On Camera Confidence
a course for actors
If you're an actor building your career in film and tv and you are craving holistic one-on-one support focussed on your craft, your heart, your mind and what you are here to offer this course is for you.
Through this work you will:
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Discover a new level of authenticity, ease and freedom in front of the camera.
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Reignite an embodied sense of aliveness in your creative practice.
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Learn practical strategies and frameworks for supporting yourself through challenges.
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Clarify what you want to create for yourself and move forward in alignment with that vision.
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Be prouder than ever of the work you are putting out into the world.
We get you there by focussing on:
On Camera Practice
You will dig into scene work every week with lead characters from film and tv and be encouraged to:
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Connect with your breath and open to presence
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Let go of anything blocking you from sharing your authentic experience with the camera
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Trust and re- connect with your instincts
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Make grounded, active choices with smart script analysis
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Try things, take risks, play and work off your partner organically
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Learn what you need to do your best work
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Set yourself up for self tape success
Guided
Inner Work
What do you need in order to share the truest, strangest, wildest parts of you on screen? What needs to soften, what needs to be ignited? Often our greatest obstacles to feeling comfortable and confident on camera are our own beliefs, doubts and fears about ourselves. A major focus of this course will be on giving you new ways of relating to yourself so that you can get out of your head and into your body, stop over thinking and beating yourself up and start finding kinder, more effective approaches for supporting yourself in the face of rejection, resistance and emotional risk.
Creative
Visioning
Re-connect with what fuels you, what drives you, makes you curious and lights you up. Explore how you want to show up for yourself and connect with your audience. Who are you? What are you offering and why? How can you meet this moment as a working actor in film & tv without sacrificing your artistic integrity? How can you lean into your strengths & allow yourself to be seen fully? What are you here to say?
Career Strategy
Focus on what you can control. What small promises would you like to make and keep with yourself? How can we make your to- do list more simple & manageable? What is one small leap you can take today? Clarify where you want to be and create a realistic, step by step, process for moving forward in the direction of your goals. I will support you with lots of feedback, encouragement, tough love and accountability.
One on One Support
This course follows a carefully designed curriculum while leaving room for the specific goals of each individual.
Change takes time. From years of experimentation and practice, I have found that three months is the sweet spot for metabolizing the tools and practices taught in this course. The one on one nature of this work allows us to create a schedule and pace that works for each individual. Sustainability is of utmost importance. This is not a quick fix. These are tools and practices that will serve you for the rest of your life as an artist and human.
Our partnership is built on trust and mutual respect. We will create a safe container for you to build on your strengths, work through challenges, align with your deepest intentions and create your best work yet!
Let's talk through what you'd like to create for yourself right now.
"I walked into Vivien’s studio 6 months ago feeling tense, exhausted and completely disconnected from my breath and my body. My inner perfectionist was in charge of my life and my work, and I was so damn tired of not feeling good enough. Vivien sat with me week after week, listened to my hopes, dreams and fears, and intuitively nudged me on an unexpected, but desperately needed journey back home to myself.
Viv is a fiercely intelligent and deeply compassionate coach with vast knowledge of what it means to be an artist, and infinite curiosity about each individual’s relationship to their craft. The patience and understanding she offered me at my most vulnerable moments allowed me to really sit in my own discomfort and develop a curious and compassionate dialogue with myself. I learned to listen to my needs, to honour them and to always, always speak to myself with kindness.
Her weekly lessons are bursting with information and it has been such a joy to apply my newly gained knowledge to my auditions, my on-set work and my day to day life. The benefits are tangible and it is SO GRATIFYING to feel these tools working.
This work has had a profound impact on me, emotionally and physiologically… I feel like the hard exterior I’ve been wearing like a suit of armour has broken to pieces around me- I feel lighter, softer and so much more alive.
Vivien is like nobody I’ve ever met and I cannot recommend her course enough- it changed my life.”
- Kira Guloien, Actor (Women Talking, Robyn Hood)
"Working with Viv has been life changing for me on and off camera.
Thank you for believing in me and showing me I could do it. I can’t imagine embodying my role in Something You Said Last Night (TIFF 2022) without your guidance, wisdom and support.
I can't recommend Vivien enough for any actors looking to develop their practice."
- Carmen Madonia, Actor ( TIFF Rising Star, 2022)
" Before working with Viv, I'd spent five years working a corporate desk job, and had learned to survive through flattening my voice, my size, my artistry, taking up little space to fit in. Working with Viv has been transformational, refreshing both my personal and creative lives.
Viv cultivates a space that is warm, curious, introspective, reflective, deeply empathetic and equally challenging, energizing, specific, actionable. She's supported me with tools to uncover and understand what happens when I get in front of a camera or when I'm rehearsing. She's also provided specific practices to return to the now, to the need and objective of the characters we've worked with.
Viv has invited me into a journey toward becoming more present as a human and as an actor. Working with her has helped me unstick from years of tension, freeing up my creative energy and giving "little Adri" the space and permission to play.
I walk away from our 12 weeks of training with so much joy, fresh perspective of myself as an artist, and new energy as I embark on this path.
More than anything, I walk away from this process with deep gratitude for what Viv has blessed me with over the last 3 months, and I can't wait to continue working with her in my future!”
- Adri Almeida
"Sometimes in acting class, I feel like I'm not allowed to be human" I told Viv during our first session. Over the past few months, while working with enlivenment coaching, I've been allowed to feel overwhelmingly human and guided to see the humanity in the characters I play. It's a beautiful and also terrifying thing. What makes the On Camera Confidence course so unique is that not only are you doing scene study and character work but you're also cultivating personal growth and self compassion.
Vivien has coached me through some of the most exciting times in my life, but also, through the times when I was at my lowest, when all I could do was cry. She never once told me that I should grow thick skin because the industry was hard. In fact, we embraced the opposite philosophy, because not growing thick skin means that you allow yourself to feel all your emotions and that's not a bad thing and can actually help you do better work. So yeah, I think it's obvious that I give this course a glowing five stars and I recommend it to all actors who have big goals but aren't sure how to put them into action. Thank you for guiding me towards scary and exciting life changes. I am so filled with gratitude and love for you.”
- Shayla Brown, Actor (Women Talking, See)
I took Vivien's course to deepen my on-camera work, specifically for self tapes and was taken on the adventure I didn't know I needed. The course is so beautifully curated to balance the deeply personal creative process of working on camera and the fortitude required to thrive in this business.
Vivien is a wise soul with endless curiosity as an artist and coach. During the 12 weeks I took some of the biggest (and best) risks of my career so far with Vivien's support, knowledge and care. She truly commits 100% to being alongside you as you grow, in vulnerability and bravery toward your goals. I've gained a deeper sense of ownership of my craft and career.
This course digs beneath the surface to give you tools to empower your on-camera acting from the inside out, unique to your own gifts. Highly recommend Vivien's on-camera confidence course!
- Loriel Medynski, Actor (The World to Come, Where Monsters Live)
I feel like any articulation of what it’s like to work with Viv through her On Camera Confidence course and beyond would truly be an injustice to the impact that she’s had not only on my acting career, but the way I approach my day-to-day life.
I started working with Viv at an extremely critical moment in my career and took a leap that I’m incredibly fortunate to have accomplished under the consultation of Enlivenment Coaching, one that might’ve been plagued by my inner critic had I not been exposed to the frameworks and practices that Vivien teaches.
She approaches every session with so much compassion and curiosity that it really encouraged me to actively learn and enact those same behaviours towards myself—whether that be during sessions of game-planning my needs/wants for my career (and beyond) or during challenging scene work. Vivien knew exactly how to productively push me out of my comfort zone through her strategic assignment of sides and the vulnerable connection we formed throughout our scene work.
Before my work with Vivien, I quite literally never imagined that ease and compassion could exist in relation to my work as an actor. I felt as though every performance had to be riddled with anxiety and self-doubt because I didn’t know anything else. Pursuing a career in acting is not easy, but I definitely feel so much more at ease with pursuing it.
To sum it all up, if you need someone to help you get ALL your shit together as a human and as an actor, look no further than Enlivenment Coaching.
- Sam Calleja, Actor (Heavy Petting)
“When I say working with enlivenment coaching has been life changing I am not exaggerating. I have grown so much as an actor in our twelve weeks together, but I've also come away with a whole new mindset and a set of strategies for how to approach my work, this industry and the highs and lows we experience as artists.
I cannot recommend the On Camera Confidence course enough. I am going into this year with a healthier outlook, a sense of purpose and a lot of excitement
- Sarah Hime, Actor (Pink is In)
“Funnily, the opportunity to work meaty and challenging scenes, weekly, with so astute an eye as Vivien’s - and to receive her imminently useful feedback - becomes almost a bonus feature of this course, as Vivien guides you on a deep dive of your own creative drive. She’s so compassionate in this role of guide - so wholeheartedly supportive and generous with her personalised attention - that I couldn’t help but emerge with an incandescent sense of mission and viscerally re-enlivened creative fire.
This is unlike any acting course I’ve ever taken; it transformed not only my relationship to my artistic practice, but to my very self, as I sometimes stumble, sometimes soar along my way".
- Amelia Sargisson,
Actor (See, Murdoch Mysteries, Stratford Festival)
"I am so, so appreciative that I got to work with Vivien.
I COULD NOT HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT HER.
All the work we did was so present with me on set and carried me through.
Viv has been a deep source of grounded-ness and awareness. I truly took so much from our sessions; the work has seeped into my everyday life."
- Tara Hakim (Actor, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden, CANNES 2023)
“Vivien is hands down the best coach I've ever had.
She is generous, kind and creative and the work we've done together has made me feel more confident, comfortable and, above all, more like myself on camera. I cannot recommend working with her enough.”
- Bryn Kennedy, Actor (V-Wars, Coroner)
How it Works:
Phase One
8 weeks
The first eight weeks of the program are focussed on pairing On Camera Practice with Inner Work and Creative Visioning. Grounded in emotional, cognitive and embodiment practices, you will use these tools to connect with your authentic truth on camera and off. We will delve into Growth Mindset, Cultivating your Awareness Practice, Noticing Habitual Patterns, Working with the Inner Critic, Supporting your Nervous System, Coaching Yourself Through & Finding Your Why.
What exactly is included in this phase...
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8 live, 80 minute private sessions in person or over zoom including;
on camera scene work + personal check-ins tailored to your needs
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lesson videos with key tools & frameworks
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optional worksheets and self reflection prompts
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regular support via text message & email
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notes & feedback on your on camera work
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you will be sent your footage to keep
This phase is designed to serve professional actors who want to...
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transform their relationship to on camera work
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play, make discoveries, be in process and reawaken the artist within
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gain tools and practices for working with difficult emotions, opening to presence and connecting with the body's innate wisdom
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deepen their capacity to support themselves through the unique challenges of this industry
Phase Two
4 weeks
The last four weeks of the course are focussed on Career Strategy with the explicit intention of clarifying your next steps and taking bold, decisive action in alignment with your goals. We will spruce up your materials, create a realistic to- do list and make sure you are putting your best foot forward professionally.
What exactly is included in this phase...
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4 live, 80 minute private sessions in person or over zoom;
we will polish favourite scenes for your demo clips (you will be sent your footage to keep)
+ accountability tailored to your to- do list and goals
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regular check- ins and support via text message & email
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personalized feed back on your materials (headshots, demo reel website, clips, letters of intent etc)
This phase is designed to serve professional actors who want...
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a space to get real about the "business" side of their careers; what's working, what isn't and where to go next
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personalized feed back on your materials (headshots, demo reel, website, clips, letters of intent etc)
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direct consultation on communicating with your reps & how to get seen.