The selection process to attend Premiere is based around our Evaluation Weekends. These weekends are carefully crafted to benefit the children with the experience necessary to further their performance goals. The skills they learn are highly relevant to the entertainment industry and the activities involved also serve to give their family a chance to discover how to best help their children find success in this endeavor.
During this process, we are able to gauge the unique abilities and skills of each child using a Meisner Technique. Meisner is an important instrument when it comes to determining the eligibility of the candidates in question. Every performance is given careful consideration as we perform a detailed evaluation of the natural abilities displayed by each child.
In order for your child to attend Premiere, they must first receive a personal invitation. This can only take place once they have successfully completed a Second Evaluation during one of our Interview Weekends. Saturday involves the First Evaluation where each child performs a short script and is tested to determine how well they listen and react. Many children will not make it past the First Evaluation. Results of the First Evaluation are given out on Saturday and those candidates under consideration for a Second Evaluation are provided a booklet and further instruction to find out if they will be invited back for more testing. Second Evaluations are conducted the following day or the day after.
If your child is fortunate enough to pass their Second Evaluation, registration for Premiere will also take place the same night they pass their Second Evaluation. At this point, we discuss which option level is appropriate for your child based on their skill. We prepare our performers from the time they are registered for the program up to the time they attend the program at Walt Disney World online through Skype or FaceTime.
Weekend Activities
Premiere Evaluation Weekends involve a variety of activities and processes. The following sections outline several features that you can expect during the time spent at one of our weekends:
First Evaluation
On Saturday, we speak with groups throughout the day where we outline what is expected and give them a chance to see the work of previous Premiere performers who are working entertainment industry. The First Evaluation will take place and many will not pass and be excused for the day.
Second Evaluation
The children that are selected from Saturday’s activities return on Sunday or Monday for a Second Evaluation. During this evaluation the children are assigned an additional scene to perform. They are given some time to practice and read through the script before they are brought into a room with their families to have their performance assessed.
This involves reading the scene with us and running lines. We give them a description of a typical style of acting that they would be using during industry auditions and set up the appropriate visual arrangement. This allows us to get a better sense of the comfort level the child has with performance and their natural abilities.
More candidates will not pass the Second Evaluation and be excused. If the performer has passed the Second Evaluation, they will be congratulated on their performance and discuss with us which Option Level is recommended based upon the skill set of the performer.
Acting Process
During our Interview Weekends we also use a number of acting exercises and highly developed methods that can be effectively applied during a short period of time. They are used to help the child get in touch with their natural abilities and allow their personality to show through their performance.
Exercises
The process with each child is slightly different and often requires us to go through various acting exercises that work with volume, pitch, voice, facial expressions, dialect, etc. If the child is comfortable with the script from the start we may eliminate certain exercises and move right into running lines and focus on helping them develop a stronger understanding of the scene and its goals.
Technique
After the child displays a certain level of comfort with the material we work on specific techniques such as the Meisner technique. This gives them the opportunity to experiment and learn how to listen and respond as they are reading lines and doing scene work. We work with the child through this entire process to teach them how to properly execute these techniques.
Layering
Each time we read through the child’s lines with them we add new layers to give us the opportunity to see how they work with the new material. A layer could be a laugh, an accent, a mood, a facial expression, etc. This gives them the chance to explore the role and practice taking direction. In addition to offering valuable experience for the child, we are able to further assess their natural performance abilities and parents are able to observe the growth in their skills first hand.
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