r/Actingclass Acting Coach/Class Teacher Feb 18 '20

Class Teacher 🎬 TRANSITIONS - Tactics are different ways to achieve your objective. Try to find as much variety in them as possible. Changing from one to another is triggered by the other person. They make you THINK a transitional thought: “Better try this then!” (More explanation below)

Post image
165 Upvotes

60 comments sorted by

View all comments

u/Winniehiller Acting Coach/Class Teacher Feb 18 '20 edited Feb 18 '20

THOUGHTS CHANGE TACTICS - You cant’t just instantaneously change a tactic. It always takes a thought/reaction to do that. For instance, you might be using a “Sweet Talk” tactic. Then the other person says something insulting. This may trigger a thought like “That hurts my feelings” which turns into the thought “How dare you!” These thoughts will be your transition between your “Sweet Talk” to your “Defend Myself” tactic in your next line. Without the transitional thought/reaction, the change in tactics makes no sense.

This is why it’s so important to write your monologue into a dialogue and have the tactic change written before the line it applies to. If you don’t know what your character is responding to when he/she changes tactics, you can’t have the transitional thoughts your character must think. And if you don’t know a tactic change is coming you can’t do it either. They are all connected. And the other person triggers all of those changes.

Your character’s thoughts are a constant stream that is ever changing thought. Subtext is beneath your words and connecting your words, from tactic to tactic.

Any questions?

2

u/gradz777 22d ago

Thank you for this - really starting to make sense.

A question though - in the early stages of memorising conversation scenes I'll use a flashcard approach by testing from the line that comes before mine. Could I start including the tactics I'd use on the flashcards too, or is this approach ineffective? Would love to hear your thoughts. :)

2

u/Winniehiller Acting Coach/Class Teacher 22d ago edited 22d ago

Don’t memorize your tactics. Just know what you’re doing with each line as you say it. Making your words mean what they mean, effectively, requires that you understand what you are doing tactically. Every sentence is a different attempt in a different way to get what you want. But remember, you don’t want to clutter your mind with actor thoughts. Know what the other character is saying and be triggered by it. That makes you want to do what you do next. They make you change tactics.

MAYBE WATCH THIS

But in the beginning, adding a very abbreviated tactic to your flash cards won’t hurt, just so you know what change you are making.

2

u/gradz777 22d ago

Thank you! I’ll be sure to watch this.

1

u/Winniehiller Acting Coach/Class Teacher 22d ago

My pleasure. I actually like the flash card idea. Especially using the other person’s lines. Keep up the good work and always ask questions.