0029: How To Take A Note From A Coach Or A Casting Director

look at these lovely faces joining me on
the screen today i’m david h lawrence
the 17th
and as an actor and a performer i have
been
on both ends of
getting feedback on a performance and
giving feedback on a performance and it
was recently brought to my attention
from the young lady you see on your
screen and amplified by the gentleman
that you see on your screen
that taking a note taking feedback
doing it effectively and productively is
not something you are
usually taught and so we’re going to
discuss that in this episode of the vo
heroes podcast next
every actor that goes after a role every
actor that takes an acting class every
actor
that uh decides they’re going to
audition for something and ask somebody
else what they think
they’re going to get some feedback and
how that feedback is actually taken
is something that has
kind of slid right by a lot of people
there’s no formal training on this that
i’m aware of
although there might be you know there
might be some you know
10 minutes spent one tuesday morning in
a in a
acting you know class at a university
somewhere saying
just listen to me all right just listen
to me
but who knows so uh we just
started the new uh class of uh vo heroes
pros
and one of my newest pros uh is an actor
who has experience doing this
uh her name is bethany arrington you see
her there on her screen and
she’s got the the moving blankets set up
she’s looking awesome
um she actually brought this up to me
because we did our first
workout and she wrote me a note and she
said
you know i think some of the people that
are kind of side grading from other
areas like
lawyers or teachers or doctors or
whatever
may not have had any exposure to how to
receive
coaching because she noticed some
pushback
uh so i’m i’ve got her with me today and
also i’m so
so grateful that one of my best
pals michael kostroth the guy who
created audition psyc101
who is also a coach and an actor who has
both received and given feedback i’ve
been lucky enough to get feedback from
him in an acting class was awesome
um i wanted kind of his perspective from
having been through many more auditions
than i’ve been through i’m thinking
maybe bethany’s been through
and also uh giving more feedback
in his acting classes and his and so
thank you both for being with us i
appreciate it bethany thank you
oh yeah my pleasure and michael thank
you so much for joining us
a pleasure let’s talk about this let’s
talk about what your experience has been
and let me start with you michael only
because
uh i’ve got a lot of stuff from bethany
that i’m going to go through on this
you say in audition psych 101 that you
used to
hate auditioning and i’m imagining that
a part of that
distaste might have been dealing with
feedback you know i think the reason
that my focus has been the psychology of
auditioning is because
so much of this is psychological uh and
so much of it is framing
you know a lot of the things we tell
ourselves about auditioning are
mythological we’ve just decided that you
know
there’s a harsh atmosphere where people
want to judge us and we do the same
thing with notes
i’ve seen this both in rehearsal and in
auditioning and you know
in everything that we do uh many actors
i know hear a note they’re like oh i
screwed up
or um or they think it’s a it’s a test
like somebody’s tossing them a hot
potato oh god
please let me get this right and all of
that is just all of that is
framing and none of it is actually true
what’s really going on is collaboration
you know uh like when i get a note now i
go
great i get to show i get to show
my flexibility of what i do you know
yeah um
but i think i think nobody i don’t think
anybody ever gets a note because they
did something poorly
a note is always hey let’s keep working
on this it’s like a second date
it’s like let’s keep going this is going
well i think that’s a really important
point because
when uh they don’t like you they tend to
figure out a way to move on to somebody
who they could possibly use
and so when you as michael just said
when you get a note that’s a good thing
and i think that the instant reaction
from some people and i don’t know if
this is how it was for you
i asked one of my coaches trevor algot
what his thoughts on this were and he
related a story to me
about how very early in his career
hadn’t had any training on how to deal
with notes and deal with feedback
um he was up for a role in a touring
company and
when he did his first take the casting
director had some adjustments for him
and trevor proceeded to
tell him why the way he did it was the
way
he did it and you know i bet that for
the people that had more experience than
trevor did at that point it was kind of
a cringe-worthy moment
um bethany did you have anything happen
to you like that that
that gave you this this you know urge to
share this knowledge with people yes um
so i went to i went to theater school in
chicago i
um my poor my poor parents you know they
thought
thought they were getting a college
athlete now going for going for acting
um and that that helped a lot in a lot
of ways
because having an athletics background
made me kind of take notes more in a
coaching light than like oh you did
something
wrong it was no i can i can see a place
of improvement
you can get faster you can get stronger
um but it was interesting i think when
you’re 18 and you go to theater school
uh you want to talk about yourself right
i think most of us do
actors like to talk about themselves
what really
you know and i think the first thing i
noticed is that
the moment i wanted to
defend what i was doing i would see the
instructor almost like shut off
and i remember going oh no like the
light went out of their eyes
like not not even necessarily like
they’re not gonna work with me again but
they’re not they’re not getting what i’m
laying down
and then i realized oh that’s not
because i’m supposed to be laying
anything down right now
my job is to listen and i think
when you write four years of
theater school whatever but then when
you get into the real world it’s the
same
thing every casting director even your
agent
all of a sudden you have people if you
know again if they see an opportunity
for improvement if they see something
that’s exciting to them they people want
to give you a note they want to help you
they want to get closer to whatever that
goal is
but if you keep talking or doing
whatever you’re not going to get it
yeah i think uh you know this is
something that people kind of don’t ever
speak about
you know it’s kind of unspoken uh as you
walk into your first class you’re very
excited
and you’re you’re ex you know you’re
you’ve got your notes and you’ve
you’ve memorized your scene or whatever
whatever you’ve done to prepare
what you haven’t prepared for is for
somebody to say
and and that’s how it comes off
sometimes so let’s take this from the
general
to the specific and in terms of
our workouts what we do
is we have our students
voice a short clip i give them feedback
or one of the coaches depending upon
what’s going on they give them feedback
and ask them to do it again which is a
pretty typical cycle a pretty typical
you perform we offer feedback you
perform again
noting that feedback and
so when we do that
we’re doing it to get you to a place
in our case not necessarily of being
able to book a job
but to understand a concept so there’s
different uses for feedback right
so for example if somebody is reading uh
in a in a
in a workshop or in a workout an
audiobook segment
and they’re just mowing right through it
my feedback may be
remember you’re being paid by the hour
in an effort to get them to slow down
and the reason i want them to slow down
is
myriad there’s lots of reasons to slow
down
but it can immediately make somebody say
oh well this is a really exciting scene
and i really wanted to
uh you know let people know that it was
exciting and so then
all that does is kind of delay
the opportunity to discuss
why it needs to be slower not why what
you did
quote didn’t work that that’s not the
point would that be a fair statement
michael
you know i i’m realizing as we’re
talking about this that there are
actually
different the setting is part of what’s
what’s important here
i don’t think any of us are saying that
you can never discuss a note ever
but when you’re auditioning nobody’s
offered you the damn job
this is not time to collaborate and put
your personal stamp on it
when you’re auditioning is the time to
to to appreciate
the guidance from the casting person
same thing with the class you take a
class
for guidance so try it try it there’s no
there’s no pass fail there’s no loss
you know um i i and
if i want to continue to have this path
for a moment the the first
the first thing should we try it no
matter what the setting
so do what they said try it try it
you know i’ve gotten notes when i was in
rehearsal for plays
and i that i thought um that’s just i
don’t yeah
you know and i and i’ve debated them
again i love what bethany said about you
see the light go out in their eyes
they’re like
okay um i have learned
this is really tip top secret off the
record
i really learned this with directors who
were
not particularly talented i learned to
go
great let me just write that down and
i’d do it
and i’d you know wait a few days before
saying
i i have a question about this and we’d
co i would make sure that i was being
collaborative and not argumentative
but in the in the i hope i haven’t
gotten to too far off off our
our track here i think in the in the
audition setting and in the class
setting
just just try it just try it um
j rodney turner uh let me just read what
he said because this ties right in
yeah he says learning from an
experienced coach is not personal
it’s business show up to the session
real or virtual
prepared to learn don’t fill your head
with preconceived notions of how things
will go
let the coach lead you to where you need
to be
this is why you compensate them for
their experience and for their wisdom
relax
have fun learn to take direction and
learn to ask for more
if you don’t understand the direction
and i think that’s part of what you’re
saying when you say i have a question
about this you’re asking for more right
you know also it’s good to keep in mind
that like i know as a teacher sometimes
i’ll give a note just as an experiment
let’s try this let’s try absolutely it’s
not you did it wrong
it’s an experiment you know yeah there
are times there are times when i’ll say
hey i got nothing for you there but as
long as i have you let’s try something
right you know yesterday i was in a
session
with one of our new pros and i said
okay let’s make ron she was reading a
segment from
uh harry potter she said let’s make ron
jealous
rather than curious about harry’s first
kiss with hermione
yeah and the words were there and all
she had to do was change what ron’s
intention was
and there was an a moment where she goes
wait i don’t
okay and then when she tried it it
worked it was it was very interesting so
go ahead michael and finish what your
thought was well i wanted to share
the the story that i told you uh offline
about my time with the producers so uh
when you do a
show for susan strowman um they send
along
a uh an associate director who gives you
notes and they’re they’re always on
these white index
cards and after
months of being on the road with the
show and we all used to [ _ ] about the white cards oh i got i got 15 white cards oh i got four white cards oh damn white cards i took myself aside for a little chat which is how i like to put it i said you know we’ve decided that the white cards are like a like a like a whipping you know like a punishment like a like a ding why it’s just this associate director saying here’s a way that i noticed you you know you were you’re off a little bit on this and it’s an opportunity to tune it tune yourself in and and make it better yeah i i i think that people are now kind of watching this going uh well yeah i feel that but i feel a lot more than that and bethany actually has a little uh list here of what actually happens when you get a note uh elevated heart rate sweating your tensing of your muscles in your mind the inner critic comes out i’m not good enough for this i’m not i’m not ready for this this isn’t the right part for me uh why am i here uh your mind starts racing and the last thing that she put on the list was this impulse to defend what you were doing and let me ask you bethany is that what you heard in that first workout that caused you to bring this to my attention that was actually like i guess i would call it like an alarm bell because it it’s so when you put yourself in positions of vulnerability um actors do it every day right we’re either we’re getting on mic or i will say performers actually do it every day you’re on mic you’re on camera you’re self taping you’re on the phone with someone and they’re telling you to cut your hair whatever it is it becomes really not necessarily comfortable but commonplace to have those notes kind of flying at you and when that doesn’t happen and you’re like a non-performer and all of a sudden these notes are flying at you it’s a really uncomfortable experience because it feels really personal but those of us who are already performing professionals are like oh no that’s just that’s not personal it’s business right going back to what michael said it’s not personal it’s business it’s guidance it’s an opportunity that impulse for that impulse to defend actually comes from like really primal survival impulses you know we had to when we were threatened back you know when we were cave men and women and other persons um we had to have these the adrenaline rush the sweating the tensing of the muscles getting ready to fight or flight or um or whatever we needed to do to survive but when we get in a workout session there’s no survival necessary you are safe you’re okay this is again an opportunity to play and i think that’s something that most people don’t even think about that it’s a safe place to fall especially in our classes and i think that also a lot of those things kind of go away once you know it’s okay to take risks and to do things differently and to try things and to and to know that that i and the other coaches we’ve got your back we want you to do better we want you to learn we want you to do a great work i think once you have that knowledge and i think that’s the biggest message here is you know we just throw you into the situation nobody nobody in the business i think michael might agree with me nobody in the business is saying hmm okay this is david’s first audition let’s go easy on him let’s let’s be careful with him right would that be a fair statement michael that’s fair and i think it’s also fair to say nobody’s sitting there going how can we mess with him by upsetting him by giving him a note it’s it’s always towards a positive end it’s never to make you feel bad or to ding you but yes i agree with your first thing too there’s no taking it easy there’s like we’re working on a product here let’s see what we can do yeah so uh once you get past that initial moment of oh we’re all pulling in the same direction um again bethany very organized thank you bethany um i love i love what i’m looking at here beth bethany it’s really brilliantly done yeah she says how do we combat these things and the good news is you only have to combat them for a while because after you get used to this you’re not going to need to worry about it so after you get the first few notes or get the first few pieces of feedback you won’t need to necessarily take a breath you know scan notice what’s going on kind of shake it out you know those are her words and then acknowledge that your inner critic is on the warpath immediately if that’s how you’re feeling about it wait what i i practiced this for six hours are you kidding me and that’s actually part of what we one of the reasons why we don’t send people copy when we produce their demos for them we send it to them right before we do the session and the reason is i don’t want them to rehearse themselves into a corner because i may want a particular feeling out of a spot in the demo that is in contrast to something else that hadn’t occurred to them when they’re looking at it right and i think that happens a lot in what we do we approach a script we come to our conclusions the director may have a different notion or the casting director may have a different notion and my question for you michael is if you could look back to a time when you had rehearsed a script in a way that you thought was gonna kill it you know you knew you weren’t going to get the job anyway but it would kill it and you got a note that kind of made you feel why why did i spend all that time doing that has that ever happened i honestly cannot think of a time that that happened that’s not to say that i always come in with the perfect take on something it’s just that i i i enjoy i’m being honest i enjoy the collaboration i really do um anytime that somebody wanted to speak to me further about a role i was like oh great you know i think i’ve i’ve had to learn that more in the rehearsal setting than i than i have in the audition setting or the class setting and how do you handle it when you see somebody in a class because you teach acting classes as well when they do a scene and you give them feedback and you see them do all the things that we just listed they they kind of get tensed up and and you you notice that they’re not receiving it well how do you handle that well i’m a very holistic teacher so i want to talk about what’s going on here in addition to what people are doing acting wise so i will always say what’s going on what’s this what are you doing what’s that are you beating yourself up what’s going on in your head and they always say oh no i don’t i said no no it’s good let’s talk it through because these are skills that we need to work on you know um do you hate the note i’m giving you tell me how much you hate it i want to talk about it you know but because i because because we’re off the grid essentially and there are no mistakes i like to sort of work on that with actors because i my face is so transparent that i’ve had to remember to keep a game face on when i’m getting notes you know especially for some reason especially with choreographers me just learning the steps looks like i hate them i had to learn to go ah great yes fantastic even though inside i’m like what so i think it’s an important skill to learn to not present anything that looks like you know you’re like you’re having a problem with the note yeah and bethany uh you you know these things you’ve given me this incredible list uh i’m gonna get to this next this uh acknowledgement and and uh practical notes on how to listen because i think that’s a big key but do you ever find yourself still thinking to yourself hmm oh oh yeah my acting mentor is a as a very scary bulgarian man um and he he gives me he’s like kind of known for this for like giving notes that make zero sense like truly makes zero sense when you’re like you do something and he’s like okay now i want you to think about eating spaghetti while doing this scene and you’re like what okay you now it’s a gift it’s a gift every time because it gets me out of my head i’ll tell you that but even even our first workout david i like felt my heart rate go up and i just earlier that day had done 15 auditions literally right before the workout and i still got on mike and was like oh my gosh my palms are sweating here we go like and then when you gave me feedback i still was like wait calm the mind calm the my like we’re mindful here this is this is fun this is fun and david’s helping you i think part of this also is uh sometimes the people giving you feedback are unknown quantities you know i i would imagine that we all um tend to anyway react differently to people that we are familiar with that we respect that we’re looking for guidance from as opposed to somebody new in our acting lives that we’ve never met before or maybe whose reputation has preceded them you know there are casting directors in town that have you know reputations anyway the point is being open to all these things and some do’s and don’ts can be really helpful and i want to share one of uh some of these that bethany’s written down and get your feedback on on this uh always be actively engaged mindful and not mindless and definitely not letting your mind drive the bus and i think what you mean by that is ahead of what is being said yes yeah that that’s one of those terms my friends and i throw around like who’s driving the bus is your anxiety driving the bus right now yes you know like is your excitement driving the bus and you’re not even you’re not even taking it in because it’s like oh my god i’m getting a note this is the best thing ever he’s talking to me you know there’s so many different ways yeah and then you have some things here that are pretty practical that i i really urge people to just if you’re gonna jot anything down from this this is kind of what you want to jot down don’t interrupt nine times out of ten your question will be answered eventually by the person speaking your fears will be assuaged uh it’s rude and you might miss something uh don’t make excuses nobody needs to know why you did what you did that’s important you know uh don’t apologize this is huge for me in fact i’ll stop somebody right in the middle and i’ll say okay time out there is no need to apologize i’m sorry oh my god i’m so stupid you know what what did i do there i’m just like you know don’t beat yourself up don’t do any of those things you did what you thought uh you know appropriate and now we’re gonna play with that and it may just be playing right uh you also say remind yourself that this is practice for when you’re in a studio with a producer and you’re talking specifically about being in class this is exactly what the workouts are for because you know we do a lot of our work from home and we have nobody around to share things with that’s why we have uh mastering self-direction as one of the the classes in the curriculum um this is an opportunity to practice for when you do have external uh external things coming in and michael how many how many self tapes are you doing these days not a lot i know you wanted me to say a lot but no no no what i was asking was compared to compared to going in yes a lot a lot i was just saying auditions haven’t quite come back for me yet i’ve only had two since you know the quarantine but uh yes everything’s sort of going online i i don’t i don’t know if i followed your point though because like no because i was making the point i was making was um we often don’t have the joy of having feedback yeah you know when you are uh when you push back against a note or a wrestle with it you’re sort of cutting out what the other person’s job is uh you know i several of my students have said to me recently how do i get to the point where i think of these things on on my own instead of needing you to help me i’m like this is the collaboration this is why you have a director a teacher uh casting director etc so um it’s it’s it’s again it’s a collaboration it’s not a it’s not a bad thing yeah i have a when whenever it’s the right time you let me know because i have a couple of lists of things that you should never do when you’re giving it up i i was just about to ask you that i have one thing to share from victoria prather um she speaks about this isolation you know and and to be fair the dirty little secret here is you can use this either in vo heroes classes or in on-camera acting classes stage classes there is no part of our performance career where this stuff isn’t applicable because you’re always going to be uh collaborating with people no matter what you’re doing and what victoria says is as a performer in new york city feedback isn’t something i get often but if you get a redirect it’s often something sometimes very blunt and to the point like yeah that was flat let’s try that again with more energy and that can generate uh you know some ill will if it isn’t delivered in a way that is easily received if you’re worried about this being a competition between you and the person you’re collaborating with if you’re always coming at it from what michael has laid down in terms of a great let’s try this let’s see what’s going to go on it’s amazing how that note sounds so different is that fair i think it’s absolutely absolutely a hundred percent true uh it as i say a lot of has to do with framing you know i mean the casting director always has more information about what producers are looking for for a role than you do so if they say she’s supposed to be really mad in this scene it doesn’t help you to say well i don’t know i thought she should be less mad it’s well they’re coming to you with information that you should be grateful for yeah it’s like great thank you now i have some insight i didn’t have before i relate the story uh sometimes of a a workshop i was in once with a casting director uh who was reading a scene with a young lady who was vegan and the scene was about eating a hamburger and right toward the end of the scene when she went in the scene she picks the hamburger up to eat it she just stopped and said scene and started to gather all of her materials together to go sit down so the next person could um could work and the casting director was one of those people who absolutely justifiably had a reputation and he was just so calm about things he was like are we finished and she said oh yeah yeah yeah i i would never i would never eat a hamburger anyway so right i just thought to myself uh she was new but i thought to myself it’s amazing what stories we tell ourselves when we are absent of good information i have no idea what story she told herself as she walked into that session but somewhere along the line she said to herself i’m going to be true to me and so when you said yeah you know i thought she would be more angry there well you’re getting great information from the casting director that you would pay gold for if the answer was if you just follow this you’re going to book the job also the the the notes and adjustments that strike us as brusque are sometimes merely efficient i’ve noticed when i work with television directors they’re so good at giving a concise note three words that you go if you listen i was i remember one episode of the wire the director just came over and said it’s a bit mafia and that told me everything i needed to know about what i needed to adjust yeah and if you’re open to that instead of thinking of it as a as a oh you did it wrong it’s it’s it it’s always the notes are so efficient and so so clear and they don’t have to pad it with listen i hope you don’t mind if i tell you that we don’t have time for that right so it’s not always that they’re being brusque well and honestly michael like you just taking that note is also a gift to your cast members and the director because that note may have been just for you but somebody else heard it and went okay all right i’m on the same page now here we go we can start rolling we’re all here and i think in a workout it’s the same thing when we interrupt our instructors sometimes that that note isn’t just for you that’s for the person who went two two sessions before you and maybe didn’t quite hear the note so you’ve got or will be coming up or will be coming up because we have you know we don’t have an unlimited number of clips that people can choose from we have lots we have hundreds but sometimes people do a clip that somebody else has done or will do in class and if you hear a note it may change what you’re about to do or what you did do uh in a way that is fruitful michael you said you had some things that you absolutely don’t want people to do i can’t wait to hear these well we have we have a time-honored expression in theater uh which i think should apply across the board which is ttfn which does not stand for tata for now it stands for take the [ _ ] note
um here’s why if you’re in a group note
session now i’m just talking about
theater rehearsal so we’re jumping
around a little bit
if you’re in a group note session and
you hear a note that you feel needs
discussion
there’s no reason to kidnap the rest of
the cast while you talk it through with
the director
that is really disrespectful to everyone
else’s time
the other reason you take the [ _ ] note and if you need to bleep out that word you can but i don’t think you should because it’s a tradition if the other reason you take the [ _ ]
note
is because you haven’t had time to
process it yet rather discuss it now
uh like i said go away and think about
it and try it
there are a couple things that amateur
actors very frequently say in note
sessions
that you should never say um oh
really don’t respond to a note like that
like oh
cross left on that really don’t say i
thought i did
don’t say well the reason i did that was
because
you know also i think bethany you made
this point but if you go
oh yeah got it got it got it yeah you
probably haven’t heard the note so
so you have to have to be quiet and uh
sometimes you’ll get a note uh you know
oh you for you forgot you’re supposed to
exit up left and you know that you did
you don’t have to tell everyone i did
that just go
thank you thanks that oh you just nailed
something
and you just nailed something i was
waiting for somebody to say this thank
you
thank you what to do is to say
thank you even before like make it a a
regurgitation
a a a complete instant reaction no
matter what they’ve just said to you
even if they’ve been
horribly disrespectful in your mind
just say thank you and then let it sink
in would that be fair
yes by the way that works really great i
don’t want to talk as if
directors and casting directors are mean
because i don’t buy into that mythology
either
but if you have somebody who’s giving
you notes belligerently
the best thing you can say is great
thank you up left got it
thanks and just keep being pleasant as
if the person is having a pleasant
conversation with you
again i don’t want anybody who’s new at
this to think that people are going to
be abusive because
bethany do you agree i mean my
experience has been they’re mostly nice
i i i feel like most if not all casting

directors and even the ones that might
be a little brusque
they are still in your corner they want
you to book the job they want you to do
your best
absolutely they’re looking for you to be
a solution to their problem
i wanted to say something about also you
talked about don’t please don’t
apologize
that’s also not only a time waster but
what i always point out to my students
is it makes the other person have to
work harder
they just want to give you the
adjustment and you receive the
adjustment
if you say sorry then they have to go oh
no that’s all right
i’m just telling you it’s it really puts
a burden on the other person
it’s emotional ping pong yeah and we
don’t need to play that game
perfectly but yes now bethany when you
were sitting in the workout
was there ever a time when you felt
pressure
due to time in other words we had i
think we had
26 people in the workout at the time
and in our workouts everybody works
if you don’t want to work don’t come to
the workout because we want you to work
that’s why we put this together for you
that’s why everybody
has assembled at one moment to do this
but in that case i think the workout
went on for about three and a half hours
if i’m not mistaken
yeah i did and and so you have
this series of people doing work
and every moment that you spend
apologizing justifying uh
trying to make sure i understand your
motivations for what you did with my
clip
um it just delays the next person and
the person after that and so on
i’m not saying you should rush through
because i’ll spend as much time as is
necessary with someone
to help them get what i want and it’s
really what i want
out of the the session uh for them
because i i have a an idea of what they
need to work on i have an idea of where
i want to lead them
it’s part of what i do when i coach did
you feel any pressure
oh my god don’t don’t don’t keep doing
this we this is like this is just
pushing things backwards
did you feel that at all yeah i mean
that if i’m totally honest that is why i
sent the email
because the interrupting was like
was almost painful it was okay it was
painful
it was painful because i also
was interested i’m also there
to learn from you when you’re coaching
someone else
so for me i’m like well now you’re
interrupting my learning i
i don’t want to hear your justification
i want to hear what david’s going to say
about your note and then i want to
listen to you do it
so then i can go on mike and do it later
myself
you know i can tell you that in
michael’s class i took a an under five
class with him
and the most amazing
time that i spent in that class
was listening to him work with other
people
and see if what i saw is what he saw
and if it wasn’t great
why was that because that’s where the
learning occurs
from if if i agreed with him every
single time he’d be like okay great i’m
pretty good at this but
the point was when it was like oh
mind blown you know like that moment and
i hope that sometimes that happens
especially with people that are coming
from
outside the industry in and i don’t want
anybody to be watching this thinking
we’re busting you we’re we’re making you
wrong
you you you’re you’re dumb for not
knowing this that’s the whole point of
actually doing this session
is i want you to have this so michael go
ahead
no we we we learn these things uh
usually by by
messing them up i i that’s how i learned
these things so
again just like taking a note this video
should be thought of as a
as a gift and a helper and not as a not
as a criticism
uh in any way um i don’t know what else
i was going to say did we what about
did i dick had your list of things you
didn’t want people to do were you done
with that
i’m done with that i mean i don’t know
well done i’m done with that
well no i just you know so what about
what about things they
should do uh other than thank you
and open mind and is there anything
we’ve missed i’m just trying to like
make sure
we’ve left no stone unturned here and
given people a lot to think about
i have one okay um
be proud of the work you’ve done even if
it’s not what you thought was going to
come out of your mouth
because it’s yours amen to this you
already did it
yeah you always be proud yeah i always
talk about the fact that we’re in a
self-selecting group of people that have
had the audacity to stand up in front of
others and tell a story
and that is something to be treasured
because
all those people that you know you go
home
michael calls them the muggles you go
home for the holidays and they go
why don’t you just ask to be on that
ncis show
no they don’t understand the business
they couldn’t get up in front of other
people
and tell a story but you did and not
only that
you’re getting up in front of your peers
and telling a story
go ahead michael i remembered what i was
going to what i was going to share
earlier
and this this so goes to what bethany
was i have a feeling that we’re going to
agree on this
um there is this tendency to want to win
the conversation
that’s the other reason that we push
back on notes you know
oh you were late on your entrance well
it’s because the costume
wasn’t we have a tendency to want to win
the conversation and it has
taken me many years to realize and this
will bless you in your whole career
when you go home for the holidays and
they say you know you should probably
quit it’s not going very well one of the
best things you could ever do is go
you’re probably right
and you’re done with the conversation
and i and
and you don’t have to win you don’t the
notes are not a
it’s not a debate it’s not a challenge
to you you don’t have to win the
conversation
yeah well this is a skill that goes like
for
i think everything in life you know in
your day job with your boss and with
your spouse and with
your best friend you don’t always have
to win
and sometimes listening and letting the
other person know that there’s
they’re heard especially like from a
coach someone who’s helping you
is a gift in and of itself um
just say one thing if in the case of a
again an audition is one thing but in
the case of a class
or a rehearsal process if you have
uh necessary discussion about the note
not it’s not something you can
you either don’t understand it or
there’s a question or a challenge
go discuss it later privately with the
teacher or the director
yeah uh get clarification
yeah and we have a mechanism as well uh
we have the proconnect area
we have a private discussion group it’s
not private one-on-one with the coach
you can do private coaching for that if
you want to but
i ca i i cannot think
of i’m trying desperately to do it on
the fly right now but i cannot think of
a reason why when it’s a private
safe place to discuss things that your
fellow pros
wouldn’t benefit from discussing that
note
out loud and so i urge people as they
watch this and they think well
you know david said don’t email them
with my private issues
if it’s about your account yes please do
but if not please just
post your question in proconnect
on voheros.com in our private discussion
group nobody can see it except
me the coaches your fellow pros nobody
from the outside
nobody and and what you have to ask
is likely occurring to many other people
in the group
so take that moment and discuss it um
i wondered i i want to thank you both
because i’ve said this will be like a 10
minute thing
and it’s turned into something different
but i think
that’s with me that’s never it’s never
10 minutes it’s never happened i agree
um you know we have uh this is really
valuable
and like bethany said it’s not just
going to be valuable in your performing
career can be valuable in
other relationships that you have and
when i watch
michael work when i watch him give notes
he is incredibly efficient and
incredibly insightful and his notes are
not
hmm
hang on i’m i’m processing he’s there
he’s right there and i’m not saying
everybody in your life is going to be
like that
but it’s gold it’s absolute gold and i
will tell you that’s how i work
i have a litmus test when i’m listening
to somebody i always close my eyes when
i’m listening to voice over work and i’m
going to be giving feedback always
i don’t want to be just you know
distracted by the object that i’m
looking at
and one of my litmus tests is am i
thinking
about their performance and aspect of
their performance that i want to deal
with
or am i wrapped up in the story that
they’re telling me
are they doing something that is totally
effective
in what we’re working on so my mind is
working
at a particular pace as well and i just
urge you to take advantage of that i
think
bethany and michael from both ends
of uh the the performing careers
i don’t know bethany have you ever have
you ever done coaching have you ever
done any
any training work oh yeah four people so
you’ve coached other people yes i’ve
coached
mostly teens awesome that must be a
challenge in and of itself
yeah but there’s something really really
cool
about people who are so self-aware
that you can kind of like needle your
way in
nice michael any last thoughts i got no
last thoughts
i have no last thoughts thank you i mean
yeah thanks for having me i mean i’ve
really
bet it’s been so great meeting you and i
i i just love your take on this it’s
really really so so spot-on oh my gosh
thank you i like really want to be
coached by you
i’m like i want to go take a class well
let me tell you have you taken audition
psych 101
no i haven’t oh my gosh well there may
be some opportunities coming up soon
that you want to be aware of all right
so
i’m going to have to yeah all right so
again
thank you uh be open
don’t push back in your mind just make
it a moment that
is is of value to you uh it’s not about
you being right or me being right or
anybody being right it’s about exploring
and deepening
your skill set especially in our setting
when we’re talking
about the workouts that we do what we’re
doing
is taking where you are now and helping
you find a path to where
you can be more successful that is our
only goal it’s not to make you wrong
it’s not to make you incompetent it’s
not to make you
unknowing you know we’re not trying to
catch you not knowing something
because it’s important that you get
there’s a huge world of options out
there for you
some of which might be more productive
in telling the story
and that’s what we’re leading you
towards so uh thank you so much for this
conversation this has been just great
uh bethany arrington michael kosterov
bethany chicago actor
michael kostroff brilliant director
actor
singer uh you know and and purveyor of
audition psych 101 i’m david h lawrence
the 17th i thank you so much for
watching and we’ll see you in the next
video.