Acting Class in Chattanooga

The Program

S.C. TreeHouse is excited to be offering an acting course in Chattanooga TN for all ages and skill levels.

Sure, it's definitely more fun than some careers, however, acting is just like any other job; it takes practice and training. But, it doesn't stop there. To land an acting role also takes knowing the right people. You need to create those connections with the people who are actually producing films, which is why S.C. TreeHouse's has created their group acting classes. S.C. TreeHouse is an active production company that gives young and undiscovered talent a chance to shine. We provide our students the opportunity to work on real industry projects as they are trained to become better at their crafts. So, if you have a longing to act, but just can't seem to get into the industry, come check us out. After all, we are here to help talent of all ages and skill levels. Plus, your first group class is free, so why not come for a free class.

OUTLINE
TECHNIQUE
SCHEDULE
TEACHER

What is This?

Let's just get something straight here; THIS IS IN NO WAY a dull acting class or seminar thing. You know the ones I'm talking about, the (quote) "acting classes" that are held in rundown theaters and taught by some actor that gave up on their dreams of an acting career years ago; however, they still believe they can help you reach your dreams. And who knows, maybe they can help you achieve your dreams. But when you think about it, they are probably going to be teaching you the techniques that they used. And if they never were able to make it anywhere with those techniques...well, then the odds aren't really stacked in your favor with them as a trainer.

Now, something else these classes ARE NOT is they are NOT one of those crowded acting schools where there is absolutely no individual attention. The places you spend thousands of dollars but really don't evolve your skills as much as you hoped because you're never able to get good, real personal training.

Oh, yeah, and a side note...I personally have spent years in those frustrating environments, so if you have too, I feel your pain brother! It's not fun and very creatively draining.

Okay, so...if these classes aren't any of those things, then what are they?

THIS IS a complete acting class taught by an actor, director, and casting agent. Honestly, it's a personal mentorship with the people who actually hire actors for roles. Yeah! No joke. Think of it as a personal training session for your acting, but the cool part is that your coach is someone who is actively casting talent in legitimate roles.

The Personality Technique

"Since the dawn of time, we have tried to describe and categorize ourselves in many ways. From the four temperaments of the Ancient civilizations – sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic – to the latest advances in psychology, people have been restless in their pursuit of a good, reliable way to fit something as complex and fluid as human personality into a well-defined model. We are still some time away from being able to do that, although the current models account for the majority of our personality traits and can often predict with a high degree of confidence how we are likely to behave in specific circumstances."

-16Personalities.com

It's our emotions and reactions to scenes that separate us as people, so it stands to reason, it works the same way for characters. So, as actors, it's super important for us first to understand how people behave before we ever try to "act" some character. Acting is receiving the scenes around you and reacting to them in the moment, which is something we do daily...we just don't understand how. The most important part of acting is you, the actor. If you can understand how you and your mind reacts to things, you can play whatever role you want. See, every character you will ever play will be built around yourself. Around your experiences and understandings, that’s why the most important thing to know in acting is yourself. Who are you?

You see, every time we meet an obstacle in our path we always have choices to how we can get around it or either through it. This is something that happens every time we meet a new person, learn a new piece of information, or just take a breath of air. All you are doing in life (as a person) is reacting to everything around you and then reacting to everything around you reacting to how you reacted.

Now, some smart people did a study and found that for every second you are alive, there are 16 personality categories of reactions just one of you could make in response to just that one second you’re alive.

So, since it turns out that you all are the most important factors in making sure all of you can act like a boss, guess what's going to be the first thing we need to learn. We need to learn how to play ourselves.

A common mistake is that your emotions are caused by your environment directly. However, that's not the case. Emotions are your body's reaction to how you perceive or view your environment. The best way to understand this is to think of "Yo' Mama" jokes. If I was to make a "Yo' Mama," some of you might be offended, some of you might be embraced, some of you might get mad, some of you might laugh, and some may just become uncomfortable. You see, that was one environment and one situation, but just off the top of my head, I thought of 5 possible emotions you could feel from it. Why, because it's ultimately up to how you interpret a situation as to how you react to it. Do you understand my "Yo' Mama" joke as me being disrespectful? Or do you interpret it as me just telling a harmless joke? What's really going on in a situation actually has next to nothing to do with what emotion you feel or reaction you give. It's going to be your brain's interpretation of what's going on that will determine how you react.

So that's what we're going to have to work on, being able to get the audience to feel the right feelings at the right times. This is where being able to understand why we feel what we feel when we feel it is important. If we can understand ourselves and how we work, we can understand an audience and how to make them feel. After all, what is an audience made up of? Us, exactly, so if we can understand us and how we work, by nature, we know how the audience works. Because an audience is just a bunch of us sitting down watching a performance. So what we are going to teach you guys in this class is a technique that allows you to let the environment of a scene create your emotions you need to give within that scene. So you're not going to be drawing from some past experience to bring that emotion into a scene. We are going to teach you how to do just like you do in real life; you're going to let the situations around you and how your character interprets those situations create the emotion you need for the scene. Now, I'm not going to lie to you; this is not going to be an easy course. After all, we will be studying the psychology of humans, and being a human yourself, I'm sure you understand that's no simple task. So, we are going to take it a little bit at a time. We're going to study 16 different character types, and since that's a lot of psychological ground to cover, we will do that over the course of 120 classes. What's cool is that by the end of the course, you're going to be able to act as each of these 16 different character types. It will almost be like learning 16 different languages.

Now, the real important question is how are we going to teach all this. After all, acting is a very active kind of occupation, so teaching isn't going to work very well with you all just sitting and listening to me talking. You all will need to be actively using what we learn. So, there will be homework you will need to do. Don't worry; it's homework you can do as you are living your daily lives. So it won't get in the way of your plans. Although, the most important thing we will do in this class, will be going and acting in some productions because the best way to learn something is to do it. So, you guys will actually be working in some video, stage, and audio productions as part of the classes. Getting you guys some experience acting in different mediums.

We are doing this because there is no "One Size Fits All" acting approach. Letting you guys work on these various projects is going to let you see how all the little parts of acting make a difference. How just hearing a voice (in an audio theater) gives us emotions we don't feel the same way as we do when we can see and hear them (like we do in a movie). So, we will be letting you work on those projects as we do the course so that you can have that experience... plus, who doesn't want some more stuff for their IMDb page.

Now, these productions we will work on will be original productions that S.C. TreeHouse and their associates are producing, so you will be treated as a real talent on these sets and will be expected to be able to do the roles. Don't worry; we will work with you to perform those roles.

Alright, so I'm done taking up your time. You can move on.

Currently Studying the Character Personality of:

THE ENTERTAINER

Classes on this character will be from: 03/20/17 to 05/01/17

Character 1 - Entertainer

“Entertainer”
Spontaneous, energetic and enthusiastic people – life is never boring around them.

Characters with the Entertainer Personality

Angela Montenegro
Bones

Penny
The Big Bang Theory

Ygritte
Game of Thrones

Dandelion
The Witcher series

Mr. News
Literal: What We Believe

Lindsay Bluth Funke
Arrested Development

Peregrin Took
The Lord of The Rings

Jack Dawson
Titanic