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Review content:
Ignore all the positive fake blogs written by The Acting Corps staff and take my word for this. Ok, so where do I begin...
First off, the owner of the acting corps, Eugene Buica, is a scam-artist dickhead. He just wants your money and won't refund it under any circumstances. In addition, he's got the worst IMBD credits compared to any acting coach in L.A. That should be a red flag people!
In Bootcamp 1, the guy only taught 1 class out of 18. It's pretty funny how on the BC1 website, Eugene markets himself as if he cares about his student's progress. Bull Crap! He never even knew our names!
Aside from that, The Acting Corps curriculum is a joke and speaks for itself. Every class is the same routine, after warm up, the whole class stands in a circle and observes two students perform an exercise called repetition. Basically, the two volunteers hold hands and stare at each other while judging what they're doing, thinking, feeling, ect. The goal is to be present in the moment with your partner. However, in my class, repetition became a constant competition for one student to make the other feel more insecure.
I've interviewed several other artistic directors from the best L.A. acting schools, and they all said the same thing regarding a drill like repetition. If done correctly, it's not a bad thing. In theory, it does improve one's ability to read their scene partner. But to practice it for the vast majority of each class and have it be the center of a curriculum is just silly. There are other aspects of the craft repetition doesn't address. The most important being personalization, the idea of finding yourself in a character... BC1 did not even touch on this subject. No, instead we were too busy with repetition and weren't doing any hands-on acting.
The entire 6 weeks there, we only performed one actual scene. It was about two gay guys sitting by a lake, talking about a mermaid. It had no conflict, climax, objective, ect... We weren't even taught how to say the lines authentically with images. Every new actor sounded like a robot, and the majority of the feedback was good job, that was great! This school is a joke.
I'm running out of room to keep critiquing, but I can talk all night about crucial information BC1 failed to teach. Such as, The Alexander Technique, Improv, Finding a character's physical/psychological objectives, Using your 5 senses, History of the craft, Marketing yourself, The ropes of the modern industry, list goes forever! Go find a school where you will obtain this information and get your money's worth. A school where the guy taking your dough at least cares about your progress. Howard Fine, Doug Warhit, Joseph Pearlman, Ivana, all have great studios with way better reps. It's really tough out there, this is a profession where 98% of us won't make it. So get as much help as you can get, and stay away from the acing corps scam... ;)
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