It's not too bad!

Inception is the most diffcult project I have ever had in acting class, but this one is also the one I learned the most. This is the first project which I have to direct a short film with 9 actors. I also played the main character in this project which Ryan should play, but I had to take over for some unexpected reasons. To be honest, I have to say that people who acts in their own directing work is just genius because there is no way you would ever feel satisfied with any scene. This movie is one of the most famous movie in the world because of it’s perfect story and amazing cast. When I decided to do this movie, I know that my hard time id coming. After this project, I want to say that it was not the best directing experience, but it was definitely the best learning experience in many ways.

Through this project, I have learned two most important thing, and they are the first how to get work done when most people don’t want to work, second how to cut lines and cut scenes to fit everyone in class. The energy in class was so low, and I could almost feel Google translator was reading the script which has no emotion and character development. I would say that if I can have people’s energy level ten times higher than it was, the production will be bought to a whole new level. It was not only actors’ problem, but also my the directer’s problem because I didn’t successfully make everyone be interested in this movie and their characters. Also, I wasn’t so clear with scripts and lines at the beginning which slowed our speed. About lines and scenes, we could not all of them because of stage limits and people’s memorization issues. Anyway, we figured a way to give most people equal amount of lines. I was not so prepared at the beginning, so I made so many mistakes on lines and scenes which confused everyone. However, after I give Cobb’s lines to other people, everything worked out. I still think that if we can put more effort in the script before we start to run the scene, we will be able to give a much better show. Nothing is perfect, so the final production is actually not bad.

I was so nervous, because I am afraid that I would not be able to put all the small scenes into a film. The result is that all the short scenes look good together and the transition is not so random or awkward. I want to thank everyone in class who puts effort in this project even when we spend so long in class on only the Inception. I also want to say that everyone has improved a lot in this movie, and I am looking forward to see you all in the future acting activities!

Director+Leading Character=almost crazy

Inception is one of the most difficult project I have ever had in acting class, and this is also the one I’m worried about the most. This is the first project which I have to direct a performing work with 9 actors. This project was going slowly and well, but after my dear friend Ryan started circling in all different kinds of life troubles, I have to take over the character Mr. Cobb which is the main character who has a huge amount of lines, so this is also the most challenge project to me. Anyway, I want to report some of my feelings of being the director and main character at the same time, and some progress we have done in this class.

There are so many famous actors who direct their own movies, and they often be harder and more serious than normal directors because they want to make every scene perfect. I can tell you that I can feel exactly the same way. As a director I always want to see my actors to be in their best condition, but I have to say that in my acting class not everyone is always ready to be in the character which we need to work together every class, so we can be ready to present our scenes. As a director I have to get everything down on my own, such as costumes, scripts and the filming ways. It’s a lot of work for me to do, and I feel that so far we are in a slow speed, but we do get works down well.

However, I am not only a director now. I am also taking the leading role in this project. Ever since I watched Inception I want to try to play Cobb so much because he is the coolest one in the whole movie because he knows everything and he has a lot of emotion changes and great lines. I wanted my best friend Mr. Kim to be this character because he has the kind of characteristic to be fancy and cool. However, he had to give this great part to me, and I have to say that I have been enjoying this character, but I am also struggling with lines and timing. After all, I think I am doing well on this character, and I am looking forward to see the over all performance.

Is it possible?

Inception is one of the most famous and great in the whole world, and in the orginal movies all the actors did a perfect job to deliver this super complicated story. I decided to do this movie because of two main reasons. The first reason is that I can cast the whole class in this movie and give most of them equal amount of lines. Another reason is that this movie can give them some very different experience of acting because they will have to work with more people in the same time which requires skills and knows each other more. 

We have been working on this movie four almost two weeks, and I am so not appreciate our progress. This is not my first time being a director, but this is the first time I have many people who has different acting skills and interests. In order to get them all work, I will have to make their energy level to be ten times higher than now. Even though I don't like chemistry, but I have to comfess that more energy you have more active you will be which means you will get work done much faster. I will not be able to film and stage every scene in black box theater, so we were just running lines. However, I don't feel everyone can find their character if we just read lines. I will have them to act out on stage to practice more in the future classes, so they can find their character and be more familiar to lines. 

So far I can't see how our final production will be looked like, so I will spend more time on how to creat every single scene. Now my biggest problem is where I can film and how I'm going to film. To be honest, I am so excited and can't wait another second to see our production on the video, but we still need to put tons of effort in this project. Break A Leg!

That was not good...

This scene was the first time Abi and I ever worked together, and we have taken acting class twice together. To be honest, I expected this to be a perfect scene and I was so excited. However, when we dicided to do this awkward I found out that this would not go was as good as I thought it could be. Even though we all have so many acting experience, we still could not creat that awkward feeling and atomsphere. I have to say that I was so disappointed about our final production, and I consider that the reasons we failed because two main reasons which were script memorization and character development. This is not the first time I take this class, so I wall try to learn from this failed scene to improve myself.

The first thing I tought is the character development which I use a lot when I get lost in acting. However, this time my trick was not working so well. I found out that this character actually has crush on the girl, and this girl also has crush on the boy, so I assume that the cause of this awkward is they are too shy too tell their feelings and they do not want each other to know. But this time I can find the feeling be this character. Maybe because I always tell people what I feel directly, and I also have to say that I can't feel any awkward around Abi even though it looked so awkward to the audience. This issue caused my acting looked so fake and uncomfortable.

Another problem we have is our memorizations. I know we had a long script, but I also know that we both had longer script before, so there was no excuse for us to not fully memorized our lines. I want to say sorry to Abi for jumping around with lines which caused  a confusion to both Abi and audience. I didn't work hard enough when Abi was out sick. We also didn't get a lot of time working together on blocking and timing, so when we were doing our final shooting our.  Lines sound awful and blocking looked weird.

Overall I don't feel great about this final production and I think that we can do better than we did. Through this scene I learned that no matter how good you are you always need to practice and rehearsal with your cast, or you will not know what will happen in your actual performance.  As you can see in our performance, lines and blocking were so disordered which make us felt so bad, and it also made audience so confused. In order to make this not happen again, I will work on my lines more not only on my own but also with others who is in the scene. At the last, I want to say that I hope I can do better on my next project and never forget how bad is forgetting most of the lines.

Cast for Twilight

I want to do this movie because the story happens in high school and a lot of students love this movie. I want to cast Ryan Kim as Edward Cullen because I know Ryan is older than most kids in our grade, so he can be perfect to act like a young kid with a old soul. 

I want to cast Sam Weed as Bella Swan because she is the typical young girl in school who gets a lot guys' attention and she is curious.

For Jacob Black I would give it to Cade who is athletic and funny, also he is very open and outgoing which is so good to build the funny new werewolf.

For Bella's father character I want to cast James because he did a great job in Once On This Island as a caring father character. I think this will be great character for him. And for Bella's mother I would choose angle because she has showed me that she cares and worried a lot stuff in a good way which would be perfect for a mother character.

On the Vampire side I would love to have Robert, Michael, Abi, Wiebke and Charlotte. I want to do this because first they are pale, and second their chemistry will be so good when they the vampire characters because they are different and same in some ways.

On the werewolf side I want to have William, Josh, Jayden and me. I choose all boys because there is no female werewolf in the movie, and all these boys are in some way athletic or have a lot muscles. I have already seen Jayden play a werewolf role and he did pretty well. 

This my thought of casting people for Twilight and I think we can switch vampire group and werewolf group around to make it more serious, more a love story or more funny. 

The Awkward

I have to say that it seems so unreal that Abi and I never work in a scene together before, and we have taken acting class twice together. So, when we decided to work together for this project I am too excited to wait. However, our first try was not as good as I thought it could be. Even though we all have so many acting experience, we still could not create that awkward scene. I consider that the reasons we failed because we are too comfortable around each other which cause that we never felt awkward before. Anyway, the point of this class is trying to make our skills better, so I have been thinking how I can make this works out.

The first thing I tought is the character development which I use a lot when I get lost in acting. I found out that this character actually has crush on the girl, and this girl also has crush on the boy, so I assume that the cause of this awkward is they are too shy too tell their feelings and they do not want each other know. By the way, I suposed to be in a box with my head out. To be honest, let a girl see me in this situation will make me feel super awkward. Maybe I knew it was acting so I was so calm. Now I think it again, If it was in real life I would just put my head in the box and pretend no one is there. I also have to say that I can feel any awkward around Abi even though others would think it was the most awkward moment, so I guess that I have to remind myself to be awkward around Abi more (Just kidding).

After all I think the project is going well, and I cannot wait to see the final production. We might need to think more about our character and work more on creating the awkward, but over all we are getting closer to the scene. I do feel awkward when I am writing this. I wish everyone will have a wonderful spring break and study their lines for fun!!!

Listen carefully and view fully

https://youtu.be/0mqTaxK64x0

We have been working on this group scene work for three weeks which is longer than it supposed be. However, I don't think we did as well as we could with this much time, and I think there are three main reasons which cause this. First we are not using class time well, second we didn't pay our attention on the performance and background and third we did take other people’s advices seriously. Because of these three reason, I think we didn't give the best performance we can. Anyway, we need to learn from this project, and we should remind our self when we next time do any other group project.

    I have to say it again that time is the most important thing in a group project because how to use the time can make a huge difference when you have the final production. For example, when we are doing researching and reading through, it is so important that everyone is in the same page. Then we can make sure which scene we use and which character we are interested in. However, my group was a little bit slower because we changed our idea twice. After we dicide the script, we started to work on the memorization and blocking. However, my group didn't do well on working the pacing and staging because we were just working on our own lines. I remember when the first time we actually perform on stage we messed our pacing and blocking because we don't know how long others go and where they move. So in the future I will communicate more with my group mates to make sure we are on the same page!

    Next problem we had was we didn't pay much attention to the performance and background, and this directly caused our final production looked a little emotionless. For example, when we first time ran our scene Angel, William and me were so calm that made the whole story didn't  make any sense because the background should be that I am a people try to scam a old lady while her only family member which is her nephew caught me. William played as the nephew and Angel was the old lady. However, we were all acting so calm and deliver lines as if we are reading a boring story, so audience were so confused. Then we studied each character and we put more emotion in it. Finally we finished our scene. I consider that if we could study characters earlier, we would not be so unprepared when we act out the scene.

    The last problem is we didn't take each other’s advices seriously, and this is a the problem can cause some bigger issues. For example, I remember that I was told to be more angry many times, and I didn't do much until everyone told me to do so.Then I found out that it did helped the whole scene. I have to say that there is no perfect actor, so we always need other people’s opinion because the point of acting is make audience believe not actor believe. I also realized that actors don't listen to other people’s advices not only because they don't want to, but also they can't view their work as others can. I suggest that we should take multiple videos before we actually do our final production because view as an audience can help you understand more.

    This was the best of my work that I can do, but it always worth it to learn from it. I will focus more in the future about the group work, so we can do better on the performance instead of wasting time on other things. We also need to be more focusing on the background information and how to make audience believe. The last one is that we should always listen to other’s advises because there is no perfect actor!