Saturday, January 26, 2008

acting, not as easy at is looks

Before this semester, I never realized exactly how hard acting was. After all, its just memorizing some lines right? Wrong. I've put on all kinds of skits before for either school or church and never realized till now how bad I probably was. The tug of war exercise in class thursday seemed like it would be a piece of cake, but there were so many details that I neglected to pay attention to. I didn't do a very good job of adjusting to what my partner was doing it that exercise. I guess my competitive nature just got the better of me, and I acted solely based on my strengths. I neglected to pay attention to the actions of my partner. I hope to improve on this aspect and look forward to learning more on this class on tuesday. This class is exciting! I was happy to hear Fabio say that our class is always willing to participate more than the other class. Let's keep it that way guys!!!

Experiences in acting class

Although lately there have been many challenging exercises in class, I believe there is a lot that can be learned from them. One major thing I have learned in the last few acting classes is that there are many different ways to express ideas without ever having to say a word. One major example of this was when the class was asked to preform the "mirror exercise." Although it was very difficult in my opinion, it forced me to consider what the other person was doing instead of concentrating on anything but the "moment." While miring the other person I was, in large, able to look at their eyes, which was an uncomfortable feeling at first. After a while it gradually became easier to concentrate on the exercise without feeling a lot of social tension. Another class exercise that I have yet to master is the "tug of war" since it was very difficult in my opinion. Although it paralleled the mirror exercise in some ways for example by forcing you to react to the other persons movements, I believe it was a much more challenging exercise since I was unable to completely "give in."

In conclusion although there were several in class exercises that allowed me to concentrate on some of the basic elements of acting and to focus on being "in the moment" and surrounding myself with limited thoughts able the past or present, I feel that the mirror exercise was easier than the "tug of war." In the future I hope to develop a better sense of reaction to exercises.