To kick off the bumper edition end-of-year newsletter, words of advice for all you budding actors from Academy Award winner Gene Hackman
Well, here we are again at the end of another year; and what a productive year it’s been. A jam-packed 12 months of fun and challenging classes and masterclasses, ongoing success professionally for many of our students, and a profoundly noticeable improvement in acting skills across all age groups and levels of study.
We encourage our students to be unafraid of making mistakes, to learn from those mistakes, and to make bold and interesting choices. The past term particularly has seen some interesting choices indeed, resulting in some dynamic on-camera performances.
To witness such effort and fearlessness in our students – from juniors to teens to adults, makes all of the hard work our tutors put in to the classes and courses well worth the effort.
Thanks for the great work everyone! Keep it up next year.
TERM DATES
The current term completes on Saturday 14 December.
Term 1, 2014 classes start week commencing Monday 27 January, after the six week summer semester break.
It would be greatly appreciated if all students returning for Term 1 classes post a $50 fees deposit to secure their position for next year.
JANUARY FILM ACTING TECHNIQUES MASTERCLASS
The January Film Acting Techniques masterclass will be a challenge, as it follows on from the successful September masterclass which produced the short film, The Pedder File.
The Pedder File premieres to a couple of hundred thousand Sydneysiders on the TVS Dark Carnival program sometime after Christmas, and then screens again on Anthology of Interest in March next year. TVS programmmer Garfield Barnard called the film, “excellent, with a real-life twist.” Thanks once again to the cast (in order of appearance) Paul Millett, Jessica Robbins, Lydia Dyhin and Tayla Brown for your empathetic and truthful performances.
We’ll let you know when The Pedder File is screening as soon as TVS give us the program dates and times.
This isn’t our first short film to screen on TVS: The January 2008 Masterclass film, Dead Minds screened for the third time last month after originally premiering at The International Night of Horror Film Festival in 2009; and the masterclass film Miasma screened on TVS in 2006, generating very positive audience feedback.
The above films are a hard act to follow – but if you’re looking for a challenge, let’s try to top them in the January, 2014 masterclass! I know I’m game and up for it!
(For dates, times and further information please refer to the course flyer attached to your Newsletter link email!)
SCREEN TEST MASTERCLASS REVIEW
The one-day Screen Test Intensive with casting director Kari Harris was an instructive, challenging and fun workshop. The participating students Shannon Donaghey, Jessica Grosbard, Michelle Devlin, Meredith Cox, Owen Brown, Mona Bagherpour and Jozsef Kleiner worked hard, sometimes struggling to understand the process, but then nailing it to their level of ability and sometimes beyond when auditioning for camera. Well done. And thanks again to Kari for a full-on day.
For all aspiring actors and for those of our students already on the audition trail, here’s sound advice from Emmy Award winning Breaking Bad star, Bryan Cranston
STUDIO CHRISTMAS PARTY!
You should already have received an invitation to the school’s Christmas Party and even though it’s a very busy time of year, we hope to see as many of you as possible on the night. The party kicks off from 7:30 pm this Saturday, December 7, at our Brookvale studio. All students, friends and family welcome. There’ll be tasty snacks and music, soft drink or juice for the juniors and teens, and the same for the adults, along with beer and red or white wine.
Unwind, relax and celebrate the end of the year while having a laugh at at our 2013 Bloopers Reel. It’s always a party favourite!
FILMS ON DVD/BLU RAY
A change of pace for our end of year newsletter: Instead of recommending some of the films I’ve seen lately, I thought I’d give you some homework instead.
Scroll down through our newsletter FILMS ON DVD archive and see if you can find any films that pique your interest. Then check them out. It’s a long summer break, so watch as many good films as you can and listen and learn from the actors.
STUDENT NEWS


This year’s Tropfest Top 16 Finalists (Sam Smith far right)
The Jungle, the third film in director Andrew Traucki’s acclaimed Three Colours Red trilogy (Black Water; The Reef) had it’s Australian premiere on November 23 at Melbourne’s Monster Film Festival, where it received an enthusiastic reception.
Agoes Soedjarwo plays Budi an Indonesian guide who leads two documentary filmmaker brothers into the jungle in search of a rare species of Javan leopard. They soon realise they are being hunted by something far more frightening than a big cat.

Early promo poster for Agoes film The Jungle
If you were scared witless by Traucki’s two previous films, then The Jungle is for you!
FUNNEL WEBS “STUDENT CHRISTMAS SPECIAL”
As a special Christmas offer to our students and their friends we’re retailing Trick of the Light Productions Limited Edition Funnel Webs documentary for the discounted price of only $14-95 (plus $3-95 postage & handling/or free pick up at the school.)
A huge saving as the film retails on the Products page of our web site for $24-95, and previously sold through The Australian Museum Shops for $34-95. Funnel Webs also retailed to the nations high schools and secondary schools as a teaching aid in subjects as diverse as science and sociology. The over-the-top wacky documentary – detailing “everything you need to know about world’s deadliest spider, but were afraid to laugh” – also screened on the 7 Network (The World Around Us) with Beyond Distribution handling International Sales.
Funnel Webs makes for a cool Christmas present – or a valuable off-the-wall addition to your film library!
CLASS SCENE DVD’s
If you would like an edited copy of your past term or previous term’s work on DVD then see me in class or email me and I’ll organise it for you. Class scene DVDs are $40-00 per term’s on-camera scenes and are a highly beneficial means of improving your acting chops via further home study.
SCREEN ACTORS WORKSHOP FACEBOOK PAGE
If you enjoy our newsletters then check out our Facebook page where you will find a wealth of information, including tips on acting, classic class scenes, short films, photos, breaking news and much much more via the below link…
http://facebook.com/ScreenActorsWorkshop
Feel free to join our community and please give us a “Like” if visiting for the first time.
To wrap up the December newsletter, I’d like to thank all of our students for their unconditional and ongoing support during 2013. The staff and I would like to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Successful 2014!
Alan Nurthen (Director)