Acting Inquiry

After presenting a scene from Clifford Odett's "Golden Boy," I feel accomplished. My acting skills have improved a lot and that makes me joyful as I'm improving at what I love to do. I'd like to do something very similar to what we did in 3rd quarter and maybe branch off what we learned. I feel like I need to work more with playing with the script . I didn't do anything very daring. I could have done more with my scene. What I did wasn't awful, but it could have been more creative. So all in all, I'd like to something similar to what 3rd quarter gave us.

Acting Inquiry Update

I've made a lot of progress from the beginning of third quarter to now. When I ran through my scene from Clifford Odett's Golden Boy, I felt like a lot of it was working out. The emotions were real and I was connected to my partner and captivated in the scene. I could play around with my part more though. I was serious for most of the scene but there are different ways I could play the scene out so I have to experiment and see how things play out.

Acapella Group

It's funny how quickly we forget certain things and how quickly we can remember them again. The STAC Acapella Group had not practiced the song they preformed at STAC Live in months and after a few rehearsals and listening to our recording, it all came back. I found it interesting how we were able to remember everything we did months ago. Of course it wasn't perfect but for not practicing it for months, it was pretty good! It could have been a lot worse.

Update

I was able to apply what I learned from my Acting Inquiry today at my audition for the musical Sweeney Todd. I read for the Judge. Before I even started the scene, all of the things about beats, tactics, and the skills acquired from the repeating exercise went through my head. I let everything naturally while at the same time making character choices. I find out either today or tomorrow the part I get. I'm hoping for Sweeney Todd because he's the most interesting in my opinion but the Judge or Anthony are great parts too. Almost all of the male parts in Sweeney Todd are fun.

Quarter Four Plans

For my major area of emphasis, I'm going to focus on my film/drama acting studies. I'm more exploring the aspects of these types of acting rather than having a finished product. I envision the end result to be me having a greater knowledge of a a film/drama acting. I'm not sure if I'm working alone or collaborating. I'd prefer to collaborate as exploring new waters alone is quite dangerous. My community will be the actors that focused on the film/drama type of acting during Quarter Three. Right now, I have a smaller knowledge about a film/drama type of acting. I plan to have a greater understanding of these types of acting by the end of the quarter. The five criteria that I will be graded on for fourth quarter are (note that these are subjected to change as I have little knowledge how to grade someone's acting endeavors, this makes little to no sense to me) by following the seven point blog system, having a scene/monologue presented at the end of the quarter, having evidence of script analysis, by pondering what does and does not make sense and by updating where I am and where I hope to be.
My minor project will be writing a script that I've been hoping to write for a while. I'm writing this script because writing for leisure calms me down and helps me de-stress, which is also why writing this script will be useful for me. It will be fun because I've been meaning to write for a while and haven't had the chance to. I have no plans of this script being put up as a film this quarter as there will not be enough time because of my major area of focus.
For my biography, I plan to read about Nathan Lane. He is a very well known musical theatre actor and  I feel like I would enjoy reading about him. The following link is a link to the book's description.
http://www.amazon.com/Nathan-Lane-Handbook-Everything-about/dp/1486468969/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366076009&sr=1-1&keywords=nathan+lane I look forward to reading about him as he's part of two hilarious musicals which I'm fond of. Those two are "A Funny Thing That Happened on the Way to the Forum" and "The Producers."

Quarter Three Analysis

            I started Quarter Three with a full cup of knowledge on acting that wasn’t necessarily very advanced or professional. Most of my knowledge of acting is more musical theatre based and not so much film acting or drama acting. I want knowledge of each type of acting so I have more options open to me in the future. The more I know about the different types of acting, the better actor I will be. At the end of Quarter Three, I explored a film/drama type of acting and my skills have improved greatly. I’ve learned numerous techniques and methods to act and make it seem like real life. Acting is essentially an actual conversation but with scripted words. I have a much better sense of what film/drama type acting is.

            This journey learning how to become a better film/drama actor was not an easy one. I've learned that one of my main problems is that I'm too focused on being correct. I was not letting things happen spontaneously in a scene. I was searching for a particular way for something to be done and that simply doesn't exist. Every scene is done differently. Everyday you will bring something different to the scene. A different director may have a different view from another director. There are so many variables that there can't be one set way to do something. Part of me has always wanted to make sure I'm doing whatever I'm doing correctly and since there is no correct way of doing a scene, it made learning this film/drama type of acting very difficult for me. But I must say I’m proud of myself for sticking through all the problems and moving forward. Once I was taught how something should look, I went off and explored the lesson. I practiced a lot.

Eventually, I had a breakthrough. I started listening more closely to my scene partner. This greatly changed the way I act as it's much more like a real conversation. Acting and real life have one main difference; acting has the words all planned out and most of the time in real life you do not. The other breakthrough I felt I had is acting more like myself. I was not trying to be someone else. I was reacting as I would in the scene and bringing something to the scene rather than attempting to be something else. Of course as one problem is solved and a breakthrough has been reached, another problem opens up so the learning continues.

Going and practicing what I learned really helped. Also, pondering on my practices and what I was learning really helped. I need to analyze new things that I learn so I can remember the concept in the future. I regret being so stressed over learning these new types of acting. I stress over everything and that definitely does not change when it comes to learning new acting methods. But my dreams to pursue a career in acting inspired me to go further. Even though I find musical theatre the most fun for me, I know learning an film/drama acting will greatly benefit me in the future.

For fourth quarter, I plan to continue practicing film/drama type acting. I will most likely study another scene and analyze it for beats, objectives and tactics as I did this quarter. As I’ve said, the more you practice, the better you’ll get and I want to be the best I can be. I studied a play this quarter so maybe next quarter I’ll study more film scenes than drama scenes. I plan to make the most out of my last quarter as a high school sophomore.

Page One of Scene Analysis

Page Two of Scene Analysis

Page Three Analysis

My Acting Breakthroughs

I feel like I've finally made breakthroughs in my film/drama acting inquiry. I'm listening more closely to my scene partner. This greatly changed the way I act as it's much more like a real conversation. Acting and real life have one main difference; acting has the words all planned out and most of the time in real life you do not. The other breakthrough I felt I have is acting more like myself. I'm not trying to be someone else. I'm reacting as I would in the scene and bringing something to the scene rather than attempting to be something else. Of course as one problem is solved and a breakthrough has been reached, another problem opens up so the learning continues.

Movement in a Scene

I further examined how movement is related to the relationship between the people on stage. I knew the two were related but I was not sure how exactly they were. To my surprise, I understood the concept completely. There's only a few concepts. If one person is "attacking" the other, one person is getting up in the other's face, closer, while the other is probably going away to avoid being attacked. Another concept I learned when two people are flirting or confessing to each other or something along the lines of that. The two people that would most likely be a lot closer as the scene would be more intimate. Or the final concept, both people are going away from each other; they both do not want anything to do with the other. The movement combined with the mood of the scene greatly improved the way the scene looked and felt much more natural.

Establishing Beats

I analyzed the scene I'm working on by dividing it into beats. I found this really helped me understand the scene itself and build a better chemistry with the other character in the scene. I have a better idea of what she's trying to do and her intentions and it helped me better understand my character and his intentions. Each beat revealed something new that helped me in a different way. I feel like I may be getting tactics and beats confused but somehow they're intertwined because the mood of the beat will lead to how you react and that reaction has a tactic whether it's intentional or not. Hopefully the more I learn new things about this style of acting, the easier it will get.

Identifying a Problem

I've learned that one of my main problems is that I'm too focused on being correct. I'm not letting things happen spontaneously in a scene. I'm searching for a particular way for something to be done and that simply doesn't exist. Every scene is done differently. Everyday you will bring something different to the scene. A different director may have a different view from another director. There are so many variables that there can't be one set way to do something. Part of me has always wanted to make sure I'm doing whatever I'm doing correctly and since there is no correct way of doing a scene, it's making this film/drama type of acting very difficult for me. I've made progress but there is a lot more to be done. What I have to do exactly, I'm not exactly sure as I'm still trying to process everything. I'm moving one step at a time and trying to look ahead and plan everything out like I usually do.