Mel Churcher

We are all a complex mixture of the elemental energies identified by many different cultures throughout history: Earth, Air, Fire, Water – and a fifth element called Quintessence or Spirit. As an actor, you need to be able to access each of them, so that you can draw on whichever element you need to bring your role fully into life. In The Elemental Actor, Mel Churcher explores these deep, primal drives, and gives you practical tools to harness them to make your work more powerful and alive. Her unique approach combines elements of actor training, voice work and movement to increase your range and help you bring depth, specificity and intensity to your performance. The book includes over one hundred games and exercises to help you explore each of the elements, incorporate this work into your practice, and apply it to the world of your role. There are also tips for preparing for auditions and dealing with performance anxiety, as well as advice on how to stay healthy in body, voice and mind. Offering an everlasting palette that will enrich any performance, whether on stage or screen, The Elemental Actor will help you release the wellspring of your imagination, and put elemental power into your work. Mel Churcher is an international acting, dialogue and voice coach who has worked with companies including the Royal National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, Young Vic, Royal Court Theatre and Graeae Theatre Company. She is one of the top acting and dialogue coaches in TV and movies, and has worked with some of the biggest stars of stage and screen.

A comprehensive training course in screen acting by an internationally renowned teacher and acting coach who has worked with actors of all backgrounds and experience – from drama school students at the start of their careers to Hollywood stars, including Daniel Craig, Angelina Jolie and Keira Knightley. Mel Churcher has developed a series of five workshops which take actors step by step through the process of creating, developing and delivering assured performances on screen. Accompanied by ninety minutes of online film clips, showing all of the work in action, this book builds on these workshops and lets you progress through them at your own pace: Workshop 1: Keeping the Life encourages you to find what is unique about yourself and how you can preserve this vitality when acting on screenWorkshop 2: Inhabiting the Role focuses on the emotional and psychological steps required in preparing your performanceWorkshop 3: The Physical Life introduces a series of practical exercises to develop the physicality and imagination of the actor Workshop 4: Through the Eye of the Camera explains the technical skills you must master to act in front of a lensWorkshop 5: Off to Work We Go covers how to prepare for auditions and then how to handle specific challenges when you get the job Each exercise, technique and tip is vividly illustrated in online film clips taken from the author's actual workshops. The result is a vital masterclass in every aspect of acting on screen. Foreword by Jeremy Irons. 'When the whole business seems to have gone loopy, dip into Mel Churcher's book; somehow she always makes sense' Bob Hoskins

She provides tasks, techniques and tips that are designed specifically for film: there's advice to make the first-time film actor feel at home on set, tips on the casting process, how to cope with auditions, on-camera techniques, schedules and shooting order, as well as specific advice from film crews to help an actor's performance.