Crystal Carson

Auditioning is like falling in love

Sat, 29 May 2010 14:46:05 -0700

I've been thinking...auditions are a very unique kind of job interview, for they are not really an interview at all, but a flash-forward to the job. At an audition, we are not so much interviewed about our acting in the past, nor about how we would approach the role which the "interviewer" is seeking to fill, but instead we are asked to do it. Live it. Be in it, now.
The challenge is to never allow ourselves to confuse the audition with "trying to book the job." We must not be seeking to define the character, but rather "to be ourselves as the character." To put ourselves into the character's circumstances, with the character's history and live moment-to-moment. --Because actually living and being ourselves as the character, does not define the character, but rather, it defines us. It defines who we are as actors.
Someone once said that "auditions are like true love." If that's the case, then while they may fill us with the promise of bliss to come, they should also be cherished for what they are in the present. They deserve our work and attention, and should never be taken lightly. Certainly like falling in love, auditions are fascinating and often bewildering experiences. They can confound us, excite us, at times hurt us, but they always spur us to grow.
The degree of fulfillment begotten from auditioning depends upon both our willingness to do the homework, and our willingness to be of service and surrender completely to that homework. We must do this without being hampered by an excess of personal desire or greed, ego or pride. For it is this small group of sins that keep us inside ourselves reaching for the job, instead of allowing us to live inside the character's circumstances, reaching only for the character's goals "as if" they were our very own.
On it's face, it seems counter intuitive that to book a job, we must give up all desire to book a job. We must surrender our own desire "to book," for the desire of the character; or like a selfish lover, we will drive away that which we covet the most. And just as in true love, when we want a certain result, and it doesn’t come about, we may find ourselves lonely, dejected, frustrated, sad and discouraged. Love and auditions, both demand we put aside our narcissism and sacrifice for the sake of another. It is in this way that we fill our own hearts, and gain the whole world.
Depending upon your point of view, auditions, like love, can feel like a game, a gamble, an opportunity, a test, a roller-coaster ride, a necessary evil, an intimate exchange, an out-of-body-experience, a taste of what’s to come, or a slice of a life (or some version of all of the above.) However, in order for it to be considered successful, the only thing an audition - like love - absolutely can not be, is taken for granted. You must work at it. --Hope to coach you soon, or see you in "Auditioning By Heart" class in September. At the very least, we should have coffee!
Much Love, Crystal

Crystal speaks - Check your“frame of mind” before reading sides.

Sat, 5 Sep 2009 21:55:13 -0700

I wanted to share here more of my thoughts about how special actors, acting, and Auditioning By Heart are.

With the Fall season comes new opportunities to work on your craft and fail-safe your career. By deepening your work to achieve the most vibrant, vital and rich performance possible, you'll make fans of casting directors, produces, and directors alike.

Auditioning By Heart is an acclaimed method for distinguishing and exploring key experiences in a character's life that caused "this moment in time" (the audition scene.) When lived using the Auditioning By Heart method, these key events unlock you from "performing" and open you up to being truthful, real and alive. Automatically, you will use yourself; your sensibilities, your quirkiness, uniqueness, humor and behavior filtered through the life of the character. This not only makes your auditions special, but it makes it fun to audition!

Auditioning By Heart is such a powerful tool for inspiring your imagination, strengthening your personal power and igniting your passion that it empowers you to feel confident and relaxed during auditions. Grounded in the story by a deeper connection to the emotional, intellectual and spiritual life you are "living," memorizing lines gives way to generating the thoughts that lead to knowing what to say. An entirely different experience, and one that allows you to never worry about what the lines are, ever, ever again!

When coaching you through the process, I'll help you create the framework and mindset essential to continue your journey as a successful working actor in this business.

I believe in you as an artist, a business person and as a human being. I believe that there is no more powerful job in today's world than that of actor. You have an opportunity to touch the hearts of people everywhere; our friends, our enemies, our children, our grandparents, our leaders, our followers, and those that feel abandoned by both. You let us know what it means to be human. You let us feel, by your submission to all it is to be human, that we are not alone. That is why I created my unique process Auditioning By Heart. Ask me about joining my class.

What is “Auditioning By Heart” ?

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:41:54 -0700

Auditioning By Heart has been so successful on Fridays that we are adding another class! Yes, another day to study Audition Technique to make auditions like acting, when acting is like Life!

More than anything, Auditioning By Heart is about empathy for our fellow man. To love what it is to be human so much that you are willing to make yourself vulnerable to a new life and circumstances, as if that life were your own.

As you know, my approach to auditioning is a practical one, “You do, what you do.” That is why it is so important to practice “doing” what you want to be doing. --Working truthfully and authentically at every “opportunity to play”.

Auditioning By Heart actors participate in every class, being put on tape in a faux casting office, afterward the tape is watched and discussed by Sara Widzer and/or myself. Sara is a wonderful director, who also currently teaches at the Lee Strasberg institute, the Performing Arts Workshops (script writer and teacher), The Young Actors Studio, the Leo Baeck Temple, and she is also a member of the Director/Playwright Unit at the Actors Studio, not to mention, the on ice acting coach for Los Angeles Ice Theatre! Eventually, the Wednesday class will be taught by Sara the majority of the time.

The participants in Auditioning By Heart realize that the role belongs to them from the moment the sides given to them; there is nothing to prove, nothing to win - except as the character inside the story. As a result, auditions become like acting, when acting is like life!

Auditioning By Heart is a state of mind. To participate, you must agree to experience auditioning as a time to communicate rather than a time to book a job. These actors own the fact that they have nothing to demonstrate or to validate about themselves to the casting director, they have only to get what they want as the character, by being fully self-expressed to the other character. Acting is a conversation where something personal and important is at stake and only through communication can those needs be met. As an actor, you must be willing to communicate outside of what has been written for you. Humans express themselves thru words, gestures, facial aspects, and body language, so all of these means are all called upon in the audition. They are the golden moments, and they are generated uniquely by you.

The times of thinking between subjects (ie units or beats) are the greatest opportunity to live...without a life line, as it were, because those “in-between moments” are completely up to you. We make a point of distinguishing how important transitions are. This is where your ability to do your job, if you have prepared, will be most evident. Yet, so many of us when auditioning, get as quickly as we can from the last line of the previous thought, to the first line of the next subject, and completely miss our best chance at playing, living, inventing, experiencing, choosing...all the things that make a person alive (and primarily for what an actor gets hired.) Auditioning By Heart technique grants permission to "think from inside the story" and "generate the line" rather than just saying it because the sides say so. Now the transitions are filled by your history work, your imagination, your creativity, and all of the ideas that explode from that.

It is sad to watch a talented actor simply become a "line deliverer" at an audition out of...fear. Fear caused by the failure to realize the need to grant himself permission to take time and think in every transition...(you can not think and discover without the permission of time.) Secondly, the fear that comes from the failure to properly prepare. If you don't do your homework, and experience some significant moments in the character's history, feel the relationship and make the objective personal...granting permission will not be enough, for it will only be permission to fill the transitions with not much more than "generalized searching" until you choose to say the first line of the next subject. That is not living in truth.

Students of Auditioning By Heart are given the tools to easily gain mastery of their minds and imaginations. In order to create the world of the story in a synergistic way that truly resonates inside their mind and body. Your imagination is created by a muscle in the brain that needs to be strengthened by active use. Actors are taught to exercise their “imagination muscle” in a productive way to give history to their characters, and to dynamically experience the three points in history which most strongly lead to the conversations given to them by the writer. Only then is the written word truly “the tip of the iceberg”.

It is a proven fact that Focus goes where Interest lies. By creating imagined experiences, the mind strengthens it’s ability to focus on the circumstances of a script. This protects you from breaking concentration and stepping outside of the story and into the casting office. This also keeps your thoughts in integrity with what is coming out of your mouth...your mind recognizes what you are saying as truth (to a good degree) and so does not trigger your body’s natural and automatic “lying response” - increased sweat out-put, elevated heart-beat, raised stomach acid levels, shallow breathing, fuzzy thinking / loss of focus, etc... This alone allows a better audition experience.

Auditioning By Heart homework creates a strong foundation which allows students of to go into any casting office with a truthful and solid “place to stand,” ready to communicate. They feel a sense of ownership of the life they are “living,” that allows them to be fully present in each moment, listening and reacting, playing, and experiencing the ride, instead of manipulating the lines to “sound right”.

Auditioning By Heart rids actors of any need “to perform.” The fear and dread that come from worrying about forgetting lines or missing a pre-planned moment are gone and replaced by excitement to experience and share your new life; to take it on and go after what is desired with your whole heart from inside this story. It is with joy that you choose to step inside and take the ride, personally affected by each moment and affecting others through truthful communication. That is Auditioning By Heart.

The next 500 years

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:25:19 -0800

Life everywhere seem to be in a state of flux and uncertainty. I think this is because no one knows how all the changes happening in our financial markets and in our government will play out. I’m trying to get a handle on what this means for our industry. After all, we are tied together with so much that goes on outside of our studios and sound stages. Let me share a bit of what I am learning about change. (The historian in me is about to come out.)

Every 500 years or so, there is a reordering of the way humanity sees things; a reordering of the authorities and institutions that guide our common life.

I could take you back to one of the oldest records of history, the Old Testament, and show this 500 year pattern from the beginning of recorded time, but in an effort to be brief, let’s instead start in the Christian era. Any historian can tell you of the cataclysmic changes the Christian faith brought to the world. Christianity became the new authority, spiritual and otherwise.

In the year 500 AD, Rome was finally conquered by the barbarians and the Christian Church of the East came into power. In its declining years the Roman Empire had both internal and external problems. It was being destroyed from within because of immorality, sin, corrupt leaders and the materialist desires of the church. It was also being threatened by enemies and invaders from without. Those peoples who threatened the Roman Empire from without were called barbarians. (Consider the United States, what kind of INTERNAL problems do we have? What kind of EXTERNAL threats do we face? Which of these problems are the most serious?)

The Barbarians were not a single people or an organized army and but many different migrating tribes and many hordes of wild warriors ruled by different kings. These peoples moved into the Roman Empire, conquer it where necessary, and settled there with their families.

In the year 1000 AD, the Church of the East and the West broke off fellowship (called the great schism) and, with the Moslem ascendancy in Constantinople, the Pope became the central authority politically and spiritually in Europe.

In 1500, a great event (brought about in many ways by the printing press), the Reformation was born. Martin Luther and others began publishing the Bible in the common language of the people and the Bible became the number one authority for the Church. Everyone could interpret the scriptures personally which led to its own challenges and the further fragmentation of the Church.

Approximately 500 years later in 2009, following the advent of psychology, the theory of evolution, quantum physics, with these ideas driven by a new force of communication (the internet), we can see that authority has basically become centered on the individual (what we like and don’t like.)

No longer do we follow a teaching, a law, the Bible or even a political leader. We follow our own heart. We are our ultimate authority for what is right or wrong. We live in a time where there is little or no broadly agreed upon objective truth and every decision is primarily driven by our feelings.

Without the underpinnings of a common truth, a common story, a common reality, our sense of authority crumbles.

Some of that is good, but some of that is not so good. The challenge with having us (our feelings and likes) as the ultimate authority means that we too are subject to the fall of humanity, because our feelings, our tastes can be self-serving, sinful and wrong. Like theories, beliefs, dogma, interpretations and perceptions, we humans are also fallible. The human ability to deny this is amazing (when was the last time someone actually told you what they felt was wrong?).

What should those of us in living in this society do to address this lack of an objective authority? Or put another way, “Where is God in all of this?”

When you can answer that last question, you will be handed a tool for your own decision making. No longer will someone from outside of you tell you what to do or be. Each individual, as a member of a faith community, will be responsible for personal prayer, listening, spiritual study, reasoned thinking and consulting with the “Holy Spirit” within themselves to follow God.

It is a big responsibility. It was so much easier the old way of “the Bible tells me so…” It is much harder to come to the place where “it seemed good to “the Holy Spirit” within me…”

To me, it is not a worthwhile question to debate the existence or non existence of God, because one way or another, the spiritual

Actors who are willing to take on and truthfully “live life inside any circumstance” by discovering what drove “me” to make these choices, why am I here today talking with this other person, dying to win this objective. These are the actors who help all of society to tap into their “Universal selves”, the part of us that knows we are all connected (thru “energy” or “spirit”), we are all human, we are all One. “Love thy neighbor as you would thy self,” because we are merely extensions of each other - our atoms mixing and mingling with no beginning, no edges, no end.

Whatever name you want to give God, Life energy, The Light, Buddha, That is the authority we are called to follow and obey. Each one of us.

It STRIKES me that...

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:05:38 -0800

Producer Bob Fraser had a very well thought out take on the up-coming Vote to authorize SAG to call for a Strike. It is a wise and comprehensive look at the necessity of smart and strong negotiations on behalf of actors. Having served on the AFTRA board for several years myself, I can verify much of what Bob has to say. Read it to be informed. With his permission I am re-printing it here:

I became a union member more than 40 years ago (Actors
Equity) and since then have become a member of all the
actor's unions as well as Writers Guild, Directors Guild
and Producers Guild.

In other words I have been a union guy since Pluto was
a puppy.

The reason I support unions is simple: It's the best way
to negotiate with employers for good working conditions,
fair compensation, and pension and health benefits. And
for employers it's helpful to know that the people you
are hiring have some sort of professional standing.

Having been both an employer of actors and an actor myself
- I have an unprejudiced viewpoint about the relationship
between the two groups. I still tend to favor the union's
side in most issues.

The current atmosphere is fraught with dangers for both
sides.

From the employers standpoint, there are forces at work
that are making it more and more difficult to make a
profit. A business that doesn't make a profit will not
stay in business for long. (Don't hold out hope that
Congress will ever be giving show biz any bailouts.)
These forces include bad management, poor choices over
a period of years, and the ever shrinking interest the
audience has in their products. (Remind you of Detroit?)

However, despite what the AMPTP says, these things cannot
be fixed by taking from actors - and, frankly, that's what
they're trying to do. They are dying on the vine and their
solution is to pick away at things like residuals, new
media, and benefits that have been hard won by our unions
over many decades.

So far, they've been pretty successful. The WGA, DGA and
AFTRA contracts represent roll-backs and more stalling
tactics, regarding our participation in new media.

To make matters worse, the majors are now in the process
of forming non-union divisions. In fact it seems a good
bet that they'd like to see the unions go away entirely.

There are those who insist that a strike at this point is
a bad idea because the economy is in trouble - or that we
would not have the support of the other unions, or that
the new media is not 'proven' and therefore it makes no
sense to negotiate for something that does not yet exist.

First, the economy is in trouble because we trusted the
same sort of executives who now run the major show biz
companies. These types have proven themselves to be poor
managers and worse.

They have all been paying themselves huge salaries and
gigantic bonuses while running their companies into the
ground. Following them down this path is simply a way to
guarantee that things will only get worse.

Second, if the other unions do not support Screen Actors
Guild, they are fair weather friends at best - and tools
of the AMPTP at worst.

Third, and most important, this 'not a proven business'
argument has been the company tactic several times in the
past. First it was video tapes - the companies ended up
making hundreds of millions and we got pennies. Then it
was DVDs - they made billions and we got less than pennies.

Now it's the internet ...

Don't fall for this clearly fallacious 'reason.' They just
want to keep more of the money for themselves. This would
be fine with me if they were making a profit - but they're
not.

Frankly, they waste tons of money on things that are mostly
unnecessary to the putting on of the show (the product). To
be blunt - I'd really like to see them try to put on a show
without actors.

Bottom line: They need us.

Truth be told, we don't need them. In fact, the internet is
our savior, should we decide to make our own products and
sell them directly to the audience.

We COULD do that.

Musicians are already traveling down that path. An example;
Prince is putting out 3 albums this year - without so much as
a scintilla of participation by a major record label.

For the major film companies and networks, the handwriting
on the wall is highly readable. I think they're scared. After
all, one of their hits gets about 25 million viewers and there
are videos on YouTube that are approaching a billion viewers.

Do the math.

So, as to whether there will be a strike or not - I don't know.

But this much I do know; acting is a business or it's a hobby.
And if we are weak at this point in history, I think it very
likely that the unions will fade away, residuals will become
a memory, and we'll have very little choice but to make our
own stuff - if we expect to ever make decent incomes as actors.

Of course, these are just my opinions (though mostly based on
facts) and you are urged to think this through on your own.

Even if you are not a member of SAG yet, you still have a big
stake in the outcome. It's important to your acting business
to form an opinion on the matters that will affect you - sooner
or later.

Now just to prove that no good deed goes unpunished, I am also going to include a “back and forth” correspondence between Mr. Fraser and Boston SAG member, Emma Goodman. This next bit is rather long, but it sure handles a lot of the arguments that you might hear, so it is well worth the read:

Hi Bob,
I am a member from the Boston branch of SAG. This past week in Boston, a non-SAG sponsored gathering was held in which people, including some of
our Boston leadership – people who have talked to Doug Allen and the negotiating team about the feeling of what is going on in the negotiating room -
gathered to talk about the impending strike and give our membership a little more insight into the goings on of our SAG board of directors.
The meeting was casual - saying things how they are and disregarding propaganda from both sides of the fight ... instead letting members draw their
own conclusions.
The following is a good summary of what was discussed:
First off, the overview of the possible outcomes to this strike situation are the
following:
The meeting happens next week, a decision is made not to have a strike call, the contract on the table is accepted and everything but the new media
clause falls into place. SAG accepts the new media clause as is, giving us a contract to work with, and we stop losing $1.2 million/week.
The meeting happens next week, the strike call still goes out, and we don’t get a call to strike from our membership. The current negotiating committee
is replaced, and the contract on the table is accepted and everything but the new media clause falls into place. SAG accepts the new media clause as is,
giving us a contract to work with, and we stop losing $1.2 million/week.
The meeting happens next week, the strike call still goes out, and we get a call from the membership to strike. We then strike (if the members call to
strike - it would be a little ridiculous for the leadership to then not strike, so we won’t even consider that as an option). An indeterminate amount of time
goes by and the AMPTP doesn’t give in, so SAG does. The contract on the table is accepted and everything but the new media clause falls into place.

SAG accepts the new media clause as is, giving us a contract to work with.
The meeting happens next week, the strike call still goes out, and we get a call from the membership to strike. We then strike. The AMPTP gives in, and
we get a new contract giving us the new media clause that SAG is currently fighting for. The producers then, in deciding to go between SAG and AFTRA
see that AFTRA’s contract favors them in new media, so logically become signatory for AFTRA, and SAG loses lots of jobs until we can renegotiate.
The new media clause of the contract that the SAG board wants us to fight for is: For any film that is budgeted at less than $15,000 per minute that does
not use a covered performer, which includes almost all union talent in AFTRA, SAG, and AEA as well as several other categories of performer who have
not joined unions, the production company can use non-union talent without residuals. ALL OTHER NEW CONTENT FOR NEW MEDIA WILL BE COVERED
UNDER THE EXISTING CONTRACT. Also, what is known as a “Sunset Clause” has been put in place. This means that the next time negotiating of this con-
tract happens, the slate about new media is wiped clean and the contract is built from scratch. AKA, if the AMPTP is making lots of money on this new
media, we WILL change the contract.
*note: it seems that there was confusion as to what “new media” means.

New media is simply any content made solely for the express purpose of airing online, on phones, etc. New Media does NOT include any tv program, industrial, commercial or movie already made under a SAG contract and then moved to the internet. The portion of the contract that talks about these is not under debate. The new media that is in debate in this contract constitutes 2% of revenue for SAG contracts, and the AMPTP is willing to let us look at their financing books to see for ourselves what they are making off of it.
Now to me and other people I’ve talked to, it seems silly that we are fighting solely over this small amount of new media. As mentioned in the meeting, it
seems that some members of the SAG National Board seem to have ulterior motives.
There has been a large debate over whether or not SAG and AFTRA should merge. Phase One of the merge of the two unions started about 30 years
ago when SAG and AFTRA started going to the table during negotiations together so that both contracts could be the same. This was the first step to-
wards a merging of the unions to decrease competition and put everyone on the same footing in terms of who gets work. When SAG and AFTRA went to
the table separately this past year, it highly decreased the bargaining power of each union. If one union gets a contract while the other does not (as what
happened), then the producers can use their membership even if the other union doesn’t have a contract. Also, it essentially set the unions back towards making the merger. If our contracts turn out differently, it will pit one union directly against the other in trying to get work at different wages with the
AMPTP. Some people on the board do not want the merger to happen, and therefore are working towards breaking up the two unions. Getting a different
contract than AFTRA would be setting the merge back the huge step that had been taken those 30 years ago, not to mention creating competition between
the two unions.
One other explanation: Some people might ask – how do AFTRA and SAG compete on contracts? Isn’t who works on what already figured out? Well, in
terms of film and television, the answer is - mostly. However, those of you out there who may have worked on pilot tv shows lately may notice that they
are all under AFTRA contracts.
In fact, ABC and Warner Bros. (traditionally SAG) have announced that all new programming will be under an AFTRA contract because of the strike threat. Also, all new media, since it is mostly shot in digital, can be under the jurisdiction of either SAG or AFTRA – making the insistence of SAG to get more on new media than AFTRA that much more... strange... of a choice.
Given what the facts are, I sincerely hope that people will vote “no” if there is a strike vote.
The only leverage SAG has as a union right now is motion pictures and existing SAG TV shows. I would not want to see our union lose lots of money
during a strike, just to come back and accept the same contract on the table we could have had without losing the money. This career is a business. Let’s all try not to make bad business decisions.
Sincerely,
Emma Goodman
=======================
NOTE: I replied to Emma’s email thus:
Dear Emma,
I will be sending along your ‘take’ on the situation in the next newsletter.
However, you make a couple of points that I’d like you to think about.
“Also, what is known as a “Sunset Clause” has been put in place. This means that the next time negotiating of this contract happens, the slate about new
media is wiped clean and the contract is built from scratch. AKA, if the AMPTP is making lots of money on this new media, we WILL change the contract.”
This is precisely the same argument that was used on the writers in the 1988 strike regarding residuals on video tapes (and soon to be DVDs). At that time the companies said they didn’t have any idea if there was a real business there. The reality is, however, that no ‘fixing’ of that contract ever happened.
The companies have made literally billions off of video and DVDs and the amount allocated to writers (and actors) has not changed one iota in 20 years. In fact, when the writers went out again last year, one of the elements that they wanted changed was this percentage. Due to the amount of pressure brought to bear on them – from other unions, the companies, and dissident members attacking the board and it’s negotiating team – this did not happen.
This idea that they cannot make a deal because they don’t know whether there’s a real business there does not hold water. We are asking for a percentage of profits – if there are no profits then our percentage would be nothing. What we’re asking for is some formula for compensation and they
are simply saying “no.”
And their reasoning is entirely ludicrous on the face of it.
It also happens to be the basis of an argument that the companies are increasingly making, that they cannot stay in business without rolling back residuals – residuals are compensation that many actors, writers and others live on. The companies have been public about this intent for more than a year. They want to do away with residual payments altogether.
Make no mistake, when unions are set against each other it is not a function of leadership in the unions – it’s a function of the companies using their vast
resources to cause the rift. Most of the companies now switching to AFTRA contracts, are doing so because AFTRA agreed (long ago) to a lower day rate.
On a large production this can add up to thousands a day. It is in the companies’ best interest to use the lower rate and has nothing to do with the threat
of a SAG strike.
Those opposed to a merger of the unions have been at the business of causing this disagreement for as long as I can remember. (And I’ve been at this for half a century.)
“Now to me and other people I’ve talked to, it seems silly that we are fighting
solely over this small amount of new media. As mentioned in the meeting, it
seems that some members of the SAG National Board seem to have ulterior
motives. There has been a large debate over whether or not SAG and AFTRA
should merge. Phase One of the merge of the two unions started about 30
years ago when SAG and AFTRA started going to the table during negotiations together so that both contracts could be the same. This was the first
step towards a merging of the unions to decrease competition and put every-
one on the same footing in terms of who gets work.”
First, what are the ‘ulterior motives’ of these members of the board? Do they want to put people out of work as a way of proving their power? Are they intent on seeing suffering? This is a totally specious argument, since it’s simply stated that they have an ulterior motive but no explanation of this mysterious motive is ever put forth.
Second, all of the performing unions should merge – AEA, AFTRA, SAG, AGMA, etc. (As in Great Britain.)
But, obviously, this would be against the interests of the companies who employ entertainers, so the companies make it a practice to hire union members
who will be sympathetic to their point of view – and then send those members out to spread dissent and dissatisfaction. Those are the people with an
ulterior motive. They want to stay employed and damn the rest of us. Scabs is a word that’s been used in the past.
That is the primary reason we have a situation where the leadership of SAG is being attacked from within – and members who are buying into the idea that
it’s the leadership’s fault that things are the way they are. This has been the company tactic since unions first came to be in the entertainment industry.
Union members who buy into these arguments are being gulled.
“One other explanation: some people might ask - how do AFTRA and SAG compete on contracts - isn’t who works on what already figured out? Well, in terms of Film and Television, the answer is - mostly. However, those of you out there who may have worked on pilot tv shows lately may notice that they are all under AFTRA contracts. In fact, ABC and Warner Bros. (traditionally SAG) have announced that all new programming will be under an AFTRA contract because of the strike threat. Also, all new media, since it is mostly shot in digital, can be under the jurisdiction of either SAG or AFTRA - making the insistance of SAG to get more on new media than AFTRA that much
more... strange... of a choice.”
This is the most egregious argument being foisted off on actors. The fact of the matter is that the companies are busy (right now) building non-union divisions and producing more and more product non-union. Their intent is clear.
They want to destroy the unions. Period. They will do whatever is necessary to accomplish this long term business goal. They will play the unions against
each other, cause ‘turf wars’ between the members of the unions, and in the long run they will win, unless ...
... we stick together and make it impossible for them to go forward – by using the only power we have ... denial of services.
This is the underlying reality: We either fight their attempts to roll back our compensation, our retirement and health benefits, our residuals, and yes
– our participation in ‘new media’ – or we will all suffer the clearly odious consequences.
So, while I agree that you are informed, I think the question is: Who informed you?
In solidarity and respect,
Bob Fraser
=======================
Emma Responded:
Dear Bob,
A response, if I may.
A distinct difference between the writers’ contracts of 1988 and the one on the table is that the AMPTP has agreed to allow our union to go into their books and see how much money they have made off of the “new media” over the next few years.
I do agree with you that not making money off of any jobs is not wanted, and I’d even add that having the production companies able to work with non-
union talent teaches them how to use non-union talent, which increases their ability and likelihood of using them in the future.
However, because of the nature of internet usage, not its potential, but how it is used currently, most of the projects that would fall under the requirements
to fall into this clause of the contract are more like the thousands of people
already on the internet getting together with a bunch of buddies, videotaping
themselves and hoping for fame and stardom. It is a lot more risky of an endeavour to produce things with sub-standard equipment and non-union actors. I don’t know the statistics but I can guess that less than 1 in a 1000 will ever make any money. Again, this is speculation on my behalf, and nobody knows how it will be in the next three years, but that is how it is now.
In three years, that is what the sunset clause is for, hoping of course that corruptness doesn’t take place and the AMPTP doesn’t go back on their word.
But if that’s really what we’re worried about - then why make a contract at all?
As for residuals for other sources of media other than these new contracts which wouldn’t involve union actors or residuals, those aren’t even on the
table for debate.
In your bid for a strike and in your response to me below, you continue to attack the producers themselves. I would like to make the argument solely
to you, that yes, it stinks to have to play with another player, but it’s much better than not playing at all.
Even if everyone in the union were to make our own movies, new production companies would pop up and we would want to make contracts with them.

The union was created to protect its membership from having to deal with the conglomerates, but they still have to deal with them. Merging all the unions
as one would be the best bet, but Membership First does not want that.
I didn’t put this particular piece in my argument to you, but perhaps that paragraph should be reworded to what it had been before:
“Now to me and other people I’ve talked to, it seems silly that we are fighting
solely over this small amount of new media. As mentioned in the meeting,
it seems that the Membership First faction of the SAG National Board seem to have ulterior motives. There has been a large debate over whether or not
SAG and AFTRA should merge. Phase One of the merge of the two unions started about 30 years ago when SAG and AFTRA started going to the table
during negotiations together so that both contracts could be the same. This was the first step towards a merging of the unions to decrease competition
and put everyone on the same footing in terms of who gets work. When SAG and AFTRA went to the table separately this past year, it highly decreased the
bargaining power of each union. If one union gets a contract while the other does not (as what happened), then the producers can use their membership
even if the other union doesn’t have a contract. Also, it essentially set the unions back towards making the merger. If our contracts turn out differently,
it will pit one union directly against the other in trying to get work at different wages with the AMPTP. The Membership First team, for reasons the people at the meeting could not come up with, does not want the merger to happen, and therefore is working towards breaking up the two unions. Getting a different contract than AFTRA would be setting the merge back the huge step that had been taken those 30 years ago, not to mention creating competition between the two unions.”
I was trying to be non-political, but the “ulterior motives” I mention is the fact that Membership First does not want to merge with AFTRA. Period. And
yes, apparently those Membership First members of the board have been the directing hand behind Doug Allen, directing him not to give in on the New
Media portion of this contract, which would make the contracts of AFTRA and SAG essentially equivalent.
By forcing the strike, as I say, the contracts would not be the same, and make merging of the two unions that much more difficult. And yes, leadership can play a large role within unions fighting. In fact, two members of Membership First on the SAG national board apparently ran for leadership based on the fact that they are names that people recognize and are now currently on the AFTRA board, trying to cause problems from within.
As for my “egregious” losing more work argument - it is absolutely true.
I don’t know how much you know about the SAG branches, but in the past two years, Boston’s branch has been booming. We had 12 movies just this
past spring, and there are a number of locations people already in the area scouting out for future productions. We are also seeing an influx of television
show pilots – all of which in the past 6 months (and we’re talking 3 or 4) are under AFTRA contracts. Whether or not some production teams are starting
to move non-union - that’s nothing that can be stopped by putting new media into a contract. But going on a strike certainly isn’t going to convince anyone that it would be better to make their production union.
Again, pointing to the commercials strike – production companies learned to go non-union, and they never went back.
I also want to ask you - if the producers are so bent on going non-union and getting rid of the unions, then why are they negotiating with us? There are
plenty of non-union actors out there. True, no names yet, but that could be solved in less time than it takes for us to go on strike. I cannot have the pessimistic attitude that all of the producers of the world are out to get the actors.
As for retirement and health benefits, the strike and the lack of the new contract for the past six months have hurt them and could hurt them way more
than having had a contract ever would. The best thing for retirement and health would be to merge unions, but since we are on the same wavelength
in terms of that, I won’t press the point.
Finally, your question “who has informed you?” ... well, I’ll answer that. You have. SAG emails have. The SAG website has. Friends have. New York pro-
paganda has. SAG pamphlets they send out have. The contract posted online has. My fellow SAG members have. My Boston area representatives have.
SAG board members have. A SAG member who has personally asked Doug Allen multiple questions - in person - for which he refuses to answer has. A
SAG branch president who has sat in really long Board meetings where Membership First people start literally screaming at each other during the meeting
has. A member of the previous SAG tv/theatrical negotiating committee has, and finally, my own opinions and conscience have. I have read every single piece of literature I have been able to find on this topic so that I could make an informed opinion.
I’m not saying that I’m absolutely right, and there are definitely points out there as to why there could be a strike. However, given how small amount of work we’re talking about, how many people would be out of jobs, how we can go back to it if it proves disastrous later, how much money we have already lost, how little leverage we have if we were to go into a strike, how the precedents with the same people who are fighting this time gave up the last time they went on a fight, and how all the momentum that has been building in
the SAG branches in getting work would be totally lost in going on a strike, I firmly believe that right now, a strike is NOT in the best interest of a majority
of SAG members across the United States.
Sincerely,
Emma
=======================
And I wrote back:
Dear Emma,
They offered to show the writers ‘the books’ too. They agreed to do it, but that never showed up in the contract. It’s not in the SAG contract now. They’ve
made this promise over and over. It has NEVER actually happened.
I don’t know if you are aware of ‘Hollywood accounting’ practices – but, according to the companies; Lord Of The Rings didn’t make any money - nor did Titanic, or The Dark Knight, or about 100 other top box office films. And to my knowledge no television series has ever shown a profit ‘on the books.’
It’s a matter of public knowledge that most profit participants have to sue to get access to the books (and the companies are CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED
to show profit participants all their numbers). This process can take years.
It took James Garner over two decades – and dozens of lawsuits – to get a look at Warner’s books. It turned out that despite their claims that his TV series never showed a profit, they owed him over 20 million dollars.
In other words, if anyone – in any of the unions – thinks that the companies are going to change their ways, they are not paying attention to reality.
As to this internecine in-fighting (the different ‘parties’ within the union, whatever they call themselves) that just proves my argument that there are members of our union who are intent on breaking us apart – thus depriving us of our basic ability as a union to use collective bargaining in this and all other disputes.
And again, if there’s no money to be made, what is the AMPTP’s argument against giving us a percentage of a non-existent profit?
Asserting that there’s no money in this particular market area – and then stonewalling when it comes to sharing this “non-profit” area - strikes me
as somewhat disingenuous to say the least. As to the members who repeat this argument - ‘there’s no money in it, so why fight for it?’ - they have not
learned the lessons of the past 50 years. If the company’s don’t want us to participate, it’s because they believe there is money in it and that it’s money
that they can avoid sharing.
And finally, you misconstrue my position. I’m not advocating a strike, far from it - I don’t want to see a strike any more than anyone else. I’m merely
suggesting that the absence of a strike authorization is a crippling blow to the union - had there been a strike authorization in effect last year, this whole issue would have been resolved by now - because despite what anyone might believe, the companies (the major film companies and networks) are deathly afraid of a strike AT THIS TIME. It would cripple them.
As with all other companies in this country (and entertainment companies more than most) borrowing money now is a very difficult proposition. Without
product in the pipeline (and things are very slow now, not because of possible strike, but because the companies are having problems getting funding)
then several of the majors and one or two of the networks might go belly up.
That’s why they’re scrambling to put together low budget (read ‘non-union’) divisions.
However, as you point out, the absence of stars could make things even worse - and the companies know it. So, for now, they are doing what they can to avert a strike - including spreading propaganda and dissension.
Anyway, thanks so much for your thoughtful response. In the end, each of us must make up our own mind and vote our conscience.
Have a splendid week and, as always ...
Much Success,
Bob
=======================
And Emma replied:
Dear Bob,
First of all, thank you so much for your responses to me. I know you are a very busy man, and I appreciate the time and effort you put into answering.
Your last email is definitely food for thought for me, much of it being new.
I also apologize for misconstruing your email on “Strike or No Strike”. Perhaps some of your usages of “if we are weak” made me think of some of the phrases that SAG has been putting out in their propaganda and made me misconstrue what you were saying.
For the future, here’s hoping that all corrupt politicians will be found out, all money will end up in the hands that earned it, people will keep promises they make, the unions will consolidate into one body, and that however this ends up, it is favorable for all involved.
In solidarity and hope for your success,
Emma

Audition Technique

Fri, 8 Aug 2008 22:25:56 -0700

Let’s get movin’!

Come join me for this special on-camera workshop that emphasizes the demonstration and application of techniques to hone your auditioning (and acting) skills.

New students welcome!

Class will reconvene Friday, Sept 5th, 10:15am - 1:45pm

Hello my friends and clients!

I am happy to be back in beautiful Los Angeles among you. I hope your summer has been extraordinary so far. (Mine has been filled with fairy houses!)

I felt so 21st Century, sitting on the other side of the country, coaching those of you who were so inclined using isight or Skype. It worked so well! --Even when coaching "over-the-pond," we seemed to communicate virtually in real time. How cool is that?! Those of you who didn't have the ability to coach via the internet, I hope that the acting coaches that I recommended worked out well for you. (I also hope that there is a computer up-grade in your future ;) ) The good news is, I am back and I can't wait to see you all (in person!)

Speaking of computers, as you can see I have launched a scheduling program for my website that will allow you to see what times are open for private coaching sessions and book yourself. That way you will have no problem getting a session time with me without delay. I will confirm with you in-between my private sessions with clients, but if you schedule yourself down for a time...that time is YOURS, no worries.

As August is already upon us, I wanted to remind you that my class at The Actors Network begins again in September.

Location: The Actors Network
4370 Coldwater Cyn, Blvd.  2nd Floor - Upstairs  Studio City, CA 91604

Time: Fridays, 10:15 am-1:45 pm
Price: $225 (monthly)
Spaces limited
It looks like an actor's strike will be avoided. Whether this is a good thing or not is left up to interpretation. I hope SAG finds a way to negotiate a fair deal for its actors. In any case, things are beginning to get as hot as the weather, so let's go!

Go deep within the sacred ground,
'tis there the secrets can be found.
Your acting journey begins right here.
Use your heart and have no fear.

Many acting coach blessings to each of you,

Crystal
Los Angeles Acting Coach

Los Angeles Acting Coach reading selections:

Fri, 8 Aug 2008 22:02:25 -0700

As a coach, I often get asked what acting books to read. I would like to say that no book can teach you to act, and all books on the subject are worthy in some way. I would officially like to suggest books by Constantin Stanislavski; also "Six Lessons" by Boleslavsky, "Act of Passion" by Lee Strasberg, "On Acting" by Sanford Meisner, “A Challenge For The Actor" by Uta Hagen, “Actors on Acting" (a history of remarks on acting by great actors) edited by Toby Cole and Helen Chinsy, "The Way of the Actor" by Brian Bates, and Eric Morris’ “No Acting Please.”

Also, read the expression on a silent face, read between the lines of your girlfriend’s questions and read the writing on the wall before you take action. Look, listen, love; live.

I don’t mean to be trite or glib, but sometimes I feel we need to be reminded that we are all experts in what it is to be human. The key is not to try to create life, but to live it.

I am teaching a class!

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:02:38 -0700

Hey, all of you actors and friends that have been asking me to teach another class...I am excited to say, I am responding! I am starting up a very small class so that I can give nearly one on one attention and make sure that each student gets it and grows and blooms into a creative,confident, playful actress / actor. I am calling it, Auditioning By Heart !

My coaching life is still doing well, as you know, but I miss having a class where I can really take the time to give actor's the skill to be a master, instead of just working 1 hour on a single audition.

I do want to be careful about who I let into the class, because I would rather have less people who are talented, good-hearted, hard working, fun people who take their craft seriously, than just get my hands on cash but have a class that doesn't grow. That is just not in me, it is not what I am about. I really want to benefit the world by creating a group of actors who bring humanity to the screen. I want to make the world a better place, and have fun doing it!

So here are the most pertinent details:
Cold Reading Audition Technique
With
CRYSTAL CARSON
‘Let’s Play Pretend’

Crystal Carson, creator of ‘The Actors mind’, will be teaching on-camera classes focussing on cold reading, audition technique and character & script analysis. Crystal will be sharing the secrets that you need to be a masterful actor that “books that job!”

On-going classes starting Friday, October 5th 2007
Location: The Actors Network
4370 Coldwater Cyn, Blvd.  2nd Floor - Upstairs  Studio City, CA 91604

Time: Fridays, 10:30am-1:30 pm
Price: $225 (monthly)
Special Introductory Price $199! (Monthly thru 2007)
Spaces limited to 10 actors only
Contact: (818) 693-6460

The Actor’s Mind

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 18:40:44 -0800

Let him that would move the world, first move himself.
—Socrates

Science has proven that the human brain can be trained to purposely direct that energy flow to a desired section of the brain. In this way, the brain can actually be taught to increase focus and attention, reduce stress and anxiety, decrease hyperactivity, develop a better memory, sustain information longer, increase concentration and improve accuracy by building more synapses and increasing blood-flow and energy flow to the part of the brain muscle used for these activities.
In order to become a superb actor, to be a master of the craft; you must be in control your state-of-mind; so that, whether it is in a paid performance or at an audition, you are able to actually use 100% of the ability and knowledge that you possess.
The talented and well-studied actors, who have also been trained to control their own state-of-mind become brilliant; exceptional at having only the character’s thoughts enter their conscious mind, without the “actor’s judgments” interrupting the flow. (Interestingly, the same actors maintain a higher level of performance in all types of endeavors.)
How do these Actors train their brains to consistently perform at the top of their ability?
Unless you’ve been living in a whole in the ground, you must have seen some of the recent news about all of the many benefits of meditation...the ability to focus the brain being top among them.
But what if you don’t want to meditate...?
If you are like me, you feel that meditating takes up too much time in an already packed day, with what feels like not enough immediate and tangible results, right?
Sure, you know if you meditated regularly, you would build the area of your brain that allows you to concentrate--and to utilize your brain to perform at a higher level so as to find a greater ease of overcoming any challenge, to feel what psychologists refer to as “flow”...but still...
Ya gotta meditate everyday, over time before it even starts to work, so forget it.
Of course, once you mastered meditation you could direct your mind to “stay focused inside a scene”, and it would effortlessly put you in the given circumstances--easily believing the history you’ve created, knowing what to say, personally and naturally working moment-to-moment, without getting knocked out by distractions.

Distractions from phones ringing, sides getting dropped or a bad reader, or distractions from things in your own head, like pressure to get the job, self-judging, fear, etc...would cease to exist as such, rather they would instead occur as if they were appropriate and natural to the story you are “living in”. Anything that happened, planned or unplanned, would absolutely support you, requiring no conscious energy to overcome. This is what it is like to have flow.
Meditation is amazing for actor’s because it creates a 'calm mind' state that allows you to focus properly on what YOU ask it to, even when you are NOT meditating.
Trouble is...not everybody has the discipline or the patience to get the benefits of meditation before they quit out of boredom.

Now...

Wouldn’t it be great to “work out” the brain and strengthen your ability to consciously select your field of focus--and block out all interference, without meditating?
And what if, in addition to helping your acting, you could also gain the health benefits of meditating? That would be fantastic, because most of us are not going to do it regularly--no matter how many articles are published in the American Heart Association journal, “Stroke”; regardless of a recent issue of the American Journal of Hypertension; and also reports by the National Institutes of Health; and University of Wisconsin-Madison; and a Harvard study; all concluding to varying degrees the same thing--that regular meditation reduces chronic pain, anxiety, high blood pressure, cholesterol, and cortisol (sometimes called the “stress hormone”) and boosts the immune system.
How would you like the following things--
without having to meditate?
• Improved concentration and ability to focus in any circumstance. Certain in your incredible ability to stay in the moment with your “given circumstances,” without judgement, you posses amazing clarity of thought.
• No feelings of “Auditioning Pressure” - worries disappear and you’ll have fewer negative thoughts, making it harder for anything to drag you off-target. Fearless and confident that every thought in your head is a supportive one.
• Bursting with creativity, and freedom to invent, you feel vibrant with an aliveness, impossible to describe. Inspired with brilliant ideas and spontaneous realizations of possibilities to explore, ways to play, tactics to tryout. Any answers you need are instant and insightful, allowing you to see new concepts and recognize new opportunities.
• The wonderful knowledge that you're performing to the utmost of your ability. Experiencing a plethora of quality auditions; so that when reflecting back, you are proud of yourself, knowing you were in possession of all of your God-given talent and creative faculties regardless of the outcome. You are at the top of your acting ability, because of peak brain performance. When you work at your potential and know you have done your best, life is rich with purpose, meaning, awe, and feelings of inner peace.
Not to mention, all the health benefits I told you of!
As I’ve alluded to, there’s a downside to meditation, and it’s this...traditional meditation is time-consuming in our already over-scheduled days, seems boring, and worst of all can take years, even decades, to master.
The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment changes all that. Using advanced scientific technology to induce deep states of meditation virtually at the push of a button; this audio and visual brain technology gives you fabulous results in weeks rather than years. Results that pay-off at your auditions!
The Actor’s Mind is not like any other Acting class, seminar, book or workshop. It is certainly not your typical pabulum-filled positive thinking Self-Help CD where you feel high at the end but realize 2 weeks later that little if anything really changed.
With The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment, you will gain powerful, rock solid, unshakeable acting focus. It's more than mere concentration; you’ll get in the zone & experience “flow”.
Top actors routinely access this kind of creative focus. They drop their own realities, take on the “character’s” history and seamlessly live moment-to moment in the script...even in the face of the kind of pressure a screen test for a major studio can cause. This is what it is like when an actor gets in the zone and experiences “flow”.
Unfortunately, to one degree or another, regardless of talent, most actors create a fair amount of stress, self-sabotage, unhappiness, anxiety, failure, and lack of self-esteem while auditioning, and so, kill any hope of having “flow”. Sadder still, those same feelings carry over from their acting careers into their lives, as well.
We humans are, for the most part, amazingly loose with our mental discipline. It is as if we think we can always get started at some later date. However, what you focus upon expands. Hence, lack of discipline just leads to more of the same. Before you know it, things go out of control and life becomes an ill-disciplined disaster!
Now the good news...
The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment solves this problem using Brain Entrainment; in three major ways.
The first way: You naturally have a certain threshold for how much you can handle coming at you from the world. Everyone’s threshold is unique. However, when that threshold is exceeded, you feel stressed, and you cope with that stress with a variety of largely ineffective, self sabotaging ways, including fear, anxiety, depression, illness and anger.
This can lead to fear of the next audition, more anxiety-even when given a call-back or network test, depression and anger about your career, as a whole, and possibly substance abuse, anorexia or overeating — and a long list of other dysfunctional feelings and behaviors almost all of which involve suffering and discomfort.
The Actor’s Mind eliminates this problem in a most elegant way by using Brain Entrainment to raise the threshold for what you can handle.
It raises this threshold until it is high enough that there is very little at any given audition--or before--that could push you over it. Your ability to handle anything thrown at you rises, and all those uncomfortable feelings and behaviors fall away and disappear!
You can equate it with running. If you began running every day, you'd begin with a certain threshold for what you can handle physically. But as you run each day, this physical threshold goes higher and higher as your muscles and cardiovascular system change, until you can easily handle what would have overwhelmed you in the beginning.
The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment does the same thing for your mental and emotional threshold. Each time you use The Actor’s Mind it pushes that threshold higher.
How does The Actor’s Mind manage to do this? Partly through Brain Entrainment, which I will explain in a moment...but first I want to tell you:
The second way: The Actor’s Mind solves the problem (of unconsciously creating feelings that you do not want):
The Actor’s Mind causes the birth
of new neural pathways between
different parts of the brain,
particularly between the left and right
hemispheres; putting them into ideal balance. This induces peak brain-performance; enhanced cognitive thinking, and it causes paradigm shifts, which illuminate clearer and more numerous paths to achieving goals.
This is called,
Hemispheric Synchronization.

These increased neural connections cause you to see relationships and connections you did not see before; allowing you an expanded awareness for problem solving, a feeling of connectedness, and yes, creative “flow”.
This causes what is referred to as Whole Brain Thinking.
What this means to you: It's like thinking in stereo. Whole- brain functioning is associated with increased creativity, insight, learning ability, problem solving ability, and memory...This type of brain function has been associated with geniuses—the Einstein's and Mozarts of the world. Quite frankly, I suspect this is the same type of higher brain function of, say, a Meryl Streep, a Walt Disney, a Stephen Hawking, and other creative, high-performance individuals like them
Hemispheric synchronization is what happens in meditation to encourage your creative mind to take any distraction, even those at an audition, and see them as acceptable--even as believable in terms of the script. Nothing can ‘take you out’ or ‘throw you off’.
With hemispheric synchronization, you will perceive old challenges into a new light. When acting, you will adopt an attitude of faith and acceptance, confidently accepting and believing everything that is happening is a perfect part of the ride in this “make-believe” world.
What exactly are we synchronizing in each brain hemisphere? Electricity. When the brain is given a stimulus,
through the eyes,
ears,
or other
senses,
it emits an electrical charge called a Cortical Evoked Response (shown above - measured using sensitive electrodes attached to the scalp).
Since billions of neurons are constantly firing on and off in the brain, this tends to produce a "wave" effect that has been popularly referred to as brain-waves.
There are Four Types of Brain Wave Patterns:
Brain-waves are divided into four predominant speed ranges, or bands.
The most rapid brain wave pattern is called Beta, the pattern of normal waking consciousness. Beta is associated with concentration, arousal, alertness, and cognition.
At its highest level, though, beta is associated with anxiety, disharmony, and dis-ease. (An ability to slow this down might be beneficial for actors at an important audition, don’t you think?) Many actors in Hollywood are taking a medication before going to auditions called “Beta Blockers” to control or alleviate those feelings. With T The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment that is completely unnecessary.
When relaxed and absorbed in a really good script, or watching a movie or television show, or reading a enjoyable book, you are probably in Alpha. It is associated with "super-learning"—the ability to comprehend, process, store and recall large amounts of information quickly and efficiently. (Might this also be helpful to the actor?)
(Neurofeedback technology records information by frequencies, commonly called hertz (Hz) when mapping the operation of neurotransmitters in the brain.)
Even slower are Theta Brain Wave Patterns. Theta is associated with a number of other beneficial states, including increased creativity, some kinds of super-learning, increased memory abilities, and what are called integrative experiences (in which we make broadly-based positive changes in the way we see ourselves, others, and certain life situations--like auditions).
"Ah-ha!" experiences, where you suddenly "get it," have an insight, or a great idea suddenly comes to you, are accompanied by bursts of theta waves in your brain.
Here's another exciting characteristic of the theta state: Dr. Thomas Budzynski, a noted researcher in this field, has said that critical and often self-sabotaging filters of the left brain are bypassed in a theta state, and that in terms of making positive changes in beliefs or habit patterns, "a lot of work gets done very quickly."
And best of all, theta causes the brain to make lots of relaxing endorphins—that make you feel serenely at peace.
The slowest is the Delta Brain Wave Pattern. Generally people are asleep in delta, but there is evidence that it is possible to remain alert in this state—a very deep, trance-like, non-physical state you'll have to experience to appreciate.
In certain delta frequencies the brain releases many highly beneficial substances, including human growth hormone (which we ordinarily make in decreasing quantities as we get older, resulting in many aging symptoms: loss of muscle tone, increased weight gain, loss of stamina, and many diseases associated with aging!)
The Actor’s Mind makes use of each Brain Wave Frequency, in the best possible order and duration to entrain actor’s brains and cause Hemispheric Synchronization.
What exactly is Brain-Wave Entrainment?
Just like western medicine, brain-wave entrainment works on scientific principle, repeatable provable results, research and testing. The principles of entrainment are a part of physics and are universal, appearing in chemistry, neurology, biology, pharmacology, medicine, astronomy and more.
There are over 75 years of sound research behind Brain-Wave Entrainment:
Pre-1940’s - Visual (photic) brain-wave entrainment (which we will discuss more in a minute) was first documented in 1934. However, evidence of visual entrainment has been traced as far back as 200 AD.
1940’s - Edward W. Dempsey and Robert S. Morison discovered that repetitive tactile stimulation could also produce entrainment.
1950’s - Dr. Chatrian observed auditory entrainment in response to clicks at a frequency of 15 per second.
1960’s - Anesthesiologist M.S. Sadove, MD, used photic stimulation to reduce the amount of anesthesia needed for surgery and Andrew Neher found that the sound of rhythmic pounding dramatically altered brain wave activity.
1970’s - In Scientific American, Dr. Gerald Oster examined how combining two pure tones (monaural beats) resulted in a rhythmic beat which he called Binaural Beats.
1980’s - The Department of Neuropsychiatry at Osaka University Medical School in Japan found that photic stimulation produced "cerebral synchronization", which now call hemispheric synchronization. And Arturo Manns published a study which indicated the amazingly strong entrainment value of Isochronic Tones, as opposed to Monaural or Binaural beats (More on this later.)
1990’s - Drs. Russell, Carter, and others explored the vast potential of using entrainment with ADD and learning disorders. Also, much research has also been conducted on the effectiveness of entrainment on PMS, Chronic Fatigue, Chronic Pain, Depression, Hypertension and a number of other disorders.
2000’s - American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis presents a study which explored the efficacy in theta EEG activity following theta binaural beat (TBB) entrainment training and hypnotic susceptibility. And yet another study showed that Audio-Visual Entrainment used to treat 10 attention deficit children at a time was more effective than six leading neurofeedback studies, (Michael Joyce and David Siever). Sub-delta Audio-Visual Entrainment as been shown to reduce hypertension (Berg & Siever, 2001). Audio-Visual Entrainment has been shown to produce pronounced cognitive improvements in seniors with age related cognitive decline (Budzynski, 2002) and reduced falling in seniors (Berg & Siever, 2004).
While using The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment technology, electrical activity and energy patterns in the actor's brain become more widespread. This type of stimulation encourages new dendritic growth--creating neural pathways and allowing for faster, smoother neural communication in the brain. This communication assists you in seeing supportive solutions where before

you saw problems! Another benefit of this expanded awareness is that you become increasingly conscious of how your internal map of reality creates your experiences in your acting as well as in your life.
But that's only the beginning. Use The Actor’s Mind and improve your focus and concentration now and train your brain to live up to your acting potential. Your audition experiences will change—and, obviously, so will your acting. Your career and very possibly your life will be transformed.

You will have all the tools you need to be in direct control of your own mind; in the audition, on stage or on the set—your thoughts, your feelings, your internal state, and therefore your external results will all fall in line.
The world’s most successful actors began, for the most part, with no special advantages over you. Most were of average intelligence, not particularly more talented and did not even begin wealthy or well connected. It is primarily through the use of mind and their ability to direct their thoughts that they achieved everything that they are known for.
The point is that actors who succeed greatly have learned to concentrate their thoughts and discipline their minds to focus only where they want to, and they do this supremely well.
This is why successful actors--while in what seem like high pressure situations--are still at ease, and can at stay completely in-the-moment and in character; they are calm and confident in their ability to take the emotional journey.
Once you are proficiently trained as an actor, focusing your mind is THE KEY to auditioning and acting success. Only then can you utilize all your true acting abilities and talent--and consistently perform at your potential--acting well, no matter the material or circumstances! When The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment is practiced over a period of time, the brain will "learn" the state change, and it will become easier to self-produce “flow” at will. Every great work of art or creativity is infused with the freedom and energy born of this kind of focus.

Entrain the Brain: In order for the brain to be effectively entrained, the depth or "intensity" of the pulse must be as large and abrupt as possible. The sessions in The Actor’s Mind have been meticulously designed to produce the greatest neural response. Below is an example of an Isochronic entrainment pattern. Notice how individual and separated each pulse is.

The brain responds by synchronizing its own electric cycles to the same rhythm. This is commonly called the Frequency Following Response (or FFR):

Frequency Following Response/how entrainment happens:
In addition to entrainment, the imagery created by the visual and auditory stimulation on The Actor’s Mind provides a focus for the mind and quiets internal dialogue or chatter. (Wouldn’t THAT be nice before a big screen test?) This quieting lasts for hours after your last session of The Actor’s Mind has ended. Do you think you should take advantage of the most powerful acting-mentality tool ever created? Would you benefit from the most sophisticated, effective, and easy-to-use method ever developed for activating creativity, maintaining focus to stay inside the story of a script, and ending the distractions caused by “actor’s thoughts”.
By purchasing The Actor’s Mind audio-visual entrainment technology and temporarily changing the brain frequency from one Hz frequency to another--thereby adding blood-flow, oxygen and building neurons and synapses to the area of the brain that controls creative “flow”--you will strengthen the areas of your brain most useful to you as an actor!
When doing a brain “sweep” (moving from one Hz frequency to another) the starting frequency should be as close to your current brain state as possible. It is difficult to determine your brain state without extra equipment (like EEG devices) however, we can quite safely assume that during the day your brain is in the beta stage (about 20Hz) whenever you are up and around, so we start the “sweep” from there.
You may have heard of the most well known form of brain-wave entrainment, binaural beats, where two tones (one in each ear) are mixed by the brain itself. The pulses, called "beats", formed by mixing these tones is what causes entrainment to occur.
Fig. 3 EEG Recording

But I have learned there are more proficient methods that allow more control than binaural tones, because of this fact, The Actor’s Mind does not use binaural beats, but rather uses the most promising of the new methods namely, Isochronic Tones.
Isochronic entrainment uses a single tone that is manually spaced, turning on and off in a precise pattern.
Arturo Manns, associate professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Chile, published a study in 1981, which indicated the amazingly strong entrainment value of Isochronic Tones, as opposed to Binaural beats.
(My 5 year old daughter would say I’m doing too much blah, blah, blah...Please forgive me for over-explaining. I just get so excited about this and what it could mean for you, that I want you to understand how it works so you'll get excited, too.)
Dr. Gerald Oster’s, a pioneer in the field of brain-wave technology, study of binaural beats concluded that the depth or intensity of the resulting "beat" is only around 3 decibels or 1/10th the volume of a whisper.

Looking at the binaural beat pattern it is clear that the wave is shallow. The entrainment is harder to detect and leaves only a minor electrical imprint on the brain.
Conversely, the isochronic tone pattern shows each pulse as individual and separated. This results in much greater evoked potentials within the auditory cortex of the brain.
Though newer and so somewhat less well known, Isochronic Tones have proven to be much more effective than any other entrainment technology. This has been confirmed by David Siever, Dr. Thomas Budzynski, psychologist Michael Joyce and many others.
In order to do this most effectively Isochronic Tones are combined with Photic Driving.
The “Visual” part of the Audio-Visual technology:
Photic Stimulation
Not long after the discovery of the Alpha brain-wave by Hans Berger in 1929, researchers found that the wave could be moved (like FFR for auditory moving) by using flickering lights, or photic (light) stimulation. This is called Photic Driving.
In 1980, Tsuyoshi Inouye and associates at the Department of Neuropsychiatry at Osaka University Medical School in Japan found that photic stimulation in the alpha range produced hemispheric synchronization.
Dr. Norman Shealy later confirmed the effect, finding that photic stimulation produced hemispheric synchronization which he called "cerebral synchronization" in more than 5,000 patients!
It is funny to hear how in 1959, Dr. William Kroger and Sidney Schneider reported on the unusual effects of the rhythmic flashing of a dot, matched by a beep sound, from radar screens of ships and submarines. Radar operators readily entered into a relaxed state of mind and some fell into deep hypnotic states while watching signals on the radar screen.
They believed that these men were being visually and auditorily stimulated at a frequency near the frequency the brain was producing. The rhythm of the beeping and flashing had to be sped-up in order for the men to do their jobs.
Which (finally) brings me to The third way: The Actor’s Mind solves the actor’s challenge (of completely committing to the story, without unconsciously creating thoughts, circumstances, or feelings that you do not want):
Entraining the Brain
while
training the mind - - -
While The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment:
1) Entrains your brain - pausing in various Hz Frequencies (each responsible for a different desirable characteristic of peak performance like, relaxation, creativity, super-learning, integrative experiences, synergistic thinking and increased memory abilities) and at the same time,
2) your brain’s hemispheres are balanced in synch with each other to enhance cognitive thinking, cause paradigm shifts of things previously perceived as negative into things now seen as positive or neutral, and clear the pathway for you to go into a state of “flow”, and now, the proverbial icing on the cake is put into place...
3) Opening you up to creative solutions to the technical challenges of each audition, (ie. The reader won’t look up and/or is reading at an alarming rate of speed, the camera is two inches from your face, the casting director requests that you don’t move an inch or that you DO MOVE about the room, etc...) without confusing you, distracting you or pulling you out of character! Your mind will be able to effortlessly come up with ways to support your technical circumstances, while at the same time, justifying them in actable terms by continuing to think in character.
This is done through The Actor’s Mind - guided suggestions designed into the DVD, and carefully composed over the course of 25 years by world famous acting coach, Crystal Carson (who?) :) At each appropriate Hz Frequency, the mind is presented with “actor supporting concepts”; ideas that will resonate deeply at that brain wave level.
More than positive thinking or winning tapes, these concepts and suggestions focus you on “character thoughts”...those images behind your (character’s) need or objective, those thoughts / feelings brought-up by the relationship you have with the other character in the scene, and the fear of failing you (as your character) feel in this moment. This is the only way to win as an actor, and every other “winning” tape out there has you focus on the exact things that will cause you to break character--yourself; your desire to do it “right”, to make them like you, and to book the job.
Stop the madness!!
You have the power!
As you develop expanded awareness using The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment technology, it will become clear that you are finally the one in charge. Inevitably, negative feelings about past auditions will begin to lose whatever power they may have had over you. Nervousness will transform into calm, confident, anticipation of the enjoyment of doing what you love. The Pavlovian effect* that caused nervousness or stress before an audition completely dissipates...until it is gone.
Even though worries about not booking the job may have previously been creating trauma and anxiety (as was certainly the case for many of my clients), using The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment technology, with it’s 3 ways of solving any acting challenge, causes these worries to dissolve and disappear. Once gone, you will be free to use your entire creative self; mind, body, and spirit, to bring the scene to life. You will have forever eliminated pressure of not booking from your auditions, regardless of your past or present circumstances.
The Actor’s Mind -
Audio-Visual Entrainment technology includes special goggles containing flashing red/green LED's with pure and vivid flickering light that you see through your closed eyelids, and works in tandem with the included CD containing Isochronic Tones effectively embedded into music, to give you a more dramatic, and more powerful hemispheric synchronization. (Because, as I said before, The Actor’s Mind does not rely on Binaural beats, it can be used with or without headphones or any special speaker assignment.), and finally, you will receive the best acting coaching possible, using the most productive words, delivered with a soothing voice in the specific order proven to greatly enrich and enhance the actor’s talents, and ability to rely on those talents, and trust yourself, no matter the circumstances.
All of these changes certainly don't happen overnight, but they happen much faster and much more consistently than with simple audio tapes, meditation, acting classes, therapy or any other personal growth technique or discipline I've ever come across.
Since everything begins with a thought, harness the power of your own mind and learn how to keep it focused like a laser-beam on your “character thoughts”—you’ll increase your creative power to invent interesting tactics mopment-by-moment, you’ll more personally connect with the “life and death” consequences to heighten the stakes of your objective, and spur you to boldly pursuit it. And you’ll over-come the character’s obstacles, as well as of your own by getting The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment technology TODAY! When you are capable of staying in character at your auditions, you can finally audition up to your potential, and start booking the jobs you deserve. you’ll be one of the 1% of actor’s SAG tells us are working. Since, work begets work; you too could soon be commanding a six-figure income! For the low price of $299.99, you could begin earning the REAL money of a working actor.
If you have any interest at all in all the priceless acting / auditioning benefits that will greatly enhance your career, as well as the more health and vigor, increased longevity, lower blood pressure, peace of mind and confidence, at least give The Actor’s Mind a try. Call me for a ONE TIME TRIAL -- I’ll personally use my skills as a professional acting coach to guide you through a session for the low, low fee of only $30.00. You won’t want to wait to begin experiencing these amazing benefits!

I eagerly look forward to changing your audition experiences.
With warm regards,
Crystal Carson
(818) 693-6450

The FOUNTAIN of YOUTH

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:17:26 -0800

Could The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment not only change your acting career (See THE ACTOR’S MIND blog entry) but help you to look better and younger, too? May be. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin announced to the media in 1990 that they had injected synthetic growth hormone into a small group of elderly men between the ages of 61 and 81. The result was a sudden rejuvenation that reversed biological aging by as much a 20 years!
These treatments were, unfortunately, very expensive (about $14,000 a year) and the effects disappeared when the treatments were discontinued. Many actors and regular folks are taking oral growth hormone tablets hoping to gain these benefits, however without a doctor monitoring the amount of DHEA in your bloodstream it is impossible to correctly adjust the dosage, that is if a pill, which must go through your digestive system before it can enter your bloodstream works at all.
There is a better way:

Brain Entrainment technology identical to that used in The Actor’s Mind dramatically affects production of three important hormones related to increased longevity, stress, and enhanced well-being: cortisol, DHEA, and melatonin.
Cortisol is a hormone naturally produced by the adrenal glands. Many actor’s release cortisol when they get a call that they have an audition, and it increases as they prepare with the sides. According to Dr. Giampapa, cortisol is the major age-accelerating hormone. It also interferes with learning and memory and is, in general, bad news for your health and your well-being. Cortisol is the "stress hormone," and the more of it you have, the more stressed you feel. With The Actor’s Mind you can reduce the amount of Cortisol your body releases in relationship to auditioning / acting.
Another hormone, DHEA, is also produced by your adrenal glands. DHEA is a precursor, or source ingredient, to virtually every hormone your body needs. DHEA level is a key determinant of physiological age and resistance to disease. When levels are low, you're more susceptible to aging and disease; when they're high, the body is at its peak—vibrant, healthy, and able to combat disease effectively. The Actor’s Mind raises your DHEA levels.
DHEA acts as a buffer against stress-related hormones (such as cortisol), which is why as you get older and make less DHEA you are more susceptible to stress and disease.

How important is DHEA?
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (December 11, 1986) found that a 100 microgram per deciliter increase in DHEA blood levels corresponded with a 48% reduction in mortality due to cardiovascular disease—and a 36% reduction in mortality for any reason.
The third hormone we tested was melatonin. Melatonin, everyone knows, is a hormone that helps to create restful sleep. We make less of it as we age, and since during sleep many important rejuvenating substances are created in the brain, the inability to sleep soundly can dramatically decrease the quality of your life and greatly accelerate the aging process. New research also reveals that it is a powerful antioxidant. In fact, it is even more powerful than Vitamin E.
So how does The Actor’s Mind audio technology affect levels of these three substances (having so much affect on the quality of your auditions and length of your life?) In a “before and after” study of 19 people using the same technology as The Actor’s Mind, the following changes were noted in levels of DHEA, cortisol, and melatonin:
In just three days, over 68% had increases in DHEA levels, with an average increase of 43.77%. Several people had increases of 50, 60, even 90%.

Cortisol, on the other hand, was down an average of 46.47%, with positive changes in 68% of the people, and with several people having decreases of 70 or 80%.

Melatonin levels increased an average of 97.77%, with positive changes happening in over 73% of the people. Many had improvements of 100, 200, even 300%.

What does this mean? It means The Actor’s Mind not only dramatically lowers stress by regulating the biochemical source of stress, it also means that as a side benefit, it also slows the aging process and increases both well-being and longevity! So not only will you have a wonderful career, but it will be a long and healthy one, as well!
Finally, I've been saving the best for last. The Actor’s Mind creates something called brain synchronization—and I'm going to tell you how achieving it through your use of The Actor’s Mind can profoundly change the way you experience yourself and your world, increase your happiness and sense of inner peace, and allow you to tap into genius-like creative thinking abilities to benefit your acting career.
So what is brain synchronization...and how can it create a revolution in your acting as well as in your everyday life?
Here's the answer:

As we slow the brain waves from beta to alpha to theta to delta using The Actor’s Mind audio technology, there is a corresponding increase in balance between the two hemispheres of the brain. This more balanced brain state is called brain synchronization.
As amazing as it may seem, The Actor’s Mind taps into this kind of whole brain, integrative, super-functioning, high-performance, creative thinking—a level of brain functioning that up until now has been reserved to...
...one-tenth of one-percent of humankind! Wait a minute...isn’t that the same percentage of working actors?

Researcher Dr. Lester Fehmi has said that brain synchronization
...is correlated experientially with a union with experience, and 'into-it-ness.' Instead of feeling separate and narrow-focused you tend to feel more into it...There's a whole-brain sensory integration going on and it's as if you become less self-conscious and function more intuitively.
Sound familiar? This is exactly the state many people call being "in the zone," where you're functioning at the top of your game! And it's now possible to get there—easily!
Synchronizing your brain can quite simply catapult you to much higher levels of effectiveness in your life. Neurologist Jerre Levy of the University of Chicago had this to say about brain synchronization and personal effectiveness:
Another scientist called brain synchronization "extremely beneficial, with each subject feeling as if his or her mind had reached a higher level of integration, with accompanying increases in mental powers and an unmistakable reorientation toward life."
The super-deep meditation and brain synchronization you'll experience with The Actor’s Mind technology creates some truly amazing changes in mental and emotional health. Anger, depression, sadness, anxiety, substance abuse, and a whole universe of dysfunctional feelings and behaviors fall away—even in people who have "tried everything" without success!
Here's how you can create these same changes in yourself...

Each time you use The Actor’s Mind, this neurotechnology will give your nervous system a very specific audio stimulus through your ears and eyes, affecting a part of your brain called the olivary nucleus, and taking you into a state of super-deep meditation. In order to process and handle this stimulus, your brain will create new neural pathways between the left and right sides of the brain, until over time it has created a new structure that can easily handle the stimulus we're giving it.
The creation of these new neural pathways has three results:
• Result #1: A very pleasurable experience during listening, and often for some time afterwards, because listening puts you into a deep meditative state that will, quite frankly, absolutely astound you. The brain produces some very pleasurable neurochemicals, including endorphins (the same endorphins responsible for "runner's high")...and, as we have seen, some that have a profound affect on longevity, aging, stress, and well-being, such as DHEA and melatonin.
• Result #2: The creation of the "whole-brain thinking" I've discussed before, with all the improvements in mental abilities already discussed.
• Result #3: Remarkable changes in your mental/emotional health as well as your ability to handle stress. So-called dysfunctional feeling and behaviors gradually fall away, and life becomes much different (and much better)! Your life will come into balance in a way you never could have imagine, and your acting ability and inner peace at every audition will increase dramatically.
But this is just the beginning. The Actor’s Mind has customize soundtracks, adding silent affirmations and acting instructions that will take your acting to the highest level possible!
In these slower brain wave patterns, your typical left-brain filters are bypassed, and the affirmations and instructions go directly to your unconscious mind, creating change at a very deep level.
Boiled down to the bare essentials, you could say The Actor’s Mind really provides you with two things:
• The most powerful meditation, mind expansion, and personal growth tool I've ever seen—a tool that really makes incredible positive changes happen, and...
• The cutting-edge expertise, follow up and support to smooth out the process so you can make the really deep changes you want to make in your acting career, easily and effortlessly.
The Actor’s Mind will create a real change in your auditions, and because on some level...in some way... to some degree...you will resist that change, you may experience periods of upheaval as you grow and change. The program will create a new balance in your life, and the out-of-balance parts will most likely put up a struggle as you bid them farewell. Real growth, real change, is often cathartic. It's just part of the process.
Participating in The Actor’s Mind requires a certain time commitment. Though you're free to do less (and progress more slowly), we suggest you start with a half hour of meditation each day with the CDs, progressing to an hour a day. My bet is you'll eagerly look forward to these sessions, though, rather than seeing them as a chore.
Finally, you might be asking:
Is the program safe? Are there any long-term dangers?
Not unless you find increased happiness, greater peace of mind, improved mental functioning, greater self-awareness, better emotional health, and improvements in your acting and in your career dangerous.
We feel very confident, after over 8 years of investigation and hundreds of thousands of hours of use (not to mention many years of research in this field by others using brain entrainment), that the program is 100% safe and will deliver to you an absolutely remarkable, positive, life and career changing experience.

No Meditation needed

Tue, 6 Feb 2007 17:55:00 -0800

Every day more psychologists, mental health clinics, coaches, teachers and professionals are discovering brain entrainment, and finding it remarkably useful to create what I call “Flow”- the state of mind that is tapped into pure creativity.
The great Austrian psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, referred to this as the “super-conscious mind.” He felt that the collective wisdom and knowledge of all the ages was contained in this super-conscious mind and was available to everyone.
Ralph Waldo Emerson referred to it as the “oversoul” and wrote that, “We live in the lap of an immense intelligence that, when we are in its presence, we realize that it is far beyond our human mind.” Emerson, the great American transcendentalist, felt that all power and possibility for the average person came from using this mind on a regular basis.
Napoleon Hill, perhaps the greatest researcher on success of the 20th century, called this power the “infinite intelligence.” After spending more than 20 years interviewing 500 of the most successful men and women alive in America at that time, he concluded that, without exception, their ability to tap into this higher form of infinite intelligence was the primary reason for their great success in life.
Whatever you choose to call it, this power is as available to you at this very minute as it ever has been to anyone, anywhere.
We live in a universe that basically is thought. What you think matters, and/or turns to matter...in other words, manifests. In that sense, you are made in the image of God. You are a creator, just as the Divine is. If you could just master the single idea that your mind and your thoughts create everything you experience in your life and apply that notion consistently to discipline your mind and bring it under your control, then your world would change fast and furiously for the better. Your dreams would manifest and do so now.
In short, there is a world of opportunity awaiting you if you can simply master your own mind and your own thoughts. It is the one differentiating factor between people who are average and those who succeed tremendously. Mental focus creates your “luck.” You literally begin to attract “lucky” circumstances into your life.
As Earl Nightingale said, “You become what you think about all the time.” So, begin to take charge of your mind and your thoughts and direct them in beneficial ways to what you dream of.
"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Holy Bible, Romans 12:2

So, if you're ready to give the program a try, here's my risk-free offer
(in fact it's better than risk-free):
I know you may be skeptical. I know I was when I first heard about this. Everybody always promises the moon with these personal growth approaches, and I know I've promised you a lot here. All I want is the chance to prove to you that everything I've said in this letter is absolutely real and true and that this technology, and the program I've created around it, truly will change your life.
Here's how you can try the program for yourself:
I'll send you The Actor’s Prologue on CDs for the special introductory price of $159 plus $11.70 for shipping and handling. Shipping outside the US and Canada is $34.
This price includes the three main soundtracks you'll need to participate in this initial level of the program. It also includes a hefty Special Introductory Package of written materials explaining the scientific basis of meditation, how deep change really happens, the scientific background that makes Holosync technology work, and how to get the most from the program.
You'll also receive unlimited access to our Support Telephone Hotline (or by email or fax, if you live outside the US and Canada), so there will always be someone available to answer any question you might have about your experience.
Payment options...
To make it even easier for you to give this program a try, you can even pay in four easy payments: an initial payment of $85 plus shipping followed by three monthly payments of $28 (Visa and Mastercard only).
Okay, here's the "better than risk-free" part. Just for trying The Actor’s Prologue, we'll also give you five additional FREE Holosync soundtracks:
FREE Bonuses Worth $127.88!
• Quietude: this beautiful and very relaxing soundtrack features the Holosync technology at the alpha level. Since alpha is the brain wave pattern of super learning, Quietude is also perfect for listening while reading, learning, or studying, or to play in your work space to keep you refreshed and alert for hours.
• Oasis will take you deeper, into the theta brain wave state, a state of increased creativity. (I like to listen to Oasis when I'm trying to find a creative solution to a seemingly "unsolvable" problem.)
These two beautiful (and powerful) soundtracks normally sell for $37.98, but they're yours FREE just for trying The Actor’s Prologue. Plus, we'll send you another very powerful free Holosync CD worth $24.95 about two weeks into the program (but I'm going to keep that one a secret for now).
Finally, since I understand you may still be skeptical that this program can do everything I've told you it will do, I'd like to take all the risk out of trying it by giving you...

...a 90-day better than risk-free guarantee!

Please try Awakening Prologue for up to a full 3 months. Anytime during that time, if you aren't convinced this is the most incredible acting support tool you've ever used, and that it does everything I've described here, just return it and we'll cheerfully and quickly refund your payment.
Finally, we'll also send you a special Research Report outlining the exciting scientific research behind this groundbreaking new technology. I know you'll find this report fascinating and informative reading.

Please, give me an opportunity to show you how this technology can change your career and your life...Worst Case: You gain a real education about the latest scientific breakthroughs in mind technology and how really deep change happens in the brain—plus you'll experience some extremely deep meditation and resulting positive core-level changes.
Best Case: You finally find a tool that will help you get that elusive "something" you've been searching for—while you thoroughly enjoy yourself in the process!
Even one of the remarkable quantum leaps in personal growth brought about by Holosync soundtracks—and the tremendous positive emotional changes that will accompany it—could change your life forever. But you'll experience these leaps in awareness over and over in this program. In fact...
...they become more profound the deeper into the program you go!

Many of our program participants have commented that they experienced more deep change in the first four months of our program than in three to five years of intensive therapy costing anywhere from $8,000 to $20,000! The Actor’s Prologue, on the other hand, taking four to six months to complete, is only $159—between $.88 to $1.33 a day! Less than the coffee you drink each day!
So please—join me in experiencing this remarkable tool. You have nothing to lose and...everything to gain!

The Actors’ Mind is an incredible audio CD that is a fail-safe mental improvement system that is scientifically proven and laboratory tested that you can use to become more effective, more intelligent, and more powerful

In conclusion, let me summarize the many real advantages of participating in The Holosync Solution:

• Memory – Remembering more information, faster, with greater ease!
• Absorbency – Taking in more details with great comprehension!
• Stamina – Thinking, reading, studying longer… easier!
• Power – Controlling of conscious thoughts to focus on what supports you!
• Sharpness – Faster mental processing and clearness of mind!
• Wholeness – More balanced mind of power, speed and focus.
»
Super-deep meditation, literally at the touch of a button
»
Improved mental abilities, heightened creativity and problem solving ability
»
Dramatic reduction in stress and anxiety
»
Improved health and a new sense of mental, emotional and physical well-being
»
Increased focus, concentration, memory and learning ability
»
Increased motivation and confidence
»
Production in the brain of many vital neurochemicals proven to slow aging and keep the body young, alive and fully functioning
»
Better, more restful sleep
»
More happiness and flow in your life
»
Healing of unresolved mental and emotional blocks

This is a tremendous value – and an unbelievable opportunity to develop the mental abilities you need to succeed today!
And, if it doesn't do all of this for you, just send it back within 3 months year for a full refund!
So let The Holosync Solution
be the new beginning you've
been searching for.
We'll deal with values, the main engine providing motivation to anything you do. We'll also uncover any conflicts in your value structure (most people have lots of them). Value structure conflicts are one of the main ways people unknowingly sabotage themselves. If your values do not support the results you want, you're set up for failure, no matter what you do or how hard you try.

You'll also learn a tool designed to help you motivate and inspire yourself and allow you to recognize and experience the satisfaction of your achievements by measuring progress based on how far you have come, rather than by looking at how far you still have to go. This tool alone can dramatically affect your level of happiness and inner peace.

How to end fear of failure, or of success, and all your other worries, forever (this is the main secret of the super-successful)...

How to turn any defeat, failure, setback, or adversity into an equivalent or greater benefit (yes, every failure really can be turned into a monumental success, if you know how)...

The incredible power of the questions you ask yourself (this one will really surprise you)...
»
How to tap into all the creative vision and imagination you'll ever need (you'll never lack for ideas and you'll never again face a problem you can't solve)...
»
How to end self-sabotage (if you're doing it, you can end it, and I'll show you how)...

Believe it or not, the most successful people are those who have failed the most! That's why it's so important that I teach you how the most successful people in the world are able to turn any failure or adversity into an equivalent or greater benefit—and how you can do the same.

Brain-wave entrainment has a superb safety record. It has been used to treat all forms of ailments from ADD to depression, but unlike pharmaceutical treatments there are few negative side effects.
A small number of brain-wave entrainment users have reported headaches as a result of using brain-wave entrainment. However, this effect normally wears off after a short time.
No long-term side effects related to brain-wave entrainment have ever been reported.
As a precaution, those who should not use brain-wave entrainment, specifically VISUAL entrainment, include:
• Pregnant women
• Those who wear a pacemaker
• Those that are prone to seizures or are photosensitive or epileptic.
• Children under the age of 18 are to be examined by a physician for epilepsy or illnesses that may contribute to seizures prior to the use of brain-wave entrainment, as they are more susceptible to seizures.
*No negative effects resulting from AUDIO entrainment has been reported.

Pass the Halloween Candy!

Fri, 3 Nov 2006 11:56:13 -0800

Young women obsessed with their own body image eat more food after looking at magazine advertisements that feature the "ideal" thin body, research shows.
The researchers publish their study in the November issue of the journal Eating Behaviors.
The Australian study shows that advertising affects eating behavior...just not necessarily the way we would think.
Fiona Monro, a PhD student at the University of New South Wales, explained the results.

"We would expect people who value the way they look would be reminded by viewing the image and not eat," she said, “instead, they ate MORE!”
"We're not sure why we found the reverse but possibly because of stress....[Women obsessed with their appearance] see the idealized image and think 'what's the point, I'm never going to look like that, I may as well eat' or perhaps, the image makes them think they're thinner than they are so they eat more," said Monro.
Two hours after their last meal, Monro asked 68 female university students to rank the importance of physical attractiveness, health and physical fitness to determine whether they value the way their body looks more or less than the way it functions.
The researchers were interested in the notion of self-objectification, the way some people view themselves and their bodies as an object to be valued for external appearance.
The women's answers categorized women as low or high self-objectifiers; with high self-objectifiers being the ones valuing appearance more.
Participants then viewed six magazine ads for body-related products like diet pills, some containing images of idealized female models, some not.
Body-obsessed people (or high objectifiers) ate more food and sweets after viewing idealized body ads than ads without models.
Low objectifiers ate less food after seeing idealized images than the other ads.
"There's no doubt these images have an effect on some women and can lead to changes in eating behavior, especially when you consider how many images people are exposed to every day," Monro says.
She says in future eating disorders might be reduced by identifying high-objectifiers in schools, enabling education to change emphasis on appearance and promote a broader acceptance of body shapes.

.

The power of the imagination

Fri, 3 Nov 2006 11:39:29 -0800

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." -Albert Einstein
Dr. Leuthardt and Dr. Moran connected a fourteen year old boy to a sophisticated computer running a special program known as BCI2000 (developed by their collaborator Gerwin Schalk at the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health in Albany) which involves a video game that is linked to the ECoG grid.
They then asked the boy to do various motor and speech tasks, moving his hands various ways, talking, and imagining. The team could see from the data which parts of the brain and what brain signals correlate to these movements. They then asked the boy to play a simple, two-dimensional Space Invaders game by actually moving his tongue and hand. He was then asked to imagine the same movements, but not to actually perform them with his hands or tongue. When he saw the cursor in the video game, he then controlled it with his imagination.
"He cleared out the whole level one basically on brain control," said Leuthardt. "He learned almost instantaneously. We then gave him a more challenging version in two-dimensions and he mastered two levels there playing only with his imagination."
In 2004, Leuthardt and Moran led a team who were the first to perform this research on four adult patients. They were anxious to get data from a teenager to see if there are any differences between how teens and adults operate.
"It's exciting to be able to look at age differences and see what that tells us about the brain," said Moran, who said the team plans to test more pediatric subjects. "No one has ever seen if brain signals from children are different. We'll try to determine if teenagers have different frequency distributions when their cortex becomes active. We might question if the frequency alterations are different, will that make a difference in performance?"
Leuthardt said it is too early to make comparisons between adults and teenagers because they have only one set of teenage data.
"But we observed much quicker reaction times in the boy and he had a higher level of detail of control - for instance, he wasn't moving just left and right, but just a little bit left, a little bit right," he said.
If your imagination can play games on a computer, just imagine what it can do in “empty space”...the imaginary world you create in the casting office. What you imagine, matters...(ie turns to matter, has mass, becomes REAL.) If a 14 year old boy can move a curser using only his brain, surely you can “move” yourself to believe a story using only yours. Think about it.
Your own imagination is one of the great powers of the mind. Not everyone can see clear mental images, but regular training of the imagination can do wonders.
You may, for example, do the “History Work” I teach in class. Visualize past events of a character in your imagination; (first, discover which moments in history are of the most value) and then, experiences them. This will enhance your commitment to the craft of acting. Craft builds Career - and not the other way around.
Visualize yourself personally in the circumstances of the story. Take the consequences of failure on, as if your own life will be destroyed. Imagine the way “your life” will be if you reach your objective in the story, imagine what it will be like if you fail. Take it to heart. At this point you have to display patience, self-discipline and the power to persist in your efforts. This requires a one pointed mind.
Affirmations are another mentally useful tool. What you affirm sinks into the subconscious mind, become part of the subconscious mind, and consequently affect your behavior and actions. Know what your stand is as an actor, and commit to it, declare it and live it! If your “stand” is a positive affirmation for dealing with your craft, it will lead you to success.
--Crystal

"It is through the imagination that the formless takes form." -Catherine Ponder

Spirit and Flow

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 14:35:02 -0700

I have spoken and written a lot about the power of the mind, physics, meditation and Brain Entrainment to find “flow” and the benefits of finding flow during your auditions (which, if you can find it there, you’ll find it anywhere, to steal from the song.) Having just wrapped up a 4 day workshop, I again feel a need to write a bit about what I’ve experienced and what I’ve been contemplating as of late. Foremost in my mind today is the importance and relevance of the real experience I refer to as “flow”.

What is flow? Researchers, in studies taking place as long ago as in the ‘70’s, like Grofs (1977) and John Lilly (1973) reveal that in altered states of consciousness, like those caused by meditation, persons feel they are in touch with / grasp the meaning of “flow”.

They experience it as tending toward a “transcending experience of unity”. They picture the individual self as being dissolved in a whole area of higher values, especially beauty, harmony and love.

Research seems to be confirming the mystic's experience of union with the ”universal"”!

When I am at my best, as an acting coach, I discover another characteristic. I find that when I am closest to my inner, intuitive self; when I am somehow in touch with God/Spirit, then whatever I do seems to be full of “healing”, for lack of a better word.

Actors seem to have new “Ah hah” moments. They tell me after class, that they suddenly fully “get” (as in MORE than a simple understanding) how to handle an acting problem that had been tripping them up for years. Consistently and without failure, students report having gotten more in 4 days in my class, than they from four years of studying with many other teachers. It is remarkable and beyond anything I can do by myself, without this “universal spirit” with me.

Fritjof Capra (1975), a well known theoretical hys phyicist, has shown how present-day physics has a almost completely abolished any solid concepts of o our world except energy.

In a summarizing statement he says:

"In modern physics the universe is thus experienced as a dynamic, inseparable whole which always includes the observer in an essential way. In this experience the traditional concepts of space and time, of isolated objects, and of cause and effect, lose their meaning. Such an experience, however, is very similar to that of the Eastern mystics"

He then goes on to point out the astonishing parallels with
Zen, Taoism, Buddhism, and other Oriental views. His own conviction is that physics and Eastern mysticism
are separate but complementary roads to the same knowledge, supplementing one another in providing a fuller understanding of our universe.

Recently the work of Ilya Prigogine (Ferguson, 1979), Nobel-prize-winning chemist, offers a different perspective which also throws new light on what has been presented.

In trying to answer the basic question of how order and complexity emerge from the process of entropy, he
has originated a whole new theoretical system. He has developed mathematical formulas and proof which
demonstrate that the world of living nature is probabilistic, rather than solely deterministic. His views apply to
all open systems in which energy is exchanged with the environment. This obviously includes the human
organism.

Briefly, the more complex the structure - whether a chemical or a human - the more energy it expends to maintain that complexity.

For example, the human brain, with only two percent of body weight, uses 20 percent of the available oxygen! Such a system is unstable, has fluctuations or "perturbations," as he calls them. As these fluctuations increase, they are amplified by the system's many connections, and thus drive it - whether
chemical compound or human individual - into a new, altered state, more ordered and coherent than before. This new state has still greater complexity, and hence even more potential for creating change.

The transformation of one state to another is a sudden shift, a non-linear event, in which many factors act on each other at once. It is especially interesting to me that this has already been demonstrated in investigating Gendlin's concept of "experiencing" in psychotherapy (Gendlin, 1978).

When a hitherto repressed feeling is fully and accepted experienced in awareness in the relationship, there is not only a definitely felt psychological shift, but a concomitant physiological change, as a new state of insight is
achieved (Don, 1977-78).

Prigogine's theory appears to shed light on meditation, relaxation techniques, and altered states of consciousness, in which fluctuations are augmented by various means. It gives support to the value of fully recognizing and expressing one's feelings - positive or negative - thus permitting the full perturbation of the system.

He recognizes the strong resemblance between his "science of complexity" and the views of Eastern sages and mystics, as well as the philosophies of Whitehead and Bergson. His view points, he says, toward "a deep collective vision." Rather amazingly, the title of his forthcoming book is "From Being to
Becoming," a strange label for a volume by a chemist-philosopher (Prigogine, 1979, in press)!

If you are interested in delving further into these amazing ideas, and can put up with a scientist account that sometimes goes beyond the layman’s understanding, I highly recommend reading it. After that, you might even try my program, The Actor’s Mind.

The Actor’s Mind

Sat, 21 Oct 2006 19:09:26 -0700

Let him that would move the world, first move himself.
—Socrates

Most actors already know what Cognitive Behavioral Psychology has demonstrated, that action (including emotion) follows thought.
Thought patterns formed in the brain depend upon the energy produced there and how that energy is distributed to different areas of the brain.
Science has proven that the human brain can be trained to purposely direct that energy flow to a desired section of the brain. In this way, the brain can actually be trained to increase focus and attention, reduce stress and anxiety, decrease hyperactivity, develop a better memory, sustain information longer, increase concentration and improve accuracy by building more synapses and increasing blood-flow and energy flow to the part of the brain muscle used for these activities.
In order to become a superb actor, to be a master of the craft; you must be in control your state-of-mind; so that, whether it is in a paid performance or at an audition, you are able to actually use 100% of the ability and knowledge that you possess.
The talented and well-studied actors, who have also been trained to control their own state-of-mind become brilliant; exceptional at having only the character’s thoughts enter their conscious mind, without the “actor’s judgments” interrupting the flow. (Interestingly, the same actors maintain a higher level of performance in all types of endeavors.)
How do these Actors train their brains to consistently perform at the top of their ability?
Unless you’ve been living in a whole in the ground, you must have seen some of the recent news about all of the many benefits of meditation...the ability to focus the brain being top among them.
But what if you don’t want to meditate...?
If you are like me, you feel that meditating takes up too much time in an already packed day, with what feels like not enough immediate and tangible results, right?
Sure, you know if you meditated regularly, you would build the area of your brain that allows you to concentrate--and to utilize your brain to perform at a higher level so as to find a greater ease of overcoming any challenge, to feel what psychologists refer to as “flow”...but still...
Ya gotta meditate everyday, over time before it even starts to work, so forget it.
Of course, once you mastered meditation you could direct your mind to “stay focused inside a scene”, and it would effortlessly put you in the given circumstances--easily believing the history you’ve created, knowing what to say, personally and naturally working moment-to-moment, without getting knocked out by distractions.

Distractions from phones ringing, sides getting dropped or a bad reader, or distractions from things in your own head, like pressure to get the job, self-judging, fear, etc...would cease to exist as such, rather they would instead occur as if they were appropriate and natural to the story you are “living in”. Anything that happened, planned or unplanned, would absolutely support you, requiring no conscious energy to overcome. This is what it is like to have flow.
Meditation is amazing for actor’s because it creates a 'calm mind' state that allows you to focus properly on what YOU ask it to, even when you are NOT meditating.
Trouble is...not everybody has the discipline or the patience to get the benefits of meditation before they quit out of boredom.

Now...

Wouldn’t it be great to “work out” the brain and strengthen your ability to consciously select your field of focus--and block out all interference, without meditating?
And what if, in addition to helping your acting, you could also gain the health benefits of meditating? That would be fantastic, because most of us are not going to do it regularly--no matter how many articles are published in the American Heart Association journal, “Stroke”; regardless of a recent issue of the American Journal of Hypertension; and also reports by the National Institutes of Health; and University of Wisconsin-Madison; and a Harvard study; all concluding to varying degrees the same thing--that regular meditation reduces chronic pain, anxiety, high blood pressure, cholesterol, and cortisol (sometimes called the “stress hormone”) and boosts the immune system.
How would you like the following things--
without having to meditate?
• Improved concentration and ability to focus in any circumstance. Certain in your incredible ability to stay in the moment with your “given circumstances,” without judgement, you posses amazing clarity of thought.
• No feelings of “Auditioning Pressure” - worries disappear and you’ll have fewer negative thoughts, making it harder for anything to drag you off-target. Fearless and confident that every thought in your head is a supportive one.
• Bursting with creativity, and freedom to invent, you feel vibrant with an aliveness, impossible to describe. Inspired with brilliant ideas and spontaneous realizations of possibilities to explore, ways to play, tactics to tryout. Any answers you need are instant and insightful, allowing you to see new concepts and recognize new opportunities.
• The wonderful knowledge that you're performing to the utmost of your ability. Experiencing a plethora of quality auditions; so that when reflecting back, you are proud of yourself, knowing you were in possession of all of your God-given talent and creative faculties regardless of the outcome. You are at the top of your acting ability, because of peak brain performance. When you work at your potential and know you have done your best, life is rich with purpose, meaning, awe, and feelings of inner peace.
Not to mention, all the health benefits I told you of!
As I’ve alluded to, there’s a downside to meditation, and it’s this...traditional meditation is time-consuming in our already over-scheduled days, seems boring, and worst of all can take years, even decades, to master.
The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment changes all that. Using advanced scientific technology to induce deep states of meditation virtually at the push of a button; this audio and visual brain technology gives you fabulous results in weeks rather than years. Results that pay-off at your auditions!
The Actor’s Mind is not like any other Acting class, seminar, book or workshop. It is certainly not your typical pabulum-filled positive thinking Self-Help CD where you feel high at the end but realize 2 weeks later that little if anything really changed.
With The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment, you will gain powerful, rock solid, unshakeable acting focus. It's more than mere concentration; you’ll get in the zone & experience “flow”.
Top actors routinely access this kind of creative focus. They drop their own realities, take on the “character’s” history and seamlessly live moment-to moment in the script...even in the face of the kind of pressure a screen test for a major studio can cause. This is what it is like when an actor gets in the zone and experiences “flow”.
Unfortunately, to one degree or another, regardless of talent, most actors create a fair amount of stress, self-sabotage, unhappiness, anxiety, failure, and lack of self-esteem while auditioning, and so, kill any hope of having “flow”. Sadder still, those same feelings carry over from their acting careers into their lives, as well.
We humans are, for the most part, amazingly loose with our mental discipline. It is as if we think we can always get started at some later date. However, what you focus upon expands. Hence, lack of discipline just leads to more of the same. Before you know it, things go out of control and life becomes an ill-disciplined disaster!
Now the good news...
The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment solves this problem using Brain Entrainment; in three major ways.
The first way: You naturally have a certain threshold for how much you can handle coming at you from the world. Everyone’s threshold is unique. However, when that threshold is exceeded, you feel stressed, and you cope with that stress with a variety of largely ineffective, self sabotaging ways, including fear, anxiety, depression, illness and anger.
This can lead to fear of the next audition, more anxiety-even when given a call-back or network test, depression and anger about your career, as a whole, and possibly substance abuse, anorexia or overeating — and a long list of other dysfunctional feelings and behaviors almost all of which involve suffering and discomfort.
The Actor’s Mind eliminates this problem in a most elegant way by using Brain Entrainment to raise the threshold for what you can handle.
It raises this threshold until it is high enough that there is very little at any given audition--or before--that could push you over it. Your ability to handle anything thrown at you rises, and all those uncomfortable feelings and behaviors fall away and disappear!
You can equate it with running. If you began running every day, you'd begin with a certain threshold for what you can handle physically. But as you run each day, this physical threshold goes higher and higher as your muscles and cardiovascular system change, until you can easily handle what would have overwhelmed you in the beginning.
The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment does the same thing for your mental and emotional threshold. Each time you use The Actor’s Mind it pushes that threshold higher.
How does The Actor’s Mind manage to do this? Partly through Brain Entrainment, which I will explain in a moment...but first I want to tell you:
The second way: The Actor’s Mind solves the problem (of unconsciously creating feelings that you do not want):
The Actor’s Mind causes the birth
of new neural pathways between
different parts of the brain,
particularly between the left and right
hemispheres; putting them into ideal balance. This induces peak brain-performance; enhanced cognitive thinking, and it causes paradigm shifts, which illuminate clearer and more numerous paths to achieving goals.
This is called,
Hemispheric Synchronization.

These increased neural connections cause you to see relationships and connections you did not see before; allowing you an expanded awareness for problem solving, a feeling of connectedness, and yes, creative “flow”.
This causes what is referred to as Whole Brain Thinking.
What this means to you: It's like thinking in stereo. Whole- brain functioning is associated with increased creativity, insight, learning ability, problem solving ability, and memory...This type of brain function has been associated with geniuses—the Einstein's and Mozarts of the world. Quite frankly, I suspect this is the same type of higher brain function of, say, a Meryl Streep, a Walt Disney, a Stephen Hawking, and other creative, high-performance individuals like them
Hemispheric synchronization is what happens in meditation to encourage your creative mind to take any distraction, even those at an audition, and see them as acceptable--even as believable in terms of the script. Nothing can ‘take you out’ or ‘throw you off’.
With hemispheric synchronization, you will perceive old challenges into a new light. When acting, you will adopt an attitude of faith and acceptance, confidently accepting and believing everything that is happening is a perfect part of the ride in this “make-believe” world.
What exactly are we synchronizing in each brain hemisphere? Electricity. When the brain is given a stimulus,
through the eyes,
ears,
or other senses,
it emits an electrical charge called a Cortical Evoked Response (shown above - measured using sensitive electrodes attached to the scalp).
Since billions of neurons are constantly firing on and off in the brain, this tends to produce a "wave" effect that has been popularly referred to as brain-waves.
There are Four Types of Brain Wave Patterns:
Brain-waves are divided into four predominant speed ranges, or bands.
The most rapid brain wave pattern is called Beta, the pattern of normal waking consciousness. Beta is associated with concentration, arousal, alertness, and cognition.
At its highest level, though, beta is associated with anxiety, disharmony, and dis-ease. (An ability to slow this down might be beneficial for actors at an important audition, don’t you think?) Many actors in Hollywood are taking a medication before going to auditions called “Beta Blockers” to control or alleviate those feelings. With T The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment that is completely unnecessary.
When relaxed and absorbed in a really good script, or watching a movie or television show, or reading a enjoyable book, you are probably in Alpha. It is associated with "super-learning"—the ability to comprehend, process, store and recall large amounts of information quickly and efficiently. (Might this also be helpful to the actor?)
(Neurofeedback technology records information by frequencies, commonly called hertz (Hz) when mapping the operation of neurotransmitters in the brain.)
Even slower are Theta Brain Wave Patterns. Theta is associated with a number of other beneficial states, including increased creativity, some kinds of super-learning, increased memory abilities, and what are called integrative experiences (in which we make broadly-based positive changes in the way we see ourselves, others, and certain life situations--like auditions).
"Ah-ha!" experiences, where you suddenly "get it," have an insight, or a great idea suddenly comes to you, are accompanied by bursts of theta waves in your brain.
Here's another exciting characteristic of the theta state: Dr. Thomas Budzynski, a noted researcher in this field, has said that critical and often self-sabotaging filters of the left brain are bypassed in a theta state, and that in terms of making positive changes in beliefs or habit patterns, "a lot of work gets done very quickly."
And best of all, theta causes the brain to make lots of relaxing endorphins—that make you feel serenely at peace.
The slowest is the Delta Brain Wave Pattern. Generally people are asleep in delta, but there is evidence that it is possible to remain alert in this state—a very deep, trance-like, non-physical state you'll have to experience to appreciate.
In certain delta frequencies the brain releases many highly beneficial substances, including human growth hormone (which we ordinarily make in decreasing quantities as we get older, resulting in many aging symptoms: loss of muscle tone, increased weight gain, loss of stamina, and many diseases associated with aging!)
The Actor’s Mind makes use of each Brain Wave Frequency, in the best possible order and duration to entrain actor’s brains and cause Hemispheric Synchronization.
What exactly is Brain-Wave Entrainment?
Just like western medicine, brain-wave entrainment works on scientific principle, repeatable provable results, research and testing. The principles of entrainment are a part of physics and are universal, appearing in chemistry, neurology, biology, pharmacology, medicine, astronomy and more.
There are over 75 years of sound research behind Brain-Wave Entrainment:
Pre-1940’s - Visual (photic) brain-wave entrainment (which we will discuss more in a minute) was first documented in 1934. However, evidence of visual entrainment has been traced as far back as 200 AD.
1940’s - Edward W. Dempsey and Robert S. Morison discovered that repetitive tactile stimulation could also produce entrainment.
1950’s - Dr. Chatrian observed auditory entrainment in response to clicks at a frequency of 15 per second.
1960’s - Anesthesiologist M.S. Sadove, MD, used photic stimulation to reduce the amount of anesthesia needed for surgery and Andrew Neher found that the sound of rhythmic pounding dramatically altered brain wave activity.
1970’s - In Scientific American, Dr. Gerald Oster examined how combining two pure tones (monaural beats) resulted in a rhythmic beat which he called Binaural Beats.
1980’s - The Department of Neuropsychiatry at Osaka University Medical School in Japan found that photic stimulation produced "cerebral synchronization", which now call hemispheric synchronization. And Arturo Manns published a study which indicated the amazingly strong entrainment value of Isochronic Tones, as opposed to Monaural or Binaural beats (More on this later.)
1990’s - Drs. Russell, Carter, and others explored the vast potential of using entrainment with ADD and learning disorders. Also, much research has also been conducted on the effectiveness of entrainment on PMS, Chronic Fatigue, Chronic Pain, Depression, Hypertension and a number of other disorders.
2000’s - American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis presents a study which explored the efficacy in theta EEG activity following theta binaural beat (TBB) entrainment training and hypnotic susceptibility. And yet another study showed that Audio-Visual Entrainment used to treat 10 attention deficit children at a time was more effective than six leading neurofeedback studies, (Michael Joyce and David Siever). Sub-delta Audio-Visual Entrainment as been shown to reduce hypertension (Berg & Siever, 2001). Audio-Visual Entrainment has been shown to produce pronounced cognitive improvements in seniors with age related cognitive decline (Budzynski, 2002) and reduced falling in seniors (Berg & Siever, 2004).
While using The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment technology, electrical activity and energy patterns in the actor's brain become more widespread. This type of stimulation encourages new dendritic growth--creating neural pathways and allowing for faster, smoother neural communication in the brain. This communication assists you in seeing supportive solutions where before

you saw problems! Another benefit of this expanded awareness is that you become increasingly conscious of how your internal map of reality creates your experiences in your acting as well as in your life.
But that's only the beginning. Use The Actor’s Mind and improve your focus and concentration now and train your brain to live up to your acting potential. Your audition experiences will change—and, obviously, so will your acting. Your career and very possibly your life will be transformed.

You will have all the tools you need to be in direct control of your own mind; in the audition, on stage or on the set—your thoughts, your feelings, your internal state, and therefore your external results will all fall in line.
The world’s most successful actors began, for the most part, with no special advantages over you. Most were of average intelligence, not particularly more talented and did not even begin wealthy or well connected. It is primarily through the use of mind and their ability to direct their thoughts that they achieved everything that they are known for.
The point is that actors who succeed greatly have learned to concentrate their thoughts and discipline their minds to focus only where they want to, and they do this supremely well.
This is why successful actors--while in what seem like high pressure situations--are still at ease, and can at stay completely in-the-moment and in character; they are calm and confident in their ability to take the emotional journey.
Once you are proficiently trained as an actor, focusing your mind is THE KEY to auditioning and acting success. Only then can you utilize all your true acting abilities and talent--and consistently perform at your potential--acting well, no matter the material or circumstances! When The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment is practiced over a period of time, the brain will "learn" the state change, and it will become easier to self-produce “flow” at will. Every great work of art or creativity is infused with the freedom and energy born of this kind of focus.

Entrain the Brain: In order for the brain to be effectively entrained, the depth or "intensity" of the pulse must be as large and abrupt as possible. The sessions in The Actor’s Mind have been meticulously designed to produce the greatest neural response. Below is an example of an Isochronic entrainment pattern. Notice how individual and separated each pulse is.

The brain responds by synchronizing its own electric cycles to the same rhythm. This is commonly called the Frequency Following Response (or FFR):

Frequency Following Response/how entrainment happens:
In addition to entrainment, the imagery created by the visual and auditory stimulation on The Actor’s Mind provides a focus for the mind and quiets internal dialogue or chatter. (Wouldn’t THAT be nice before a big screen test?) This quieting lasts for hours after your last session of The Actor’s Mind has ended. Do you think you should take advantage of the most powerful acting-mentality tool ever created? Would you benefit from the most sophisticated, effective, and easy-to-use method ever developed for activating creativity, maintaining focus to stay inside the story of a script, and ending the distractions caused by “actor’s thoughts”.
By purchasing The Actor’s Mind audio-visual entrainment technology and temporarily changing the brain frequency from one Hz frequency to another--thereby adding blood-flow, oxygen and building neurons and synapses to the area of the brain that controls creative “flow”--you will strengthen the areas of your brain most useful to you as an actor!
When doing a brain “sweep” (moving from one Hz frequency to another) the starting frequency should be as close to your current brain state as possible. It is difficult to determine your brain state without extra equipment (like EEG devices) however, we can quite safely assume that during the day your brain is in the beta stage (about 20Hz) whenever you are up and around, so we start the “sweep” from there.
You may have heard of the most well known form of brain-wave entrainment, binaural beats, where two tones (one in each ear) are mixed by the brain itself. The pulses, called "beats", formed by mixing these tones is what causes entrainment to occur.
Fig. 3 EEG Recording

But I have learned there are more proficient methods that allow more control than binaural tones, because of this fact, The Actor’s Mind does not use binaural beats, but rather uses the most promising of the new methods namely, Isochronic Tones.
Isochronic entrainment uses a single tone that is manually spaced, turning on and off in a precise pattern.
Arturo Manns, associate professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Chile, published a study in 1981, which indicated the amazingly strong entrainment value of Isochronic Tones, as opposed to Binaural beats.
(My 5 year old daughter would say I’m doing too much blah, blah, blah...Please forgive me for over-explaining. I just get so excited for you, that I want you to understand how this works so you'll get excited, too.)
Dr. Gerald Oster’s, a pioneer in the field of brain-wave technology, study of binaural beats concluded that the depth or intensity of the resulting "beat" is only around 3 decibels or 1/10th the volume of a whisper.

Looking at the binaural beat pattern it is clear that the wave is shallow. The entrainment is harder to detect and leaves only a minor electrical imprint on the brain.
Conversely, the isochronic tone pattern shows each pulse as individual and separated. This results in much greater evoked potentials within the auditory cortex of the brain.
Though newer and so somewhat less well known, Isochronic Tones have proven to be much more effective than any other entrainment technology. This has been confirmed by David Siever, Dr. Thomas Budzynski, psychologist Michael Joyce and many others.
In order to do this most effectively Isochronic Tones are combined with Photic Driving.
The “Visual” part of the Audio-Visual technology:
Photic Stimulation
Not long after the discovery of the Alpha brain-wave by Hans Berger in 1929, researchers found that the wave could be moved (like FFR for auditory moving) by using flickering lights, or photic (light) stimulation. This is called Photic Driving.
In 1980, Tsuyoshi Inouye and associates at the Department of Neuropsychiatry at Osaka University Medical School in Japan found that photic stimulation in the alpha range produced hemispheric synchronization.
Dr. Norman Shealy later confirmed the effect, finding that photic stimulation produced hemispheric synchronization which he called "cerebral synchronization" in more than 5,000 patients!
It is funny to hear how in 1959, Dr. William Kroger and Sidney Schneider reported on the unusual effects of the rhythmic flashing of a dot, matched by a beep sound, from radar screens of ships and submarines. Radar operators readily entered into a relaxed state of mind and some fell into deep hypnotic states while watching signals on the radar screen.
They believed that these men were being visually and auditorily stimulated at a frequency near the frequency the brain was producing. The rhythm of the beeping and flashing had to be sped-up in order for the men to do their jobs.
Which (finally) brings me to The third way: The Actor’s Mind solves the actor’s challenge (of completely committing to the story, without unconsciously creating thoughts, circumstances, or feelings that you do not want):
Entraining the Brain
while
training the mind - - -
While The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment:
1) Entrains your brain - pausing in various Hz Frequencies (each responsible for a different desirable characteristic of peak performance like, relaxation, creativity, super-learning, integrative experiences, synergistic thinking and increased memory abilities) and at the same time,
2) your brain’s hemispheres are balanced in synch with each other to enhance cognitive thinking, cause paradigm shifts of things previously perceived as negative into things now seen as positive or neutral, and clear the pathway for you to go into a state of “flow”, and now, the proverbial icing on the cake is put into place...
3) Opening you up to creative solutions to the technical challenges of each audition, (ie. The reader won’t look up and/or is reading at an alarming rate of speed, the camera is two inches from your face, the casting director requests that you don’t move an inch or that you DO MOVE about the room, etc...) without confusing you, distracting you or pulling you out of character! Your mind will be able to effortlessly come up with ways to support your technical circumstances, while at the same time, justifying them in actable terms by continuing to think in character.
This is done through The Actor’s Mind - guided suggestions designed into the DVD, and carefully composed over the course of 25 years by world famous acting coach, Crystal Carson (who?) :) At each appropriate Hz Frequency, the mind is presented with “actor supporting concepts”; ideas that will resonate deeply at that brain wave level.
More than positive thinking or winning tapes, these concepts and suggestions focus you on “character thoughts”...those images behind your (character’s) need or objective, those thoughts / feelings brought-up by the relationship you have with the other character in the scene, and the fear of failing you (as your character) feel in this moment. This is the only way to win as an actor, and every other “winning” tape out there has you focus on the exact things that will cause you to break character--yourself; your desire to do it “right”, to make them like you, and to book the job.
Stop the madness!!
You have the power!
As you develop expanded awareness using The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment technology, it will become clear that you are finally the one in charge. Inevitably, negative feelings about past auditions will begin to lose whatever power they may have had over you. Nervousness will transform into calm, confident, anticipation of the enjoyment of doing what you love. The Pavlovian effect* that caused nervousness or stress before an audition completely dissipates...until it is gone.
Even though worries about not booking the job may have previously been creating trauma and anxiety (as was certainly the case for many of my clients), using The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment technology, with it’s 3 ways of solving any acting challenge, causes these worries to dissolve and disappear. Once gone, you will be free to use your entire creative self; mind, body, and spirit, to bring the scene to life. You will have forever eliminated pressure of not booking from your auditions, regardless of your past or present circumstances.
The Actor’s Mind -
Audio-Visual Entrainment technology includes special goggles containing flashing red/green LED's with pure and vivid flickering light that you see through your closed eyelids, and works in tandem with the included CD containing Isochronic Tones effectively embedded into music, to give you a more dramatic, and more powerful hemispheric synchronization. (Because, as I said before, The Actor’s Mind does not rely on Binaural beats, it can be used with or without headphones or any special speaker assignment.), and finally, you will receive the best acting coaching possible, using the most productive words, delivered with a soothing voice in the specific order proven to greatly enrich and enhance the actor’s talents, and ability to rely on those talents, and trust yourself, no matter the circumstances.
All of these changes certainly don't happen overnight, but they happen much faster and much more consistently than with simple audio tapes, meditation, acting classes, therapy or any other personal growth technique or discipline I've ever come across.
Since everything begins with a thought, harness the power of your own mind and learn how to keep it focused like a laser-beam on your “character thoughts”—you’ll increase your creative power to invent interesting tactics mopment-by-moment, you’ll more personally connect with the “life and death” consequences to heighten the stakes of your objective, and spur you to boldly pursuit it. And you’ll over-come the character’s obstacles, as well as of your own by getting The Actor’s Mind Audio-Visual Entrainment technology TODAY! When you are capable of staying in character at your auditions, you can finally audition up to your potential, and start booking the jobs you deserve. you’ll be one of the 1% of actor’s SAG tells us are working. Since, work begets work; you too could soon be commanding a six-figure income! For the low price of $299.99, you could begin earning the REAL money of a working actor.
If you have any interest at all in all the priceless acting / auditioning benefits that will greatly enhance your career, as well as the more health and vigor, increased longevity, lower blood pressure, peace of mind and confidence, at least give The Actor’s Mind a try. Call me for a ONE TIME TRIAL -- I’ll personally use my skills as a professional acting coach to guide you through a session for the low, low fee of only $30.00. You won’t want to wait to begin experiencing these amazing benefits!

I eagerly look forward to changing your audition experiences.
With warm regards,
Crystal Carson
(818) 693-6450

Mythic Pizza anyone...?

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 16:13:05 -0700

I am teaching a 4 week workshop right now, and as I ponder next weeks assignment, I can’t help but try to have a deeper understanding of...what is great acting? One can not have an inclusive discussion of acting without speaking also about storytelling. Accepted today, is that all powerful storytelling descends from Myth. No one has studied and giving us a better understanding of Myth today the works of Joseph Campbell.
When I read Campbell’s book, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, I am reminded that in today’s world, we actors own those faces. Our faces are the heros of the stories that move, educate, and resonate in the world today. I am also left with a renewed sense that actors have the power to change the world by virtue of Ritual and Myth.
One of the most far reaching Rituals today is the way the “civilized world” watches television and/or goes to the movies.
I believe it is through the Myth behind the stories presented there (which can appear on the outset as simple, everyday experiences) that humans gain an understanding of God and the fight for our Soul.
Not only do folklore and legends demonstrate how to draw on divine energy, but they also show how to align with nature. The reveal our most natural selves, fears and desires.
Campbell taught that Ritual is the best way to ingest a deep understanding of that which is not intellectual, and Ritual and Myth are the best way to understand the eternal question each of us faces; why do we exist!
Let’s take the Ritual of going to the movies, for example. The stories we watch there, possibly the same story over and over again, or different stories descended from the same Myth, are a Ritual.
Because of the mythical nature of all storytelling, as we watch the show we get that, on some level, the plot symbolizes our lives, the characters, us.
Symbolic messages that touch our soul are available in the story of everyday lives, and are more readily picked-up by the conscious and subconscious when these lives are not our own but those “on stage”, where we can watch and experience without attachment, but with the deep understanding of “that is me.”
To paraphrase Joseph Campbell, “The ultimate mystery of life and death transcends all categories of knowledge and thought. You can’t explain it. Yet that which transcends all explanation, is the very essence of your own being...your Soul as it were, so you're resting on it and you know it.”
When you see Truth on the screen, you know it. It resonates with you and you recognize yourself in it.
Campbell is quoted as saying, “The function of mythological symbols (in this case, characters played by actors) is to give you a sense of ‘Aha! Yes. I know what it is, it's myself.’ This is what it's all about.”
According to Campbell, Myth puts you in touch with a plane of reference that goes past your mind, and into your very being, into your very gut.
The screenplays we work from contain these Myths. When we come from truth; this will be where we reach our audience, in their deepest, instinctively felt emotions or responses (as distinct from their rational or logical responses.)
Acting within a story only becomes mundane when put into the hands of actors who do not understand the power at their fingertips! Life and Death, this is what all stories are rooted in. As actors we can elevate our work to move and touch the Souls of humanity if we stop fighting this, in order to be “natural” -- and give in to the truth and power of Myth.
Campbell went on to say, “...a harmonization of our lives with the order of nature is what's required. The order of nature is demonstrated through Myth.”
How ridiculous then that actors should try to be “more natural” in their roles by suppressing the Myth within their given script! To take out the drive for Love, Life and Passion is to make worthless any story. It is to take away the richness of beauty and significance of ordinary life, for this is what it is to be human and be alive.
This is true, not just here in the USA, but globally.
Joseph Campbell said, “in terms of the sociological aspects of mythology, we should see the total, global, society as the community of interest. The total globe is our society.”
He is right. It is a global public that is watching our broadcasts. Humanity is who we represent, and at the same time, it is who we are “teaching.”
When respected television broadcaster Bill Moyers suggested to his producers a series of dialogues with mythologist Joseph Campbell, they lambasted the idea.
The public wouldn’t be interested, Moyers was told. Undaunted, Moyers went looking for his own funding and eventually produced the series.
It turned out to be the most popular program in the history of public television! Everyday people were drawn to the universal truths of mythical stories. They provided a way to legitimately think about their spiritual journey.
People will talk openly about sex, money, politics…anything but God. Not that they’re ashamed; there’s simply a shyness about discussing matters of the soul.
That, however is changing, says Young, a clinical psychologist, Joseph Campbell’s archivist and an expert on sacred stories. “Society is reconnecting with universal patterns that move the human heart and soul,” Young writes.
Great acting gives us clues about how to roam the peaks and valleys of our lives.
The Mythology within the stories up on the screen at the movies or on television allow us to reconnect with dimensions beyond ordinary time. Finding the “eternal characters” involved in “primal adventures” (Life, Love, Death) within the story elevates it without changing a single word.
Coming at the stories from this universal truth, makes the world accessible to dealing with issues that are too large to grasp in a single lifetime. Their is a synergistic grasping that changes the thought patterns of the world.
This can provide perspectives that go beyond trendy concerns with possessions or appearance, to those that really make a difference in the world.
It’s not hard to see why people are shy about discussing their spiritual lives, they are afraid of being ostracized when the most dominant god in the West is wealth and materialism.
But as western civilization heads into somewhat of a decline, there is less preoccupation with progress. In the search for meaning, people are turning inwards and towards nature to find some answers. “That opens the door to sacred stories,” says Young.
Myth is not only in movies like “Star Wars” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, it’s there in movies like the one written by my friend Frank Darabont, “Shawshank Redemption”.
Whether it’s simple stories like parables, or complex creation myths, where the imagination is allowed free rein, a whole new collection of images appear.
“This is one way the angels speak to us,” says Young. “The pass key is receptivity. If we can be open to this divine flow and reflect on the meanings it presents to us, the inner life is greatly enriched.
If we look closely at the stories that have mattered to us, we can find an enormous amount about what we're up to in this life and/or about what we are to do.
“The stories that resonate with us are what is in our nature,” Jonathan Young said. To those curious about their own stories, Young suggests the following exercise:
Take a separate sheet of paper for each five years of your life and write down the stories that made an impression on you. This includes television commercials, song lyrics, movies, bedtime stories as well as works of fiction and nonfiction. Don't do it in one sitting. More stories will come to you over time. You'll probably have a lot of variety, but look for similar threads running through your lists.
Campbell, himself, called knowing what stories grab you, a way of following your bliss - what you are passionate about, what you're good at, what captivates you. Going after your passion is really hard work, and also seemingly full of risks, but you need to do it.
Campbell said that when you follow your bliss, doors will open, help will come, things will be possible. This was very true for him. He made what society might call the 'wrong choices,' he passed up all kinds of things - a doctorate, good teaching posts - and still he became world famous because he was so good at what he did
If your story lists are filled with comedy and humor, maybe you're a trickster who likes bumping things to see what happens. If you loved biographies of Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale, perhaps you are a healer.
There are two reasons to know your story, says Young. One is to appreciate it, to celebrate it, to know what a wonderful novel that you're living, he says. If you aren't the star, if you see yourself as a supporting character, you're in the wrong story!
All stories, says Young, have symbolic meaning, hidden wisdom that illuminates the soul’s yearnings to go home to its beloved.
Stories teach how to pay attention to everything that happens in life and perceive the options available. This attribute may come to the forefront and rescue us on some fateful day when circumstances require deeper thought.
Coming back to the same story time after time reveals new meanings. Moreover, every person seeks to find that single story that speaks most profoundly about their own life. Ultimately, he says, “We each have the opportunity to shape a novel of great complexity that stays fascinating to the last scene.”
If ya wanna read more from Young, See:
http://www.folkstory.com/campbell/riverside.html

For those who don’t know, Campbell's life was a passionate intellectual journey. His college years were spent at Columbia University, Paris and Munich, where he discovered the ideas of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung as well as James Joyce, Thomas Mann and modern art. For five years, he intensively studied the imagination. At every turn, Campbell met the interesting thinkers of the time - many of whom became friends, from the philosopher Krishnamurti to Carl Jung. Campbell recognized the parallels between mythic themes in literature (including film and television screenplays), religion, and psychological lessons such as those revealed in dreams.
When “The Power of Myth” television series with Joseph Campbell was broadcast, millions of people were inspired by the wisdom of the late mythologist. Many lives were deeply changed by this amazing teacher. The world found out that this man's message was a great treasure of our time.
As his influence grows, Joseph Campbell seems destined to join Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung as one of this century's great disseminators of the psychological wisdom of mythology.

Among his many books are The Hero with a Thousand Faces, The Masks Of God, Myths To Live By, and the multi-volume Historical Atlas Of World Mythology. For more on Joseph Campbell go to:

http://www.folkstory.com/campbell/scholars_life.html

The season begins...

Wed, 6 Sep 2006 12:41:44 -0700

Labor Day is over and now it is time to start doing some!
I promised myself to at least take 15 minutes out today to add to this site. It is hard to find the time to sit down at the computer and write. So many of my clients have been having various successes, and I get so excited I just can’t wait to jot down a note about it here...but then I’ve got another client at the door, and then school’s out and Cali’s home needing me, and then finally, it is late and the day is over and I just wanna chill.

Ah, but here I am. First, let me recommend a quick look over at the Client News section, where I have spent 10 of my 15 minutes updating a couple of fun new stories.
Secondly, let me tell you that I am listening. I have been asked by quite a few of you if I would put together a workshop in the month of October. DONE!

This On-Camera workshop will sharpen your audition technique skills, as well as hone your ability to “focus your mind”. Right now, the workshop is intended to be five weeks of Sunday evenings, starting October 1st and ending October 29th...however exact dates and times are negotiable depending upon the response we receive from actor/students interested in participating.

If you would like to join us, please contact me by e-mail through this web site. (Class size is limited to 12 students.) Let’s remind ourselves how to play.

“Mainely” on vacation

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:20:30 -0700

Although, as I sit here on the Ogunquit beach, I am editing the scenes I shot for some clients demo reels, I truly am, for the most part, on vacation. Yup, I can edit on my Mac laptop. Isn’t technology wonderful? I just hope I don’t get sand in my keyboard.
Now, I know some of you whom I shot scenes for before I left were disappointed that I couldn’t edit them for your reels prior to getting on my plane. However, I believe that you will be happier that I didn’t rush to do so, as the end product will be so much better. When I return with your edited material for your demo reels, it will look like an actual film complete with sound effects and music. I simply could not do the quality of work that I demand of myself if I had tried to finish them before I left. Plus, I am so happy and carefree here at the beach that I find myself enjoying the process more. Because of this, I am taking more time weighing out which take is truly superior, making more edits which, of course, adds to the production value, and spending infinite time and energy fine tuning performances through creative editing! (It’s amazing what a difference a good editor makes!) I am convinced that, at the end of the day, you’ll be glad that you chose to give me the extra time.
I thank-you again for your patience and can’t wait to show you each the work I have done. Here’s to your increased success through a stronger demo-reel! Oh, yeah...and I’ll be back Aug. 17th.

-Crystal

Luck O’ the Irish to ya, now

Mon, 1 May 2006 17:37:17 -0700

The Irish really ARE lucky, according my clients who are having trouble scheduling a coaching session with me. I am teaching a thirteen day (the Irish cancel out the inauspiciousness of the time frame) 5-hours-per-day acting workshop. These actors, from Dublin, Ireland, have been working internationally and are preparing to break into the American market. Our industry has grown a diversity jones in the last few years that has opened up more possibilities for foreign actors to work here in Hollywood. They need to know what is expected at an audition, how our unions work, the similarities and differences of the two markets, I am answering that need at the Margie Haber Studios from April 19th - May 31st. I am happy to coach before each workshop begins at 10am or after class at 3-ish...at the Margie Haber Studio in West Hollywood or at my place in the beautiful San Fernando Valley. See, kiss the Blarney Stone and the luck rubs off on you! Cheers!

“Look at me, I’m so cool, blah blah blah...!”

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 09:43:36 -0700

Okay, so that’s Crystal’s take on my putting this out here. As her publicist, I thought it might be nice for those of you checking out this site to know a little more about her. Yes, she is a brilliant acting coach, but she is so much more: This is a little piece I like to call: Crystal Carson - Awards, recognitions, civic honors and presentations
Written by Michael Wallis - Publicist

In a relatively short period of time, September 1991-November 1994, Crystal Carson earned an outstanding reputation on ABC Television's popular daytime drama, “General Hospital”. Not only was she immediately voted "Best New Female Character" by Soap Opera Digest magazine, she was put on their cover as one of "Television's Most Beautiful Women".

Crystal's compelling portrayal of the entrepreneur, Julia Barrett, was both powerful and appealing, as is attested by her nomination for "Best Female Newcomer" on the televised Soap Opera Digest Awards in 1992.

At the 1993 Northwest Soap Awards in Cincinnati, Crystal was presented with both the Best Actress Award, and the Favorite Couple Award for her work with Tony Geary. After her contract ran out in ’94, Crystal was asked by ABC to return to the show as Julia for several months each year, which she did until 1998.

Charity has been apart of Crystal’s life since she was young. She has continuously offered her personal finances, time and energy toward finding a cure for cancer. While on General Hospital, Crystal tirelessly worked as a "Celebrity Against Cancer" for the American Cancer Society, receiving her first acknowledgement in 1991, as the San Fernando Unit’s “Volunteer of the year”.

In March1992, as part of the Lincoln sesquetennial celebration, Crystal was handed the Key to the City by then-mayor, Mike Johanns in appreciation for using her celebrity status to benefit the National American Cancer Society, as well as, for reflecting a positive light on her hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska.

The Los Angeles American Cancer Society voted Crystal the “1993 Outstanding Communicator" after numerous committee chairs in and around Los Angeles sought out Crystal for her speaking ability, engaging her to promote cancer awareness at their events, as well as, several local and national publications printed articles featuring Crystal and her work with the ACS.

Crystal raised over one million dollars for cancer research by founding and dedicating six years as the Celebrity Chair of her own annual event, "Take A Chance With The Stars"—a celebrity casino night where over 50 major celebrities attended as dealers! This star-studded gala was voted "Best Outside Sponsored Event" in1995 by the LA ACS, and was featured in many magazines, radio spots, and on the local news channels as well as featured on E!.

In 2001, Crystal was honored with the Los Angeles American Cancer Society’s “Person of the year award” for her continuing support in the fight against cancer and was recognized with a letter of acknowledgement by then-Los Angeles Mayor, Richard Riordan.

Voted to serve on the National Board of AFTRA (an actor's union) by her peers in the TV industry, Crystal completed her three-year term in July of 2001.

Lastly, Crystal offers her skills to the Prince of Peace Episcopal Church, where she and her family have attended services for many years, by teaching Sunday school and volunteering as a leader of MOPs (Mother’s of Preschoolers) with her 5 year old daughter, Cali.

So, now you know...she is kinda cool. We’ll see if Crystal actually leaves this up. :)

“Speech! Speech!!”

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 22:15:27 -0700

http://lse.lps.org/alumni/distinguished.htm
Recently I was honored by my high school, Lincoln Southeast in Lincoln, Nebraska! During the two day event, I gave a speech to the “all school assembly”. I used my experience as an acting coach and examples from my life working with YOU. The response was overwhelmingly positive, so I decided to share it with you. Besides, it took a long time to research and write the thing, so I wanna get some more milage out of it!
Here goes:

When I thought about coming up to talk with you today, I wanted to be good. I wanted to be compelling so you would be excited to listen to me, and would walk away with a feeling of having received something of value.
So, I started thinking of the questions that people always asked me. Like, oh, “What was it like acting with Madonna—I heard she is a pain because of her ego, is that true?” Or “How long have you been in the film and television industry--Do you know some good Hollywood gossip you could tell?”
As I began jotting down all the nastiest dirt I have on all the famous people I know, I realized that while I would probably hold your attention, I doubted that I would really leave you with something of value. Or that I would have any friends left if any of this leaked back to Hollywood.
Which got me to thinking about what I was doing. If it bleeds, it leads is a famous quote from TV news. But why?
Why is there so much violence and negativity on TV, and in the movies? Well, just like with me…whenever someone is talking to someone else, there is a pressure to make the communication worth listening to.

This pressure encourages
the speaker to adjust the
delivery to make a better
story. Even without any
malicious intent — and
this applies to media as
well as to your friends —
when telling any story, the
pressure on the commun-
icator will naturally cause him to emphasize the important parts and downplay the trivial details. And good things seem, for the most part, trivial. This doesn't necessarily make the story negative, but since negative news is more attention-getting, the stories most likely to be passed along are the ones that are the most negative.

Because of our biology, we deem the negative information to be more interesting and more important.
If your ancestors listened to the story of the Sabertooth tiger that just mauled a caveman, then they had a better shot at living then those ancestors who were listening to the story about a pretty butterfly…
Researchers at the University of Essex in England found that people who were even mildly anxious were more fixated by threatening images than they were by other images. --Threatening images capture their attention quickly and they have a harder time taking their attention away from them.
So, think about it, if I feed you tv promos that up your anxiety level, you will be more inclined to watch my shows.
Moreover, if I can now add to that stress with some negative imagery; maybe a newscast that is full of impending doom or a TV show that is loaded with horrific violence…I can keep you from changing the channel longer.

So, beautiful. You’re interested and having a good time and the Networks are making dough, and my acting clients are wearing more bling, so It’s all good, Dawg, aw-ite…?

Not so much. It is because of watching television that we get the impression that a pessimistic, cynical, defeatist point of view is normal. We have been influenced to think and talk more negatively than we otherwise would have.

People of your age group are especially influenced by what they perceive to be the norm. We all want to belong.

Therefore, the way we think and talk to each other in general has a negative bias — television has already had an influence on most of us in this room.

I tell the actors that I coach that they have a very important job in society, more so now than at any other time, because Americans watch and listen to their televisions more than they do to live human beings.

It would be difficult to underestimate the influence of television on attitudes in our culture.

And that affects your future.

In my introduction they mentioned that I am an acting coach. What that means is I help actors prepare for their auditions and screen tests, and sometimes I work with them on the movies and TV shows that they book.

My clients intermittently include over 50 working actors, including David Boreanaz (Bones), Vanessa Marcil (Las Vegas), Rachel Nichols (Alias, Amityville Horror), Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica), Brian White (The Family Stone), Brittney Daniel (Joe Dirt, White Chicks), and Jennifer Beals (L Word), to name just a few.

They all know that following your dream is stressful.

Being an actor in Los Angeles is stressful. Auditioning, taken as a whole, is an inherently negative event, because anyone will eventually be rejected more than they will be accepted or hired. No matter how good they are, for reasons beyond talent, no actor can book most of the jobs they get out on. (They’ll be too tall / too short / too thin…yeah, no, strike that.) The point is, actors, like anyone else who is following their dream, hit a lot of obstacles. This causes stress, and with our human brains automatically fixating on the negative thoughts whenever it’s stressed…well, you can see the problem.
Now, if you’ll permit me a few more facts. I know this is school and facts just get in the way, but I’m being honored -so deal with it.
Okay, coming from a completely different angle, the researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (who’ll I’ll now refer to only as MC, yo) discovered something…along the same lines.
He found that when your mind isn't engaged in anything in particular, it tends to drift randomly. (Kind of like yours are probably doing right now.) Anyone who’s ever done a yoga class or tried to meditate already knows this. Thoughts of all kinds stream through an idle mind.
But eventually, in its random meandering, the mind will happen to think of something negative, and then guess what happens? It’s drawn to it. It sticks.
The mind stops meandering and sticks on the negative thought because negative thoughts fixate attention with more…stickiness than positive or neutral thoughts.
We get caught in the…worried or angry thought; and it doesn't pass by like a neutral or positive thought might.
Naturally, and even against our will, we give threatening information extra attention.
This kept us alive as cavemen, now it tends to give us cancer, but I digress…Because there’s more bad news!
(Have I got your attention?) Because of the way our brains are constructed, we make certain kinds of mistakes.
For example; human brains like yours and mine tend to over generalize and see the world in patterns.
I have been known to complain that my husband, Peter, doesn’t put things in the trash. He will make himself a sandwich, and then leave on the counter the plastic wrapper from around the cheese, the empty mayo jar, and possibly an empty coke can. All this on the counter right above the trash can!! It drives me crazy! Now, truthfully, Peter is a wonderful chef who cleans the kitchen immaculately quite often, but that is good news, so it doesn’t really register with me the way the stuff that drives me crazy does. In my mind it feels like he NEVER cleans up after he cooks something—that is an over generalization.
Researchers at Duke University Medical Center hooked people up to MRI machines (to track the blood flow in the brain) and flashed, who’d a believed it, but PICTURES in front of them. The pictures were not so interesting this time, they were of either a square or a circle. They were asked to push a button in their right hand when they saw the square, and push the button in their left hand for the circle.
The squares and circles were coming up in a random order, but of course short patterns would sometimes emerge — a string of all squares, for example.
Now these people were given no reward for detecting patterns. They were not asked to detect patterns. In fact, they were told the pictures would be flashed randomly.
Every person’s brains automatically, and very quickly detected and generalized patterns so that when they were wrong, it was difficult to get their brains to believe it—and therefore the volunteers had a slower reaction time whenever an expected pattern was broken.
Seeing patterns can be a good thing. Every time I go into a dinosaur’s cave he attacks me. Good to know. Your ability to recognize a face comes from your brain's ability to complete a pattern with minimal clues. It has been exceedingly challenging to create computers that can do it. Your brain is so good at completing a pattern that, even in dim light — even if you can only see half of the face — you recognize immediately who it is.
But this amazing ability also sometimes causes us to see patterns that DON’T really exist.
We see a horse in the clouds, or a man in the moon. Our brains can take the most scant clues and see a pattern, without our making even the smallest effort to do so.
Now, especially given our brains' bias toward negativity, unless we intercept it, we automatically tend to see patterns that are bad, that create worry, pessimism, cynicism, and defeatism — patterns our brains create out of minimal clues — patterns that don't actually exist.
And just like my actors, high school students going out in the world might believe they’re not talented, or not good enough to live their dreams because of a short pattern of rejection they make to mean something.
Your brain naturally and automatically looks at the world and your own memory as if it is trying to confirm whatever conclusions you've already drawn.
Peter looks for his watch in the drawer where he keeps it. Before he looks, he decideds it probably isn’t there. And, lo and behold, he is right. He then asks me if I have seen his watch. I go to the drawer and pull it out. He is astonished.
HE BELIEVES HE CAN NEVER FIND HIS WATCH… so he can’t. Why can wives and mother’s find the things that you are looking for, in the exact same place where you were looking them, but couldn’t see them? Because we’re MAGIC?? Well, yes, but also because we expect to find them.
Because of your brain’s negative bias, you might be drawn to a negative thoughts about yourself. You then see a pattern that doesn't really exist, overgeneralize about it in a negative way, and form a conclusion so fast you don't even know you're doing it. Then hold on and defend your conclusion even when you get evidence against it.

Say, one of my acting clients, or maybe one of you high school students here, concludes that something negative about your talent or abilities is true. The sad news is that no matter what I, or anyone else says, you will defend it like it is “an absolute”! You will unconsciously choose, based on nothing more than a random believe, to begin to only NOTICE EVIDENCE that supports your awful conclusion about yourself. And you will explain away or ignore any information that invalidates it; and not only in the present, but also in your memory of how things went before!
So, you may be rejected by someone or told your idea won’t work and suddenly decide that “you’ve never really had any talent” or you’ve “always had bad ideas. You’ll downplay any evidence to the contrary. “Oh, well, those people who thought I had good ideas were lame. Or yeah, I had a little success but that was when I was a freshmen so that doesn’t even count.”
In a test of the Berkeley swim team, those who overgeneralized about their failure defeated themselves, deflating their drive and worsening their performance. They were given a failure experience and then tested again. Those who overgeneralized about the failure swam the next heat slower. They had defeated themselves with their own explanation. They had taken the wind out of their sails by overgeneralizing. They explained their failure with things like, "I'm a slow swimmer" or "I'm a loser" rather than being more specific: "I swam that one too slow."
When you use the words, “Always, or Never, or lable yourself a negative name, you are Overgeneralizing.
Overgeneralizing causes despair and hopelessness. The researcher Martin Seligman and his colleagues have discovered that the two most deadly assumptions you can make about a setback is: The cause of the setback is permanent: "This is always going to be here," or "There's no way out of it" or pervasive: "It has ruined everything," or "My life is over."
These are overgeneralizations that evoke feelings of demoralization. They make you want to give up. That's usually not a very useful response to make to a setback.
When Marilyn Monroe's contract elapsed in 1949, Columbia Pictures did not extend it or make a new one. Why? Because producer Harry Cohen thought Marilyn Monroe "lacked star quality."
When I was first learning to act, I had some embarrassing moments. But I also had many good moments. I made an overgeneralization that blocked out the good moments. I said to myself, "I’m not a good auditioner, because I get too nervous." And that thought made me more nervous than I needed to be, creating still more embarrassing moments than I would have had otherwise. Overgeneralizing the bad very often makes things worse. It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Your brain has a natural tendency to generalize. Remember that. Remind yourself of it. It'll keep you from getting stuck. When writing this speech, I was thinking up examples, one after the other, and writing them down. Then I started writing one down but I stopped because it was a stupid example. I crumpled it up, realizing this was the first one I'd crumpled. Then I thought, "Maybe I'm out of good examples." After one instance!
The method is simple: When you feel doubtful or anxious or angry or frustrated or worried, look into your thinking and see if you can find an overgeneralization.
They are hard to detect because you assume whatever you think is true. It would be easy to detect if someone was angry at you and said something like, "You never wash the dishes." The first thing you'd think of is all the times you washed the dishes.
The moment you discover an overgeneralization in your thinking — the moment you recognize your thought as an overgeneralization — your negative feelings start t o diminish. The negative feelings were being generated by your mistaken assumption. When you recognize your mistake, your feelings change.
And I’ll tell you another thing I tell the actors who come to me after not booking on a couple of auditions—I remind them when they tell me that they think they’ll NEVER make it. –That that’s an overgerneralization…And telling other people makes it even worse.
In one experiment, people were asked to determine the length of a line.
One group was told to decide it in their heads; another group was told to write it on a Magic Pad (those pads for children that erase what you wrote when you lift up the top sheet) and then erase it before anyone saw it; and a third group was told to write their conclusions on a piece of paper, sign it, and give it to the researcher.
Then the subjects were given information indicating their first conclusion was wrong… and they were given an opportunity to change their decision.
Those who decided in their heads changed their conclusions immediately; those who wrote it on the Magic Pad were a little more reluctant to change their minds; and those who declared their conclusions publicly remained convinced their first conclusion was correct regardless of the evidence to the contrary.
Their feeling of certainty was an illusion; it wasn't related to their conclusion's accuracy. It was being influenced by another factor — how publicly they had made their conclusions.
One day an actor came to me with an audition where he would be reading with a certain casting director with whom I had had issues. To protect my client, I warned him of how awful this Casting Director was, and not to take it personally when this certain Casting Director didn’t listen or was rude or all the other rotten things he “always did to every actor who reads for him”.
As it turns out, I had also done this favor for five other clients to help them out. And sure enough, all five had come back with their own horrific tragic stories and not a one received a single call-back for a job.
This time, I suddenly realized in mid-sentence, there was a slight possibility that I was over generalizing about this Casting Director.
So, I quickly lied to my client and informed him of this Casting Directors recent commitment to therapy. I told him of how he had changed his ways and really started caring for actors. That he had grown in his respect for the craft of acting and in his understanding of the difficulty of auditioning. I said that now actors were sure to find a Casting Director full of admiration and receptive to creativity before them…sure enough, this actor reported feeling pleasure and approval from this CD and got an immediate call-back.
This actor had the Casting Director “occur to him” as helpful and kind, instead of over generalizing that he was evil. If the Casting Director had been rotten to him, he probably would have figured the guy was having an off day and wrote it off, rather than continuing to live into the over generalized “truth” that he was evil. What we believe often serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The tendency to over generalize is built into the design of our brain. But there is a cure for it. The cure is simple: Catch yourself over generalizing. Over and over and over. Keep it up and your tendency will gradually diminish.
The real trick is to keep reminding yourself to catch yourself over a period of time. It won't work to remember it for a week and then forget about it. Extended effort is what is required.
Here are some ideas to help you remember over time:
1. Ask your girlfriend/boyfriend or brothers and sisters to catch you. We often say our over generalizations out loud, and siblings, especially, will work overtime to catch you doing something wrong. You can use that evil force for good.
2. Put a message on your screen saver using the Scrolling Marquee.
3. Get an alarm clock that wakes you up by playing a cassette tape. Record a message about over generalizing and it will remind you first thing every morning.
4. Write OVER GENERALIZING –STOP IT! on a card and carry it with you.
5. Post a note on your bathroom mirror.
Use a system to remember to catch yourself over generalizing, again and again, and over a period of time. Your tendency to over generalize will dwindle away. As it does, you'll experience negative feelings less often and less intensely. In other words, you'll feel good more often. And who doesn't want that?
You may now realize this would be a great thing to change in your thinking. But then you think, "I'll never follow through on it — I'm not persistent enough about stuff like that." That is an over generalization. --So, STOP IT!!

Coaching Thoughts

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 00:15:22 -0800

So, I was sitting around thinking about how freaked out my clients can sometimes get when I grab their sides and tell them to “Make it up.”
It is, I suppose, a perfectly understandable reaction, given that they don’t know the material yet. However, when they trust me, they find they learn the material so much faster and in such a more profound way.

If you memorize your lines, not only do you waste valuable time you could be using to “do your homework on your history”, but the tendency is to set how you will deliver those lines. It’s a heady process that can too easily become intellectualized. I like to work with actors in a more organic way. Never having them learn the lines by rote, but by deepening their understanding of the character and circumstances, having them learn the lines “by heart.”

Together, we visualize the actor’s history as the character. From that given backstory, the character’s intention in this moment becomes evident. The actor takes this on, and then allows what I’m saying as the other character to trigger him to think about what to say in response in order to win the objective. The actor doesn’t know what's coming until the other character gives it to him or her. It feels internally spontaneous each time. It is an improv game that ends up with the actor “accidentally” coming up with the exact lines of the script. Quickly and effortlessly, what you think your lines might be evolve in to what the lines indeed are.

Because the actor experiences the thought patterns of the character, the lines soon become known as the clearest way to express what they need to say; resulting in a spontaneous, deeply felt experience. One in which the actor never jumps ahead to the next line or action, nor lags behind in order to judge themselves. He or she simply stays in the present, goes after what s/he wants, while dodging the objections of the other character.

Now it is time to give the actor back the script. With sides in hand, the actor again listens carefully to what the other character is giving him or her, thinks about what his or her response might be, physically responds (while at the same time looks down at the page to see what the lines actually are, if need be and then looks up) and speaks.

What a wonderful way to be in the moment, to be connected, to listen, to have sub-text...all the things that make acting fun and real.

New Video Service available

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 11:10:04 -0800

When you need to put yourself “on tape”, you need it done yesterday! We decided to start this service when the editing facility to which we referred clients, doubled their prices for “rush service”. I’ve had actors working with me in the wee hours of the night to get a last minute audition put “on tape”, finishing up after the editing facilities close! What a comfort it is to my clients to walk out of my place with their best work in hand ready to send to whomever requested it - DONE!

Check out our Video Services page for details!