Two Small Blondes

 Hey everyone!

I hope you all have had a great start to the New Year.  I have had a few disruptions to my life lately so I hope you will understand why it has taken me so long to write.  First of all, in November last year, whilst standing on a chair filming my students I fell off.  Yes, I fell off and onto the ground in front of all my students.  As it turned out, I had broken my arm and required surgery.  This was my first break ever and the pain was terrible.  As a result, we had to postpone a performance, but I am proud to say that I only missed teaching one class.  Anyway, we then had to evacuate to my lovely mother’s house due to my home flooding, and my sister arrived for a holiday in ‘sunny’ QLD.  It actually turned into a wonderful experience as we all go to know each other a lot better. 

One night, after returning home, and into the first term of 2011, I decided to take the rubbish out (in the dark).  And, down I went.  Yep – broke a little bone in my foot.  No big deal, just mildly amusing to myself and others.

 It is now two weeks later and things are looking up.  Renata and I are about to open a new location in North Lakes, and soon in Cleveland and Springfield.  Oh, and we changed the name of the school.  You can still call us the blondes, two small blondes or whatever combination you like, but we are now officially the Australian School of Performing Arts, Film and Television.  We have already had one show this year, and a screening in a Brisbane cinema of all the films completed during term 4 and the holidays.  They were a-mazing, seriously fantastic.  I couldn’t be prouder of my students who are becoming more and more professional, skilled and capable every day. 

In view of everything that has happened lately, I started thinking about ‘adversity,’ and how as an actor this very experience of it is so beneficial to our practice of the craft.  As people, as actors we constantly need to get back up when we fall down, and then again and again.  Adversity is never going to be absent from our lives.  You might go to a hundred auditions and get none of them and you might fall down again and again.  The Oscars are on today, and watching it I am reminded of all that I still want to achieve in my life.  I am sure most actors will do this today.  Don’t watch with envy or jealousy, watch with patience and admiration and know that you too one day might be in their space, and if not you’ve given it all you have got to get there. Amanda

A lot of us have different ideas about what makes an actor good.  For me, good actors are those that I can believe (what they are saying and doing).  But, what about ‘great’ actors?  How can we identify a ‘great’ actor?  What do they posess or do which makes them remarkable?  The actors that I find the most remarkable are those which are the great storytellers.  When I watch them I feel like they are telling me a story which I can’t turn away from for a second. 

I was teaching one of  my students the other day, who was rehearsing quite a long monologue.  It occurred to me that what I was asking her to do was not just to tell me the story but to sell me the story – almost as if she was a salesperson.  And, I knew that as soon as she believed in what she was saying I would buy into it.  This made me think – do we (the actor) always have to believe what we are doing  and saying when we are acting?  For me, I think so, otherwise how believable can we be?  What do you think?

Amanda

To all my lovely students completing ‘Advanced Acting for Camera’ please find below a link to a software program called ‘Movie Magic.’  We will go through this in our Saturday class, but in the meantime, may I suggest that you download the free trial version and have a play around with it.  It is a really great way to help you write scripts that takes the pain out of all the formatting that you have to do when you use programs like MS word.  However, I will also send you the short film script template to your e-mail so that you can get started straight away.  Remeber – first drafts of scripts are due this Saturday.  Don’t stress, there are no misakes just lessons. 

http://www.screenplay.com/t-MMS-Demo.aspx

Amanda

Well, this is the first day of the blonde blog so here goes…  The reason I wanted to do this blog was because I wanted to have  a forum where we could all share ideas and thoughts about our day to day experiences as actors, film-makers, producers, writers, directors, mums, dads, friends etc etc, and interact with each other.  I also wanted a place where my students could get resources pertaining to their courses and the performing arts in a manner which is both easy and accessible.  Saying that, this doesn’t have to be all work and no play.  You might (for instance) have recently watched a great movie wish you want to share with your peers – this would be a great place to post a link to let people know about it!

My first link is one for the Justin Beiber fans out there, so if you have ’Beiber Fever’ you must click on this.  One of my lovely students Johanna Vulker recently had the opportunity to interview the famous lad.  She was asked by Beiber’s managemer if she would like to interview him.  WOW!  Johanna did an awesome job and should be so proud that she was able to contain her nerves whilst talking to the teen idol.  Go Johanna

Check out her interview at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbG3ndi0NyQ.

Amanda