, imagery, and accent exploration. I was particularly surprised to realise how present Shakespeare is in our everyday lives, especially through modern adaptations, such as the clear connection between the universe of The Lion King and Shakespeare’s plays.
Finally, the Monologue Bootcamp allowed me to consolidate everything I had learned, encouraging independence, self-discipline, and critical reflection on my own process. Overall, this module expanded my “bag of skills” and reinforced my overall adaptability as a performer.
