Blog week 15

week 15: What are your goals for your scene? How have you progressed so far? How have you improved over your first scene and monologue?

My goals for this scene are probably just to give my best performance of the semester.  As Carlos and I rehearse, I find myself having an easier time noticing when something is off with our set up, in terms of positioning props and ourselves.  At the end of our scene, we arm wrestle on the table.  After a few rehearses, I realized that the way the table was set up, and the way we were arm wrestling left me with my back facing the audience.  When I realized this, I turned the table (literally) so that when we arm wrestled, the audience will be able to see the sides of both of our faces.  This is something that I feel has improved since the first performance we did in this course.  When Aaron and I rehearsed, things like facing the audience didn’t even occur to us at all when rehearsing. As far as memorization goes, we don’t have much free time outside of class to rehearse, considering the point we are at in the semester.  So we took the opportunity in class yesterday to make an audio recording of ourselves performing our lines, so that we may listen to it outside of class, until we have it memorized.  Another main goal for this performance would be for it to flow very naturally.  As of yesterday, we began rehearsing with me actually grabbing Carlos’ zipper.  I imagine it’s probably looking a little awkward and not flowing naturally right now, but it’s a start.  Carlos also has had some good ideas for our performance, as well.  When our characters accidentally wake up their father, Norm goes to check on him.  We were not exactly sure what Arthur would be doing while Norm is doing this, and Carlos suggested that Arthur be right behind Norm, trying to see in over him in a comical manner.  Seeing as how this scene seems to have a humorous vibe to it, I think it is a pretty good idea.  We have also considered what sort of attire we will be wearing for this performance.  Arthur is said to be wearing a Mauritzio suit, which apparently isn’t even a real word according to my spell check.  Norm, we decided, will also be wearing a suit.  Seeing as how we will be arm wrestling in these suits, we have decided to wear suits from a Salvation Army thrift store in case they rip or something.

Blog week 14

week 14) How did you incorporate beats, tactics (aka intentions), and obstacles into your scene this week? How do you think you improved in this area since your first scene?

I think that beats, tactics, and intentions are becoming easier to recognize when reading scripts than they were when the semester first began back in January.  This particular performance still does have some confusing parts as to where certain beats and tactics are.

Norm: You actually got that to work?

Arthur: Got all this baggage.

N: You need to go through it.

A: I could beat you if we arm wrestled.

N: Can’t even talk to him.

This is just the first of several lines where I am confused on what exactly is going on.  Usually, when reading a script or a book, it’s relatively easy to read the lines in a certain tone.  With this script, the men seem to be talking all over the place.  One of the main obstacles that these men must overcome is the zipper on the pants of the Mauritzio suit that Arthur is wearing, as it is stuck and will not close.  Arthur eventually fixes the zipper, and their next obstacle is discussing taking care of their father.  They first avoid talking about it, and Norm doesn’t ask Arthur to help out.  During the arm wrestle, they confront the new obstacle, Norm even goes to the extent to ask Arthur to move from New York to Georgia just to be able to help take care of their father.  I don’t believe that this obstacle is overcome in the end.

Blog week 13

How did your monologue performance go? How did you improve from your scene? What do you think was the strongest aspect of your performance? What was the weakest? How do you think this monologue performance demonstrates growth in your acting overall?

I think my monologue performance went pretty well, however I think there was definitely room for improvement.  I had always rehearsed this monologue sitting in a chair or a desk, but as I was sitting in class watching everyone else’s performances, I thought it would be interesting to try the performance with no tables or chairs, and to just be sitting on the floor.  As fictional character Solid Snake once said to a naive and young Revolver Ocelot, “Testing a technique you’ve only heard about in the middle of battle wasn’t very smart.”  I knew if I wanted to perform sitting on the floor, I should have rehearsed it first to get the feel of it, but I just felt that it would work.  And it probably would have worked even better if I had rehearsed it that way, as I realized when I was sitting there.  I felt like I was a little awkward with my drink can, I kept setting it down, and would forget when I was supposed to take a drink, until I was supposed to. I then would pick up the can and instantly drink from it, which I felt was a little awkward.  But I think I did a decent job performing tipsy.  I would hiccup at times where Austin would repeat himself, it just felt natural.  When Tasi asked later if I did that on purpose, I said no, but that was because in my head I thought she was asking if it was an accident.  I know that sounds dumb, but it’s true.  I think this performance has displayed growth in my overall acting because I didn’t rush through my lines as hardcore as I usually do.  I noticed myself getting nervous around the first “tooth laying on the mattress” line.  Usually my response to this feeling is to speed through everything awkwardly to get back to my seat faster.  But somehow this time I just thought to myself, “Dude, chill,” and it worked.  I never had a fear of public speaking until I took a course on public speaking in 2013.  We first learned all the ways people get nervous and why they get nervous when speaking in public, and why such a huge majority of people get nervous. Then we gave our first speeches, after learning how everyone is terrified, I got up in front of everyone and suddenly got the dry mouth and fast heartbeat we had learned about.  I knew I had learned to fear this, since I took a public speaking class in high school in summer school, where they never taught us why people are nervous or that people are nervous, and I did fine.

TL;DR: I think I may have overcome my recently learned fear of public speaking.

Blog week 12

week 12) What progress have you made in your final week of rehearsal? In what areas have you made the most improvement? In what areas do you think you still need to make growth before your performance on Monday?

The final week of rehearsals seems almost like the first week of rehearsals to me.  This was the first time I was able to recite the monologue without having to read it, which is good because I kind of lost the script at the moment.  I suppose the areas I have made the most improvement in is understanding the play.  The first time I read it, I had no idea what the point of the story was that my character is telling.  It just didn’t make sense until I read it over a few times.  From being absent for a week, I tried to gather the mood of the monologue on my own, and when rehearsing it yesterday, Vic informed me that he had just watched Thomas, who also has the same monologue as me, perform the monologue with a rather serious, angry tone.  The way I had presented it was with a more humorous tone, like telling some ridiculous story about their father traveling to Mexico to get his teeth pulled out.  Vic said that the performance seemed to work both ways, it was just interesting to see it from different perspectives. I think I still need to get down a lot of movements that the character will have throughout the monologue.  The characters have been drinking, so it’s going to show on them when they talk.  Having insanely strict parents and still only being 20, I honestly have very little experience being drunk.  I’ve been about twice in my life.  So I’m going to have to study other people acting drunk to gather this information, rather than being able to draw from my own life experiences.  But I’m not complaining, it just gives me a reason to binge watch Comedy Central’s Drunk History.

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9. How are your rehearsals for your monologue going? What have you done to memorize? How much progress have you made? How well have you incorporated action and blocking into your monologue to date?

Rehearsals for the monologue is a bit harder than rehearsals were for the scenes we did.  The monologue is about as long as my scene, but instead of only saying half of the lines, I now have to say all of them.  The first time I read through the script, I was very confused.  After reading through the script about 10 more times, I am only slightly confused.  So far, I have really only read through the script in class to memorize the words.  I plan to record myself reading the script in an audio file, then listening to the file until I have it memorized.  Because I work two jobs (that totals up to working 40.5 hours a week) and attend school full time, I unfortunately have to use my time that I’m not at work or school to do things that require full attention like class readings and writing papers.  When I had to memorize an eight minute speech last semester, I recorded an audio file on my phone, then listened to that file on repeat while I worked at Jewel, bringing in carts.  Hearing your own voice for hours at a time is enough to drive you bat-shit-insane, but it did work out.  In the end, I memorized the speech, and gave a great presentation on eminent domain solutions.  I plan to do the same for this monologue.  Fortunately for me, this monologue will not be eight minutes, and should not take as long to memorize as did my speech.  As of this moment, I have not incorporated action and blocking into my monologue very well, however I do plan to improve on it with time.

Blog 8

8.) Evaluate your performance in your first scene. Were you happy with your performance and the audience reaction? How well do you think you created a physical performance for your character? How well did you and your partner work together? How successful do you think you were about establishing clear tactics for your character? What would you do to improve your performance? What did you learn that you will apply to later assignments?

Overall I feel my performance was done pretty well, but there were some parts that I would change about it if I could. About halfway through our scene, Aaron’s character insults mine, by saying, “Why does everything you say sound like it crept out of your ass covered in cellophane?”  Some of the audience found this remark amusing, as I had when we first read the script weeks ago.  Hearing other people find it funny though weeks later kind of threw me off, and I sort of laughed at the joke too, before saying my next line.  I’m not sure how noticeable it was, as I did try to blend it into my next line.  Honestly, I’m still not sure how Marty was supposed to react to that comment in hindsight.  The chair we used in our performance was on wheels, while the chairs we rehearsed with did not.  This was a miniscule problem, only when I shoot up out of my seat when I see Aaron holding the box of ashes and is about to dump them. The chair kinda rolled out from under me and I may have lost my balance a bit.  I think I created a pretty good physical performance of my character.  I was experiencing a pretty bad day on the day of our performance, but Marty is also having a pretty bad day, too.  I think already being pretty angry ahead of time made it easier to be angry in character, I was already comfortable wearing a frown and screaming when the lines called for it.  Aaron and I worked together pretty well, I’d say.  I think we got along pretty well, even if our characters didn’t.  I feel I was relatively successful displaying tactics for my character. I managed to change my tone throughout the play through sarcastic, angry, and apologetic.  To improve the performance, I would probably have spent more time on my last big paragraph I had at the end of our scene.  I had spent enough time on it to memorize the lines, but I feel I could have spent more time deciding on how to deliver the lines.  I learned to expect audience reactions and to not let them distract you from your performance.  I also learned to spend more time on perfecting delivery, even if perfection is a cruel mistress.

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7.) How are your rehearsals going with your partner? What has successful has your collaboration been? What have you done to contribute to the success or failure of your collaboration?

Overall I would say that our rehearsals have went quite well.  I truly feel that Aaron and I are going to be able to give a good performance.  Collaborating with other students was actually very helpful.  There were certain parts of our script that I wasn’t completely sure of how to act out, and my classmates were able to help us out with those parts just by witnessing how we were doing them, and then told us how we could improve it.  Louis was particularly helpful.  For the part of our scene where Aaron takes our dad’s box of ashes and threatens to dump them out in the lobby, I never really knew how to react to that.  Mostly because I’ve never been in that situation myself.  At first, I just shot up out of my seat and shouted, “Put him down!” while Aaron stood several feet away from me.  Louis made a good point that if I really wanted those ashes, I would be trying to get those ashes from Aaron, and Aaron would be trying to keep me from getting the box of ashes as well.  It was pretty much like playing keep away when you’re a kid.  It helped that Aaron is taller than me, too.  Louis also gave Aaron some advice on maintaining eye contact with me during out scene.  I understand eye contact can be weird, I can barely hold it myself typically for more than a few seconds.  Louis said the trick to appearing to keep eye contact is to look at the bridge of my glasses.  That way, we don’t feel awkward, and to the audience, it still looks like we’re maintaining eye contact.  Witnessing other group’s presentation rehearsals was interesting, too.  It kind of made me realise how much more prepared Aaron and I were compared to everyone else we witnessed, and that we had a skit relatively shorter than most of the other groups, too.  Carlos and David’s rehearsal showed that they needed to memorize their lines better, but they did have a lot of lines in paragraphs, and a lot more of them than do Aaron and I.  Overall, I think Monday’s performances will be on point.

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6. How easy or hard has it been for you to identify objectives, tactics, and beats for your scene? What do you and your partner still need to work on for this scene?

Up until this week, I had not been identifying objectives, tactics, and beats for our scene.  The main reason for this was that I did not know what they were.  After learning during class what these are, I have found it prety interesting that virtually every scene in any media ever has this same structure supporting it all the way through.  It has been relatively easy to find the objectives for Marty and Bobby.  It seems their main goal is to spread their father’s ashes at the Burning Man festival like their father had wanted. Marty seems to be more concerned as having this as his main objective, as when Bobby gets aggravated at him and threatens to simply pour out their father’s ashes in the hotel lobby, Marty freaks out.  Marty now has a second objective which is to calm his brother down and make him be rational about what is going on in that moment instead of looking to the main goal in the future.  Marty tries to calm Bobby using calming tactics by leveling with Bobby and saying things like, “I know we don’t get along, okay? I know we’re not buddies anymore...but...we’re going to get through this as quickly and cleanly as possible, and then we can go back to pretending we don’t know each other for the rest of our lives.  Now, please, put him down, and be reasonable.”  It is unclear if these calming tactics have worked for Marty, as this is where our scene ends.  I think my scene partner and I still need to work on fully understanding these guys that we will be portraying at the end of the month.  However, given the recent exercises, I feel that we probably will be able to understand and portray these characters by the end of the month.

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5. How has the script analysis helped you prepare for your scene? How are you putting what you learned about your character and your scene to practice in your rehearsals?

The character analysis worksheet has made me think deeper about the conversation that my character, marty, and his brother, Bobby are having. For my very first line in this scene, I say to bobby, “You set the car on fire.”  Most people do not ever have to say these words to one of their relatives during their lifetime, so it really shows how unbelievable Marty feels it is that Bobby has gone and done this.  My next lines consist of, “Not even noon.  And you’re smoking Mary Jane...The completely irresponsible loser who runs to mommy whenever things get rough.”  This reveals to the audience how Bobby has managed to set our car on fire.  I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around how smoking weed in a car can light it on fire, as many people have hotboxed before, and I haven’t heard of them setting their car on fire.  However, this also reveals just how irresponsible Bobby can be, and it shows that Marty is somewhat typical in the sense that he is the more responsible brother, as he is the older brother.  Another meaningful bit of dialogue that I have is, “Dad’s dying, and you go to the movies.”  Before thi point, it has been made clear that these two re on a mission to spread their father’s ashes at a particular place.  But this line has revealed that Bobby didn’t even care to take care of his father when he was on his death bed.  Probably the most powerful back and frth that Bobby and Marty share is when Bobby says, “At least I didn’t leave him alone in a room with a gun in it,” to which my character says, “You shut up about that! God, I hate you!”  So while revealing that their father was dying of a sickness that was too unbearable for him that he decided to end his own life, it also reveals that Marty is not always as responsible as he would like to think that he is, because leaving someone alone in a room with a gun can be argued as a very irresponsible thing to do.  Using all of this has helped me to better understand Marty, and hopefully to do a good representation of him during the final performance.

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The first week of rehearsals with my partner, Aaron, went pretty well in my opinion.  We met at school on Friday during when class would be, and decided to rehearse our lines.  We started off with just us sitting down, reading our lines.  After that, we then tried reading our lines while standing up and using some body language.  after we got that down, we decided to try to follow the acting cues that went along with our dialogue.  Aaron has more of these than I do, I don’t recall if I even have any at all.  But Aaron had cues telling him to walk over to a table, grab a box of their father’s ashes, and to then sit down with the box of the father’s ashes.  We had to imagine a scene that we were walking into, and we had to make sure that we both were visualizing the same scene.  We were under the impression that someone would have to read jo’s lines, whose lines are always in parenthesis.  We  recently learned that that means that JO will not be having any lines in our final performance of this scene for the class.  But before we would take turns reading JO’s lines so that it would be easier for whoever had the next line, as well as imitating the sound of a car exploding.  As we progressed, we found ourselves not needing to look at our lines as much anymore, but we still have yet to have a clean rehearsal where we have recited each and every one of our lines from straight memory.  One of the hardest lines for me, is a paragraph at the end of our scene.  During our rehearsals, when we would reach that line, I would just say “Big paragraph about how we’re gonna get through this,” just to save some time.  I plan to memorize it on my own time, but during our more recent rehearsals, I have been reading off the entire paragraph as we get closer to our deadline.  Aaron likes to add certain words to his lines so that it feels more natural for him.  His character has some curse words in his script, and Aaron adds a few more into other lines to help it flow.  I have one particular line where I feel could use a curse word in it, but since my character does not have any curse words written into his script, I don’t want to be out-of-character by using even once since swearing doesn’t seem to be his style.  But all in all, I think we’ll be ready when the time comes to do a good performance.

blog prompt 3

3. What about your character do you think is the most interesting? What are you most excited or concerned about portraying about your character? How can you use the physical inventory to help you develop your performance?

I think it’s pretty interesting that Cindy is the secretary for the CEO of a successful shoe company at age 25.  It seems pretty young to have made it that far in life, and is something I think she should be proud of.  Right now, at age 20, I work at a grocery store and a library, at the bottom of both jobs.  I can’t imagine working for the CEO of any successful company in just five years.  One thing that I thought was interesting when Carlos was describing this character to me, was how much she reminded me of my old assistant manager when I used to work at Payless.  For some of the questions that I didn’t quite know how to answer as Cindy, I just guessed what my assistant manager, Shannon, would have said.  I think it is kind of fascinating to see how the final product of Cindy will be made up partially of what Carlos had imagined, and partially of a former assistant manager that I had to work with.

I think the thing that I am the most excited about portraying this character is that the character reminds me of someone who I used to know, and somehow that seems to give me a feeling that I know this character slightly more than I would without knowing someone in real life.  I think the thing that I am the most concerned about portraying this character is that I do not completely understand how to portray the voice of Cindy.  When I speak normally, It’s usually quite clear that it is a man’s voice.  I also do not want to do the generic female voice where a man just lazily talks in a high pitch.  I am hoping that I will somehow be able to find a happy medium of speaking in a slightly higher pitch than I normally do, and finding an accent that somewhat correlates with this proposed Cindy character.

Using the skills from the Physical Life Inventory to help develop my acting practice can be extremely handy as it nicely displays each side of representing a character.  A lot of these I would most likely overlook.  Reading some of the Physical Life Inventory questions reminded me of how we acted during our first silent performances in class.  I still need to focus on all of my movements when trying to play a different character.  However, I am sure with time and practice, it may just come to me more naturally than it does right now. 

blog prompt 2

How can you use the skills from your Physical Life Inventory to your acting practice? How would it help you as an actor more generally? How can you use it for a specific character?

When I was first handed the Physical Life Inventory, I figured that I would already know the answers about myself, having been myself for 20 years.  I was actually thoroughly surprised to find out that I needed to stand, walk around, and sit down and think about what I was doing to actually answer a good amount of the questions.  This especially applied to questions like the active motion questions, such as “Is your pattern of movement fluid and effortless or jerky and labored?  How obvious is the changing of gears as you accelerate or change direction?”

Applying the skills from the Physical Life Inventory to my acting practice can be very useful as it truly breaks down every single aspect of portraying a character, many of which I, and many other inexperienced actors would probably easily overlook.  I, myself, have never acted in any performances on stage, but I have seen many throughout high school as I worked backstage or lights during the performances.  Between watching the official shows with an audience, and the numerous rehearsals during tech week, I saw many of the performances several times over. I believe I saw footloose on stage a total of 11 times.   From witnessing these official performances, and numerous rehearsals, I did notice that the actors tended to be much more animated than they were when they were just at school during our classes.  Reading some of the Physical Life Inventory questions reminded me of how the actors would act during the shows.  For the time being, I really need to focus on all of my actions when attempting to portray another character, although I am sure over time, it will perhaps come to me more naturally than it does now.  

One might be able to use the Physical Life Inventory for a specific character the way we did for our performances in class on Wednesday, January 14th.  For the assignment, I had observed my sister.  I figured I had been mocking and imitating her for years just to annoy her, so I was probably somewhat decent at doing it for school purposes.  The Physical Life Inventory helped pinpoint certain aspects of how she acts that I otherwise would not have thought to have considered when portraying her.

Blog Promt 1

How would you describe "good" acting? What experience have you had as an actor? What skills would you like to work on this semester? What kind of feedback about your acting would you like from me as we move through the semester?

I would describe good acting as someone who can play a variety of roles that are completely different from one another. One example of someone who I think can be good at playing different roles is James Franco.  I do not believe he is the greatest actor, but he does play humorous roles well such as Saul, the drug dealer from Pineapple Express (2008), or parodying himself in This Is The End (2013).  However, James Franco is also able to pull off more serious roles such as Will Rodman, the scientist looking for a cure for Parkinson’s disease in Planet of the Apes (2011).  Will Smith also applies to this, in my opinion.  He started off being hilarious and incredibly animated in Fresh Prince of BeI-Air (1990-1996). He then went on to do more serious films like I, Robot (2004), I am Legend (2007), and Seven Pounds (2008), while reminding his fans that he can still be funny in Hancock (2008).  I would also describe good acting as someone who can truly convince me that they’re actually going through whatever their character is going through.  This is kind of related to action sequences such as the actor really just got shot, or is actually jumping out of a speeding car, etc.  However, this is mostly related to psychological things, such as the character really is scared or in love.  If an actor appears to be faking it, it’s not very good acting.

 
The only acting I have ever done has been in front of cameras, I have never acted on a stage before. 

 However, I did work on many theatrical productions in high school, so I definitely have been exposed 

to acting that’s good, at least to a high school’s standards.  Certain skills I would like to improve on is 

knowing how to act in front of people, since it seems like it's harder than acting in front of a camera. 

 Helpful feedback would probably be to tell me what I'm doing wrong, and how to do it right.  That 

may sound a little basic, but I suppose I mean to tell me how to improve, rather than just telling me 

what I am doing wrong or telling me that I was bad.