This might ruffle some feathers!

Hi all,
I've been keeping a close eye on the lo/no pay debate and had a thought-
What if equity became a type of "closed shop" again, by only admitting actors that had been to an acredited NCDT drama school?
Now, please believe me when I say that I'm playing devil's advocate here, (before several of you organise a lynching!) but I thought that it might be an interesting debate.
In the same way that we have been requiring these profit share companies to budget properly so that they can pay actors, should it be any less resonable for them to require a little commitment from the actor?
Yes, we all know that it's ridiculously expensive to train, (and some might question the quality of some institutions) but you wouldn't expect to become a lawyer by learning "on the job"! So becoming an actor needs the mental and financial commitment to do what is required, even if that means your student loan is still being paid off when you're sixty.
Maybe there is some room for flexibilty here- possibly someone wanting to do it the hard, but cheaper way might be able to get in with eight fringe credits.
So then the lo/no pay companies would have a choice. Budget for trained actors, or use untrained actors- which could be a risk.
The new companies wanting to improve and expand would soon want to use "professional" actors, and those that want to tread water would be instantly blacklisted if they employed equity members for no pay. That's where the Equity members would have to hold their nerve.
There would still be room for a bunch of actors to get a show off the ground, as no-one would have the desire to shop themselves to Equity!
Now, please feel free to pick holes in my argument, as I'm sure that there are many!


  • 16 years ago
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Lee Ravitz
Actor

That may have been my Facebook persona talking (see additional threads).


  • 16 years ago
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Just to re-iterate something important here - it isn't schools that are accredited, but courses, so, like the school that I went to (East 15), most of the courses are accredited, but not all of them, particularly the new ones, as it takes several years for a course to gain accreditation.


  • 16 years ago
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Lee Ravitz
Actor

Absolutely right - the course is accredited, not the school. Hence, you can have very well known and well respected schools that take people onto non - accredited courses, and 'lesser' schools which, nonetheless, run accredited courses. By and large, there are more undergraduate courses that are accredited than there are post - graduate.

'Accreditation' requires that the course has been running for a number of years consecutively - and that 'inspectors' have had interviews with the staff, overseen the way the course works, and watched final show products that they consider to have reached a suitable level of professionalism to warrant accreditation.

Some schools which are non - accredited still run courses which are well thought of by people in the industry, and which they consider to be accreditation-worthy in their standards - sometimes the course is just too new to be accredited yet.


  • 16 years ago
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Well,

To throw the cat among the pigeons even more-

I am a well trained actor ( I beleive) and I trained overseas- I constantly have to deal with people dismissing my abilities as I did not train as an NCDS course.

This infuriates me, although my professional experience in SA got me Equity membership so there were no problems there at all.. I have at times wondered if doing a post grad here would make any difference to the way i am seen- but in reality, I see the majority of drama school trained actors, who have done nothing at all, not worked etc, and all they are putting their hope on is the fact that they trained-

on the other hand, many people who have NOt done this are working and getting good jobs...

I think there is no science to it, but each person develops as they do-

for a long time I wondered if i had any technique and eventyually realised that I had absorbed all my training via osmosis- it was just there!!! And the more mature as a human being I became, the more my technique has grown...

this is the thing.; David Mamet has said that in a twenty year career, all the same actors got the same breaks that he knows- soem at the start, others toward the end... that is interesting indeed!!!


  • 16 years ago
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Lee Ravitz
Actor

I suspect drama schools have the hold they have today over the profession for two reasons:

1. We live in a post - Stanislavkian era; a time during which the concept that there is a correct method of acting came to the fore, and that it can be taught. Prior to this, it was often assumed that, if you could act, well, it was just because you intuited how to do it, and 'ordinary people' could not be privy to these arcane secrets. But Stanislavski said, I can take anybody, and teach them how to be a better actor. His methods became absolutely enshrined in the USA, and all sorts of rival schools teaching, basically, variations on the 'system' that would create the 'ideal' actor, emerged. For a long time, this country resisted such innovation, but, in the end, resistance crumbled, and now, we too are trying to ensure that we can turn out 'systematic' actors. This seems to have led to a proliferation of courses, and schools.

2. A combined set of factors: a) The acting profession is now overcrowded with actors - partly because of the loss of the 'closed shop', partly thanks to the proliferation of drama schools and increase of graduates, partly because of the current obsession with fame/celebrity etc. leading all and sundry to think they can be an actor, and, indeed, for some of them to get employed acting (with no discernible talent for it!) etc.

b) Casting directors, agents still require criteria to sift wheat from chaff (in fact, more so than in the days when there were less actors on the markets). Again, their choices can no longer be made with reference to the Equity 'mark of approval' (because Equity has lost 'closed shop' status), nor to the honing of a talent that comes through working in rep and so on. So, what they often fall back on is the criteria of: has the actor been to a well respected drama school, or not?

Beyond that, it's safe to say that there is no tradition of actors historically ever doing anything other than learning 'on the job' - how did Shakespeare's company become good actors? How did a Commedia troupe become good actors? They learnt from their peers, they picked up on what worked for their audiences and what didn't; etc. etc. In other words, they trained themselves. And, of course, all decent actors ultimately have to train themselves - they have to learn what 'performance tricks' work for them, and how best to utilise them to their advantage. No one, historically, was setting themselves up as self - proclaimed arbiters of the 'right' and the 'wrong' ways of being an actor. I'm not saying there weren't 'right' and 'wrong' ways in Elizabethan times - simply that, if you were doing too much wrong, I suspect you'd, at the least, run the risk of getting booed off stage, so it was necessary for you to learn how to *get things right* sooner rather than later.

One of my tutors at drama school used to say that, in his opinion, the only reason we, as students, were at drama school today was because there was no rep left extant in which we could learn everything that the teachers try and cram into a year - and he regretted the fact.

So, basically, this insistence on being 'trained' is, I'm afraid, a sign of the times....even thought most actors worth their salt know that, if you're good, it doesn't matter how or where you learnt to perform and deliver.


  • 16 years ago
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And in addition to expanding your acting skills at drama school, you get what for me has been the most beneficial training - how to be a PROFESSIONAL actor, and by that I mean how the business works, how to write letters, CVs, behave in auditions and castings, meet Agents, Casting Directors, how to do your tax returns etc. These are all things that I may have struggled to learn if I hadn't trained, but helped me to hit the ground running when I came out of drama school.

And whilst I was lucky enough to have the funds to put myself through drama school (I sold my flat - mid-life crisis or what????!!!) there are ways of getting the money together - most of the big banks have loans available to people retraining, there are bursaries at most drama schools, writing begging letters to various patrons of the Arts. It isn't easy to get the money, but it is possible.

In this day and age, anything that can give you an advantage has got to be good, and I do believe that training at a reputable drama school will do that, talent or no!


  • 16 years ago
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Funnily enough Blake, I'd considered doing a post grad course a couple of years ago, simply to become a "new" actor again! I decided against it, thinking that was a very drastic way of getting an agent. For now, as you know, am working on new ways to make my own work, and sticking two fingers up at the men and women in their little offices!
It seems to be a very blinkered view by those that dismiss overseas training (that may well be even better then ours)!
If it's good enough for Equity, that should be the benchmark.
Ah well, training or no training, it's still down to luck!


  • 16 years ago
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I agree..

and I will ruffle further feathers-
most of the training I received overseas was the same as the Uk, more or less, and as far as learning professional things such as Cvs etc- there are a hundred books on the market and a chat with your accountant can help you with actors tax etc.
Im not dismissing UK training, but I do feel that casting people have this idea that UK training is the best in the world. Well, maybe- but its not the ONLY way to act.

Not trying to be contentious, but while I am a brit as I am a citizen here, I also see the arrogance towards NCDS training, and I and many others who did not train that way can feel quite offended by it.


  • 16 years ago
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