See You Next Year!

This is my second time take acting class, and every time I feel that I learn so many things which I didn't realized before. In this semester, I mainly focused on building more different kinds of characters which I hadn't try before. Also, I have been working on my pace and pronunciation which are my weakest part. For example, I did characters which are more calm and quiet, and those character has more emotion hold inside not outside. I decided to do those characters because I want to make sure that I can do more and more types of character, and it will help me to achieve myself a better actor. It also remains me to slow down because of you are talking quietly you won't go too fast which I hate so much and I cannot control!

I successfully solve my memorization problem frim last year; however, I often loses my pace and my pronunciation when I act, so I tried so hard to slow down and to annunciate more. In order to do it, I keep telling myself in my head “slow down, slow down, louder and louder!” Actually it helped me a lot. For example, I was going too fast during a dialogue between me and Jack because my character should be extremely calm, but I thought it was emotionless which caused I just said my line so fast and plainly. So Ms. Guarino pointed out that I needed to slow down and analysis the character more. I will keep working more on it, so I can perform better and easier. 

I also chose character’s kinds which I didn't know much. The first one I chose was a kid who has been bullying for long time, and he finally speaks up, so I had to hold all the emotions and then show it out at certain lines. To be honest, it sounds easy, but it actually so hard to be controlled because the perfect line or moment is super hard to find. Then I started to do more work on character building before I do the actual scene which helped me a lot on finding the right emotion for character and perfect timing for emotion changes. Then I had some crazy character such as drunk guy or police officer. However, every time I do a different character it takes me some time to figure the back story and character’s achievement out, and I am improving those skills. 

I hope that I can do well on my final monologue which is a extremely dramatic one, and I never do this kind before. I got some feedback in last time rehearsal, and I will use those advises. I am also looking forward the next semester’s director job. I will and always try my best to learn how to be a director, and I believe that it will be so fun and new experience for me! Finally I want to thank everyone who worked so hard and helped me so much in the class especially Ms. Guarino who is a great teacher and an amazing friend! Merry Christmas everyone and see you next year!

Just Realized

I did not realized that half of my Junior year is almost over until I just check my final performance in Acting class is coming. Different than before, I am now trying to discover a quiet performance style which can bring out the power of silent. I started working on characters who are quiet and dramatic since the beginning of this class, and I truly want to finish this class with my last super dramatic and sad monologue. When I was selecting monologues for final project, I was looking so many dramatic monologues, and I did not chose others because this one is the biggest challenge for me. My strength is not working so well this time because this is the first time ever I act in this emotion and background, I will talk more on how I accomplish this character, and what struggles I had when I was working on it.

I guess that you must be so confused about what emotion and background I said in last paragraph. Don’t worry, and let me explain. First of all, I selected two monologues for this project, and one of them is about love and another one is about death. However, I chose the one about death because I never tried before. After I read the script, I realized that It is much harder than I thought it would be because the script did not tell me anything about the background, so I had to find it on my own. The monologue is about a person telling one of the person he knew was committed suicide, and he sold her a ticket the other night before she died. When the first time I do this monologue I focused too much on the sadness and hopelessness part, but only these two could not be as effective and powerful as I wished. Then Ms. Guarino pointed out that I need to study more on character’s emotion, and I noticed that I should also feel guilty because I sold the ticket to her. Also, Abi told me that I should control how I play with the ticket and I can actually do more dramatic things with it for example throw it away at some lines. I will work on it more and more, and I will give you all a great performance.

I enjoyed this class so much so far, and I wish it will be better by ending it with all our best performance. I have tried few different quiet characters and I will try and work more in the future. I feel that the power of silent can be much powerful than yelling because It can gather audience’s attention well, and audience do hear and feel better. Also, when you are doing a dramatic monologue, some silent can make the emotion stay in audience’s heart longer, and when they think about it they will be, like “Oh my god, that’s so creepy. I didn’t know that! But now I see.” May be, I guess that I am a little tired to be angry all the time. Anyway, this is a great semester in this class, and I wish we all learned and improved our skills.

In class writing

My character is a person who sold a ticket to a girl who I know, and after that night she was committed suicide. I am a 20 years old college student who work for a place to sell tickets. I think I was send to a psychologist and I finally told this story happened to me. I want to wear in the waiter dress and hold a ticket in my hand all the time and I want to be looked so tired and weak. I want to site down on a chair and looking at the ticket to tell all this and finally look up at the end part. My goal is that I want to express the sadness  and hopeless of my mind problem. I haven't play to many silent character, so this time I want to use the power of the emotion in stand of the voice to express the passage.

Challenge and Fun

In our Acting class, we started a new in class activity which is Improv activity. I really like it because of two reasons, first of all it can bring me so much fun, second of all it is a challenge for me which also helps me to improve my acting skills. As an actor in a live play the most important thing is that you can never kill the play which means no matter what happens you have to go with it. Improv perfectly trains me to be better at dealing with different situations. I wish we can do more those activities when we have time in class, so we can all be better actors.

I enjoy its process and how it suprise me every time because I can never know what is going to happen. For example, my favorite game is one person makes a motion and another person comes up a line, and the person doing motion have to say a line which goes along with the line before. I still remember there was one when William was digging a hole and another person said that here is baby, then William said that yes, and I am making a tomb. It sounds so creepy and dark, but it worked super well in the situation. In those game it can always bring us so much fun because once we all know each other we can make fun of each other to make the whole game looks better. For instance, once when we were playing the psychosis game. Charlotte was copying Wiebke’s way of talking and complaining which was so and I couldn't control myself to not laugh. After all, this is a great activity to have fun in class.

This activity can also help us to improve our skills. As I said before, you can never know what will happen on stage in a play. For example, in the fall play Peter Pan Wendy should fall with her head toward to the stage left, however there was once she fall down to another side which changed all the blocking to a opposite direction. I was so glad that we fixed it, so no one can tell we did wrong. If all the actors was so bad at dealing those situations, it will mass up the whole play which is so bad and no one ever wants this to happen. Then the Improv activity helps me to do better in those situations because every time we do the game we all need to react quick so the scene will looks good and smooth. When we put all our effort in the process we can learn so much from every round which can achieve a better self of us.

I didn't do any of these games before until this year, and I want to do it more and more in 
the future not only because I love this game and it brings fun, but also because I do learn 
things from it and it is such a big help for me as an actor! Hope we all enjoyed our classes and we will all do better in the future!

Put the gun down

https://youtu.be/ELYjiGKwSo4