Quotations: Volume 18

Here are some of the educational, inspirational, and humorous quotations from my classes this week (NOTE: I was sick and in workshops, which is why there are so few):


"Who's Tom? I'm Tom." - Stage Combat Instructor, talking about facing the audience/camera as much as possible in fights, just like Tom Cruise would

(On Camera Instructor is fiddling with a camera that's hooked up to a television)
On Camera Instructor: [Cameraman], I can't make it play back.
Cameraman: (Walks over to camera) Just press the red button. (Cameraman begins fiddling with camera)
On Camera Instructor: Would that have worked?
Cameraman: Nah. There's no red button.

"Don't be me in my badness. Be me in my greatness." - Stage Combat Instructor, after admitting one of his own bad habits in stage combat work

"Don't worry, I'll have you off your knees in a second. Then you'll be flat on your back." - Stage Combat Instructor

Stage Combat Instructor: When you're punching, you have to keep your hand vertical, as if you were going to give the person you're punching a thumbs up.
2nd-year AG: Or like you're holding a beer in your hand.
Stage Combat Instructor: YES! Oh my God. I'm using that. And you do NOT want to spill your beer!

"Are any of the gentlemen wearing boxers today? Guys, I'm sorry, but you cannot wear those for combat. For today, you might have to hold yourself in place, for safety's sake." - Stage Combat Instructor, when we were working with groin kicks

"You've got to react. You've just been kicked in the yum-yums." - Stage Combat Instructor

"Oh no. Not this again. You're always choking me at this part of the fight." - Stage Combat Instructor

Friday, January 30

I finally went to the doctor today and got some medication. I am hopeful that I'll have my voice back (and no coughing) for all the filming this weekend. *crosses fingers* When I went in, they said I had a fever. And I must admit, I feel pretty lousy as I'm writing this.


Stage Combat Workshop
We finished our bit of choreography that the 2nd-years are using for their Actor-Combatant Recognition exams. It's pretty fun, actually.

I worked with Thrill, and we created a little scenario, and adapted some of the choreography to better fit our story. Unfortunately, I totally screwed up a punching sequence when we were showing it to everyone (1st and 2nd years). I felt like a moron.


On Camera Workshop
We continued filming monologues and reaction shots yesterday. I did my monologue too fast for camera (which was weird, as I'd already slowed it down from what it would be on stage).

We got the scenes and scene-partners that we'll be working with this weekend. I'm paired with 2nd-year BW on a scene from the movie Hannah and Her Sisters, which I'm completely unfamiliar with.

We met the directors tonight, briefly, to kind of discuss their ideas for the scenes. Each scene will be shot twice, with different directors. It all begins tomorrow. I hope it goes well.


Acting
I met with my Acting Professor yesterday to discuss my observation exam. He rather liked my Floral Designer and my Air Mattress. He said that my Flamingo had improved (he said something about having "nasty bird eyes" which I didn't fully understand), but he seemed less keen on it than my others. He encouraged me to keep working on my Person observation and to bring it into class again next week.

Wednesday, January 28

Voice
Technically, I am still on Vocal Rest, but my status has been upgraded. My Voice Professor says that I may now use "Limited Voice". What she means by that is that I'm allowed to talk if I deem it necessary during the workshops this week (noise production during Stage Combat moves, and lines during On Camera). But I'm sort of using my own definition (because being silent sucks, and is really hard to do with people all around). What I'm doing is: no whispering, no speaking loudly, no trying to talk over other sounds, and no leading conversations. I'm still hydrating heavily, taking some cold meds (the kinds my Voice Professor approves of, that is), and generally taking it easy.

I also got an e-mail from my Voice Professor with some notes on things to work on. She says that during the David Brunetti Musical Theatre workshop (you may have seen the video I posted of myself singing) that my "s" sounds again became overly sibilant (they're much better now when I'm speaking, but apparently singing makes me do them the wrong way again). She wants me to drill my "s" sounds when singing, concentrating on forward placement.

She also wrote that I did an excellent job on my Sending & Landing exam, but that I need to keep paying attention to my "L" sounds. I need to make sure that I'm bringing the tip of my tongue up to my alveolar ridge. (This was a problem I already knew about... I know HOW to fix it, but I've been doing it the wrong way for so long that I often do it incorrectly without thinking about it.)


Stage Combat Workshop
I actually have some experience with stage combat, but pretty much all of my history with it involved weaponry. Here, we are being instructed only in hand-to-hand combat (which is probably the most useful thing to learn anyway... particularly for women). In your 2nd-year, you go through the "recognition exam" with someone from the SAFD in order to get certified (which just means that you can do hand-to-hand combat without hurting anyone; it does NOT qualify you to be a fight director). It sounds like the certification is one of those things that probably won't actually get you work, but is a good thing to have under your belt (and it won't hurt your résumé).

The goal of stage combat is to create the illusion of a fight without anyone ever actually being in any danger of getting hurt. We want the audience to fear for the characters without ever being worried about the actors.

Our instructor is a pretty funny guy, and he's good at instructing things from multiple angles (showing us a couple of ways to achieve the same goal, explaining what this would do to the body if it were an ACTUAL kick/punch/slap/etc., saying the common mistakes people make that result in injuries).

Our first day (Tuesday) was falls, pushes, shoves, slaps, and punches. Our second day (today) was kicks (including groin kicks), choking, a grab, and some floor work. We have one small bit of choreography that we do in pairs.

It's amazing how stage combat moves are sold through acting. By establishing a relationship between the characters and telling a story through the movement, it becomes something more than just the choreography. It's really very neat.


On Camera Workshop
Yesterday we got into groups of three and wrote 1-minute screenplays. One person in the group was the director, and the other two were actors. The director had to work into the script ways to get the actors to "hit marks" into close-ups (i.e. no zoom), and to have the camera pan (move side to side) and tilt (move up and down). My director was Thrill, and the other actor was 2nd-year AG. Our scene was about two roommates who were arguing over which one could have the dorm room with her boyfriend that night.

It was interesting to see just how different all the scenes ended up being. One involved a funeral, one involved a divorce, one ended in murder. They were seriously all over the map.

Today we screened the scenes from yesterday (each scene filmed two takes) and discussed them from an acting perspective. Some things work on film that do not work on stage, and vice versa. For example, it seems like we can put down a lot of what we learn in Voice class when it comes to screen (microphones pick up volume without us using our powers of projection, and crisp enunciation occasionally sounds out of place). Also, close-ups pick up everything on your face, whereas shots from far away really only get body language (not that we should wear bags over our heads, but there's not a lot you can get from faces).

We started getting in pairs to do monologues. The scene was filmed with the two people sitting in chairs, and the camera showing the back on one person's shoulder with the other's face. The actors were filmed one at a time (the one delivering the monologue and the one reacting to the monologue). I'm paired with 2nd-year KFH, but we'll be going tomorrow.

Monday, January 26

We got the following e-mail today regarding our On Camera Workshop:

Hi All

We're all really excited about the week we have with you. [Name] (the man coming with me to help teach and shoot, edit and screen your work) and I will start on Tuesday with all first and second years together. We may divide you for part of the next two days. The Film School directing students (first year MFA students) will be coming down on Friday with [Name] - the Associate Dean and Director of the Film School- and we'll shoot each of you in a scene over the course of the weekend. We'll assign scenes and partners. This is a pilot workshop; the first time we've tried something like this and it promises to be really fun with a lot of intense learning happening in a very short time. We've been working for a long time to find ways to get you guys together with the Film School students and we've finally created something that accomplishes that. It will, however, require some flexibility because we're not familiar with the spaces available and how our equipment will fit, etc. So be prepared for some logistical and technical difficulties.

For Tuesday, can you all watch Michael Caine's Acting for Film on youtube? I know some of you have seen it but it might be good to refresh yourselves on it. And for those of you who have not seen it, it will orient you to some of the technical aspects of camera acting we'll be working with. Please watch for the following: hitting marks, rising and sitting with the camera, working within the frame, adjusting to the frame size and the danger neutralizing when in closeup, (ie: the Educating Rita scene they perform on camera) and his discussion on the actor's relationship with the camera. We'll discuss this in class and do some exercises related to it. Here's the website (not sure if the entire video is covered in this playlist but please try to watch all of them.)

Let me know if you have any questions.

See you Tuesday afternoon.

Best,

[Name]


So it looks like I have a bit more homework. Luckily, this is something that I can easily complete silently.

For your viewing pleasure, here is the sequence of YouTube videos that we have been asked to watch.

Michael Caine Acting in Film: Part 1


Michael Caine Acting in Film: Part 2


Michael Caine Acting in Film: Part 3


Michael Caine Acting in Film: Part 4


Michael Caine Acting in Film: Part 5


Michael Caine Acting in Film: Part 6

Quotations: Volume 17

Here are some of the educational, inspirational, and humorous quotations from my classes this week:

(during an Analysis class group presentation on the Elizabethan monarchy)
Iceman: I made a poster. (proudly holds up colorful homemade poster)
Analysis Professor: Ooh! I love visual aides.
Iceman: I went out and bought Crayola markers for this.
Director A: Oh, yeah. You're in grad school now!

Thrill: (referring to Iceman's poster) You gotta work on your letters, man.
Iceman: My letters? (examines own handwriting on poster) But I wanted it to be organic and not too uniform... Oh, whatever. I'm still an actor.

"Being able to apply a note immediately is like gold for an actor." - Movement Professor

"The difference between performing and not performing is allowing in an audience." - Movement Professor

"[O.D.], did you go through a coma a second ago, because I just went through this." - Voice Professor

(skimming through words in the pronouncing dictionary) "'Eurodisney'?! SHUT UP!" - Me

"The essence of a gingersnap is the molasses." - Iceman, explaining what "finding the essence" in observation work means to him

"You are much wiser on the subconscious level than on the conscious one." - Acting Professor

"The only mistake is to check yourself into the police station instead of going to the zoo." - Acting Professor, when discussing freedom in our Person Observations

"That's where you need to get. To where you are not playing the character, but where the things around you are playing the character." - Acting Professor

"Do not underestimate what is already happening between you and your character." - Acting Professor, saying that character development begins with what your subconscious absorbs in the first reading of the script

"The most difficult thing is when everything is known and nothing is left unknown. Then your intuition will have no place to work, and the creative process is all intuition." - Acting Professor, on why it's bad to know too much about the character you're playing

"The answers to all these questions are already in you, without you having to be able to answer. Maybe your brain doesn't know it, but maybe your liver does." - Acting Professor, on not consciously knowing everything about the character

"With this homework, we have to be very, very clear. What is essential, and how to do it. What is bulls***, and how not to do it." - Acting Professor

"Some people prefer to e-mail, but they're... what's the word? Misanthropes?" - Tech Instructor, explaining why he wanted to meet with us in person instead of writing to us (paraphrased)

"[All-the-Way], you take up way too much paper. I need you to write smaller." - Voice Professor, teasing All-the-Way for her tiny writing

"It has a plummy quality. More of a roundy-round." - Voice Professor, explaining the vowel in "law"

(coming up with examples of words with the vowel of "law/caught/all/etc.")
Voice Professor: Or McGraw. Like that dog that takes care of us.
Two-Shots-Up: That's McGruff.
Iceman: He takes a bite out of crime.

"By the end of the year, when you read a text, you'll hear me yelling at you. And that's important." - Analysis Professor

(commenting after movement monologues, which utilize improvised movement)
Movement Professor: And [D-Train], you got so high off the ground in that tour jéte!
D-Train: I did a dance move?
Movement Professor: Actually, it was a stag leg leap into a tour jeté. It was a man move. A very manly move.

(D-Train and Newbie start giggling as D-Train records a line)
Acting Professor: Why do you have the giggles?
D-Train: I just get the giggles with [Newbie].
Acting Professor: This is serious business. Isn't it?
D-Train: [Acting Professor], you're being so Russian right now. I have no idea what you're trying to say.

"Is an actor about independent creative process, or is being an actor about being a trained monkey? Only a crazy director will say that, above all else, an actor needs to be obedient." - Acting Professor

(During an etude, Two-Shots-Up whacked Thrill's arm with her thick wooden bracelets)
"You have to kiss it now... (sees Two-Shots-Up kiss Thrill's arm) Good..." - Acting Professor

"I wanna hear that again. It was somethin' about... somethin'?" - Iceman, after completely missing what Voice Professor said

(as Acting Professor was entering the classroom)
Iceman: Ladies and gentleman, I present to you, [Acting Professor]!
(the class cheers as though he's a celebrity)
O.D.: Oh my God, oh my God... Will you sign my notebook?
(Acting Professor laughs as he signs the notebook)
O.D.: Ah! I got his autograph!
(Acting Professor bows head)
Two-Shots-Up: Woo! Take it off!

Sunday, January 25

I have officially been put back on vocal rest by my Voice Professor as of about 15 minutes ago. After having a sore throat all week, I started really losing my voice last night. So now, no talking and lots of hydrating until further notice.

Anyway. Being under the weather made me spend a lot of the week resting when I could, so I'm a little behind on this... Back to Friday...

Movement
We finally did our movement monologues individually as performed pieces. I went first, which was nerve-wracking and uncomfortable. I was so worried that I was doing it wrong. But no, this is the kind of thing that you CAN'T do wrong.

After performing, we gave each other positive feedback, talking about our physical vocabularies and individual strengths. My professor said I had excellent "port de bras" (which is a dance term referring to the "carriage of the arms"... I looked it up). I'd write the other comments, but it feels to braggadocious to type out my compliments.

It was a very cool assignment, in retrospect. I learned a lot about the ways in which I habitually move, as well as the physical patterns of my classmates.


Voice
It turns out, I have a weird vowel shift that most people do not, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how I got it.

We started discussing the vowel in the phrase "God's hotdog". All three of those "o"s, in Standard American Dialect, should be pronounced as the same vowel -- the "o" sound in "honest".

In contemporary American speech, many people have started shifting their "honest" vowels so that they sound more like the "a" in "father". (If you're reading this and can't tell the difference between those vowels, you're not alone. They're similar vowels, and the shift is very common. We just can't learn it because it makes our speech sound too modern, which is limiting.)

I, however, somehow got the opposite shift. Instead of turning my "honest" vowels into "father" vowels, I sometimes round them too much and turn them into "law" vowels. So when I say "God's hotdog", I get "God" and "hot" correctly, but for "dog", I might as well be saying "dawg".

The three vowels in question appear in the phrase "tall coffee latte". "Tall" = "law", "coffee" = "honest", "latte" = "father". But I say it wrong, because I say "coffee" as "cawfee".

You know what other word I apparently say wrong? "Wrong". I put the "aw" vowel in, instead of the "honest" vowel.

My professor thinks it may have something to do with the fact that I grew up in the Midwest. The "honest" => "father" vowel shift is heavily present there, so I over-compensated by going in the opposite direction.

I think this is going to take a long (another word I can't say yet) time for me to correct.


Movement Tutorial
I met with my Movement Professor over my lunch hour. She filmed me walking, on the same tape that we've been using all year. Then we watched what my posture and walk used to look like versus what they look like now.

OH. MY. WORD.

I look like I have a completely different body than I had before. I cannot tell you HOW MUCH closer to neutral I am. And it was so weird to see, because I didn't notice the change happening. More than that, I didn't realize exactly how messed up I looked when I got here. And it's so great to see that the alignment work I've been doing on my own has really been making a difference.

I've apparently evened out the weight I put on my legs now, my feet are in parallel, and they're no longer too close together (rather, they're perhaps a bit too far apart, because I have a habit of taking a note and running with it... it results in a lot of overcompensation, but it's not going to be hard for me to pull back on this one).

My new list of things to focus on:
- opening through the sternum
- letting my face "float"
- bringing my feet underneath me
- stop thinking so much about my lower back (yay! I've improved enough that I can focus on other things!)
- breath into my sides and my back lower ribs (right now the front of my rib cage is expanding far more than the rest of it)


Acting
O.D. and I went first with our Vonnegut scene, and I just wasn't in it. When the conversation begins in the short story, Hildy (my character) is crying. Then during the conversation, she starts crying again and Andy (O.D.'s character) has a line referencing it. But I just can't do it.

My professor says that I don't have to put pressure on myself to cry at the beginning of the scene. He also says that if I "record" that I have to cry, the only reason that it won't happen is if I'm ignoring other impulses that my subconscious is sending to me. If I ignore it sometimes, it will stop working consistently. He (and Killer) said that I had denied an impulse to stand up at an earlier point in the scene, which is why I couldn't reach a state of "I am."

The second time we ran the scene, it was much better. I still didn't cry, but I didn't care to. O.D's line became about the reaction that I had, rather than the reaction that I was "supposed" to have, and there was a lot of life and truth in it.

I am hopeful that it will continue to bloom and grow, bloom and grow forever.


Theatre
I went to see The Imaginary Invalid again last weekend, which was the first time that I had seen it since the opening. I think it's gotten funnier since I saw it last (or maybe it just seemed that way because I hadn't heard the jokes in a while).

The opening of The Winter's Tale was on Friday, and it was the first time that I had seen the show entirely tech-ed. I have to say, it's pretty spectacular. And intimidating.

I went and saw Blur again last night, and I'm so glad I did. I thought it was even better than the last time I saw it (which was opening night). It's great to be able to observe actors continuing to develop their characters throughout a run.


Understudying
I'm pretty sure that I'm ready to go on as Béline in Imaginary Invalid if -- God forbid it should ever happen -- the actress gets sick. But Paulina in Winter's Tale is another story. If I have to go on for her any time soon, I'm seriously worried that I would ruin that show.

As an opening night present, I gave both of the women I'm understudying (the woman who plays Béline in Invalid also plays Hermione in W.T.) Airborne, cough drops, tissues, and hand sanitizer. I included notes telling them "Break a leg (but not literally)", and telling them to "Stay healthy!" (I also gave those things to my 3rd-year roommate, who is playing Perdita, and is also Hallie/Marguerite in Inventing Van Gogh.)

I've been working on my Paulina lines diligently, but man, they're rough. A challenge that I've had with both of these understudy roles is that they're commanding women who lead the scenes they're in. Therefore, most of my lines are not reactionary, making it more difficult to remember the cues for them (especially considering that I'm learning them alone, with no scene partner to feed me the aforementioned lines). An additional difficulty with Paulina is that many of her lines are similar to each other (for example, "...think anon it moves." & "...think anon it lives."), and if I confuse them, everything else gets thrown off.

Today (Sunday), we had our first understudy run for The Winter's Tale (which I did with the hoarse and meager voice I had, before being put on vocal rest). So much of the blocking changed during tech. Paulina is suddenly sitting on a different chair, entering on the opposite side of the stage, crossing on a different line, etc. The lighting is specific, so our blocking has become so as well (standing a foot away from your mark in any direction could leave you in shadow). I feel as though all the rehearsals I attended in December did me little good by practical measure. Still, I'm glad that I went to them. I think it helped me to get more in tune with this production's interpretation of the character.

Anyway. As long as Paulina doesn't get sick next week, I'm sure it'll all turn out just fine.


Tech
I've been doing box office, which I've rather come to like, actually. It's like a cross between two of my previous employment experiences: a customer service desk at a mall, and filing medical records. As long as I smile and alphabetize correctly, everything is a piece of cake.

Tonight is the Blur strike, so I'm called for that. I attached a sticky note reading "I'm on Vocal Rest" to my shirt with a bobby-pin. I hope it all goes quickly, because after that, I'm going to come home, hydrate, and sleep.


Workshops
This is recruitment season for the conservatory, which means some of the professors are off at auditions in New York, Chicago, and Las Vegas for the next couple of weeks trying to get a new class together (which is SO WEIRD... I feel like I just got here). In their absence, we are not having regular classes, but are instead in workshops.

We're having an "On Camera" workshop and a "Stage Combat" workshop. The 2nd-years are also having their certifications for hand-to-hand combat this week. And apparently, some directors are coming from our school's main campus (which is about a 4.5 hour drive away from our MFA Acting campus) to work with us in some capacity (although I'm still vague on that).


My upcoming schedule is:

Tuesday, Jan 27 - Thursday, Jan 29:
9am-12pm - Stage Combat
1pm-5pm - On Camera
(and on Wednesday, 7pm-8pm - Box Office)

Friday, Jan 30
9am-12pm - Stage Combat
2pm-5pm - Stage Combat
7pm-11pm - Meeting with Main Campus film directors

Saturday, Jan 31
1pm-5pm - On Camera
7pm-11pm - On Camera

Sunday, Feb 1
1pm-5pm - On Camera
7pm-11pm - On Camera



Phew! I think that's everything.

Silently yours,

~A~

Thursday, January 22

You know, for the most part, I'm pretty good at keeping my life organized and everything under control. But every now and then I have a week when I just feel generally out of whack. This is one of those weeks. I blame the fact that I still don't have my Winter's Tale understudy lines down, and the show opens tomorrow (which means if the actress breaks her leg tomorrow, I'm on). A legitimate reason to freak out, I think.


Movement
More movement monologue work. We did them with two people moving simultaneously while everyone else watched and tried to identify patterns that were developing (as it's a lot harder to notice them when you're doing it). The pairs would do the monologues a couple of times, and then the class responded with things we noticed. Then the pair would go one last time, keeping those elements in mind.

I went with Big Show. We were told that we had good kinesthetic response (meaning that we were reacting to what the other was doing), but to be honest, I hadn't paid much attention to that (as it wasn't really the goal of the exercise). I was told that my physical vocabulary is pretty "acrobatic". One of the patterns that has come out is "lunging", and another is being in the same position on the floor at a specific piece of text.


Voice
More vowel work.

The type of speech that we're learning is called "Standard American Dialect", which, frankly, doesn't seem very standard at all. We're learning to say words like "Glorious", "Warrior", "Florida", and "orange" so that the first vowels are the same as the "aw" sound in "law" or "caught". We're also going to learn the "ask list", which are words where the "a" vowel needs to switch from sounding like "apple" to a "middle a", which sounds somewhat British ("ask", "last", "dance", and "ghastly" are some of the words on the ask list).

My professor says that the hardest vowels to identify the differences between are the ones in "law", "honest", and "father" (yes, those are three different vowels), so we're going to have to be careful when learning them and look things up a lot in our pronouncing dictionaries.

Our homework for tonight is to come up with 10 words each for the vowels in the words "who", "would", and "law", and to IPA them.


Acting
We continued doing etudes with our Vonnegut texts. I think O.D. and I were doing a pretty good job, until the point where the text ended but the scene didn't. We ran out of recorded (i.e. memorized) things to say, but had to stay in the scene (we only end things when our professor says "thank you"... or sometimes when one of the characters exits the room/stage). It's not always easy to stay with the scene in these situations, because you (as an actor) KNOW what happens later in the story, and you become reticent to break from it.

O.D. and I added some more lines of improvised dialogue to the end of the scene (pretty well, I thought), but the energy had definitely changed. I guess that's something to work on for tomorrow.

Our professor started leading some of our classmates through the same sorts of lines of questioning with their characters as he has been doing for our Person Observations. These aren't necessarily questions that you can answer from the text (just as with the observation ones they're usually false memories that you're developing on the spot).


Analysis
We started discussing King Lear today, and my inner-geek rejoiced!

We began by addressing things that make this Shakespearean text different from the other plays we've analyzed thus far (language, structure, imagery, rhythm, etc.). Our professor also brought up the convention of compressed action in Shakespeare (i.e. when a character witnesses something, and then says she's written a letter about it... even though she never left the stage and there was no time for her to have written it).

It looks like King Lear is going to lead us through the pathways of Religion and Nature. Interesting stuff.