Learn about traditions of screen-acting and actor training, the process from storyboard to casting, to set and to the editing room. Form and express your opinions about what is inspiring you. Take your place as a creative individual..

Skills script analysis, acting for camera, devising,

voice-work including a specific emphasis on accents,

method-based work and its application in front of the camera;

movement work from the Laban and physical embodiement traditions, teaching actors to embody their characters and make choices about energy and physicality - including the recent advances in intimacy co-ordination,

combat work, physical engagement and ownership of the filming space.

Projects -  genre work of the kind that proliferates in the modern workplace. 

Domestic drama, comedy and sitcom, police and medical procedural drama, social issue-led drama

• Longer projects - cinematic storytelling, making shortfilms, and classical screen-plays like Checkhov and Film noir.

• Structure of editing and theory of editing film, using storyboards to understand the actors place in the narrative

• Students will gain a grounding in traditions from the beginning of film - early Russian cinema, silent movies and musicals - exploring world film-making traditions and acting styles - French Nouvelle Vague, to the American Method at the Actors Studio under Stella Adler; Shakespeare on film, through to The directors cinema of 70s and 80s…

• The rigours of modern blue/green screen and mo-cap. 

• Devising and self-taping, auditioning practice;

• Meet the industry - we engage with leading NI, Irish, and International casting directors. Explore the issues and realities of the current workplace via workshops and audiences with directors, agents and producers.

Jo Dow – Course Leader

“It is my belief that an actor on screen must be as engaged, physically and emotionally as any actor on stage; the focus is different, but the same engagement of skills is required to fully discover and convey a character on film as in the theatre. It is vital to focus the student actor on physical and vocal embodiment, as well as their work on interior story and subtext, or awareness of camera angles, and lens sizes. Screen-acting is a subset of acting, not a separate discipline.”