Your Relationship With Other People

Expect your biggest personal and creative breakthroughs to come during this stage in the program. It can be an emotionally intense and challenging few months, but by the time you're done, you'll have a much more complete picture of what you can achieve. The intimacy and trust that you've created between you and your classmates allows you to be completely open to the potential you never knew you had.

Your Relationship With Others

Head of Acting Bill Marchant talks about "digging deep" for the on-camera projects leading up to mid-term.

Advanced Acting

Now that you're more comfortable in front of the audience and the camera, it's time for a deeper look at various acting techniques. Students will learn how to make the courageous choices, to stay committed, and safely take your emotions and physicality past the limits of your own identity. You will study Method Acting, with extensive use of sense memory - searching your own past experience for the right emotions to aid in the development of braver, richer performance.

Film Workshop

The Film Workshop teaches you advanced techniques needed to create a convincing 'walk and talk' - also known as the Moving Master - where the camera and the actors are constantly moving throughout the whole scene. It is also important for an actor to have a thorough understanding of the film set, and a working knowledge of what is involved in taking a film from the script to the screen. Our film workshops cover these factors as well as finer details like how to meet your mark, maintain continuity between takes, as well as an understanding of how the actor's choices relate to camera and frame styles.

Behind the Camera

One of the earliest innovations in television was the three-camera set-up introduced on I Love Lucy, which allowed actors to run a scene through without having to repeat it for each camera angle. The three-camera switch remains the standard for all sitcom and daytime dramas today, and the experience of playing to this multi-camera style is a real asset for any actor who wants a shot at a role on one of these hugely popular television genres. At VFS you'll write, produce, cast, light, and film 10-15 minute dramas using the three-camera switch.

Being able to nail an audition for an ongoing television series can mean landing a secondary character with a single episode, or a lead whose story you sustain for years and years.

Guest Director Project

As part of the curriculum, the Acting for Film & Television program brings in special guest directors from the film and television industry to work closely with students. Working with these guest directors will offer you new insight and a different perspective into acting - and yourself.