Chantal's Hollywood Adventures

Hey guys, Before moving to Los Angeles I always very much believed in ' method ' acting and using substitution in order to get into character. For all you non-actors or starting out actors out there who may not know what 'substitution ' is I will briefly explain. Substitution in acting terms is when you take situation from your own life to replace the emotion within the scene or character. By replacing the characters situation with one from your own life helps to trigger an authentic emotion that assists you as an actor to feel and respond truthfully. My first semester at  The American Academy of Dramatic Arts  was dedicated to finding different activities and practices to initiate my substitutions. As a class we analysed this method through the book Respect for Acting by Utah Hagen, before putting the methods into practise. So, now for the big question.. Does substitution actually work? Well, I believe that this question is a subjective because everyone is differ...

Hey Guys, So.. my last month in LA was a bit of crazy one. My apartment lease was up at the end of April so I didn't really have any other choice but to move into an air b n b for the remainder of my trip. I'm still not too familiar with the different places in LA so choosing a place that wasn't too far from my my campus, where I was still currently working limited me to only a few places. The first one I moved to I only lasted for two days because it was probably the most disgusting place I had ever stayed in. The place turned out to have nearly twenty people living in the one house with, where the neighbours would play music all through the night and I was grace with a pair of stained sheets on my bed. Refusing to stay there anymore I decided to leave and move to another apartment close to Beverly Hills. Although it did cost a fair bit more at this point the money wasn't really an issue, so I finally moved into this new place. It seemed really nice unt...

Hey Guys,  I hope everyone is ready for a great sunny weekend (unless your in somewhere like England because it will probably be raining, sorry) I know that I am.  I can't believe I finished school now over three weeks ago, it's gone so fast but I've enjoyed every minute of it. I'm currently sitting in a little coffee shop with my passion fruit ice tea whilst I reminisce to myself about all the great memories I've made over the past year here in LA.  Looking back on my life from when I was in England to now I cant believe how much my life has changed. People warned me before I moved to LA that I would come back a completely different person and I always thought to myself, can people really change to that extreme, but this year in LA has proved to me that the experiences you go through can impact your life drastically and change you as a person. I have learnt so many lessons out here but the one that has really stuck with me is remembering that everyone in life...

Hey guys,  I am currently sitting on the plane at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank waiting to go to San Francisco to see my family, whilst I write this last blog of the year about the American Academy of Dramatics Arts . Thursday was officially my last day at The Academy . We had been working for the past three weeks on two exam plays that we would perform at the end of the term. I was lucky enough to have two of the most amazing casts and two of the best directors. The thing that made the experience so worth while was that both directors had very different styles of directing, one which was more research based and the other was physically based and all about jumping straight into it. I loved learning about different ways of working and how as an actor you need to be able to adapt to these changes. The whole experience showed me how far I have come as an actor since I first started and enabled me to evaluate myself, so I know which areas I need to improve. I am so sad for my first y...

Hey my lovely readers, I hope everyone has had a great weekend. So, today I am writing a blog about a recent boudoir photoshoot I had done and the reason behind choosing to do this specific one. Although I am actress, I have always had an interest in modelling, when I was younger I was in a child modelling agency and booked a few different shoots. I loved it and felt so free and proud, however, as I grew older I became less and less confident with my body. I have always been short and and this was something that really made me uncomfortable. I would always get people making comments on this and although they weren't usually said to be in a negative way, it still just make me shy away more. I felt different to a lot of girls and when I would read fashion magazines such as Vogue I felt very jealous by all the models, who were tall, skinny and seemed to have perfect curves all in the right places. I always wished that I could look like that and it upset me that I would never be a...

Hey guys,  On Tuesday night I went with a family friend to watch the play The Revisionist by Jesse Eisenberg (from Social Network) at The Wallis in Beverly Hills . After previously reading the synopsis I went into the theatre with the knowledge that the play would be focusing on the Holocaust and the destruction it had caused, however, when I actually sat down to watch the show I realised that it was completely different to what I had originally anticipated.  I love watching different types of theatre and being an actress I feel that this is a very important part of research. For the nature of this blog post I will start by reviewing the set design and the writing before moving onto reviewing the acting qualities  (which is my favourite part).  For the set I was extremely impressed with how it was set out. The stage was set up in the middle of the of the room with the audience seated on either side. The stage was set up as a house, fea...

I have now been living in Los Angeles for eight months and there is still so much that I find a mystery about the States.  I love living in the States, but I there is a lot that will never quite understand. So, here goes my top ten list of what confuses me most about living here. 1.  The term 'Fuck boy'.  I hear this a lot, especially when I'm out clubbing and I point at a guy to show my friends if I think he's hot or not and usually I get an awkward stare from my friends and then they will say "you don't want to date him, he's a  fuckboy"  hmmm...OK then! Eight months later I am still unsure of what it really means, although my guess is that it's equivalent to what we call a chav. 2.  Driving.  Ok, so for a British girl with dyslexia remembering my left and right is already a nightmare. It took me 3 times to pass my theory and 2 years to actually learn to drive with an instructor that would constantly say to me 'I don...