From the course: Working with Actors & Non-Actors in Video Production

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Motivation: Objective and intention

Motivation: Objective and intention

- The old acting adage of, "what's my motivation." Is not a question that you ask that has one simple answer. A character's motivation is actually made up of a couple different parts. Once these parts are defined, the actor is free to really make their role in the script come alive. The first part of motivation is the actor's objective. This is their goal. What does their character ultimately want or need from the other character in the scene? Or in general? Having objective removes all self-consciousness from the actor because it gives them something to concentrate on. Without motivation or an objective, people's performances come off as one dimensional and they're just reciting their lines and going through the script without any purpose whatsoever. That said, you want actors to only play one objective for a character per scene. You don't want to make things too complicated because it won't come across clearly. Simple objectives are always easier than a complicated one. And we'll go…

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