The Ciné Acting Foundation Stage focuses on developing essential screen acting technique and professional on-set behaviour through structured, practical training. Students learn how to work with the camera, take direction, maintain focus across takes, and understand how performance operates within a filmed environment. Emphasis is placed on building camera awareness, discipline, and clarity, allowing students to approach screen work with confidence and control.
 
Throughout the course, students develop core screen acting fundamentals, including:
Camera presence and comfort
A natural relationship with the lens
Framing, shot sizes, and eye lines
Voice clarity and emotional focus for screen
Hitting marks and maintaining continuity
Working with direction and basic film set etiquette
 
As part of this training, students also learn how screen performance functions within contemporary casting practice. In professional casting, self-tapes for young actors are rarely monologues. Most casting calls are based on short scenes or audition extracts, written for two characters and performed with a reader off-camera. Casting directors are looking to see how an actor listens, responds, and adapts, not simply how well they deliver lines.
 
For this reason, the Ciné Acting Foundation culminates in a professionally filmed duologue self-tape, performed with the support of a professional off-camera reader and following industry-standard casting practice. This outcome reflects the skills developed throughout the course and gives students practical experience of how screen acting training translates into real casting contexts.
 
Through this work, students further develop essential on-camera skills such as:
Accurate eye lines
Active listening
Truthful reactions
Timing and restraint
 
Sessions run over six Saturdays, lasting 3.5 hours each, held in the morning or afternoon depending on age group.