Media Acting: An Affordable Reality with Portable Equipment.

Media acting—acting for camera, voice-over, and other electronic media—has become a frequent topic of discussion in actor training circles. Two recent articles by John Istel in American Theatre attempt to clarify the new challenges facing acting teachers in the electronic age. Agreeing with Istel about the need for new approaches to actor training, Michael Shurtleff responds: “My teaching now emphasizes acting for the screen and television and the specifics needed to do well in the medium of the camera” (4). Robert Cohen, in Acting Professionally: Raw Facts About Careers in Acting, urges prospective acting students to find schools that offer camera acting: “You can learn this later,” he notes, “but a school that provides such opportunities gives you a chance to get a jump on the competition” (32). In her book, Acting in Commercials: A Guide to Auditioning and Performing on Camera, Joan See recognizes that success for actors may depend on broader training.

[Actors] must abandon any notion of specializing in only one field. . . . Although an overwhelming number of actor training institutions continue to educate their students specifically for acting on a stage, the reality is that the actor who can’t take that training and use it in front of a camera may not survive in the business.

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While many writers have supported the need for media acting, the question of how affordably to incorporate media acting into an acting program has received little, if any, attention. In The Training of Stage Actors in Film/Video Acting Techniques (1993), Jerry Ivins suggests that resistance to offering film acting courses is partly due to the perceived lack of resources (21). Ivins’s definition of “resources” includes funding to hire new faculty and purchase equipment, space availability, and time within the curriculum schedule (26). Although one might reasonably conclude that a television studio or recording booth provides the optimum environment for teaching media skills, in my own more recent study, most educators conceded that the basic skills of camera acting, voice-over, and auditioning for commercials could be accomplished in a conventional classroom (Rustan 109). Indeed, a course in media acting need not be as elusive or expensive as it may initially appear. What follows is an account of the media acting course we developed at Gonzaga, including descriptions of equipment purchased, class structure and content, materials used, and some of the lessons learned.

Media Acting Setup

Rapidly changing technology renders any discussion of equipment almost immediately obsolete. New equipment enters the market constantly, changing standards along with prices. At present, however, the equipment necessary for conducting a media acting class are as follows: a video camera, tripod, microphone and stand, videocassette recorder, monitor, and a tape recorder with speakers for playback. A camera that accommodates VHS tapes allows for the recording of exercises on the student’s own personal tape for a record of their work to keep and review at home. An informal survey made in 1995 revealed that most colleges and universities already own such equipment (Rustan 109). At Gonzaga University, we understood that the equipment necessary for the media acting class would also have other departmental uses. Our goal, then, was to supplement the already owned TV and VCR with a budget of around $1,000. After consulting with the school’s Broadcasting Division and library media center, we managed to purchase a suitable VHS camera, a heavy-duty tripod, a directional microphone, a microphone stand, extra-long extension cords, and a portable stereo tape/CD player (with dual cassette drive) for a total of $1092. (See Appendix B for a complete listing of equipment purchased and notes on technical setup.) All of the equipment was easily portable to the conventional acting classroom used for our course.

Even with minimal setup, some instructors fear that teaching a media acting class can become a technical nightmare. To alleviate the potential anxiety of both students and instructors in this regard, I recommend devoting one full class to familiarizing students with the necessary equipment. At Gonzaga, we spend a portion of the first day of class on this task, setting up...