UNIT 7 - Preparation for specialist study

UNIT 7 - Preparation for specialist study

TASK 1: Acting technique 

Stanislavski - The 'magic if' is where an actor asks themselves what if they were in the same situation as the character and how would they react. The character is supposed to then react in the same/similar way as the actor, which will make the scene naturalistic as it is just a human response to something being said. This method is also helpful to help the actor emotionally connect with the character and what they are going through, as the actor will mirror how they felt during the actual event with how the character feels during the scene. 

Example - When we did a scene from ‘The Flick’, I used these techniques to make my scene more realistic and believable. My character was very unbothered and sarcastic, so I used magic if to replicate those feelings during the scene.  

Uta Hagen -   She came up with 9 questions for an Actor to answer about the scene before performing to act it out truthfully and to deeply think about the character as knowing the character well helps with portraying them better. The nine questions are: who am I, what are circumstances, what are my relationships, what do I want, what’s in my way, what do I do to get what I want, where am I, what time is it and what do I do before the scene begins. These help with preparation for the scenes so the actor knows exactly what is happening and can play the realism and emotional truth. Emotional truth is substituting an emotion an actor has felt to a scene where the emotion is different but similar. An example is a character feels heartbreak, so the actor uses a time they felt rejection and sadness instead if they haven't felt or experienced heartbreak. 

Example - In pairs we were given some no context scenes where it is just a random scene which we build on to be better by coming up with characters, setting and time. The first thing in pairs we did was read the scene then answer the 9 questions to create a basis we built from to enhance the scene. We worked on these scenes for a few weeks and kept making them better by watching each other's to give redirection to improve. We also added in some props and costume to help paint the picture of thew scene. We also explored the subtext of the scenes and changed it to experiment to see what felt more natural and what looked better from an audience’s perspective.  

Meisner - He primarily focuses on the external responses and being in the moment instead of thinking about how to react before the scene. Therefore, his techniques help with reacting instinctively. One of his techniques is a repetition exercise. This is where 2 people face each other and simply repeat what they see. I1 person makes an observation to the other who repeats the same thing back this repetition continues, and the observer changes to the other person. This eventually evolves to make instinctive responses. The goal is to stay present, listen and react truthfully which is what actors need to do in the scene, so they exercise is good practice to help with instinctive reactions. Therefore, during scenes actors are encouraged to focus on active listening and reacting honestly.  

Example - During Normalised in the end vigil scene I use active listening and instinctively react to what happens during the vigil. During the scene, the well-known school bully bursts in and tries to start a fire I react by standing up and backing away as I do not want to be set on fire.  

TASK 2: Laban's Physical Theatre 

4 elements of Laban - The four elements are body, effort, shape and space. BODY is how the body moves with pace, weight and flow. EFFORT is how much energy the movement needs. SHAPE is what the movement looks like. SPACE is how big or small the movement needs.  

Effort Levels 

•  Dab: direct, quick, light, bound. 

• Float: indirect, sustained, light, free. 

• Press: direct, sustained, heavy, bound. 

• Wring: indirect, sustained, heavy, bound. 

• Glide: direct, sustained, light, free. 

• Punch: direct, quick, heavy, bound. 

• Slash: indirect, quick, heavy, free. 

• Flick: indirect, quick, light, free. 

Group work - In groups we looked at a stimulus for a group movement piece. Our stimulus was a group of people looking at their phones. In our group we had a scene where we all started on our phones and one by one, we woke up and put the phones away to see the world outside the phones. (add photo/video pf group piece) 

 

TASK 3: Ensemble Singing 

Vocal Warmup 

Posture – Feet need to be hip width apart with relaxed shoulders and arms. 

Stretch – Roll shoulders and neck to warm up. Then massage face and stretch it by making it big and small.  

Face - Horse buzz, tongue circles and tongue root massage to warm and stretch the face. 

Breathing – In through the nose and out through the mouth for 4,8 and 12 seconds. This helps hold the notes.  

Diction – Pronunciate the plosives – b,d,e and g,p,t,c. Pronunciate the fricatives – f,th,v,s. To warm up the lips, hard palette and soft palette of your voice. Also say tongue twisters. 

Voice – Sirens to use range of voice. Sing arpeggios and 5 note scales. Then sing the songs you are practicing. Also sing oh, when the saints before to fully warm up for singing. 

(Add the warmup and the stick it to the man video) 

 

 

TASK 4: Screen Acting 

There are many differences between stage and screen acting. One is that if you mess up a line you can take more takes but there is a challenge with that. Which is that every take needs to be exactly the same, so the movie runs smooth. Consistency in the films is important and can be a hard thing to do.  

Examples - At the start of the year I did a student film called Dead Money, and my character was the mobster, with this we had do remember what colour chips and how many we put in as the characters were playing poker. Another example was a dinner scene. During filming we had to remember what time we picked up cutler and took a drink. I found the dinner scene good practice for learning consistency. (add links to table scene and dead money) 

TASK 5: Theatre Production Roles 

(Post day in the life video) 

TASK 6: Shakespeare 

We looked at A Midsummer’s Night Dream in groups to do group scenes over multiple weeks. At the start I didn’t like the idea of doing Shakespeare as I always found it boring, but I need the practice as i need to learn Shakespeare monologues for university auditions. I enjoyed looking at Shakespeare from a Drama perspective as previously I only ever read it in English for exams. I found it much easier to understand in these lessons. I was working on a duologue scene with the characters Hermia and Helena when they are arguing. I enjoyed performing it and watching other interpretations of the play. We also looked at how we can change the setting by giving the scene a theme. For example, one group (who did the first mechanical scene) had their theme as Alice in Wonderland so their scene was at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, and they turned into the characters. It was very fun to watch and showed how adaptable a theatre can be. It also helped with characterisation and understanding the Shakespearean language for the scene. (post video/image of my scene with Imogen)