My name is...

Hamilton is now one of the most famous and amazing musical play in the world, and I am so excited for presenting the opening song in acting class. Even tough, I am the main character in this song who is Alexander Hamilton, I don't have a huge singing part in this song. However, I need to react to what other people sing about me, so the character building is the most important part I need to work on. So far, I have been enjoying this project because I like this musical play a lot and everyone’s energy level is pretty high.

Alexander Hamilton is one of the most people who served United States, and he is on the ten dollar bill. I didn’t know much about him before I heard this Albums, and I was just in shock when the first time I heard it. This is such a amazing music work, and I never thought that rap can be in musicial theater, but after I heard this song I am not crazy about it. I started to sing it randomly around my classes, and we are actually presenting the opening song in acting class. I am not the best singer, but I have a ability to build a character. At the beginning I thought that Hamilton should be a super confident person, but I was so wrong because he was actually a so small and unfortunate figure at the beginning, then he became to a hero. I thought about this character again, and I found out that this character should be shy and doubting at the beginning. Later, after all the bad thing happened, such as mother’s death he started working extremely hard and he finally proved himself.

We are still working on this project, and I can already see a great final production. I can tell that when people are on stage and they are ready to dance, they are so excited. This is what I did not see during acting project, so this semester’s class is more like a musical class. I was not a big fan of singing, but now if there is a chance I can sing, I am throwing away my shot!

Romeo Monologue

'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here,

Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog

And little mouse, every unworthy thing,

Live here in heaven and may look on her;

But Romeo may not: more validity,

More honourable state, more courtship lives

In carrion-flies than Romeo: they my seize

On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand

And steal immortal blessing from her lips,

Who even in pure and vestal modesty,

Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;

But Romeo may not; he is banished:

Flies may do this, but I from this must fly:

They are free men, but I am banished.

And say'st thou yet that exile is not death?

Hadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,

No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,

But 'banished' to kill me?.'banished'?

O friar, the damned use that word in hell;

Howlings attend it: how hast thou the heart,

Being a divine, a ghostly confessor, 

A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,

To mangle me with that word 'banished'?

The first time!

Ever since I studied Romeo and JulietI in Literature&Performance class, I started liking Shakespeare’s work. I have been wanting to do a Shakespeare monologue for a long time, and finally I got the chance to do for my audition project in acting class. I want to do this not just because I like Shakespeare, but also I want to challenge myself.

As we all know that the Shakespeare’s monologue is one of the hardest kind of monologue to do, especially me who is a international student. Also, this kind of monologue is also the only kind of monologue I have never done before even I have taken this class three times. This time, I will find a Shakespeare monologue, and I want to do a really dramatic or comedic because I want to try some dramatic monologues and I also need a comedic monologue to put in my resume.

I will start to searching monologues and analysis the original text to fully understand the plot. Most importantly I need to being in the character, so I will have to work extremely hard on lines, in order to make the scene goes smoothly. I remember that the first Shakespeare project I did I had my script in my hands and I kept looking on it, so I constantly pause to see the line, then started to act again which looked super awkward on stage. This time, I will have all of my script memorized and keep being in character and blocking the whole time.

To be honest, I am actually a little nervous because Shakespeare is like the symbol of the hardest project ever. It felt like I am in chemistry I and tomorrow I need to find a new Element. Anyway, I will put my most effort in this project even this is the end of the school year! I am also looking forward to see other classmates work!

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.