Actions: The Actor’s Thesaurus
£9.20£10.40 (-12%)
Finding the right action is an essential part of the process of preparation for the actor. Using this thesaurus of active verbs, the actor can refine the action-word until s/he hits exactly the right one to help make the action come alive. The method of ‘actioning’ is widely used in rehearsal rooms, but has never before been set down in a systematic and comprehensive way.
NHB also publishes ,Actioning – and How to Do It, the first in-depth exploration of Actioning for student actors, those who train them, and professionals working in the industry, whether they’re brand new to the technique or have been practising it for years.
‘If you want to act, or act better, Actions will take you a long way on the journey to excellence’ Terry Johnson
Read more
Additional information
| Publisher | Nick Hern Books (26 Mar. 2004) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 158 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1854596748 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1854596741 |
| Dimensions | 22.4 x 1.1 x 12 cm |
by Aspiragus
I really enjoyed reading through this for about ten minutes, then I took it to show my friend, who writes action fantasy, and they promptly stole it. I guess I’ll just have to get another one.
What this does for writers is kill the need for adverbs. Nobody likes adverbs. You don’t want something to ‘sound noisily’, you want it to clatter, or rattle, or tintinnabulate (ok, that last one’s not in there). Unless you’re a minimalist you don’t want to ‘walk with difficulty’, you want to tramp, ramble, lurch or blunder. This is good for zeroing in on those verbs, especially when editing, and encourages directness.
Like anything, it can be over-used (seriously, nothing tintinnabulates) but it’s a good starting point.
by Amazonian Customer
Well maybe grow up is the wrong term, but I wanted to read and have a copy of this book to help or support my directorial skills, as I’m just starting out. I believe that no book can turn people into a great director, but they might help people to understand new ways of going about their trade, which this one does very well. I believe that actioning a script beforehand will not only help me communicate my vision, but also for me to expand the possibilities of my vision.
by Madeleine C-A
A terrific book to introduce you not only to Actioning text as an actor but also to the origins of it and some sampling of techniques from teachers like Stanislavski and Meisner. This book articulates a technique that is pertinent to understanding text and the motivations behind communicating the emotion with the text. If you stumble with finding the right emotion or finding the correct word to explain a characters ‘motivation’ (explained in the book as what the character is ‘Fighting For’) this book is a great help and reference.
by Benson
Really useful tool for any actor, but a more streamlined version of the standard one you would find in the library, easier to carry too. Nit been sued since I finished uni sadly, but always there for when I need it.
by graham garner
I wished I’d found this sooner. And wished kindle and ipads were around when I was at E15 acting school. If you want to colour your voiced sentance, this book helps you with the action you need with each sentence. It’s worth noting, if you go to the top of kindle on the left you will find the search icon, put your possible word in there for it to list all index of the word it’s in. I found this way I could find the best action for the sentence. If the creators could find a way to link to a dictionary then hallelujah then it would be 5 stars
by Lewis Logan
As a filmmaker trying my hand at directing I found this book to be a great help. I can communicate to the actors in a language they understand and help to quickly find a character’s motivation with ease. When the scene begins to lose its pace I am able to reassess and correct it with a new action verb and change the way the scene plays out.
On set I am never more than a few feet away from this book and use it often in my early days as a filmmaker, it’s almost like my safety net and I am glad to have been introduced to it.
For those struggling to communicate your ideas, I strongly recommend this book.
by stefan
A good book for finding different ways on playing an action
by Madeleine C-A
This book is so useful to have! Used it for the first time today and it has completely changed my delivery of lines. It gives you the ability to create a more in depth analysis of your character and gives every line a clearer purpose. Really glad i bought it