in person

with John Markland

September 23rd - november 11th

Screening on the 20th

The close up is the most naked moment in acting. There is nowhere to hide, nothing to do, no one to be. The camera does not want your performance… it wants your secret. Most actors protect themselves in the frame. They resist, they present, they survive. You want to be found.

Since self-tapes took over, you act alone. You perform for a lens in an empty room, send it into silence and wait. The first muscle that dies is the ability to be seen. Truly seen. Witnessed raw. In a callback, in a chemistry read, in a close up, without apologizing, without managing how you are coming across. This class rebuilds that muscle. We will work witnessed, week after week, practicing letting another human being all the way in, until the lens becomes the one person you finally tell the truth to. We will explore this through scene work, on camera exercises, personalization and the slow dismantling of the wall you put up the moment you feel eyes focused on you.

There is a beautiful fear in being watched. The heart races, the breath shortens, the mind begs you to perform. The animal in you knows better. It doesn’t need to control the moment because it can react to anything in the moment. When you stop presenting and start experiencing, the frame stops being a judgment and becomes an invitation. The audience doesn’t fall in love with what you show them. They fall in love with what you reveal.

Then we put it up for real. On the final night, the studio becomes a working set. A cinematographer comes in and we shoot your scene live. Under the stage lights. No resets, no hiding, the camera moving with you, hunting the close up. The room you have been brave in all along is now on record.

The following Friday, the same room becomes a cinema. Seventy-five seats. A twenty- foot screen. The lights go down and your face fills the frame in front of a full house. Your friends, your people, your representation if you dare. You will sit in the dark and be seen being seen. This is where the work completes. Not in the frame… in the room.

You leave with your close up.

Come be watched.