so here's another absolutely vital tool for action-based acting and that is tactics your character's tactics well let's think about the word for a second when we say wow he tried a new tactic on me I didn't like that tactic that he used on me what is it it's a strategic thing that you do to a person in order to get what it is you want we use this term all the time in life so let's think about it once you know what your character wants and needs in the scene that's their objective what they desperately want from this other person or other people and once we understand what the obstacle is what's in the way of me getting my objective meta we me getting what I want from this other person then we have to figure out how as the character are you going to try to get what you need from the other person and that's tactics tactics are the specific thing a character does to get what they need from another character you may hear other acting teachers refer to this as actions it's the same word actions tactics they're interchangeable you might hear somebody say strategy I'm going to use the word tactics for our purposes it's what you're doing to the other person to get what you want we do it all the time in life we are always having a goal something that we want from another person and then doing something to try to get that need met we do it all the time whether you're conscious of it or not and again it's not a manipulative thing necessarily we also do this for good we do this to make people feel valuable to make them feel needed to make them feel safe to make them feel secure it isn't always I'm doing this to somebody else because I have all these evil intentions it's just human behavior that we're always approaching people a certain way to elicit a certain effect to get it what it is we need from them so to recap a tactic is the thing that you are doing to the other person to try to get what you want from them um so you see this picture of this little kid having a total meltdown in the cookie aisle or the candy aisle of the grocery store now this is very dramatic but you've seen some version of this and if you have little kids in your life nieces nephews whoever I'm sure you have seen this Behavior so let's name this kid's objective to get Mom to give me candy right that's what the kid wants that's his objective and who does he want it from he wants it from Mom not from the universe not as a g ener concept but get Mom to give me candy a crystal clear very playable objective well let's think about how a kid tries to get candy from their mom when their mom is totally not on board with it um they might try to beg please please can I have some candy I want candy I want candy please can I have candy please can I have candy right and then when Mom says no you know uh you need to go home and we're going to have dinner soon then kiddo realizes that if he continues to beg he's not going to get what he wants so he changes it and that's when he starts to change the tactic and threaten and if you look at this picture this is the kid version of threatening he's going to make a scene he's going to call a lot of attention to himself that nobody wants and that's how he threatens and then mom knocks that down cuz no way is kiddo getting candy for behaving that way that's just that's some we're not going to do that so mom knocks that out and kid very smart realizes well I can't play the threatening card anymore well let me think in his little kid brain he's going I can't beg anymore I did that and that didn't work I can't threaten and have a meltdown anymore that didn't work so then he changes his tactic to something different now he's going to bargain so he Bargains with mom um if I uh give up playing Nintendo can I have the cookies if I promise to eat my asparagus can I have the cookies and then maybe because he's approaching things more logically maybe Mom is going to compromise so what I want to put a pin in that we can talk about later is we're always getting closer to or farther away from meeting our objective meeting our goal so when he begged and it didn't work he was losing when he threatened and had a meltdown and it mom just got more pissed off and it didn't work with Mom he was losing when he starts to use a different tactic and bargain he's closer to winning so he's starting to win and then he can find some more tactics to seal the deal to win this is what happens in a good scene in a bad scene people play the same tactic over and over again If This Were A Bad scene that nobody wanted to watch this kid would be begging the whole time or having a meltdown the entire time he wouldn't change it up in life we are constantly changing things up when one thing doesn't work we are constantly changing it so when one strategy one tactic doesn't work move on to the next strategy to try something new this is what you need to do to get what you want in the scene and I'm going to come back with part two of tactics in one minute