Acting Workshop Day 5
Jun 4th, 2009 by Alan Yu
Yesterday was the second last day of the actors workshop. This time the class focused on doing a scene that was more quirky and far fetched in a serious type of way. Since everything kind of required a British accent too it was definitely an out of place scene for me. However, I decided to do it without focusing on the accent.
For the most part I believe I did what I wanted to do. There was one moment where my character gives a subtle flick of the eyebrow to tell this girl not to do something and the whole class reacted to it which was great. Even the reader told me she was shocked by it as it was so fast but it definitely made her think in context to the scene.
The acting coach made a comment in the end how it seems like all my acting around the facial expressions is all great and fits so well. The main complaint is that it’s mainly my body motions that don’t have the same type of expressions and so he was trying to think of a way to get me to improve on that.
He also commented that all of the relaxation techniques in the world such as Yoga isn’t going to help it seems and that I need something else. I then made a comment to him during the break that a big reason for this is because I came from a theatre background where you often can over exaggerate your moves and be more free. However, once I studied film you are taught to not do that.
It then registered for him quickly about the issue as he said he understand perfectly as after film training you are always second guessing yourself about your movements and so you tend to do nothing. I then asked him if there was a scene that specifically focuses on the characters moving a lot and he mentioned he would try to find one.
In the end of the day though, I was late and he just handed everyone scripts. He gave me one that seems along the lines of an X-files type of show. Don’t think there is anything that would force me to use more movement though.
He did throw in a comment asking if it was okay to give me this as it has a lot of technical stuff and he felt that I would understand this type of thing. Hence, he was worried about the stereotype where I might object to reading for something like that. I said it didn’t matter though. So I guess I this will be my last scene though as next week is the last day in training with this coach.
