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Acting for Camera: Professional Practice

Short Courses – 10 Week

Overview

This ten week course is ideal for those who are keen to develop both their confidence and skill in acting on camera. Following on from Introduction to Acting for Camera, Acting for Camera: Professional Practice will both recap and develop the skills learned in the Introduction to Acting for Camera course, and will begin to look at the more complex aspects of acting for screen.

This will include:

  • Exercises on working with props and understanding how to keep your own continuity
  • Energy conservation. Some scenes may shoot for hours on end, so it is important to know how to moderate your performance depending on a number of factors, such as shot size and coverage
  • Working with cold reads, script changes, and adjusting performance to new notes
  • Maintaining focus throughout longer and ensemble scenes
  • Working with complex blocking and continuity
  • Gaining first-hand experience of how a film crew work

On this ten week evening course you will look at more demanding and advanced scenes, both in terms of their length, but also factoring in many of the elements mentioned above. The focus of the course will be group and scene work but, time permitting, if students had specific monologues they were keen to perform, this might be possible.

During the course you will also take part in a masterclass with a filmmaking lecturer who will guide you through the various roles that make up a film crew and give you the opportunity to work first hand with the filmmaking equipment used throughout the various Short Courses at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

By the end of the course you will:

  • Have shot a scene for use in your personal portfolios
  • Had a hands-on masterclass in how a film set operates and runs and used a variety of filmmaking equipment
  • Developed your analytical skills of film scripts and scenes
  • Receive feedback and guidance on your chosen scene
  • Developed your understand of the more advanced aspects of acting for screen

Students will get an edited version of their scenes, and can have access, upon request, to their ‘raw’ footage, should they want to use it or edit the footage together themselves.

Courses you may be interested in

  • Introduction to Acting for Camera

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Contact us
If you have any questions about this course before you book it, please get in touch with us at shortcourses@rcs.ac.uk.

FAQs
Please see our FAQs for more information about all aspects of choosing, booking and attending your course.

The important details

Age:
16+

Cost:
£345

Dates:
23 January - 27 March 2025

Times
Thursdays, 6pm - 9pm

Venue:
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, 100 Renfrew Street, Glasgow, G2 3DB


Course Information

To gain the most from this course, students should have attended Introduction to Acting for Camera, or have relevant experience of screen acting. If you are unsure of your suitability for this course, please contact shortcourses@rcs.ac.uk

The course is designed so that motivated students will benefit from the training. We expect you to undertake a certain amount of self-directed study and preparation out with class times.

Students should be open, honest, generous, respectful, hard-working and willing to work as part of a team.

Students should select two scenes and be familiar with these (they do not have to be fully learned and off script, but you should’ve have done some basic scene analysis, know what the scenes is about, what your character’s objective is etc and be comfortable reading through them.)

These scenes should:

  • Be a two hander (has two characters, who both speak in the scene)
  • Be 2-4 page long in terms of length
  • Be for characters of a similar playing age
  • Ideally be a ‘High Stake’ scene – a scene where your character is highly committed to the scenes outcome.

All chosen scenes can be edited, so students are very welcome to select scenes that may not be in their own accent and gender and pronoun usage in the scene can be adapted to suit the performer.

This course will run in person on Thursday evenings for 10-weeks from 23 January – 27 March 2025, 6pm – 9pm.

The course fee is £345 which is the equivalent to £34.50 per session, and can be paid in full or in instalments before the course end date.


Further Information

We want to ensure as many children, young people and adult learners as possible can access the performing and production arts education that is offered through Short Courses at RCS. Financial support options available for Short Courses include:

Agnes Allan Bursary

Agnes Allan was a teacher, passionate about inclusion, and this bursary scheme exists to offer support to students to participate in the performing or production arts.

The Agnes Allan Bursary provides some support to students who may require financial assistance to take part in a short course in dance, drama, music, production or screen.

Anyone who wishes to take part in our Short Courses and faces a financial barrier can apply for bursary support to help meet the cost of tuition fees.

James McAvoy Drama Scholarships

BAFTA-winning and Golden Globe nominated actor James McAvoy is committed to nurturing the creative potential of young Scots who experience barriers to access and participate in drama at RCS Short Courses.

James is a graduate of the BA Acting programme at RCS and Patron of the Junior Conservatoire of Drama. The Glasgow-born actor has funded the new James McAvoy Drama Scholarships to enable young people to experience the world-class drama training at RCS as he did.

The scholarship aims to support applicants who would otherwise find meeting the cost of tuition fees at RCS a barrier to accessing pre-Higher Education drama training at the Royal Conservatoire.

You can find more information about these funds on our Financial Support page.

We run various promotional offers for our Short Courses and Summer Schools. You can view our current offers on our Promotional Offers page.

You should contact us at shortcourses@rcs.ac.uk to request your discount code before booking a course.

Please note, only one promotional offer can be applied per course and should be used at the time of booking as we are unable to apply a discounts retrospectively.

Please see our Short Course FAQs for more information about all aspects of choosing, booking and attending your course.

Please see our Short Courses – Terms and Conditions for more information about your contract with Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and Cancellation and Refund policies.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive the latest updates of courses, offers and news from Short Courses. You can do this by completing this short online form found here.

Short Courses
shortcourses@rcs.ac.uk

Summer Schools
summerschools@rcs.ac.uk

Credit-Rated
credit-rated@rcs.ac.uk

Bursary and Scholarship
bursaryscholarship@rcs.ac.uk