CHAPTER 5

The Skin and the Overall

So, here’s the movie scene: An actress walks down a cobblestone alley at night, the bare white skin of her back and arms glistening in the streetlamp’s glow as she slithers down the street in her little black dress and high-heeled shoes. She sees the man she loves, and the camera lingers on her face. We see that she is torn between running to him and running away from him. He sees her, and they approach each other. They argue about something that has happened earlier that evening. They look like they might start hitting each other. It’s very emotional, and instead of hitting each other, they start kissing passionately. They decide to go home together, and they walk arm in arm in the moonlight. It is all beautifully shot and very romantic. As we watch them from the comfort of our chair, we engage in the fantasy of the beautiful lovers on the screen. We take part in their passion and longing, but we do not take part in their reality as screen actors.

The scene probably took twelve to fourteen hours to shoot. It is an exterior shot (filmed outside) and was originally scheduled to be shot in late August. Due to various conflicts of time and money, it is now being shot in early November. The movie takes place in the summer, so the wardrobe and atmosphere reflect the appropriate weather conditions. On the night of the actual shoot, it is forty degrees and very damp. The actors are freezing, especially the actress, stunning in her fashionable, short, backless cocktail dress and high heels. After about an hour of shooting, her feet are numb, and when the camera is not rolling, she shivers under the coat the wardrobe mistress has on hand for her, as she stands beside a portable gas heater that the production assistant has placed there. The director and the camera crew wear parkas and flannel, clothing appropriate to the weather. Sure, there is a place for her to go to, to get warm between setups, but she cannot go there between takes. She must stay close to the set, ready to step in front of the camera, into the world of the warm summer’s night filled with passion, conflict, and delight.

If for no other reason than to use on a night of filming like the one described, you should learn the sense memory series of the Overall. You could use one of these sense memories to cloak yourself in the imaginary warmth of a summer’s night and keep your concentration on the scene, instead of on the fact that you are freezing. If you have learned how to engage your skin in the realms of your sensorial imagination, then you will be able to create the body language appropriate to a warm summer’s night, rather than that of an actor going numb with cold. This is a good beginning exercise to do in preparation for the Animal Exercise that I describe later in the book.

THE OVERALL

We are encased in the largest organ of our bodies, our skin. The skin has two layers, the outer layer, called the epidermis, which has no feelings, and the inner layer, sometimes called the true skin, which is highly vascular and sensitive. We will be dealing with this highly sensitive and vascular part of the skin’s qualities in this chapter and how it can be used in the sense memory series of the Overall.

An Overall is a condition that can be experienced over all of the surface of the skin at one time. It also includes the sympathetic reactions that these conditions cause in the rest of the body. The best example of an Overall is nakedness. Nakedness is the ultimate Overall, because it is a condition that is clearly experienced over the entire surface of the skin and certainly creates sympathetic reactions in the rest of the body. Many things that we do naked are also a part of this sense memory series like shower, bath, sauna, and steam room. Weather conditions are also Overalls, conditions like rain, sunshine, wind, or extreme cold. All of these conditions are external conditions that are experienced over the surface of the skin through the sensation of touch. When used literally, the creation of these external conditions through sense memory can be very useful for an atmosphere that may be necessary in a film scene, as in the example I mentioned above. Metaphorically, they can be used to create a character or a reaction needed for a specific shot. It is the metaphoric aspect of these sense memories that makes them of special interest.

I will give you several different examples of an Overall and explain how to create a sense memory on the skin. Once you have done one or two Overalls, it is easy to take on others, as the system of creating each one is similar.

Nakedness

As I said before, nakedness is the ultimate Overall and, therefore, a good place to start. If you have never done this type of exercise before, you should be aware that almost anything can happen. It is also possible that nothing happens or that your reactions are minimal. Each person has strengths and weaknesses when it comes to sense memory, which means that there are people for whom certain exercises do almost nothing. If you find that to be the case with one Overall, try another. If none of them work for you, go on to something else. Always give yourself at least two two-hour sessions of working on an exercise before you decide that it’s not working for you.

To begin working on Nakedness, you must of course start, as always, with the Relaxation.

1. Do the Mental Relaxation exercises for about twenty minutes.

2. When you are ready to start to focus your concentration, stand up and turn your focus to the parts of your body that tend to be naked all the time. That would generally be your face, your hands, your neck, possibly your arms, and very often your feet and parts of your legs.

3. Pick one part of the body, like a naked arm for instance, and concentrate on the skin and how it feels being exposed to the air. Move the arm in space slowly, while keeping the breath high in the chest.

4. Once you have a sense of your skin being naked on that arm, move to the other parts of your body that are also naked, like your cheeks and forehead, and try to discern the same feeling of nakedness that you felt on your arm.

5. Take the sensation that you can identify on your naked skin and start to move your concentration to the skin surfaces that are beneath your clothes. If you start with the portion of your arm that is naked, then move slowly up the arm to the shoulder that is covered by the cloth of your shirt. First, you feel the skin and the cloth touching it—the actual reality must be accepted first—then move the sensation of nakedness that you pinpointed on the actual naked skin to the area of skin in the shoulder area that is covered by clothing.

6. Move very slowly in this process, starting with a shoulder and moving slowly down the back. The checking process is incorporated into this exercise by the comparison of sensations on the truly naked skin to the area of skin that you are focusing on. The question that is posed: If this is how the skin on my naked hand feels in reality, how would that sensation feel if it was the skin on my lower back? If this is how the skin on my cheek feels, then how would it feel if it was the skin on my inner thigh? And so on.

7. The object is a “connect the dots” game. The parts of the body that are naked all the time in public are taken for granted in the Western world; we don’t even think of these parts as being naked, but they are. If we can connect this feeling of nakedness over the entire body, we have the beginnings of this exercise.

8. The more private the part of the body, the harder it is to achieve the sensation of nakedness. Remember, though, that the state of nakedness is self-explanatory: no clothing at all. In order to achieve this state, we must concentrate on the skin over every part of our bodies, including the genitalia. It should not be an easy process, but rather one laden with all kinds of surprises.

9. The body must be in constant motion while working on Nakedness, especially the part of the body on which your attention is focused. The movement is not large, but it is movement all the same. You should avoid becoming stiff or overwhelmed by the sensation. When my students start to connect to a sensation and begin allowing that sensation to travel to different parts of their bodies, they tend to become afraid of moving their bodies. They are under the impression that movement will dissipate the sensation. They have to learn how to deepen the concentration, so that movement deepens the sensation and makes it more reliable. I always tell them they look like the extras in Night of the Living Dead. Sensory work should be fluid and alive, not stiff and zombie-like. Only if it is fluid can it be used for acting purposes.

You may ask yourself, why work on something like Nakedness in the first place? At first, you work on an exercise like this to develop your sensory instrument, so that it will respond to your imagination more fully when it is given a command. An exercise like Nakedness incorporates the whole of the body; no area can be left out. As an actor, you are able to literally explore every inch of your external self and discover what kinds of responses are there for you to use for future reference.

An exercise like Nakedness could make you feel very confident and sexual. It could take away your inhibitions and make you move in a way that would normally elude you. This way of movement could be used to create the Skin and the Overall basic movement of a character. On the other hand, Nakedness could make you feel shy and intimidated, which could also be used for the basic movement for a character. It doesn’t matter what the reactions are, what is important is that they be truthful, consistent, and reliable. In order to get a response that is reliable, you have to work on the exercise for at least two weeks.

The basic movement of the character is an inner rhythm that is always present. This basic movement is not necessarily the character’s walk or grimace or a gesture that one associates with a theatrical performance. It is a much more subtle movement, an internal rhythm or “music” to which the character always moves. An Overall is an excellent way to begin to create this basic movement of a character.

Sunshine

Sunshine is one of the most popular sense memories, and one that everyone seems to be able to do very easily. Most of us associate the sun with good times, and we go into the exercise with expectations of pleasure, but Sunshine can be many things.

1. First, decide from which direction the sun is coming. Is it directly above you or on an angle in front of you? Place the sun in a realistic relationship to yourself.

2. Decide with which part of your body you are going to start and place that part in direct line with your imaginary sun source. I would suggest the hands or the face, preferably a cheek, which is the example that I will use. First, you must feel the sensations of the skin as it exists in the moment. To help you to do this, you centralize the area that you are working on. For instance, to centralize your concentration on your left cheek, begin by concentrating on your eyeballs and moving them around in their sockets. Now, concentrate only on the left eye. You know that your left cheek is just below your left eye, so move the concentration down from the eye to the cheek. Wriggle you nose, and feel its bone structure with your concentration (it’s best not to touch yourself with your hands, but rather to direct the concentration mentally). You know that your left cheek is to the left of your nose, so again, move the concentration to the left cheek. Be very specific when you centralize an area to begin working on it: below the left eye, left of the nose, etc. Don’t assume you know where something is—direct the concentration there without touching or looking at it.

3. Now, add the memory of sunshine to the area that you have specified and centralized. It should be very hot sunshine. Move the area around in the rays of your imaginary sun. Breathe into the sensations and impulses that occur as a result of this attempt.

4. Avoid sun-like behavior. In other words, do not take on the body language of someone who is sitting in the sun, e.g., lounging, relaxed on the beach, sunbathing while on vacation. None of that has anything to do with the Sunshine exercise. An Overall is a sensation on the skin, not a place. For some people, it takes a lot of concentration to separate the sensations of sun on the skin from the places with which they associate this activity in their minds. It’s important to separate the two experiences.

5. If you can feel the sun on your cheek, move the sensation to another area of the body, and see what happens. Keep moving the sensation of sun on the skin, until you find the area that has the greatest response. It could be anywhere on your body. For some people, the sun can be felt most intensely on their backs; for others, it may be their toes. It doesn’t matter where it is. What matters is that you feel the response and it is truthful. Once a response is truthful, you can usually depend on recreating it again and again.

The sensation of sunshine is thought of by most people to be used as a weather condition for acting. If it is supposed to be a sunny environment, actors act as if they were in the sun. They squint their eyes, lick their lips from thirst, and wipe away the sweat from their brow. All of these things would be called indicating. You use a gesture to indicate what is going on in the environment. These gestures are generally too stagey for the camera. Unless you are performing in high comedy, such indication of reality should be avoided by the screen actor. Although Sunshine could be used for the literal purpose of being in the sun, it is not the ultimate sense memory purpose of Sunshine.

Sunshine, like Nakedness, can have a myriad of affects on one who uses it as part of a character development. The response is so individual and the usage so broad that I could not describe it all here, except to say that each person creates the work anew and takes it further into the realm of unique creativity. Sense memory is a little like learning a new language; it is accumulative knowledge. Many things that make no sense whatsoever today will become perfectly clear and understandable tomorrow.

OTHER OVERALL EXAMPLES

Bath

Bath is a great Overall to do if you are experiencing a great deal of tension and pressure. You can do Bath either in a chair or by lounging on the floor with your back against the wall. Bath can be used for many states of mind that an actor may not be personally familiar with, like being very stoned or drunk. The Overall sense memory of Very Hot Bath could produce a drugged state.

Seat yourself in a chair and lean back. Imagine that you are immersed in hot water up to your neck, your head leaning comfortably on the side of the tub. Start from the top of your neck and work your way down your body. Try and feel the water all over your skin, as well as the smooth tub on your back and legs. Take your hand and hold it in front of you. See if you can feel the weight of the water and the buoyancy your hand would have if it were in the bath. Avoid creating the bathroom and moving into place. Try to stay within the realm of the sense of touch. You might try bringing in the sense of hearing and listen to the sound of the water as you move within the bath. Bringing in this sound often helps to create the whole bath experience.

Sauna/Steam Room

If you are not in the habit of going to the sauna or steam room regularly, then this is not a good exercise for you. The general rule is, only work with what you know. However, if you are a fan of either the sauna or steam room, this can be an excellent Overall.

First, choose which of the two you are going to work on. Once you have chosen, start by feeling the heat and how it affects your breathing, the hot air coming into your lungs and the quality of that air. It is moist if it’s the steam room and dry if it’s the sauna. The heat of these places causes the body to be under a certain type of pressure, which makes it difficult to move and speak. Try to recreate the feeling of the sweat beading on your skin or rolling down the small of your back.

You can bring the sense of smell into this exercise. Most saunas or steam rooms have a very specific odor, which you should try to isolate as you breathe in the hot air. The sound of the hissing steam or the coals coming on can also help to create the sensation on the skin. Avoid creating the place, and stay with the sensations on the skin, aided by the senses of hearing and smell.

Don’t forget to create the feeling of the benches or tiles of the sauna/steam room on your skin if you need to incorporate that to get the feeling of the heat. If you can accomplish the sensations of any condition for an Overall on your skin without moving into the other senses, then you should just stay with the sensations of touch. Never complicate matters more than necessary. If your instrument responds fully with very little stimulus, consider yourself lucky and move forward with a character or text.

Sauna/Steam Room can be a very interesting choice if you must tell someone something that is very difficult for you to tell them. It can also be used if you have a secret that is difficult for you to reveal or if you must admit to something you are ashamed of. These sense memories are meant to be a jump-start in the acting technique to help you be connected to truthful behavior. It doesn’t matter what the element of truth is—the camera is not a judge—but the truth must be there in some form; otherwise, the camera, in its objectivity, sees the lie.

Rain and Wind

The use of these two elements, either separately or together, produces very powerful results in some people. There are many combinations that can be used. Whatever you choose to do, be clear about your choice. For instance, you can use warm rain and soft wind, or strong cold wind alone, or cold rain with strong wind, etc.—you get the picture. You can also work on one separately. You work on Rain and Wind the same way that you work on Nakedness or Sunshine. You centralize an area of skin and then work on releasing the sensorial memory of the condition that you have chosen. You work slowly and systematically to “connect the dots” of the sensation on the areas of skin that respond to the sense memory.

When working on these Overalls, avoid moving the exercise into a place. As with Sunshine, the exercise should stay within the realm of your skin and not move into scenarios of places and events. In the initial stages of this work, you have to be certain to contain the exercise in order to discipline the concentration. Later, as you progress in this work, you can start combining sense memories and creating spaces.

SCENARIOS THAT INVADE YOUR CONCENTRATION

When a place or scenario (a memory of a particular event) comes up during the Overall exercise, you should acknowledge that it is occurring but not get involved in pursuing the imagination further into the story. Keep going back to the sensations of the skin and the proliferation of the Overall on the skin. The Inner Monologue is an excellent way of acknowledging an invading place or scenario. Use the Inner Monologue to express the frustration and difficulty that you have concentrating on your objective—feeling the sun on your skin. Physical movement such as “shaking it out” or jumping up and down can also help an errant concentration get back on track. If you drop your Overall, shake it out, then begin again. You would go back to the last thing that you were connected to, the last thing that worked before you got distracted by a story or place.

It is imperative to train the concentration to stay with that which you have directed it to do and not allow it to wander through the whole of your subconscious at will. There’s nothing wrong with letting the concentration wander around like that if you are just sitting somewhere and musing at the sky, but it is generally a waste of time for an actor, because it is too introspective and self-absorbed. It’s not a productive sense memory that one can draw from and use for a character in a professional acting environment. It’s just self-indulgent mind play, which has to be done on your free time, not when you are working.

If you find yourself wandering too much during an exercise and cannot keep your concentration focused even though you try, there may be some things that you need to fix. The sense memory choice may be connected to something that is too traumatic for your emotional state and, therefore, useless to you as an actor. You may need to make a different choice or move to a different type of exercise altogether. We must listen to ourselves, and when the system comes under stress, it usually notifies us by taking us far away from the dangerous area, or it keeps bringing us back to the same place over and over again. If the latter occurs, it is because there is something that needs to be discovered in that place and is useful. Often, we will have to compartmentalize such a space and make a note that this place will have to be fully investigated in the future. Set time aside to do this work, but don’t allow it to invade an exercise to which you have already directed your concentration. If you allow yourself to wander like that, you will never develop the discipline needed to use sense memory as an actor.

Another thing to consider if you find yourself wandering into foreign terrain when doing an exercise is that you may need more time to just daydream, or you may simply need more sleep. When I first started doing sense memory, I found myself falling asleep over and over again. I would start an exercise, get going, be really relaxed, and the next thing I knew, I’d be waking up from a deep, deep sleep two hours later, and half of my body was numb from the strange position that I was curled up in. When I told my teacher, Walter Lott, that this was happening, he would say, “Well, Catherine, I guess that’s just what you need to do right now before you can get to the next step.” Great, I thought, what the hell is that supposed to mean? I didn’t realize at the time that I was completely exhausted, and given the opportunity to relax and clear my mind, my organism stole those hours to put me to sleep. If you are not rested, you will not be able to work efficiently. Acting requires enormous strength.

DOES IT REALLY WORK?

The Overalls, and all sense memories, should be worked on extensively. Each time you work on an Overall, you investigate deeper and deeper into your own acting instrument. Somewhere deep within, there are keys or triggers that bring back the whole experience and make it easier to be connected to the basic rhythm of your character. After you have, say, sunshine on the whole of your body, you might need only to recall in truth a tiny piece of sunny warmth on your palm in order to bring back a whole experience and, thereby, an essential underlying element of a character. The easy access of the Overall makes it very popular with screen actors. It is especially useful when shooting in a greenscreen environment, as it helps you to create and function in the world that will be digitally added afterward.

You will find that many actors will deny using such methods in their work. They will say things like, I used to do all that sense memory stuff, but I don’t anymore, because it slows me down. In fact, many of these actors studied sense memory for many years and learned all of the exercises and how to use them in character development. Now, as working, professional actors, their responses are instantaneous, and they no longer must invest the time for sense memory exercises. Their instrument is already attuned to being alive with sensorial input, and they act with the full faculty of their five senses, their entire bodies, and their imagination.

The truth is that if they hadn’t done all the years of work that they now claim to have discarded, they would not have the richness of response that they have at their fingertips today. Many movie stars who claim to have no acting technique hire private coaches who put them through their paces and help them to develop the characters with the sensorial and emotional work that they will need to film the part. These coaches are rarely given credit and almost never spoken of, but they exist, and most of them come from this very rich line of training in sensory work and emotional memory.

I cannot stress enough how individual this work is and that no stock response is expected for any exercise. You just have to be connected to your own concentration and imagination to see where it leads you. An Overall can be so powerful that it can ground a character in a way that is really indescribable. Comprehensive work on an Overall can create the same essence of a character over and over again and, most important, over the passage of time. Films, no matter what their budgets, often get shot inconsistently and over long periods of time. It’s possible that after a film has been completed, the director or producer decides to change whole sections. These sections will have to be reshot. It could be a year or more since the film was wrapped, so you should have some mechanism for making sure the character will be cohesive. A small section of an Overall can work miracles in this situation, providing, of course, that it was integrated into the original shoot to begin with.

The next chapter will bring us to further exploration of the skin and senses with the exciting journey of the Animal Exercise.