• How to max out Apple TV’s potential… (Gizmodo)

• Productivity and Values…(Productivity 501)

• Being Christian in the Acting Biz… (The Acting Room)

• MGM and CBS Team up with Youtube… (Life Hacker)

• Dark Night Heading to $1 Billion…(Deadline Hollywood Daily)

• A Quantum Of So Laaaame… (Photoshop Disasters)

• Characterization in acting…(Notes On Acting)

• 200 Movie Scripts in the palm of your hand…(Actor Preneur)

• Should Isaiah Washington stay out of the Grey’s Drama?… (Popsugar)

• Can Hot Yoga Make You Lose Weight Faster?… (MunFitnessBlog)

• Making money with a purpose…(Life Optimizer)

• When are you most creative?… (Stepcase LifeHack)

• Do you need a job to make a living?…(Talent Development)

• Who are you accountable to?… (Simple Dollar)

• “Twilight” Interview Video…(Variety)

• “Captain America”…One step closer to reality… (DeFamer)

• Behind the scenes of Natalie Portmans new Film…(The Bad and The Ugly)

Like every week we post a book review on a subject related to acting, health, personal growth or anything related to the showbiz industry. In this case we talk about Ned Manderino’s  THE TRANSPERSONAL ACTOR.

Manderino  makes very good points with which I agree right off the bat. Such as the need to respect for tradition, but the belief that techniques of Stanislavski or Boleslavski should have been used as a springboard for further development. Not as something static.

His writing has a very scientific undertone and he focuses his logic on areas technically un-related to the actor. The book is comprised of 2 very distinct parts. The first a review on Strasberg/Stanislavski and ancient Greek Sensory work. He includes plenty of exercises, improv and scene work.

The second half focuses on the “transpersonal” actor. He uses Imagination exercises, and uses the physiological and phychological functioning of the body and mind to guide his work. There are also plenty of interesting animal behavior exercises as well as vocal work.

Overall the book is more of a varied technique-exercises, than a guide. Is it worth buying? Personally, NOT. It’s a book worth looking at on a bookstore, but the problem (as with plenty other books) is that you get just as much reading over the index as you do reading the entire book. Some exercises are great, but not worth purchasing the entire book.

The book is a follow-up to the book Truth In Comedy, in which the author explains in detail the Harold method used at the i.O. (formerly Improv Olympic) in Chicago and the i.O. West in Los Angeles where actors such as Tina Fey, Chris Farley, Mike Meyers…etc have all studied. And in all honesty, she refers quite a bit to such method throughout the first half of the book without really explaining it which can be very annoying if you haven’t read it.

Basically the Harold method is a technique to have all actors from a group onstage at the same time in an organized manner to showcase all the personalities and still get the point of your statement across. For that you use “the rules” and several tricks. My personal favorite is the tag-out in which you manage to “flash” a character in a scene in space and time and introduce new character at the same time.

She does give some really good and sound advice in chapters 5 through 7 for both starting improv actors as well as experienced pros. The main idea is always to overcome the barriers you put on yourself. Look at the experts and learn from them. And she explains in detail a lot of scenes that are used to exemplify the techniques.

The book also comes with a DVD of improv scenes performed at the i.O. which is hilarious and very helpful to see what she means.

Is it worth reading? If you are interested  or like in improv, then DEFINITELY. Although I would have to say, you need to buy the first book to understand this one first. I would also say that going over the DVD and seeing some of the pros in action is a great added bonus to the book and an easy fun way to learn some new skills.

Like every week we post a book review on a subject related to acting, health, personal growth or anything related to the showbiz industry. In this case its Robert Blumenfeld’s revised and expanded edition of “Accents: A manual for actors”.

It’s a great tool to give us actors and one that is so complete is hard to come along. The one-place to find it all.

The book includes:
-Asian Accents: Chinese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Burmese, Thai, Indonesian….etc
-African Accents: South African, Zulu, Sub-Saharan, Ethiopian, Nigerian, Ugandan, Congo, Swahili…etc.
-Middle Eastern: Arabic Accents, Egyptian, Hebrew, Persian…etc
-Slavic Accents: Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Slovak, Czech, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian…
-Germanic Accents: German, Prussian, Bavarian, Viennese, Yiddish, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish…etc
-Romance Accents: French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian…etc.

But what is truly impressive is that it separates by class, Date, and geography the American, British Isles and Commonwealth English. So its not the same to study a Upper Class late 1900’s North American accent from Baltimore, and a Modern English Provincial Accent from Liverpool.

The book gives a detailed and comprehensive description but for those of us who prefer to learn in a more audio-visual form, it also includes 2 CD’s with a manual to each language.

So, Is it worth reading? If you’ve read the rest of the article you know already the answer is YES!!!!!! This book serves as a  wonderful tool for any actor and is worth even having as a reference book because you will certainly find yourself returning to it time and time again throughout your career.