Lights..Camera.. Action!
Are those the words you yearn to hear one day? Do you often stand in front of the mirror, repeating dialogues to yourself? Do you sit in cinema halls hoping and wishing you were on that screen, sharing the space with your favourite stars, acting to the lines of famous filmmakers? Then its obvious that being an actor is your dream. But if you don’t have the Bachchan blood coursing through your veins, professional training in acting might go a long way in helping you achieve that dream.
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Acting is considered as a serious career prospect by many today and courses are offered by acting schools all over the globe. So why should India be left behind when it comes to schools of acting? An acting school can help you hone your talents. It is a tool that not only helps you sharpen your acting skills, but also arms you with in-depth training in dance, stunts, etc which form an integral part of an actor’s career. Several such institutes exist in our country, many of which have been established by veterans of the silver screen itself.
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A two year post-graduate diploma in Acting is offered by the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) which is one of the premier institutes for film making in the country. Situated in Pune, it is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India. The minimum requirement for the course is a bachelor’s degree. Among its alumni are many of the who’s-who of Bollywood include Naseeruddin Shah, Jaya Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha, Mithun Chakraborty, Tom Alter, to name a few.
Roshan Taneja, the founder and the former head of the acting department at FTII, started the Roshan Taneja Foundation of Peforming arts which has a four months’ full time training programme in acting. With 45 years of teaching experience to back him up, his institute boasts of some of the best actors as its alumni. Abhishek Bachchan, Om Puri, Anil Kapoor, Karishma Kapoor, Neelam, Mukesh Khanna, Shabana Azmi etc. the list being endless.
Anupam Kher also started his very own acting school- ‘Actor Prepares’. Initially established in Mumbai, it now has branches in Ahmedabad and Chandigarh as well. The institute offers a three month full-time Diploma Course which one can persue with even just a higher secondary (or equivalent) certificate in hand. The Mumbai branch even offers a month long evening part-time Certificate Course. Deepika Padukone and Mugdha Godse are among the people who have studied acting here.
The National School of Drama in New Delhi is perhaps one of the most a prestigious institutes for dramatics. With a strenuous three-year graduate programme, it is primarily associated with theatre, though many actors who have been a part of it have gone on to make it big in Bollywood.
There are many other institutes in various parts of the country which provide training in acting. A few more have been listed at the end of the article. Through lectures, workshops, plays etc. the actors learn how to express a myriad of emotions which the characters they portray in the course of their careers might experience. From basic acting techniques, fight and stunt work, dance sequences to diction and dialect, the knowledge gained through these courses readies the actors for all the artistic challenges they’ll come up against while working in the industry.
So don’t stifle that actor’s dream inside you. Nurture it and let it take your life to the next level. An acting school might not be a sure-shot way to success in Bollywood but it does make the path easier to traverse.
List of some other acting schools in India:
- The Barry John Acting Studio, Mumbai
- Chandra’s Acting School, Mumbai
- Ashok Kumar’s Academy of Dramatic Arts, Mumbai
- Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University,University of Mysore
- Osmania University, Hyderabad
- National School of Drama, Bahawalpur
- Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts (autonomous Training Institute, Deptt. of Culture)
- Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute of Tamil Nadu, Chennai
- Imago Acting School, Brahma Studio, Film City, Noida
- Asian Academy of Film & Television, Noida
sarthak goel says
hi i am ordinary student in class 10 .in yamuna nagar and i want to become a actor. so for that i want to learn acting