To Achieve a Better Self

I have been working on Meet The Husband for almost two weeks. Thus is the first three people dialogue scene that we work on, and this is a new challenge for all of us. I consider that I have three things to work on. The first is that I need to improve my pronunciation. Second one is that I need to be careful when I am moving around. The last thing is that I need to find the right emotion and use it in the scene. However, I am not acting as well as I did before, so I have to put more effort in this scene.

In this scene, I am some lines with extremely strong emotion, so I cannot pronounce every words clearly. This makes the scene looks not so good, and I want to make the scene as good as I can. If I cannot say the correct words, it will make the audience confused which will be unacceptable in the theater. I will read and practice more times on the lines which needs me to pronounce more clearly. Thus, good pronounce helps to delivery the scene better.

Another problem which has been arousing me since the first rehearsal; it is my movements. To be honest, I think we are so lucky because we can always use black box setting in our own scene. However, this time we have a bar which we have to sit in a row, so it is so easy to cover others completely which is pretty bad. I had changed my movements so many times to fit the scene, and I think that I need more thinking about my movements, and I will work on it in classes and hope that I can find a best blocking. I am looking forward to see how we can solve this problem.

The last one is that i did not find the absolutely correct emotion on this scene, and I think the reason is that I don't have much experience. Ms. Guarino helped me to build the emotion in today's class, and I think that I find the right emotion to represent, so I want to thank Ms. Guarino for helping me. I will practice more and see if I can improve my skill. I hope that I can show the emotion like the last monologue. Last monologue had taught me how emotion improve the whole scene, so I will try my best to make this scene even better than the last one.

Finally, my acting class almost over, and I have been enjoying in this class and working with friends and teacher. We have improved our skills. I remembered that we can only do a three people silent movie at the beginning, and now we can do a three people dialogue scene which is a big progress. I hope that I can use what I have learned to achieve my goal next year and hope I can be a good player.

Challenging Is The Way To Build A Better Self

I have done my first serious scene in my acting class, and this is the longest monologue I ever did, so this was a challenge for me. I also learned and improved my skill in this scene. I had a hard time to set the scene at the beginning because of my memorizing and positioning. After hard working, I finally found the best position for me, and I used the way that Ms. Guarino told me to memorize the lines. I would give myself A- for this scene, because I think I still need to improve myself to a higher level.

I consider that I found the correct emotion of the scene, so I can deliver the right information to the audience which I think is the best part of my acting. Another ting that I think I did well is that I make the good time of the scene by stoping and move. However, I have more things to work on.

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. At start, I standed up all the time, but I kept looking down which make the whole scene looks not good. Then I tried to set a two chair scene; however, it is so hard to talk to a chair. To be honest, I have no clear idea of what kind of body language is the best, finally I decided that I would sit at the start, then I would stand up.  Thus, it is so hard to do the best movements in this scene, but I tried my best to work on it.

This is the first serious scene I did in this class, and I hope people would like it as my comic one. I will do my best to memorize and find the best way to act for my next scene. 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 get some feedback form audience.

Ending

Cassie is so nervous, because she is afraid of if Tom will find out or not. So she called the Brandon.
BRANDON: Hi, You...
Cassie: Yes, it is me. What's wrong?
BRANDON:Noting...Noting really
Cassie:Did he find out? Did he knows that it was you? Oh my god. I can't do it anymore. I love Amanda Jacob and John. They are just naive kids. They can't loss their mom, me. I have to tell Tom.....
BRANDON:Shut up, are you crazy?
Cassie:No I am not. It was all your fault, and you can't give me what tom could, never. You should find a another one, someone is better than me.
BRANDON:He is gonna kill me? Do you get my meaning?
Cassie:I don't care, I'm calling him now. Good luck and Help yourself!

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.