Professional Acting Tips - Scoring Your Actions

According to one of the greatest acting teachers, Stanislavski, knowing how to deliver your physical actions in a believable and sincere way is done through a practical technique known as "scoring." The purpose of scoring your character within a scene is compile a comprehensive design, or blueprint, of your physical actions, psychological actions, major and minor objectives and subtext.

Scoring your actions is one of the most in-depth and detailed practical acting techniques as there are literally hundreds of different ways you can do this. Stanislavski offers a myriad of options when it comes to this technique; however, I have compiled several tips cultivated throughout my personal experience in scoring.

Make a List of Simple Actions

One of the easiest ways to score your actions is to make a list of simple, and concise, actions. These actions reflect your primary movements within a scene and help you as an actor understand your physical role within a particular moment. For example, in a scene you are required to prepare dinner while holding a conversation with your partner. The score breakdown could be:

• 1. Open cabinet above stove.
• 2. Pull out spices
• 3. Pour spices into pot along with other ingredients
• 4. Cross to dishwasher
• 5. Pull out cooking utensils
• 6. Lean against counters at line 4.5
• 7. Cross to husband
• 8. Slap his face
• 9. Return to stove
• 10. Lower head while stirring

Although the above is a very simple list of simple actions, it gives you a full scope of what is happening in the scene, and what physical actions are being performed. This is an excellent way to breakdown a scene into specific components, which is covered in the next section.

Dissect Action Components

After you have scored a scene, you must then break up the score into different emotional and physical components. Using the aforementioned score, it could be broke up into four distinct components. The first component is from line 1 to 3, the second is from line 4 to 6, the third is from 7 to 8 and the fourth is from 9 to 10.

If you notice each of these components has a different emotional level as well as different physical actions. The first component is routine work, the second is more busy work but with different actions, the third is an emotional peak while the fourth is an introspective action.