SOME actors go to extreme lengths to prepare for a role: Daniel Day-Lewis spent months in a wheelchair to get into character for . But if that sounds too much like hard work, actors can now use brain training to prepare instead.
and colleagues at Goldsmiths, University of London, have used neurofeedback training to improve actors鈥� performance.
In training, each actor watched a simulation of a theatre auditorium, as if on stage, while wearing electrodes on their scalp. The lights and sounds of the simulation were programmed to change in response to the wearer鈥檚 brain activity. Each actor was told to control their brainwaves to take the lights and crowd noise to a given level. The brain activity needed to achieve this was somewhere between slow-wave activity, associated with sleep, and fast-wave activity, associated with alert wakefulness.
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鈥淚t鈥檚 the natural relaxed state of focused attention,鈥� says Gruzelier. It鈥檚 what actors refer to as 鈥渓istening鈥�; what you need to achieve a Judy Dench-class performance, he adds.
鈥淏rain training provides the 鈥榝ocused attention鈥� that you need to achieve a Judy Dench-class performance鈥�
The actors gave various stage performances before and after a series of 10 half-hour training sessions over seven weeks. Footage of their performances was judged by acting professors along several criteria, including vocal expression and fluency. In addition, the actors judged their own performances.
Gruzelier鈥檚 team found that both the actors and professors鈥� scores were higher after the seven weeks of training compared with a group that received no training over the same period ().
鈥淭he training is pretty similar to relaxation protocols that actors might well be familiar with already,鈥� says of University College London. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a neat way to quantify it, though.鈥�
