UPDATE ON ED'S HEALTH
I feel good. The doctors tell me that I still have a small bit of infected fluid in my right lung, but they are expecting it to re-absorb into my body with no further treatment. I’ve been teaching Thursday night acting classes in Chicago with no problem, and I plan to travel international again in the Fall.

ACTING FOR ANIMATORS SCHEDULE
Sept. 12-13 SPARK Festival Vancouver, Canada (sponsored by Vancouver ACM Siggraph.)
Nov 14th London open class (contact kumar@twelvej.com
Nov. 17th Black Rock (Disney) UK
Nov. 18th Sony (UK Nov 21st Stockholm, Sweden (Electronic Arts)
Nov. 24-27 Swansea Animation Days, Swansea South Wales
Nov. 29th Ludwigsberg, Germany, Academy of Performing Arts Opening Celebration
Dec. 1-5 Ludwigsberg, Germany Filmakademie Baden-Wurtemberg

ED HOOKS CHICAGO CLASS SCHEDULE
SCENE STUDY -- On-going, Thursday nights, 7-10:30 at The Acting Studio (formerly The Audition Studio), 10 West Hubbard Street, #2W. Free audit, start any time. $135 per month, sixteen-week commitment. Here's a Yahoo map to the The Acting Studio. It is easy to reach The Acting Studio on the CTA red line. Exit at Grand Street and State. Walk two blocks south on State to Hubbard. The #36 Broadway bus also stops very near the school.

PRIVATE COACHING
I'm always available for private coaching. My rate is $75 per hour. We can work on cold reading, career strategies or whatever you want. Call 773-929-4651, or send an e-mail to edhooks@edhooks.com.

CRAFT NOTES
GOOD ACTING: ALLOWING OR CAUSING?
Every now and then, I get someone new in my acting class who is willing to work harder than anybody else. “Assign me three scenes and a monologue,” she will tell me. “I can do it!” As soon as I hear that, I know I’m in trouble. One does not become a good actor by working hard at it. Learning to act is not like learning how to build a garage. It’s not like weight lifting or doing sit ups. You can’t relax by working hard to relax.

Acting is a process of exposing, not hiding, of allowing, not causing. It takes more courage to be honest than to tell lies, and that is the primary ingredient in a worthwhile performance. Acting is an art that gets more difficult the better you get at it. It is like telling secrets about yourself in front of a group of strangers.

Tension is the number one enemy of good acting. Lee Strasberg and Sanford Meisner made up a whole bunch of relaxation exercises designed to cope with tension. I don’t work like that. I have discovered that, when an actor is confident, she is naturally going to be relaxed. Tension is a factor of self-doubt. If you feel you belong on the stage and that the audience is there to hear and see what you have to say, you will project relaxation and confidence. Play fully an action in pursuit of an objective while overcoming an obstacle, and you’ll be as relaxed as it is possible for you to be, even if the scene is tense.

In case you haven’t guessed, I don’t much like relaxation exercises, even though I realize that some top teachers adore them. Back when I used to take acting classes as a beginning actor, I didn’t think relaxation exercises did me much good. Later, when I started teaching, I tried them for a while because my teachers wanted me to. Everybody in the class would lie on the floor and feel heavier than a rock and then lighter than a feather, and they would be aware of their toes and their ears. Then they would get up off the floor, and they still couldn’t act! They became very expert at doing relaxation exercises.

Are you destined to be an actor? Do you belong on the stage? When you are acting, do you feel that you are drawing the audience to you, or are you chasing the audience? One of my many psychiatrists once said that a man should aspire to being a “desirable target”, which is a good concept for acting in my opinion. You get into trouble when you feel you have to “chase” the audience.

Acting is doing something – playing an action in pursuit of an objective while overcoming an obstacle. Emotions are automatic value responses. If you come at acting emotion-first, you are guaranteed to be in trouble. Emotions are not actable. If I asked you right now to act “sad”, you couldn’t do it. “Sad” is not actable. “Sad” is a value reaction and, in response to it, you DO something about it. Acting is doing. If you feel sad because of the circumstances of the scene, you will do something about that. Perhaps you will try to hide the fact that you are sad, for instance.

Acting doesn’t necessarily require a lot of physical movement, but it absolutely requires that you do something. If I ask you to sit as still as possible and multiply 28 x 146 in your head, your eyes will move. You’re not going to be able to do it with no movement at all. If you are bad at math, you are going to have a pretty big obstacle to overcome. The audience will see you trying to do the multiplication, and they will empathize with you.

Do not deny your feelings. They are automatic value reactions, and they are true. Be honest about it. The script will tell you what to do about it.