Charles Allen-Anderson, M.A's Lounge Discussions

Great to have you and your talents in this community, Charles! Check out the MEETUP section on the top menu bar, and if you don't see one already formed you should create one!

Mike, do you know you can upload your short scripts to InkTip for free? http://www.inktip.com/sa_short_script_listing.php?cat=sa&scat=services

Hello everyone. I'm an actor and writer. I returned to Chicago from Los Angeles two years ago. I'm looking for contracts in theater or film. I received my training at DePaul university where I earned my B.A. in theater and my masters in psychology from Antioch university. Please, visit me at: www.charlesallenanderson.com. I'm ready to dive deep into the spirit of the Artist's Domain....

@CJ - I think I'd rather keep "my creative works" off the air for now :D

I have no idea about Shia LaBeef, but I find almost all forms of formal acting training to be so overcomplicated that it takes all the fun out of acting and turns it into a complex science problem. I mean method acting is about using your past experiences to fuel your acting emotions but the experiences we are using are in our imaginations. They are no longer real. So if you are using your imagination of something that actually happened, why not simply use your imagination on the piece you are working on. Simply imagine it is happening and trust your human instincts on how to react. I don't see how it is possible to both work from your memory and be present at the same time. No two situations are alike anyway, so how could using one past situation ever work in the current situation and why would you want to? That basically resigns you to never growing as a person. If my mother died five years ago, I'm not going to have the exact same reaction today because I am different. Frankly I think all the former Neighborhood Playhouse teachers would be rolling in their graves if they knew that today's teachers were simply regurgitating their old material without any attempt to refine and improve it. That was the whole point of going over and speaking to Stanislavski and then coming back to NYC. They sought to improve their teaching technique. So much has changed since then. What James Dean was doing looks foolish today. It is overdramatized so why are they teaching the same techniques today given that so much of acting has changed. I mean in many cases, actors are working off a green screen so they have to imagine what they are seeing. Are they now supposed to imagine what they are imagining? Acting is really simple if you just let it be. The biggest obstacle is trusting yourself. We all know how to react to any set of circumstances. It's called playing. The best actors are the best players and aren't all in their head thinking about results. I would also like to know what business it is of James Franco why Shia is behaving in any particular fashion in the first place and how can he possibly know the cause of that behavior? It's stupid speculation. I'm sure a psychiatrist couldn't even tell what's causing anyone's particular behavior because they can never know what all the inputs are that resulted in that behavior because they are never their to observe the inputs. They have to get the information from the patient themselves! How can you trust someone who is acting crazy to tell you the truth or how can you trust that their interpretation of what happened is actually what happened? Psychology and psychiatry are a joke! You might as well let the criminal tell his version of events and decide trials based only on that.

I agree David. Yes, human nature is complicated. Our approach to understanding a character's psychological makeup and behavior is simple...for me

I totally agree with David Patrick. Acting is about believing you are another person. This simply means feeling what that person would feel. Children do this instinctively. it's called make believe. So many teachers teach because they can't make enough money acting because they're not good enough. They create these ridiculous techniques in order to justify their six week course. I actually feel myself get pulled out of my feelings when I read some of the shit on the internet. As human understanding of feeling has evolved, so has acting. When you watch some of the best TV now (Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, The Walking Dead, Mad Men, etc.), these people are simply feeling different human beings enough to make them believable. They are not Acting, they are Being. This is now being called organic acting. Give me a break. It's simply being real. Training is about removing fear so the person who wants to act can feel whoever the character is and not judge it. That's what children do. There is also something called cinematography technique in which only the best actors achieve: not blinking during closeups, running a counter internal dialogue so the camera picks up the conflict in the eyes, starting internal dialogue before the scene starts, etc. But none of that matters if the fundamental behavior of make believe isn't there. By the way, I was just on a set with James Franco. This man would not connect with anyone. Between takes he would pull out his cellphone and at times, hold up the entire crew. How's that for modern day narcissism?

How did this conversation get started again? Its like two years old? Well, my email is four months old, I guess thats how.

I love method acting, I will never change. I get to live in other worlds and experience other characters perspectives from their shoes. It makes me a better person with every role!

Oh. I forgot. For those artists looking for an actor, please visit my website at: www.charlesallenanderson.com

Hello, Charles! Great to be networked!! :)

Hi Charles :)

Thanks, Charles, hope for communicating here.