Acting, above all, is doing.  I often use the baseball analogy. You can talk about hitting a 90 mile-an-hour fastball, you can read about hitting a 90 mile-an-hour fastball, you can imagine yourself hitting a 90 mile-an-hour fastball, but until one is coming at you and you swing the bat,  you can’t possibly hit one. Every time the camera rolls on the set it’s a 90 mile-an-hour fastball. All the steps leading to that moment, as important as they are, must be set aside as the student takes the leap of courage to be in the moment and create.

Critical in conducting an acting course entirely online, is knowing that the student’s are not leveraging the technology to assist them. It does not serve them to use tools like their laptops for prompting when they will not have that support on stage or on a film set. 

For assignments that seek to replicate live (theatrical settings) you may want to add this simple directive:

• Make sure we can see you entirely (from head-to-toe) and that you are well lit from the front.

By asking the students to shoot head-to-toe, you ensure they are far enough from the camera that any presence of script assistance can be seen, and they can’t read the text of a laptop they are using to film. Being well lit from the front ensures you can track their eye-line.

Auditioning IS acting. When you teach students to record themselves performing, you are teaching them a skill they will directly apply to their professional lives. In fact, very likely in the early years of their career, they will probably spend more time acting in an audition setting than in a performance before a paying audience. When we teach students to embrace the opportunity to act in auditions like they would any other acting opportunity, just for a different audience, we empower them to grow as artists in every environment. 

Sharing actual requirements from the profession like the self-tape instructions from this prominent casting director, teaches students to start thinking of developing their work in a context and seeing format as a part of their expression rather than a series of restrictions inhibiting their creativity.

Self tape instructions (see below)

Students are often very concerned about showing their work. In order to prompt them to assemble their submissions in a way that provides them anonymity from the larger audience on YouTube or similar streaming service, I use these instructions. It also encourages them to submit links to their content rather than upload videos which many universities discourage because of hosting space. I also recommend that you do not download student’s videos directly as they may consume a great deal of drive space or accidentally contain viruses. 

Anonymous Upload Instructions (see below)