Monologue

So far I have seen Jack and Cade's first monologue and both of them are great monologue. For Cade's monologue he can do either angry and aggressive or comedic, so I will aks him to try both ways and see which one he likes better. For Jack I think the monologue will be focusing on pacing, so the audience will truly believe that he is talking to someone on the phone. I read Jack's blog about the background and character, and I want to see how he shows us the awkwardness. And I am looking forward working with them. 

Different Perspective!

This is the third time I take this class, so I have done so many works about silent movie. However, this time is so different than others because I am a director instead of an actor. To be honest, director is much harder than I thought, and it is also much more interesting than I except it would be.  I especially enjoyed three parts of this group project, and they are staging, costuming and video editing. As a director, I could see the show in the audience position, so I can make the change to make it better as soon as I find out there is a problem. And I couldn't do it before as an actor which is helping me more with my staging skills. I also need to find the costume for all the actors which is a pretty fun process because as an actor I might feel uncomfortable or shy to try costumes that I never tried before, but as a director I always have some crazy costumes for them because I know better how they looks when I see them for the audience’s perspective. The last thing is video editing, and I am trying to make it better and better than before.

I used to work as an actor with other classmates, so when we are working together we normally stage it naturally with our own understanding of our characters, so sometimes it looks not so good from audience side. And this is also why we need to video our work and watch it, or we will not know what we do wrong and what we need to work on more. However, I can now see the staging all the time, so I can make all the change i need immediately. For example, in this silent movie, Jaden and Jack kept blocking each other, but they didn't realize because they were focusing on the fighting scene with William. If I was not watching this scene, I would not notice this problem which can cause confusion. I am very happy that I can be a director because I will be more careful in the future acting.

The other thing I really enjoy is costuming, and this is the greatest part of this silent movie project. At the beginning, everyone in my group wants a girl character in the movie, so it wil make it more funny. Then I had the idea of dressing a boy up as a girl, and I was impressed that Cade is a such talented actor who is so brave to try a girl’s dress and make it even more hilarious than my expectation. To be honest, I was not thinking that Cade would wear that pink dress, but as an actor he showed his great ability to handle things that people cannot handle in daily life. Other actors also showed their abilities to make a amazing ninja silent movie.For example, I enjoyed the chemistry between students and master, and they made their props which are swords and cane be one of their best tool  to make the scene such a pleasure.

The last thing and the most important thing is the production which is the video. I used to use only one music for my first silent movie and then I used four different music for my my second silent movie. But this time I used not only musics but also so many sound effects in the movie. For example, I put cheering sound when the master catch the paper flight. I honestly enjoyed the process of editing videos because every time I see people love my videos I feel so happy. And thought this processes I learned more and more so I can make my videos better and better and make audiences enjoy more.

I want to thank everyone who helps me to make this super successful silent movie, and I am looking forward to work more with all of my classmates. Different perspective gives me all new ideas of staging, costuming and video editing, and these ideas are helping me to improve all my skills. So far I'm enjoying all the directing work and I hop it can help me to improve myself and make me a better actor. Hope we will all enjoy this class even more.

Silent movie Kill Sam

http://youtu.be/dNgmxl0wVgI

It's John Again?!!!

Hi this is John again, and this is the third time I take Acting class! Since the first time I took this class, I started loving acting because I never get tired with it. It started at the first play I saw last year which was Galileo, and I was surprised by the play because I didn't expect that they did such a great job. After I saw the play I decided to start doing acting things, so I took my first acting class. When I was in China I used to do a lot of different performance, but I had never done any English performance, so I started my English acting life here.

In my first acting class I learned a new thing called theater and play which is so different from a movie, and the play is more interesting than movie because you can never find two exact same play even with exact same crew and cast, but a movie is always the same. After my first acting class, I made my mind to join in the theater for the afternoon activity, and I did. The first English play I did in the spring was Peter Pan, and I have to say this play changed my life. Through the process of the play, I had made so many good friends from different place and they are all talented. Before I joined this play, I was blocking myself in the Chinese circle which was my comfort zone. However, Peter Pan brought my out of my little circle, and now I am in a huge globe. It also changed my goals and plans for my future. I was thinking to major in business, so I can help with my family, but I realized that my heart is set for acting and theater. So, now I will major in theater in college, and I will keep doing it in the future.

Because of my decisions, I have to learn more and more about theater not just acting, and that is why I am here in this class again. I want to learn more about directing, stage settingh and costuming. The more I learn the more harder I find theater is because I know that a play includes so many details, and some of them the audience may not even notice, but we have to have them because the play has to be realistic. For example, I changed my cane twice to represent the difference and connection between Mr. Darling and Curly. However, only one person noticed this small change. Even though, I know only one person will see that, I still do it because this one small change is a part of characters. I am looking forward to work and learn more deeply, and I wish we can all improved ourselves at the end of the semester!

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.