Cherif Gacis Chassis Musings

"Stay true in the dark and humble in the spotlight"~Harold B. Lee This week I did not go to the theater for my usual movie night because, quite simply, there were no movies I was overly interested in watching. I thought of watching another one that I'd seen already, but found none that I thought I'd want to spend more money to watch again. Which made me step back and think 'what does make a person want to spend hard earned money to go lose themselves to the cinemas a second or third time'?" Part of that was answered when we started doing a deeper dive into Stanislavski's teachings, and it deals with authenticity. The group spent some time on the notion that an actor is "the priest of beauty and truth." Although some useful insights were provided into the meaning of what that may have meant, I had to read the quote in the context that Stanislavski wrote it to draw my own inference into what he wanted us to glean. Before that phrase an...

"Every mountain top is within reach if you just keep climbing"~Barry Finlay I once read that there was a particular study on basketball free throw efficiency where one person sat on the sideline and watched a player attempt 100 free throws, while another player with similar skills/percentage actually went through shooting 100 free throws in a row. What the study found was that the person who watched and learned had a greater percentage improvement than the person who would shoot countless free throws in a row. The key takeaway is that, although actually going through the motion and practice is important, it was almost just as important or sometimes even more important to be able to observe your craft from a different vantage point for incremental improvements. Which leads me to the movie I watched last week. That movie had some good A-listers, and it was a night and day difference in talent from the movie I'd seen the week before where the acting was rather bland. ...

"The Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" ~Lao Tzu Gacis Chassis [Gah'-seas Shas-ee] - The framework behind the drive Not having been in an acting class or theater production since my sophomore year in college over a decade ago, I have to admit there was some trepidation over how this new adventure would fit into my daily schedule. To prepare, I started making it a habit to watch a new film every Sunday after church to start incorporating different acting styles and perspectives that I could bring to the group. When I received the syllabus and saw we would need a book, flashbacks of expensive encyclopedia thick books from graduate school came to mind. Would I have to read the first five chapters before the first session!? When I found the Sonia Moore book on Amazon on Stanislavski's system at a very reasonable price AND size, I was at ease. While sitting there during jury duty, I tried reading as much as I could before the first meeting (again,...