- Split your script into thought changes and beats.
- Start thinking about possible objectives.
- Split up the objectives.
- Get the piece on its feet.
- Experiment with what you have prepared on the script- thought changes, beats and objectives. They can change.
- Explore both extremes of an objective.
- Don't be embarrassed.
- Make all the grey parts in the play into technicolour.
- Understand that rehearsals are for getting things wrong.
- Get energy from everywhere- don't limit yourself.
- Live through your objective.
- Connect body and voice.
Tuesday, 23 September 2014
Realising Instincts Through Physical Objectives: Steps to Success
Your physical objectives can trigger the take over of your creative instincts. By having a purpose you can allow that purpose to drive your dialogue and let all events on stage become natural. There are steps to making this happen:
Skills Audit
Assessing your skills as a performer is very important. If you understand your weaknesses and your strengths you can understand how to approach a particular script, play and character. Especially this term when we will be doing a lot of individual work we need to understand where our strengths and weaknesses are within our monologue so we can focus on specific areas. Plus if, as an actor, you understand your weaknesses, you can work towards making them strengths.
My skills audit highlights and outlines both my strengths and weaknesses and analyses what I have learnt so far in my BTEC and elsewhere. It is very interesting for me to reflect on this because it shows me how much I have really learned.
What skills have I developed on my BTEC so far?
I have developed my rehearsal techniques a lot. A rehearsal is so important, whether it is your very first rehearsal or your dress rehearsal. It is important to stay focussed within a rehearsal and not allow yourself to be distracted by others. It is your time to perfect you character building, character presentation and characteristics. If you waste this time you are wasting your energy. Plus it is also time to get valid notes about what we are doing, theatrical techniques and the whats, hows and whys of a particular technique or exercise. To make a rehearsal successful you need to work with people who can push you and encourage you and who will also make you focus on your work.
A large part of the BTEC has been my evaluations. If done properly you can get a very good mark and through the writing process understand how to develop yourself as an actor. However if done wrong, it is just an unthoughtful waste of time that will drag your mark down. Something I have learnt especially is to not only write what but how and why. By doing this you are stating (pass), developing (merit) and explaining (distinction.) It is also key to be able to critically analyse a piece of theatre, whether it is your own piece or someone else's. By being able to give feedback and understand what was effective and what needs improvement, you are demonstrating your depth of knowledge as an actor.
Objectives are probably one of my least favourite things I have learnt, for the simple reason that I find them hard. However I have come to understand how important they are to an actor on stage. They give you purpose, direction and a reason to say your words. As words ride on the action, without objectives you would be acting and not feeling your dialogue. They are key in the process of connecting body and voice.
Something I have been told about throughout my course is to let my creative instincts take over, but I feel I have only just began to fully grasp the concept of what they really mean. Though I have felt glimpses of them throughout my course, I feel I am starting to fully develop my creative instincts. This comes from breath and spending emotion. When you are living in the moment you are feeling your environment; the temperature changes, the breath of you and others, the lighting, the atmosphere. Breathing particularly is key. If you are breathing from your stomach you can lead with your breath not your head. Your stomach is a fountain of emotion and once you breath from there natural emotions feed your performance. This leads me onto spending emotion. You can't do anything half heartedly, you must spend your emotion. Keep pouring it out, whether that is following an objective of looking, protecting, accusing, remembering, whatever it is use all your emotions that come naturally when performing and keep using it up- never lose your energy.
I have tackled one of my biggest theatrical fears- physical theatre. One of my biggest weaknesses is being able to open up my body physically because I feel my self going out of my comfort zone and sometimes this stops me becoming fully physical. However after doing a play fully made up of physical theatre, I feel much more confident on stage when doing physical work. Also I feel am I more confident in connecting my body and voice which also comes through my development of my creative instincts.
I have done many types of theatre and they all required different techniques. For example I worked in an ensemble, I've worked in different theatrical configurations, I've done mask work and worked for a specific audience. Working in an ensemble has become something I now feel very confident with. It requires the skill to bounce of other actors and be able to collectively contribute to the energy levels of a piece. Different theatrical configurations require different skills. For example working to three sides requires you to have your head and body facing two ways and a good spacial awareness. Doing an immersive piece of theatre requires you to maintain your character and interact with others in ways that will engage your audience as spectators and cast members. Mask works requires you to embody a physical stance based on a mask. You must exaggerate your movements and always show your mask to the audience. Working for a specific audience is very hard. When you are working on a piece of children's theatre you cannot make it childish and it takes a lot of work and thought to understand how to effectively present a piece.
I have learnt that transitions make a play. Bad transitions will make a bad play. It is very hard not to let the energy dip during transitions and therefore you need to work on them to make them sharp and efficient.
A type of theatre I thought I would never be doing was multimedia. Putting on a multimedia performance requires skill, imagination and sometimes a whole lot of luck. I worked on live feed, presentations, dance, speakers and lighting. All I knew were aspects of theatre, but I had never gone behind the scenes to work on this kind of technology. I feel it has broadened my skills and my understanding of the theatrical world.
Warm up are very important when doing any kind of theatre. You need to prepare your voice, body and mind so they are ready to adapt to whatever course your lesson takes you on. Some exercises have improved my alertness, my projection, my articulation and my general confidence when approaching a rehearsal.
Have you gained any skills elsewhere?
I have learned to organise my time more efficiently which helps me in rehearsals, especially when fitting rehearsal time into my schedule. I learnt this in work experience which also gave me an idea of the office work and paper work required when running any theatre business. I had to be efficient, precise and creative, all which are skills I feel I can bring to my lessons. Through theatre workshops I have learnt to appreciate different types of theatre and the work it takes to put on a performance; it doesn't happen overnight. I am always told that practice makes perfect and in both my music and theatre this is true. You will get something wrong one hundred times before you get it right, which isn't easy, but is very true. Finally and perhaps a very important part of the theatre world is that you will get a lot of rejection, but instead of letting it discourage you, you must learn from it.
From what I have listed I can recognise what my strengths and weaknesses are:
Working in an ensemble
Working in different theatrical configurations
Spending emotion
Character break down
Transitions
Rehearsal techniques
Weaknesses
Physicality
Mask work
Breath
Creative instincts
Warm ups
Specific audiences
Sight specific pieces
My skills audit highlights and outlines both my strengths and weaknesses and analyses what I have learnt so far in my BTEC and elsewhere. It is very interesting for me to reflect on this because it shows me how much I have really learned.
What skills have I developed on my BTEC so far?
I have developed my rehearsal techniques a lot. A rehearsal is so important, whether it is your very first rehearsal or your dress rehearsal. It is important to stay focussed within a rehearsal and not allow yourself to be distracted by others. It is your time to perfect you character building, character presentation and characteristics. If you waste this time you are wasting your energy. Plus it is also time to get valid notes about what we are doing, theatrical techniques and the whats, hows and whys of a particular technique or exercise. To make a rehearsal successful you need to work with people who can push you and encourage you and who will also make you focus on your work.
A large part of the BTEC has been my evaluations. If done properly you can get a very good mark and through the writing process understand how to develop yourself as an actor. However if done wrong, it is just an unthoughtful waste of time that will drag your mark down. Something I have learnt especially is to not only write what but how and why. By doing this you are stating (pass), developing (merit) and explaining (distinction.) It is also key to be able to critically analyse a piece of theatre, whether it is your own piece or someone else's. By being able to give feedback and understand what was effective and what needs improvement, you are demonstrating your depth of knowledge as an actor.
Objectives are probably one of my least favourite things I have learnt, for the simple reason that I find them hard. However I have come to understand how important they are to an actor on stage. They give you purpose, direction and a reason to say your words. As words ride on the action, without objectives you would be acting and not feeling your dialogue. They are key in the process of connecting body and voice.
Something I have been told about throughout my course is to let my creative instincts take over, but I feel I have only just began to fully grasp the concept of what they really mean. Though I have felt glimpses of them throughout my course, I feel I am starting to fully develop my creative instincts. This comes from breath and spending emotion. When you are living in the moment you are feeling your environment; the temperature changes, the breath of you and others, the lighting, the atmosphere. Breathing particularly is key. If you are breathing from your stomach you can lead with your breath not your head. Your stomach is a fountain of emotion and once you breath from there natural emotions feed your performance. This leads me onto spending emotion. You can't do anything half heartedly, you must spend your emotion. Keep pouring it out, whether that is following an objective of looking, protecting, accusing, remembering, whatever it is use all your emotions that come naturally when performing and keep using it up- never lose your energy.
I have tackled one of my biggest theatrical fears- physical theatre. One of my biggest weaknesses is being able to open up my body physically because I feel my self going out of my comfort zone and sometimes this stops me becoming fully physical. However after doing a play fully made up of physical theatre, I feel much more confident on stage when doing physical work. Also I feel am I more confident in connecting my body and voice which also comes through my development of my creative instincts.
I have done many types of theatre and they all required different techniques. For example I worked in an ensemble, I've worked in different theatrical configurations, I've done mask work and worked for a specific audience. Working in an ensemble has become something I now feel very confident with. It requires the skill to bounce of other actors and be able to collectively contribute to the energy levels of a piece. Different theatrical configurations require different skills. For example working to three sides requires you to have your head and body facing two ways and a good spacial awareness. Doing an immersive piece of theatre requires you to maintain your character and interact with others in ways that will engage your audience as spectators and cast members. Mask works requires you to embody a physical stance based on a mask. You must exaggerate your movements and always show your mask to the audience. Working for a specific audience is very hard. When you are working on a piece of children's theatre you cannot make it childish and it takes a lot of work and thought to understand how to effectively present a piece.
I have learnt that transitions make a play. Bad transitions will make a bad play. It is very hard not to let the energy dip during transitions and therefore you need to work on them to make them sharp and efficient.
A type of theatre I thought I would never be doing was multimedia. Putting on a multimedia performance requires skill, imagination and sometimes a whole lot of luck. I worked on live feed, presentations, dance, speakers and lighting. All I knew were aspects of theatre, but I had never gone behind the scenes to work on this kind of technology. I feel it has broadened my skills and my understanding of the theatrical world.
Warm up are very important when doing any kind of theatre. You need to prepare your voice, body and mind so they are ready to adapt to whatever course your lesson takes you on. Some exercises have improved my alertness, my projection, my articulation and my general confidence when approaching a rehearsal.
Have you gained any skills elsewhere?
I have learned to organise my time more efficiently which helps me in rehearsals, especially when fitting rehearsal time into my schedule. I learnt this in work experience which also gave me an idea of the office work and paper work required when running any theatre business. I had to be efficient, precise and creative, all which are skills I feel I can bring to my lessons. Through theatre workshops I have learnt to appreciate different types of theatre and the work it takes to put on a performance; it doesn't happen overnight. I am always told that practice makes perfect and in both my music and theatre this is true. You will get something wrong one hundred times before you get it right, which isn't easy, but is very true. Finally and perhaps a very important part of the theatre world is that you will get a lot of rejection, but instead of letting it discourage you, you must learn from it.
From what I have listed I can recognise what my strengths and weaknesses are:
Strengths
Evaluation Working in an ensemble
Working in different theatrical configurations
Spending emotion
Character break down
Transitions
Rehearsal techniques
Weaknesses
Physicality
Mask work
Breath
Creative instincts
Warm ups
Specific audiences
Sight specific pieces
Monday, 22 September 2014
My Castability
There is a difference between casting and castability. Casting is being cast based on your looks- you need to look right for the part and it doesn't matter whether you are the best actor/actress in the world, if you don't look right, you wont get the part. However castability is based on your talent. They will be judging you by the performance you give at your audition and they will shape the nature of a character based on who they pick post choosing them. As an actor/actress you have a particular castability based on your strengths and weaknesses and it is your job to understand what you can do to broaden you castability. For example if you have bad articulation, something which is key for any performer, it is your job to find out how you can improve on that particular weaknesses.
In class in partners, we went through each others castability. My partner Sam and I, together worked out my castability:
However I have weaknesses that limit my castability. I think to broaden my castability I need to be more physical and be able to connect my body and voice effortlessly. To do this, apart from practice, I want to take beginners ballet to make myself aware of basic dance. Plus I would like to do some theatre workshops on physical theatre.
In class in partners, we went through each others castability. My partner Sam and I, together worked out my castability:
- A victim
- Someone with a mental illness
- A drug addict
- An Irish woman
- A weak daughter in a family of strong people
- Historical drama
- A young parent/guardian
Types of plays/ TV/ Films
- Pride and Prejudice
- Downton Abbey
- Skins
However I have weaknesses that limit my castability. I think to broaden my castability I need to be more physical and be able to connect my body and voice effortlessly. To do this, apart from practice, I want to take beginners ballet to make myself aware of basic dance. Plus I would like to do some theatre workshops on physical theatre.
Sunday, 14 September 2014
Why is working out your physical objectives so important?
Working out your physical objectives is both important, precise and difficult. Therefore when working them out you can't just sit down and imagine in your head what will fit with the piece, you need to get the piece on its feet and find out for yourself what your physical objectives are. It is all about trial and error; you aren't going to get it right the first time. Therefore you need to try out a variety of things and then decide, after working with them, what fits the piece best.
They are so important because they give you as an actor a purpose on stage. They allow you to connect physically as well as vocally to your character and your audience. It allows you to have a creative say into how you are going to present your character; someone can write you lines and give you direction but you are the only person who can discover what objectives work best for you and your character.
Your objective may change every time you do a scene. It should change because it shows that you are living in the moment and are committing to the character. If someone was doing the same scene as you and was performing the same character, you may both have two different objectives because as individual actors you will have a different creative outlook on the piece and will work better with different objectives.
Although strange, as an actor you wont need to act, because eventually playing an objective will be a creative instinct. If you are physically open your mind wont control you- your creative instincts will take over.
They are so important because they give you as an actor a purpose on stage. They allow you to connect physically as well as vocally to your character and your audience. It allows you to have a creative say into how you are going to present your character; someone can write you lines and give you direction but you are the only person who can discover what objectives work best for you and your character.
Your objective may change every time you do a scene. It should change because it shows that you are living in the moment and are committing to the character. If someone was doing the same scene as you and was performing the same character, you may both have two different objectives because as individual actors you will have a different creative outlook on the piece and will work better with different objectives.
Although strange, as an actor you wont need to act, because eventually playing an objective will be a creative instinct. If you are physically open your mind wont control you- your creative instincts will take over.
First Impressions
My first impressions of 'Six Characters in Search of an Author,' is that it is a play about a group of actors putting on a play; if you did this piece, you would essentially be putting on a play about putting on a play. On first reading it I can't quite grasp what the play is about and I think I would need to read the previous scenes to understand what events led the characters to be in the current situation.
There is a lot of punctuation in the piece which indicates that there is a lot of ideas in one monologue. We know from the stage directions that the Stepdaughter 'has burst out laughing,' suggesting that she has been keeping a lot of her thoughts to herself until this moment and therefore all the punctuation is included because the Stepdaughter is going on a rant and proclaiming everything that has been building up from the previous scenes. Even if the monologue was in a different language we would know the monologue had a lot of emotion contained in one speech because of all the punctuation.
There are also a lot of stage directions. This would indicate that the director/author has a very precise vision of what he wants the play to be. However this doesn't mean if you took the play and directed it yourself that you couldn't ignore or change some of the stage directions to fit your vision of the piece.
There is a lot of punctuation in the piece which indicates that there is a lot of ideas in one monologue. We know from the stage directions that the Stepdaughter 'has burst out laughing,' suggesting that she has been keeping a lot of her thoughts to herself until this moment and therefore all the punctuation is included because the Stepdaughter is going on a rant and proclaiming everything that has been building up from the previous scenes. Even if the monologue was in a different language we would know the monologue had a lot of emotion contained in one speech because of all the punctuation.
There are also a lot of stage directions. This would indicate that the director/author has a very precise vision of what he wants the play to be. However this doesn't mean if you took the play and directed it yourself that you couldn't ignore or change some of the stage directions to fit your vision of the piece.
What is an audition?
An audition is a showcase of your talent and skills. It is a short opportunity for you to convince a possible employer that you fit the part. Therefore you must have appropriate skills and an appropriate outlook on an audition. As different employers are going to be looking for different things, it is important that you research the company so you can have a better understanding of how the company works, therefore being able to indicate the skills and qualities they will be looking for. Other ways to prepare yourself as an actor for an audition is to develop the character/characteristics you know will be present within the audition. One way to do this is to go through all the facts and opinions you know about a character (their status, behaviour, occupation, likes, dislikes etc.) - essentially breaking down your character. Some people like to go to the audition wearing what the character would wear according to the themes and ideas that create them as a person. By doing research and engaging yourself fully with the character development related to the audition you are more likely to perform well and confidently.
There will be many different types of auditions and you have to be prepared and flexible enough to be able to adapt your skills to fit what the director or employer wants. For example some auditions are monologues, but you may also do a duologue. You could do it with another actor auditioning for a separate role to test your compatibility or you may do it with an assistant so they can test your reaction on stage when you are reading with another person and how you bounce of people to deliver your lines.
There are also different types of roles; stage, film, television and radio. In a stage audition you will be given details about your character (their gender, age, occupation and background,) and from that you will have to prepare your piece appropriately. You may do your audition in front of the director as they will have a picture in their head of who they will want to bring their play alive. A film or television audition will be similar, but in addition to the director you may audition in front of a camera. Someone may be reading with you, but the camera will be trained on your face at all times, so it is important to always be aware of your facial expression and position. Radio is slightly different. You will send your show reel to the casting directors- the show reel will essentially be acting as your audition piece, so it must be good and contain everything the casting directors will be looking for.
When doing either it is important, if given the choice, to pick the right piece. Your piece could be comedic, romantic, tragic or joyous. However whatever emotions your piece contains, an audition, though a showcase, shouldn't pack all your emotional range into one piece because it shows you haven't committed fully to the play and character. There could be more than one emotion in a piece, but you shouldn't just add an emotion into a piece just because you can perform it well; it must fit into the themes of the piece and the characteristics of the character.
There will be many different types of auditions and you have to be prepared and flexible enough to be able to adapt your skills to fit what the director or employer wants. For example some auditions are monologues, but you may also do a duologue. You could do it with another actor auditioning for a separate role to test your compatibility or you may do it with an assistant so they can test your reaction on stage when you are reading with another person and how you bounce of people to deliver your lines.
There are also different types of roles; stage, film, television and radio. In a stage audition you will be given details about your character (their gender, age, occupation and background,) and from that you will have to prepare your piece appropriately. You may do your audition in front of the director as they will have a picture in their head of who they will want to bring their play alive. A film or television audition will be similar, but in addition to the director you may audition in front of a camera. Someone may be reading with you, but the camera will be trained on your face at all times, so it is important to always be aware of your facial expression and position. Radio is slightly different. You will send your show reel to the casting directors- the show reel will essentially be acting as your audition piece, so it must be good and contain everything the casting directors will be looking for.
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