#sandy meisner

[l00k4tm4m45c415]

The Growth Experiment (2002)

[irrolyphant]

Timothy Olyphant, 55, is an actor who starred in Deadwood, Live Free or Die Hard, and Justified. He will star in the FX miniseries Justified: City Primeval this fall and currently co-stars in the Max miniseries Full Circle. He spoke with Marc Myers before the actors strike.

TIMOTHY:

You couldn’t get me out of the pool when I was a kid. We lived next door to a swim and racket club in Modesto, Calif.

I began regular swim practice at age 6. My older brother, Andy, took to tennis, which probably helped us get along. We were competitive. Our younger brother, Matt, did a little bit of everything and eventually became a water-polo player.

I was born in Hawaii, but we moved to Modesto when I was 3. My dad, Bevan, worked for Del Monte and left to work at E&J Gallo Winery soon after we relocated to California. He started in bottling and worked his way up to vice president of production.

My mom, Katherine, was a full-time mom. She was the nurturing type. Whether I won or lost, she’d always talk about how well I competed or how beautiful a swimmer I was, never about whether I won or not. She’s very sweet and encouraging.

Just as I was starting high school, my parents divorced. After they split up, we quickly figured out who was responsible for what. For example, our dad didn’t really know how to do laundry or cook. If we were going over to his place, we’d probably be eating out.

When you’re young, any time your foundation gets rocked, it sets you back a bit. I’d been a good student when my parents were together, but there definitely was a dip after the divorce. I kind of saw what I could get away with and wound up just an okay student.

I wasn’t in school plays. I’m not sure I saw that side of me yet. Instead, I was at swim practice and hanging with my buddies. I also liked to draw a lot, which I suppose is how I expressed myself.

I was a solid swimmer in the Central Valley. I set a CIF SAC-Joaquin Section Record and wound up with an All America Swimming Certificate. By my senior year, I realized swimming was my ticket out of town and certainly the only way I’d get into a great university.

I worked hard. After USC saw the times I was posting, they called to recruit me for the team. When I flew out to USC on my recruit trip, I met with the dean of the architecture school. He said there was no way I could manage both the swim team’s practice schedule and the rigors of the architectural program.

I asked him about the art gallery downstairs. He said it was part of the fine-arts department. I didn’t even know you could get a degree in that. I met with the fine-arts dean and asked if I could be on the swim team. He said we’d work it out.

Majoring in fine arts for me was like winning the lottery. In high school, I’d get in trouble for drawing when I was supposed to be doing schoolwork. Now, in college, drawing was my schoolwork.

After my senior year, I left USC several electives shy of a degree and didn’t finish until the pandemic. But before I left, I met some drama majors who got me thinking about acting.

By then, my college girlfriend, Alexis, and I had married. We moved to Seal Beach, south of Los Angeles, where I coached swimming. To fulfill some of my electives I took an acting 101 class at UC Irvine. I had a ball. It was a language I understood immediately.

I read Stanislavsky’s and Sandy Meisner’s books on acting. I realized that it wasn’t a frivolous pursuit but a craft on par with how artists I admired approached painting and sculpture. I told Alexis I was thinking about pursuing acting rather than a master’s in fine art. She said, “Tim, just do something. Just pick one thing and do that.”

The guy who taught the intro class was a graduate student who recommended I study with Bill Esper at the Esper Studio in New York. Fortunately, Alexis’s dad lived there and let us move into his place.

My career has been many little steps—a lot of one step forward, two steps back. I’m not sure if there was any one role that really changed things, but landing the lead in “Justified,” in 2010, certainly helped things along.

Today, Alexis and I live in Los Angeles and have three grown kids. We moved in 15 years ago and love the house and neighborhood. I still draw and swim.

Breakfast is my favorite meal. I make steel-cut oatmeal in my rice cooker, which has a porridge setting. When I come home from swimming and have my oatmeal, I feel like I’m 8 again. And you know what? That feels pretty good.

—————

Timothy’s Digs:

Full Circle? I play Derek in the miniseries about a kidnapping gone awry and the family secrets exposed.

Blissful space? Sitting in a blue chair in the kitchen having coffee with my wife.

Cool buy? A painting by an artist I’ve admired for at least a decade or so.

Tennis? I play with my brother and oldest daughter. The fact that they play with me means the world.

Youngest daughter? Vivian. She’s an actress in the coming season of Justified: City Primeval.

[stevieweevie71]

#SanfordMeisner #Meisner #sandy #meisnertechnique #meisnercenter #dramaschool #methodacting #actorlife #actorslife #acting #auditions #audition #auditiontechniques #auditioning #actor #actors #actorsofinstagram #castme #castingassociate #blackhollywood #blackhollywoodatl #blackactor #blackactors #castingcalls #casting #castingdirector #castingdirectors #maleactor #actingstudio #actingclass (at BWI Business District) https://www.instagram.com/p/CKzR0ZgpyGE/?igshid=acti5hz2ivi2

[yourfavouritebella]

Theatre Techniques

#1 Post - Acting Tips through Meisner’s technique

After being self-isolated for so long, you’ve finished watching all of the Netflix shows and cook every possible dish in your fridge, now what?

Well, maybe it’s time to touch upon acting through Meisner’s techniques at home.

Sandy Meisner is a well-known actor based in New York. He was one of the curious actors along with Stella Adler that adopted Stanislavski’s technique (also known as Method Acting) til he felt the need to develop his own acting form, which is known as Meisner Technique that conveys naturalism and playing with the tension between acting partners.

Using these techniques, it will help you become a better actor by embracing yourself to be in the moment with your scene partners. You may have to create a zoom meeting with your scene partner for one of the exercises, but what could be a better way to make a reason to meet people again than to rehearse on your own!

The Meisner technique has three main components that all work hand in hand:

Emotional preparation

Whilst reading the line, learn to delve into a given circumstance that will generate real emotions. Be in the character’s shoes and think how would you react when the situation happened.

Repetition

By repeating your lines, it can make you rely on their organic instincts.

Improvisation

As you are getting used to the flow of the lines, it will encourage spontaneity and reduce an actor’s self-consciousness.

1st Exercises:

Actor 1: Your hair is long.

Actor 2: My hair is long.

Actor 1: Your hair is long.

Actor 2: My hair is long.

A: (Noticing B scratched their arm) You scratched your arm.

B: I scratched my arm.

From this exercise, it removes the over-thinking part of acting that after even a short period of time, one realises the ‘text’ becomes essentially irrelevant, and it is the subtext and relationship that really matter. It lets you be more observant of your acting partner and being able to be more perceptive in the body language of each other.

2nd Exercise:

When reading the lines, recall a memory where you were in that circumstance and apply that emotion to the scene.

If it’s not a circumstance you had any experience of, you can draw external sources of research, eg. asking friends or family, watching interviews, reading books, and people-watching, to gather a library of additional material to provide inspiration.

In conclusion, as you try out these exercises, you will feel differently when acting because you’ll be facing the “given circumstances” of the character with different points of view. It gets you to be more observant and analyse the tension between you and your partner to be inspired and provoke your acting decisions. Hence it will make you listen and react with clarity.

#2 Post - Acting Tips through Adler’s Acting Technique

With so many acting techniques nowadays, how will you be able to choose? It’s like contemplating which crisps do you want to eat, sometimes you feel like getting Tangy Cheese Doritos and sometimes you’re feeling for Flamin Hot Cheetos. The choices are endless, but don’t fret! In the end, it’s always good to give a try of each technique to see which suits your taste.

As we had previously touched on Meisner’s technique, today we’re going to go through Adler’s acting techniques that you can try out yourself! :)

Stella Adler is a daughter of two professional actors, hence debuted her acting career at the age of 4. She is regarded highly in the industry due to her professionalism and proficiency in her acting as she learned and earned through experience. After learning Stanislavski’s and Strasberg’s acting technique, she evolved her own acting technique that has more involvement in imagination.

Now, shall we delve into her techniques? whispers yes, we shall!

Here are the three main components of Adler’s techniques:

Analysing Text

She has a great emphasis on script analysis and respect for the playwright. When teaching, she, “gave young actors more responsibility by asking them to understand the play themselves rather than relying on a director to interpret it.” Actors must look into the script to analyse the character’s personality and lifestyle then align their actions with the character’s circumstances. When reading text, you need to ask yourself, “What is my character going through that would produce that experience?”

Cultivating Imagination

As an actor, there is a need for constant observation and curiosity when developing an actor’s imagination. Rather than drawing up your own personal experience, Adler implies to actors to use real observations to fuel their imagination and create in-depth characters.

Elevating Characters

Adler famously told her students, “Don’t be boring”. In context, there is the need to think seriously about human nature and communicate important ideas to let actors reflect something larger than life within the characters.

Since you got the idea of what she aims for actors to achieve, let’s look into exercises that can help cultivate your acting skills.

Exercise #1 - Imagination

Pick an object and describe it. You can talk about the texture, colour, shape, anything just to describe the object. It may be awkward at first, but once you practice on describing things, you will find yourself to be faster in developing your imagination. Then take this exercise to next level by letting your thoughts travel through your mind. For example, a red lamp can remind you of ruby earrings a woman wore at a party you went to which reminds you of the music that was playing and so on and so on.

Exercise #2 - Paraphrasing

Pick a book and write down one idea from the book in your own words, then present it onstage to others. This lets you understand the idea, then respond to it and make it your own until you feel a real need to communicate it.

Exercise #3 - Inner-Justification

Randomly pick a simple line from a play you don’t know and bring it to life by imagining in details the reason why you’re saying that line. Try to make a strong choice, something that stirs you and creates conflict. This exercise helps actors experience their lines instead of just saying them.

In conclusion, Adler constantly challenges her students to think imaginatively and her techniques require a lot of hard work and dedication. All of these techniques are easily done at home whenever you have time and keep yourself occupied when being in the same room starts to bore you.

#3 Post - Acting Tips through Chekhov’s Techniques

Now that you have Meisner’s and Adler’s acting technique in the bag, why not learn one more and get yourself well rounded with techniques! As Michael Chekhov said, “Don’t we have the freedom to make the most of the best in all techniques? There are no prohibitions against it. All it takes is a little wisdom, imagination, and courageous experimentation.” I think you guessed it, but we’re going to teach you some Chekhov’s Techniques that you can try out yourself! :)

Mikhail Alexandrovich Chekhov was a Russian-American actor, director, author, and theatre practitioner born in Saint Petersburg. He was a nephew of Anton Chekhov who collaborated with Konstantin Stanislavski to do production of his plays. He was called Stanislavski's brightest student and was invited to join the prestigious Moscow Art Theatre. It was until 1927, when he did a production of The Case, he was "denounced by Bolshevik officials as an 'idealist' and 'sick artist'", so he forced himself to leave Russia and the Moscow Art Theatre to dodge arrest. He then came to Hollywood, where he taught film stars including Ingrid Bergman, Clint Eastwood, Marilyn Monroe, and Gregory Peck.

The aim is to find truthful moments onstage in a “psycho-physical” approach that develops your imagination while establishing emotion in physical action. This technique relies upon drawing emotion from both the mind, and the body as it helps for actors who are beginners because “psycho-physical” focuses on connecting their body more when saying their lines.

When approaching a script, these are the following steps using the “psycho-physical” technique:

Step 1: Create a gesture in your mind.

Your body is considered as an instrument and trained your body like a musician, constantly learning to move and portray with virtuosity. As an example, let’s look at the line, “Please don’t go.” Think about how your body will react to the line.

Step 2: Begin to rehearse the gesture. Make it huge, full of energy, and abstract.

Now that you got the gesture in mind, this time you got to test it out and give your 100 percent! Also, there’s no one way of doing the gesture, so it’s good to explore your body to find the intention of the gesture. Always be mindful of the intention in the gesture, so that it lets your mind remember physically.

Step 3: Continue doing the gesture in a large, non-realistic way, while saying the line.

When doing naturalistic acting, it always limits you to how you should express yourself as a character, so it’s best to be exaggerated as much as possible.

Step 4: Begin to make the gesture more realistic, while saying the line. Keep the energy!

Now you can tone down the actions, but make sure to keep the same energy when doing it exaggeratedly because the gesture should represent this desire of the character’s intention.

This is not part of the step, but always make time to reflect your experience on what you had experiment and see if the gesture is working out or not. Chekhov always makes his students question whether the gesture is helpful or not. The purpose of this technique is to make a bridge between your body and mind requires a lot of practice, but it does portray your character in an organic sense because the gestures come in naturally once you understand the significance.

In conclusion, Chekhov repeatedly challenges his students to use their body to find the intention of the character and build a strong relationship with your imagination. Hopefully, this technique works for you and you don’t scare off your friends or family when rehearsing at home (I will not be responsible for the weird looks :)

[yourdailyqueer]

Sanford “Sandy” Meisner (deceased)

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Bisexual

DOB: 31 August 1905

DOD: 2 February 1997

Ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jewish

Occupation: Actor, acting teacher

Note: Developed an approach to acting instruction that is now known as the Meisner technique. Those he taught include Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Lloyd, Steve McQueen, Tom Cruise and Jeff Goldblum.

[questiontheedit]

Originally done for my Inktober day 25 - Buddy. Sandy Meisner was an acting teacher and mentor of Bob Fosse. He had a motto on the wall saying ‘Don’t just say something, stand there! Fosse said ‘...and I found out in choreography frequently, that less movement, more economical movement, or no movement at all, makes a stronger statement than fierce activity’. I love that. And it is so true.

@screen.of.consciousness

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/KitncadoodleShop

[pascalkirchmair]

Sanford Meisner (August 31, 1905 – February 2, 1997), also known as Sandy, was an American actor and acting teacher who developed an approach to acting instruction that is now known as the Meisner technique. While Meisner was exposed to method acting at the Group Theatre, his approach differed markedly in that he completely abandoned the use of affective memory, a distinct characteristic of method acting. Meisner maintained an emphasis on "the reality of doing," which was the foundation of his approach. (Quoted from Wikipedia.org)

[berndthebread9]

„You're only interesting to the point that you're interested.“

-sandy meisner

[travsd]

Summoning Sanford Meisner

August 31 was the DOB of actor, director, and teacher Sanford “Sandy” Meisner (1905-1997). Today Meisner is best remembered for the latter reputation, for he was doing that at Neighborhood Playhouse as recently as 1990. And of course there is the 1987 book pictured above Sanford Meisner On Acting, which you will find (along with a few dozen other similar classics by his contemporaries) on the…

[l00k4tm4m45c415]

The Growth Experiment (2002)

[bo-jnr]

“I started with Sandy Meisner. What Sandy taught me is what all of us have been saying: Start from yourself, drop your masks and say, "Who I am is my richest reservoir to draw from." I think that a lot of actors come in with shame - it's in their bodies, in their voices - and that you have to work diligently with the actor to get them to reveal the core of their emotional self without inner judgment. That which is antisocial is the very thing you're looking for in the actor, and you have to allow them to be what they consider to be antisocial - to be able to express with no filter. If you start with that clay, then you can start to talk to them about Strindberg and Ibsen and Shaw and Williams and Miller. But until that happens, it's like trying to play the piano with the lid down.” - Larry Moss

[akuaktor]

Memperkuat Imaji, Ini 3 Langkahnya!

Memperkuat Imaji, Ini 3 Langkahnya!

Kalau kata Lee Strasberg, “Acting is the ability to react to imaginary stimuli”, Sanford Meisner juga bilang “Acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances”. Ngerti artinya kan? Intinya keduanya menganggap akting itu kemampuan merespon stimulus imajiner dan hidup secara jujur di ruang imajinasi. Jadi, imajinasi menurut Lee dan Sandy jadi kunci. Kayaknya menurut banyak orang juga gitu…

[pablolf]

Early in my career I was more worried about press interactions, so maybe I did a little evasive maneuvering. But here’s another thought about why my interest in other people is not a device: It’s part of the teaching I received from Sandy Meisner. Part of his thesis is that you’re interesting to the extent that you’re interested. So onscreen, instead of, “How am I doing?” it’s “What’s interesting about my partner?” I like making that kind of connection with somebody when we’re acting together and it’s not bad in life either. That explains things a little bit, doesn’t it? My interest in you, David, for example, is not a manipulative or strategic thing but is, in fact, somewhat wholesome. Does that make a lick of sense?

Jeff Goldblum on Becoming a Sex Symbol and Playing Himself

[mattiedaisy]

Memories of Sandy & Me. He and his technique has changed my life🌼 @montesmethod @montesmethodacademy #meisnertechnique #meisner #actingteacher #coach #coaching (at Los Angeles, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CMBY7XuJ9J-/?igshid=1cco9lhqxyl8z

[ashymcgee]

I didn't think I could feel anything worse than my divorce. . I was wrong. . My acting teacher, The Old Man, has closed down the studio...for good this time. I think he means it. . I had the please to be reborn by the last class, the last drop of blood from Sandy Meisner and Robert X. Modica. The man who stomped down my Midwestern stubbornness and replaced it with New York grit. . In that cold basement, I cried, I begged, I yelled and I foamed at the mouth like an animal. . Then I got kicked out. I'm Method now. No more school. . 'Go work, kid. DON'T COME BACK'. . So I did. Small parts. Black boxes. Small stages. Shakespeare. One person show. TV. Film. . Now...I'm national. Now I'm international. All due to the Old Man and the bell on his desk. . Thanks, Gregg. You rebuilt me from the ground up. I never thought I be a Method Actor but you told me I was thunder and lightning on two legs with dreadlocks. . It took 6 years to believe it...but now I know it's true. Thank you for believing in me at first sight and forcing me to stay. . I love you, Old Man. . Goodbye. . #gregggilmore #gilmoreactingstudio #methodactor #acting #blackgirlmagic #sandymeisner #newyork (at Ballard, Seattle) https://www.instagram.com/p/CFIZaT1JBZ5/?igshid=1ovirnsvroy0

[kyprelaw]

Is Voting Online A Good Idea?

By Brett Goble, Centre College Class of 2022

June 25, 2020

As the senate and presidential primaries across the country are underway or are set to commence very shortly and with the obvious backdrop of the Coronavirus pandemic and respective quarantine, the argument for voting online may seem to be as solid an idea as any other way we currently vote such as through the mail or in person. On top of this, voting on a computer or smartphone would make the potential voter turnout, particularly among young Americans, much higher due to the sheer ease it takes to cast a vote.

Some smaller US elections are already using online voting, such as in the 2nd Ward of D.C. (1), and some other, one-off instances have occurred in the US as well, like New Jersey, after Hurricane Sandy made it difficult for people to reach voting locations.

All these reasons stated previously may at first sound like obvious reasons to consider online voting more explicitly, but there are several mammoth problems relating to the security of online voting that has made its implementation still only a dream.

The first reason for this is that there are numerous problems with online voting as it currently stands regarding proper security for voters to trust online voting on a large scale. To play the what if game for a moment: How would online ballots be sent? Email, social media, or a special application that uses your social security numberare all options, how could those emailing or sending the votes be reputable? What if a hacker has gotten into your email account and sends you a mock ballot, then uses your information to fill out an actual ballot in your name?

The last point mentioned highlights another problem with online vs. physical voting: it is so easy to compromise or attempt to compromise millions of votes in a way that is simply not scalable with physical or mail ballots. In order to sabotage millions of paper ballots, there would need to be mass-corruption of government officials and the media covering elections. The election itself doesn’t even have to be sabotaged, just our faith and perception in the truthfulness of the election results for a recount to be called by an opposition party. With all these checks in place, large scale voter fraud is unlikely if not impossible with paper ballots.

However, individual computers and their potential malware or security issues that could compromise a given election on a scale that is not possible with paper ballots.For example, if 5-15% of a given national election’s voters have some sort of malware on their computers (2), that allows for their vote to be changed as soon as it is sent out—through what is called “a man in the middle” attack could have serious consequences for the results of an election. What's more, this type of attack can be done so easily by a small group of talented and clever hackers (3).

This type of attack is something that researchers on online voting do for fun to show just how bad the idea of online voting is. Several M.I.T professors performed an attack on a West Virginia election that used online voting that sabotaged the results to show that the program West Virginia was using was not secure (4). West Virginia was notified and did not honor the results of the election.

These are just theoretical attacks done, by a few individuals with the intention of trying to illustrate to those places where these elections are held that online voting is still not a viable option. Yet, the magnitude of hacking or security threats could be much larger if organizations or countries decided to hack an online election. With large amounts of computing power, the results of an election could be changed so flawlessly and convincingly that we would have no idea if they were the ballots cast by voters.

Voting online may seem like a good plan and it may seem inevitable, but if it is to be seriously considered an option intense government and independent testing would have to develop a system that would not be susceptible to hacking, vote duplication, etc. Some experts think such a level a security could be achieved as soon as 6 years or as distant as 20 years (5). What is known is that online voting is not currently a safe way to vote and though voting during coronavirus will be difficult, there are other options, such as mail in voting, that are safer in terms of both security and not spreading coronavirus than voting online or in person (6).

________________________________________________________________

1.      Halpern, S. (2020, June 18). Why You Can't Just Vote on Your Phone During the Pandemic.New Yorker. Retrieved June 20, 2020, from https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/why-you-cant-just-vote-on-your-phone-during-the-pandemic

2.      Meisner, J. (2014, July 09). Latest Security Intelligence Report Shows 24 Percent of PCs are Unprotected. Retrieved June 20, 2020, from https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2013/04/17/latest-security-intelligence-report-shows-24-percent-of-pcs-are-unprotected/

3.      Huston, B. (2008, October 13). 3 Reasons Why Internet Voting is a Bad Idea. Retrieved June 20, 2020, from https://stateofsecurity.com/3-reasons-why-internet-voting-is-a-bad-idea/

4.      New Yorker.

5.      Chipman, I. (2017, August 06). David Dill: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy. Retrieved June 20, 2020, from https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/david-dill-why-online-voting-danger-democracy

6.      Ibid.

Photo Credit: Ed Poor