Sample Tool: Ear Trigger
What the Masters say:
Talent is an amalgamation of high sensitivity and easy vulnerability.
What a person does:
In life a person will react in one way or another with a sensitivity to what is said or done to him.
The Actor Trap
Working in beats-only using one emotion too long. Not changing the character’s emotion until the cue for the actor to speak happens. Not reacting moment to moment as the character would.
Definition of an Ear Trigger
Exact word within a phrase or sentence when a person understands what is being said to him and has an opinion that changes the tempo of his energy. When an ear trigger hits, it triggers a physical change in emotional energy which tells the audience the character’s opinion.
An Example of an Ear Trigger
“I think you are...(here comes the ear trigger)...a great actor.” Now you physically express an opinion that says you agree, disagree, don’t know or don’t care. This physicality triggers a change
in emotional energy.
Industry lingo that lets you know it’s time to use an Ear Trigger
“Not believable.”
“Not moment to moment.”
“Put more color in it.”
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Tools
No mystic hocus-pocus here.
Just the Mechanics of Believability.
Each workout is training with our coaches trained in the Mechanics of Believability—time-tested tools that are based on the cause and effect “mechanics” of human behavior and the demands of the industry for believability.
The masters speak.
“Good actors are natural and alive. They are convincing when they exist as a person, and don’t just pretend to exist. To be a live human being on stage, an actor’s faculties must function as they do in life.”
Stanislavski
“Acting is expressing through your body, your speech, your mind and your emotions. Acting is energy, not volume.”
Stella Adler
“Everything should be real as in life.”
Anton Chekov
“The foundation of acting is the reality of doing.”
Sanford Meisner
And PAG answers—with a Tool Box.
In effect, you’re given a tool box, much like a mechanic’s tool box. These tools are 100% dependable and they always work to give you complete believability. That way, when you show up on the set or at rehearsal, you’re ready to go and prepared to face anything thrown at you.
Our tools are reliable and dependable.
Need to change the pace? Pull out your “time-frames” tool. Need to show more emotion? Use your tool of “rolling the four”. In the same way that you can count on a hammer to work with nails, you can rely on the PAG acting tools to meet your artistic and creative needs.
Our tools give you consistency and believability.
Best of all, PAG has a consistent language that never varies, giving you constants in word and in action. You learn the craft of acting, viewing it as solid science rather than esoterica. This is how you can accomplish all the things that the great masters of acting have taught throughout history.
© 2002 Professional Actor’s Gym.
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