Edward Olive actor & English voicecoach

Acting classes and courses
Correct English pronunciation, diction, reading skills and acting

Introduction
Having the ability to act in English as well as in your native language may not yet be essential, but it is certainly an extremely useful additional string to your bow in your search for work, whether at home or abroad.

Course levels
Upper intermediate/advanced level
Courses can be designed specifically designed for actors or non-actors who already have at least a good upper-intermediate or preferably advanced level in English. In other words it is intended for students who already speak fluently, who understand normal speed speech and who can read and more or less understand film scripts and plays, with the exception of the odd word here and there.
Lower level
Courses for lower level students can also be given using simplified texts to learn English through drama.

Course numbers
It is intended that the number of course attendees is kept low in order to give specific attention to each student´s specific pronunciation problems and in order to give them sufficient “airtime” when practising new found pronunciation skills or when reading scripts etc.
This may make course fees relatively high, but it is my firm belief that I get results and that course attendance will be of long term benefit.

Course Content
Pronunciation and diction
Course attendees will be given a comprehensive guide to correct English pronunciation and phonetics using my own copyright method. We will try to cover all sounds but will concentrate specifically on the problems encountered by Spanish speakers (or South American Spanish speakers if there are any in the group). Additional notes will be provided concerning the particular problems. I mean words like sit/ seat/ shit/ sheet, measure, usual, vowel/bowel, project, happy, live/life, mad/mat, plurals, ED endings etc. Quite simply if you don´t know how to pronounce words such as these, native speakers will not understand you.
Course attendees will be taught to listen actively, to analyse English speech, to identify sounds and to spot both their own and their fellow actors´/students' mistakes.
Once correct sounds have been learned they will then be integrated into normal fluid speech and each actor will be encouraged to develop their own voice, speaking style and accent.
All of each student´s mistakes will be noted by me and the incorrect and correct pronunciation will be pointed out to them phonetically. Usually each student has their own recurring mistakes and their own particular problems. These will be identified and addressed. Specific self- correction pronunciation exercises will be given as required, to help them practise both in class and at home.
Any students who already have US or other regional features to their accent will be encouraged to keep them. Regional differences can be taught, but not really within the time restrictions of this course.

Contractions, short forms and pronunciation
Contractions are used a lot in normal everyday English speech.
Contractions and short forms, both in correct English, casual speech and widespread regional use will be outlined so that students can both hear and understand native speakers using contractions and so they can use them themselves, thus sounding more natural and less like an English as a foreign language course.
Students will also be taught where they should run words together, drop initial sounds etc. in order to give them more fluid speech.

Application
Course attendees will then put new-found pronunciation skills into practice using theatrical texts to be provided to course attendees or students´own texts if they have a text they are interested in or are working on themselves.

Reading and acting in English
The following skills in English:
Sight reading
Intonation
Use of stress
Reading between the lines and subtext
Dealing with mistakes and nerves when acting in a foreign language
Acting styles
Adapting your voice to the character
Brief notes will be provided, as required in relation to each of the above. These will be discussed before putting everything into practice using theatrical texts to be provided to course attendees or students´ own texts.

Note
It is not intended that this course teach rudimentary acting skills from scratch.
I also don´t intend or wish to insult anyone by trying to teach them things they already know. It is simply that with the added difficulty of having to act in a foreign language and pronunciation uncertainty, skills course attendees know quite well in their own language, such as use of stress, emphasis and fluidity may well be go out the window.

Course direction
The courses are necessarily fairly technical in nature. However I will try to offset this by putting into practice skills learned.
I feel that a balance must be reached, otherwise over-concentration on technical aspects will reach a saturation point at which nothing else will go in and students will start to turn off. Pronunciation exercises in a foreign language after all can be a bit like a visit to the dentist.

Follow up
It is intended, and indeed strongly recommended that course attendees follow up an initial course, not only with regular visits to the cinema in VO, but also to attend a refresher/ more in depth class in the non-too-distant-future in order to maximise the benefit and to capitalise on their investment of time, money and effort.
If course attendees come and then simply leave their new-found
English pronunciation and acting skills to gather dust they will not obtain as much long term benefit from the course as they could otherwise.
What would be preferable, of course, would be to timetable a regular course of classes, fully to rectify bad pronunciation habits that have been developed over perhaps decades of speaking English incorrectly and to turn attendees into fully bilingual actors.

Example of acting course notes - Acting in English - Screen acting - Some (perhaps) obvious things

Acting style

Clearly your acting style has got to be a lot tighter than on stage. What you do doesn´t have to be seen and heard by the hard of hearing, short sighted on the back row of the theatre. On the contrary, if it´s for the cinema it will be blown up into widescreen multiplex size and your voice Dolby stereo blasted through a state of the art UGC sound system that has sub woofers and sound cannons – the works. If you´ve been in the theatre a lot recently you may need to check that your voice, style and movements are nice and tight. I don´t however mean that you have to be flat or dull, and the sound recordist does require a certain level. It will also depend on how the shot is framed, maybe on a wideshot you can get away with a lot more.

Continuity

You´re probably not going to be lucky enough to shoot the script more or less in order. The shoot will probably be in order of locations used. You´re therefore going to need a good overall view of the development and your character development throughout the whole script before you start the first day of shooting (which might even be your character´s death scene!)

The continuity/script girl, wardrobe and makeup will keep a check on continuity and take polaroids etc, but its probably best if you keep a check on it yourself too.

Rehearsals

If you´re lucky you may get a rehearsal with the director before the shooting day if you have a main part. It is however entirely normal not to get any rehearsals at all before you get on set or maybe just a read through with the director over breakfast.

Learning the script

You probably won´t have to deliver huge chunks of the script in one go. However, you never know. Additionally, when the script´s in English, you have added difficulties. Its my personal view that its best to know the whole script off by heart, back to front and inside out before you get anywhere near the set, just in case. I would also strongly recommend working your lines with a voice coach if it´s in a foreign language. You probably won´t have time at the last minute to check your pronunciation and a hungry crew anxious to get to their late lunch break will not thank you for stumbling and cocking things up too many times.

There is however the opposite view. I read somewhere that Jean Reno, or whatever his real (Spanish) name is, only starts to learn his lines over breakfast, in order to keep them sounding natural (and not like something you know off by heart), and so they come out slightly with difficulty. Jean Reno is of course a genius. I´m not and unless you´re sure you are, I would personally recommend as much preparation as possible.

Energy levels/ being prepared

You may go straight onto set straight after breakfast, but it´s not always the case. You may well be hanging around for hours after your calltime, before being rushed onto set to do your scene before they lose the light/ have to move to the next location etc. You therefore need to be able to perform a juggling act of being ready to do your scene at the drop of a hat and conserving enough creative energy to be able to do it 9 hours later if necessary. Don´t burn yourself out fretting!

Focus

Try and keep focused amongst the mayhem. Try to just think about your role in your scene. Leave all the rest to them, otherwise you´ll do your scene in an overstressed filmset and not in your “fictional reality”.

Technical stuff

You do however have to have a certain degree of technical knowledge in order to understand everything´s importance - a technician as well as an artist.

Hitting your marks, getting your eyelines right, takeing your cues on time, having the right sound level etc are just as important parts of your performance as shedding tears. If the camera or the microphone misses your breathtaking performance it doesn´t count for anything.

Takes

Especially in television the number of takes you get may be very low indeed, and really just for technical matters.

In low budget films that are being made on film, they may well also be financially constrained to very few takes. They may also want to rehearse you to death to make sure its right first.

You therefore need to try to get it right first time (and every time because you may need to do it again for technical reasons etc).

In big budget cinema they´re not there to waste money, but you may well get a few more takes and perhaps even the opportunity to try doing the scene a couple of different ways.

In adverts however they usually have 1-3 days for a 20-30 second ad and you may find you have literally hundreds of takes of you, munching pizza looking orgasmically ecstatic or whatever. You´ll still have to be orgasmic on take 98 even if the pizza you´re biting into is really cotton wool after the first half centimetre and the summer beach pizza scene is actually shot in January.

Acting (or giving a presentation) Learning and getting to know your script
Some tips

Read the text out loud more than you read it silently. This will help your muscles you need for English, and will also help you to learn the script and think about its pronunciation. You actually have a memory based in you muscles!

If you read it silently e.g. in the metro etc, move your lips too;

Try applying my lists of different ways to read the text when you´re by yourself:

Loud;
Very loud;
Whispering;
Cross;
Very angry;
Happy;
Ecstatic;
Sad;
As if in a business meeting;
In love;
To a conference;
As TV presenter or newsreader;
Drunk;
Menacingly;
Scared;
Any other ways you can think of.

This will help you to see the text in different lights and also stop you getting bored;
Try doing the above list again, but this time exaggerated;

Over articulate the text – it will help your muscle memory;

Read it through too fast (in French this is called an Italienne);

Take a sheet of plain white paper. Try covering each line of the text in turn, saying the line and then checking to see if you´re right before you go on to the next;

Read the text through with a friend;

Always keep a copy of it with you. After a while you should be able to rehearse it without looking at the text. Have it there just in case though;

Try rehearsing walking to work (people will think you`ve gone nuts)!

Make notes on the meaning, character, subtext etc (see my other sheets);

Invent your own tricks;

Sleep on it! Do a bit every day, even if its only 5 minutes. The more nights sleep you have on it the deeper it will go in. Work on it before you go to bed and it will somehow magically go in overnight. You will not know it at night, but by the morning you will;

If you´re nervous, channel the energy into working your text;

If the worst comes to the worst, keep a script handy when you´re performing, at the very least it will help you relax;

If you´re not acting and just giving a presentation, being word perfect is not essential. However generally knowing your “script” will help you to be confident and fluid and to be able to improvise around it. It will also help you not to have your head in your notes the whole time.

Good Luck!