I just received the video below from a student of mine, which is all about the genuine happy smile vs other types of smiles. This video is a good example of why a lot of actor’s smiling headshots comes across as either disingenuous, hesitant, fearful or sad. If your smile isn’t genuine at best it won’t have the impact on the viewer you would like, at worst, it could be costing you an audition. 

What Makes an Academy Award Winning Face?

An Academy Award Winning Face always conveys the character's inner thoughts and feelings in a way that is recognizable to the audience. As an actor, there must not be any distortions between what you are feeling and what you are revealing. The first step is to be in EMOTIONAL ALIGNMENT!

Actors are in the emotional communication business. To communicate effectively, you must know how you personally reveal emotion. If there is a difference between what you feel and what your face is revealing, the communicates become unclear and booking is very difficult. The farther you are out of alignment, it becomes almost impossible. There are many reasons why many of us are not in alignment with what we feel and what we reveal. The 3 biggest reasons for this lack of alignment most people can identify with are one or a combination of the following:

1. How you are wired
2. The culture in which you were raised
3. Your family's own personal idiosyncrasies

Most actors don't realize that the biggest problem they have with non-verbal emotional communication is they are out of alignment. The worst part of this problem is that it doesn't go away. The reason for this is, you can’t change what you are not aware of. How you express right now feels appropriate to you. To communicate non-verbally you must be in alignment with what you feel and what you reveal.

To better understand and bring to light any distortions you may have, join me for my one-day Emotional Evaluation Intensive. To learn more, please click HERE to visit my website.

Our Upcoming Seminars

For those who have yet to attend one of my free Nail That Reaction! Seminars, here's your chance! I have the next round of seminars coming up next week...

Dates with Open Seats:
Tuesday, February 21: 7pm-8:30pm or
Wednesday, February 22: 11am-12:30pm or
Thursday, February 23: 11am-12:30pm or
Saturday, February 25: 12pm-1:30pm or
Tuesday, February 28: 7pm-8:30pm or
Wednesday, February 29: 11am-12:30pm or
Thursday, March 1: 11am-12:30pm


This completely free seminar introduces you to the techniques and concepts you will learn in our Nail That Reaction Shot! program.

I will be going over what it takes to Nail The Reaction and book the job. I will also be getting into how we express or often don't express what we are feeling and what we can do to gain balance between what we feel and what we reveal. Come learn about the Language of the Face and see what kind of change a greater understanding of emotions and emotional facial expressions can make in your work and in your life.

To attend one of these seminars, email me at info@nailthatreactionshot.com with your First and Alternate choice as well as a contact number.

Look forward to seeing you there-

Part 2: 3 Devastating Myths of On-Camera Acting

Here's part 2 of the interview. In this clip I go over the 3 beliefs a lot of actors have about on-camera acting.

The Job That Got Away

About 20 years ago, I was at an audition, working with a director who was trying to get me to do a specific emotional reveal (reaction). He loved everything but needed to get this specific moment from me.

He was coaching me with what I call ”romantic language,” words and stories intended to stimulate you. ”You just lost the love of your life” or ”you just booked the role of a lifetime,” etc. The language he used really stimulated me, but when I did the read, the response I got from him was a tight-lipped smile and ”thanks.” I failed to produce the reaction he wanted.

I was a trained actor who had worked before; why did I not have the tools to give him what he was asking for?

Although frustrated, the seed for my future work had been planted. I would come to realize that we don’t all speak the same emotional language. The images that director was giving impacted him one way and me another. Was the craft of acting that hit or miss?

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Does anybody else have this experience or find themselves in a similar situation?  Post a comment and share with us "the job that got away."

How This All Began...

When I got into casting, the hardest thing for most actors to do was come in, see an ”X” written on a piece of paper taped to the wall, and give a specific reaction to it. Over the years, I saw the same actors repeatedly come in for callbacks and booking the spots. The question that came to my mind was: “What were they doing differently than everyone else?” So I studied them. What I noticed was that 4 things occurred consistently:

1. the actor produced a recognizable facial reaction 
2. the reaction was appropriate to the situation
3. the actor produced a single reaction at a time
4. the reaction was repeatable.

The fact that it was repeatable implied to me that there was an unidentified, and therefore, overlooked skill involved. Somehow these actors who were booking had the ability to interpret the circumstances given to them and react in a recognizable and appropriate way and I was determined to find out how. Over the next 8 years or so the answer came.

The Language of the Face, simply put, is the non-verbal means by which we communicate what we feel and think through specific emotional facial expressions. Although similar to body language interpretation, they are not the same. The science has shown us that the body tells us how well we are coping with an emotion; the face is the source by which we read it.

What I am talking about is not to be confused with ”face acting.” It is the direct result of thought and feeling. With over 140,000 permutations of facial expressions, the face is the densest source of information that we use to communicate.

The Language of the Face is based on the 7 human universal emotions. Anywhere on the planet, people will recognize and reveal with the same muscle groups:

surprise:

fear:

sad:

disgust:

happy:

contempt:

anger:

Every recognizable reaction will contain a part of or a combination of muscle groups found in the 7 universal emotions. 

The actor who wants to work consistently, in front of the camera, needs to understand and create complex human emotions and reveal them in a visually recognizable way, on cue.

To speak the Language of the Face the actor must:

· Recognize how they personally reveal emotion

· Understand the nature of emotions

· Know what emotions look like on your face

When it comes to emotional reveal or specific reactions, the playing field is not leveled. Some actors where born to do it better. You can level it by understanding the Language of the Face.