Having graduated from the August 2016 Reel Scene acting training event I can say that the Reel Scene is the only course out of a number of acting courses that showed me the differences between stage and screen acting and gave me the chance to do both and compare for myself. That being said I have to hold my hands up and say apart from the Reel Scene acting training event personally I have not done much stage work or ‘treading the boards’ apart from a stint doing stand-up comedy which apart from there being a live audience is not the same as theatre but after doing the August 2016 Reel scene acting training event I had a taste of transferring a screen script to stage which was not only a learning curve but also an eye opener to the differences between stage and screen acting.
So let’s get started, I think the most obvious difference between stage and screen is the audience. The theatre demands a show, a projection for all the senses because the audience are far away from the stage the movements and expressions of the performers have to be bigger so that the couple on the stalls get the same experience as the couple sitting on the highest balcony. As for screen acting the audience can be as far away or as close as the director wants them to be, depending on the shot the audience can be looking into an actors eyes or looking at the world from space. A saying that keeps popping up with Reel Scene acting training event is ‘less is more’ and I’m not talking about the budget, I am talking about less arm waving, smaller facial expressions, it’s what you don’t say on screen that says the most where as in theatre if you don’t say it then it won’t be heard which I learned during the Reel Scene acting training event.
The next difference isn’t so obvious, well it wasn’t to me. It’s the script. Having dabbled in writing scripts and being part of a creative process thanks to the Reel scene acting training event I know about the rewrite, rewrite and rewrite system when it comes to on screen acting, you can change a script right up to the moment the director shouts ‘ACTION’ depending on the outcome you may get a chance to take numerous takes with different dialogue which you can chop and change in the edit. Whereas stage acting more often than not is a known show performed for a long time over and over again and the script or dialogue cannot be changed due to the popularity of the play, lines that are so famous said wrong can be like nails on a chalk board to an audience, if you want the chance to try both why not try the Reel Scene acting training event
They are just a couple of differences but they cover a lot of factors, Audience, projection, less is more, last minute changes to script and so many more.