Culled from Tony Barr's 40 years' experience as a performer, director and acting teacher in Hollywood, this highly praised handbook provides readers with the practical knowledge they need when performing in front of the camera. This updated edition includes plenty of new exercises for honing on-camera skills; additional chapters on imagination and movement; and fresh material on character development, monologues, visual focus, playing comedy and working with directors. Inside tips on the studio system and acting guilds make it particularly helpful for people new to the business, and numerous anecdotes from actors such as Morgan Freeman and Anthony Hopkins and examples from current movies illustrate its many lessons. It is perfect for acting classes, workshops, all actors who work in front of the camera -- and all those who want to.

The Science and Art of Acting for the Camera provides a precise yet practical approach to help unlock the mysteries of acting for film and television. Written by veteran actor, producer, and director John Howard Swain, the book offers a clear-cut, no-nonsense technique that equips aspiring or working actors with the necessary skills to succeed on camera. The technique teaches you how to build multi-dimensional characters; construct truthful and exciting relationships; ignite stimulating emotions; craft a series of discoveries guaranteed to energize your work; and much, much more. The book also provides instruction for actors working in commercials—from slating, to the dreaded "tell us about yourself" interview, to nailing "the tag" and embracing the cliché—and supplies sample commercial copy for students to practice.

(Applause Books). A master actor who's appeared in an enormous number of films, starring with everyone from Nicholson to Kermit the Frog, Michael Caine is uniquely qualified to provide his view of making movies. This revised and expanded edition features great photos, with chapters on: Preparation, In Front of the Camera Before You Shoot, The Take, Characters, Directors, On Being a Star, and much more. "Remarkable material ... A treasure ... I'm not going to be looking at performances quite the same way ... FASCINATING!" Gene Siskel

Acting for the Camera: Back to One is a "how to" book with practical steps to achieve a professional performance on camera. The book focuses on four distinct areas: how to prepare the character, how to execute the technical responsibilities that will assist the editor in creating the on-camera performance in post-production, tips from industry professionals, and how to create effective self-tape auditions. Part One: The Character’s World is packed with tools to analyze the script and fully prepare the character before arriving on set. Part Two: The Actor’s World focuses on developing technical acting skills for the camera that assist the pre- and post-production teams to create a dynamic on-screen performance. In Part Three: The Professional World, industry professionals provide tips from inside the film/TV audition room and how to navigate a career in the acting business. The final section, Part Four: Self-Tape Like a Pro, outlines how to build a self-tape studio in the privacy of your own home and submit high-quality self-tape auditions that will help you stand out from the competition. Written for students enrolled in Acting for the Camera courses, Acting for the Camera: Back to One explores techniques that can be practiced and mastered by actors of all levels, from the moment they audition for the part through to when they hear that director call "cut!"

The first book on Hitchcock that focuses exclusively on his work with actors Alfred Hitchcock is said to have once remarked, "Actors are cattle," a line that has stuck in the public consciousness ever since. For Hitchcock, acting was a matter of contrast and counterpoint, valuing subtlety and understatement over flashiness. He felt that the camera was duplicitous, and directed actors to look and act conversely. In The Camera Lies, author Dan Callahan spotlights the many nuances of Hitchcock's direction throughout his career, from Cary Grant in Notorious (1946) to Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960). Delving further, he examines the ways that sex and sexuality are presented through Hitchcock's characters, reflecting the director's own complex relationship with sexuality. Detailing the fluidity of acting -- both what it means to act on film and how the process varies in each actor's career -- Callahan examines the spectrum of treatment and direction Hitchcock provided well- and lesser-known actors alike, including Ingrid Bergman, Henry Kendall, Joan Barry, Robert Walker, Jessica Tandy, Kim Novak, and Tippi Hedren. As Hitchcock believed, the best actor was one who could "do nothing well" - but behind an outward indifference to his players was a sophisticated acting theorist who often drew out great performances. The Camera Lies unpacks Hitchcock's legacy both as a director who continuously taught audiences to distrust appearance, and as a man with an uncanny insight into the human capacity for deceit and misinterpretation.

Secrets of Acting Shakespeare isn't a book that gently instructs. It's a passionate, yes-you-can designed to prove that anybody can act Shakespeare. By explaining how Elizabethan actors had only their own lines and not entire playscripts, Patrick Tucker shows how much these plays work by ear. Secrets of Acting Shakespeare is a book for actors trained and amateur, as well as for anyone curious about how the Elizabethan theater worked.

The MAP: An Actor's Guide to On-Camera Acting teaches on-camera acting in a practical and technical way—helping new actors understand the rules of on-camera acting as if they are learning a foreign language and applying that language to their acting skill set. The book gives actors a step-by-step technique on how to audition for on-camera acting jobs and what to do on set after booking them. Many on-camera acting books are written by established movie stars and aren't geared toward actors in an undergraduate acting program or those who are just starting to audition for on-camera jobs for the first time. Stef Tovar teaches his proven on-camera acting technique, shows actors how to make the perfect self-tape, and prepares them for life on set—detailing the differences between working in the theater vs. working in television and film. The author peppers the text with his own stories from set as examples, including auditioning for Lee Daniels and working with Matt Damon, Steven Soderbergh, and many others. The MAP is a funny and encouraging perspective from a seasoned actor who shares with aspiring actors things no one tells you before booking your first on-camera acting job.