Monday, February 2

Okay, first of all, how did it get to be February?


Stage Combat Workshop
The 1st-years were given permission to observe the 2nd-years certification exam. The exam is in two parts. In the first, the actors do the fight that they've been working on in the context of a scene, to show that they can safely use their choreography in a way that forwards a story. In the second part, the SAFD Master shows them new moves (to see if they've just learned one fight, or if they've learned HOW to fight). There are only 11 Masters in the USA right now, and they do all the recognition exams.

I am happy to report that all of the 2nd-years passed their exam with flying colors, and are now all recognized as actor-combatants in unarmed combat by the SAFD!

It was really cool to watch, and the Master guy even let the 1st-years who came participate in the second part a bit.

I'm glad I went. I'm so much less nervous now about the certification process than I was before. I'm confident that my whole class is going to pass next year.



On Camera Workshop
I wish the Film Students were ALWAYS in our town. They were so much fun to work with, and I think we ALL learned a great deal from the experience.

We spent the weekend shooting scenes. My scene partner (2nd-year BW) and I shot the same scene with two different directors (once on Saturday, once on Sunday). They had different interpretations of what was going on in the scene, and it was neat to see how that ended up playing out in the final product.

One of the things that I thought was especially cool was watching how each of the directors edited things together from the different takes. So much of the story-telling is done in editing. I had no idea.

We watched all of the scenes as a group (actors and directors), which was a lot of fun. It's interesting how differently we all looked at the same product, though. Due to the differences in our training, we're focusing on different things. When I was on screen, I kept thinking about my sibilant "s" sounds, and watching myself deny impulses. But when I spoke with directors, they commented on things like lighting and continuity.

After watching them, we had a discussion about what directors want from actors, and what actors want from directors. It was then that I realized that I'd been treating that film project differently than I approach theatre, and not in a good way. I'd been looking at it less as a collaborative effort and more as trying to do what the director wanted. On stage, you're an asset if you bring in your own ideas. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that it's the same in film.

All in all, it was an incredibly valuable experience, and I hope that we're able to do it again next year. I also hope I get the chance to work with these directors again. I know that they're going to need actors for film projects they're doing this summer, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that someone thinks of me for something.


Homework
Tonight we came back to reality after a week of workshops.

I got together with Thrill and Two-Shots-Up to work on our Shakespeare homework. We went through the scene we're dissecting from King Lear line by line to make sure that we knew what was happening in all of it. The homework assignment we have is rather like our sonnet paraphrase. We have to go through the whole scene looking up every word (or at least every word that might've meant something different to Shakespeare than it means to us), and write out all the possible definitions that we find (in as many sources as possible), then marking the ones that were most helpful to us. Then we have to go through and paraphrase the scene, keeping as much of the sense of the original text as possible.

We also worked on our Voice homework, which I think was to make lists of ten words each (and IPA) for the vowels in "honest" and "father". And I realized, I seriously do not understand the "honest" vowel. I don't think I use one. Every word that is on our example page for "honest" sounds like a different vowel to me.

For example:

- "omlette" is the "honest" vowel, and "Amish" is the "father" vowel. I say the "om/Am" exactly the same for both.

- "laurel" is the "honest" vowel, but I say it "or" (although I'm probably saying "or" incorrectly as well).

- "long" is the "honest" vowel, but I say it like "law".

Actually, I'm pretty sure I even say "honest" with the "father" vowel. And therefore, I am confused to no end. I'm pretty sure that whatever I turn in tomorrow is going to be completely wrong.