Scenes

http://hollywoodactingworkshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Meet_the_Husband_-_2_men_1_women.pdf

http://www.10-minute-plays.com/comedies/murder_by_midnight.html

Challenging!

I have decided my scene which is a piece from Death Of Seals Man, and I have been practicing this scene since last Thursday. This is the longest monologue that I ever choose, so it is a challenge for me. I consider that I have one strength, and I have two thing that I need to work on. This monologue is going well, and I will make it better. I believe that I can learn so many things from this monologue.

My strength is that I find the right emotion of this monologue. It is extremely important to find out the right emotion because if you act with the different emotion, you will show audience so different information. In this monologue, I think the basic emotion is the angry which a son feels about his father. However, I did not show the angry at the beginning because I think the angry is in the deep heart at the first, then it comes out by talking and memorizing, so the first emotion is upset and hopeless. As I go through the monologue, the angry is coming out and building up, and it explode out when the line “What the hell am I grabbing this for?” (Death Of Seals Man). Thus, finding the right emotion will help to pass the right information to the audience.

The first thing that I need to work on is memorizing. To be honest, I am so bad at memorizing because sometimes I am too worried to remember the line. I keep thinking how to act and control the right emotion, so I always lost the line even when I read along. I tried many ways to remember the next line, but I still cannot find one that works well for me. I will keep working on it, and it brings me some problems. For example, if I lost my line in the show, it would be a extremely bad thing, so I have to remember all my lines. Thus, remembering all the lines is one of the most important thing that I have to word on.

Anything thing that I need to practice is body language. In this scene, I do not have much movement, but I still need my body language to show the character's information. To be honest, I have no clear idea of what kind of body language is the best, so I think that I will study which body language I will use in the scene after I finish remembering all the lines. Thus, it is so hard to do the best movements in this scene, but I will try my best to figuring it out.

This is the first serious scene I did in this class, and I hope I can do it as well as my comic one. I will do my best to memorize it and find the best way to act it. I will keep working hard on what I did not do well, and I will also make my good part even better. I am looking forward to see how my scene will show as a video.

Notes in class

Musical: musical review - less story

Operetta - all singing

Projection = stage voice

Diction/articulation = pronunciation clear

Stage direction: blocking, script, ad lib ~ imprvise lines

Always face to the audience

Lines>cue line> forget line say"line"

Stage manager-feeds lines, and records all blocking

Costumes> set pieces> control props lighting sound effects

Actor: body language, facial exp, line delivery, reacting, back story, motivation> why?

Elements of musical theater

Pitch, rhythm, emotion, not accuracy, tempo, expression

There is no the best!

In this video, I have seen so many extremely talented actors and actresses who are students from all over the America. They had represented a amazing show on the broadway stage which is the one of the biggest and most famous stages in the world. To be honest, if I were on of them, I would not be able to speak at all because there were too many people. I consider that they all will become the actor who will be in the history forever, especially the two winners Joshua and Elizabeth. I also studied the reason why they are the best. I think they are the best because of three main reasons that skills, effort and progress.

As we all can see, each one of them has his or her own special skills to make himself or herself a talented actor or actress. They love acting, so they started to learn how to act since they were all little boys or girls, and they found their own talent. They also steeled themselves. They were chosen not because they are good looking but they are all skillful. I realized that there are so many people who are hundred times better than me, so I will work harder and harder to make myself a good actor. Thus, the more skills you know the better actor you will be.

You are a talented actor does not means you are the best in the whole world, so they still need to put their effort in it. Some of them were working extremely hard. I remember some girls in the video was practicing during the midnight. They worked everyday, and some rehearsal was 8 hours or even longer. Not only they worked hard, but also the director and teachers were working so hard. They tried their best to push all the actors and actresses to a higher level, so listening to the advice from teachers and director is the one of the most important thing you should do.

The last thing is progress. I consider that if you have the skills and effort, you will have progress. As we can see, not every single actor was good at the start, so some of them tried every possible ways to improve their works, and they made it at the end. Even though, most of them did not win, but they all get the most valuable experiences and lessons which will help them in their rest of life.

I really like video not only because people’s amazing works, but also because they taught me what should I do as an actor to make a better self. I will use what I learned from the video in the future, and I hope I can improve myself like what they did.

Notes

In this video, I have seen so many extremely talent actors and actress who are students from all over the America. This video has record all the way frome they parking to the first show. I have seen they put so much effort on their work. They practice every night, and some of them even work until midnight. Even though they are talented, but they still need someone to teach them, so I also saw how they improve themselves to a higher level. They present not only with skills, but also with their own emotion. They had made the show alive. 

Setting is not easy!

Recently I have finished a scene which is a scene in a famous TV show called Friends. Friends is one of my favorite TV shows not only because it was the first that I saw, but also a great show which made me cry. When I decided to act this scene, I was so happy and worried because I did not know that if I would ruin this show or not, and I also wanted to make this scene perfect.

However, we had so many troubles when we were doing the scene, and there were three main problems that made the whole scene harder to do. The first one was that I could not find a good place to set up the living room like the one in the TV show, so Ms. Guarino took us to the black box to find a good place for the scene. We were lucky because we found a enough place, and we also find other tools that we needed such as bracelet. Another trouble was that we were little hurry, so we cannot make the scene one minute and 45 seconds. However, we did it in 55 seconds at the first time which was too short to show. Then, we practiced it with more actions such as smiles and funny faces. Finally, we made it one minute and 54 secons. The last problem for us was that I didn't do well at the first time because I showed my back to the audience, so I fixed my position many times. Then I found a good position for me, and I handled it. Also, at the first time, we did not move much which made the whole scene looked a little bit boring and short, so we add more position changes such as one running away and another one catching up. So the scene would looks more unaffectedly. Thus, it was a great scene that we all love it, and we put so many effort in it. I hope that  others will like it.

As we do all the scenes and practices, my skills have proved a lot. For example, I used to forget my lines so often; however, I can remember all my lines much faster and better than before. I am having so much fun in this class because we always do different scenes which brings me more colorful experiences. I am looking forward to have more classes in next semester.

Confidence Is Not Arrogance!

I saw The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at The Black Box Theater, Cheshire Academy. It was a excellent show. Every actor did his or her best job in the show, and I suggest that everone should go and see the play. I like the character Chip and Barfee so much because I learned one most important thing from them. The things is that we should always be confident, and we should never be arrogant.

We should always trust in ourselves. There is nothing that is impossible; however, people always doubt their abilities before they try to do something. For example, in the show The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, the main charecter Barfee believes that he can spell words correctly because of her magic foot, but when Logainne's father spills coke on the floor, Barfee's magic foot doesn't work. He is so nervous and fear; however, he does spell the word correctly without the magic foot. At that moment, I saw that she jumps and yells excitedly and happily. This kind of thing happens not only in the show, but also in the real life. I remember when I was training my leg last night in weight room, I putted 9 plates on the machine, and each of them was 45 pounds. To be honest, I thought it was my limitation, but there was a sound in my head that kept saying a crazy idea "Maybe I can put one more each side". Actually, I did put one more each side, and I can handle it. I was tinking that if I never had that creazy thought, I could never know what I cnpan do. As we can see, we should always believe in ourselves and sometime we should push ourselves to break the limitation.

We should be confident, but we should never be arrogant. Lots of people become losers, and the reason is not because they don't have their skills. The real reason is because they over think their power, and they think that others have pour skill. In my opinion, the biggest enemy to us is always ourselves. I remember a main character who is called Chip. He was the champion of the last spelling bee, so he too confident to focus on the match. Then, he fall asleep during the game, and suddenly Vice-Principal calls him up to spell the word. However, he has erection, so he asks if he can escape this round. Vice-Principal says that Chip has to spell the word. Tittup is the word that Chip has to spell; however he spells "t i t u p" which is not correct because of a missing T. I am so sure that Chip knows how to spell that word, but his arrogance beats himself up. When I was in primary school, everytime my mom always asked about my test, and my answer was always good or great; however the truth was that I never did well on my test when I said that I did very well. The reason was that I would be less careful, if I knew how solve question. Thus, we should always be confident, and we also need to try our best in even every little thing, because details make things perfect.

As we all know, Barfee is the champion of the 25th Annual Putnam Country Spelling Bee, and Chip was the champion last year. I consider that Chip and Barfee has the same abilities. The reason why Barfee is the champion instead of Chip is that Barfee finds his confidence back and Chip is too arrogant. Finally, there is one thing that we should never forget. It is that we should be confident not arrogant.