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Acting Skills Audit Lesson-9/10/2014

Acting Skills Audit

Lesson-9/10/2014

Today we had another run-through of our performance in order to raise the quality of our performance. During the performance of my scene I maintained a high level of focus on my spatial awareness and effective use of my character's physicality, which I believed improved a substantial amount of the physical theatrical elements of my  performance. In addition to this, I believe that I have fully expanded my physical perception of Jude and shall do my best to perform it to the audience.

My teacher analysed my performance and directed me on how to improve my overall performance of the scene. She said my spatial awareness and my positioning are effective in the scene. Her directions underline the the fact that I need to improve my diction and I need to increase the projection in my voice. I must ensure that I still maintain a high level of emotion in my voice without losing the quality of my articulation and projection.  

Jude Character Diary

Jude Character Diary

Dear Diary,

I don't regret what I did to Lynette. I only apologized to get dad and Callum off my back. If not me it would've been someone else, someone to wake her up from her prison of denial, someone to set her free. That is what I did....set her free and anyone else who thinks otherwise be damned if they believe differently. Callum is just a kid and he has the mind of one as well. He couldn't possibly stomach, let alone understand what I did to Lynette and I don't blame him for being the way he is. Dad has sheltered him too much from the evil truth that is the society that we exist in as well as what our kind must do to survive and one day destroy it. Dad acted,no, pretended to be angry with me and all to save face for Callum. He should be ashamed of the fact that the same mouth that he uses to spread the real truth to strangers is the same mouth that is used to spout lies in  the presence of his own family. I can already see the way ahead, the future that not only awaits my family but perhaps my entire race. I love my father and I always will, but it is his weakness that is found in so many of our kind and it must be destroyed in order for us to gain true freedom. I see that it may just be my burden that is to carry my family and my race to prosperity. I once believed that it was his, but today I saw a man that I did not recognize a man that will hold us back, not lead us foward.

Acting Skills Audit Lesson-6/10/2014

Acting Skills Audit Lesson-6/10/2014

Lesson-6/10/2014

This lesson we spent the first hour rehearsing and going through our scenes which gave us time to implement our currently developed acting skills into our performance. During my rehearsal with my partner Eric, we continued to further develop our vocal levels and speech annunciation to ensure our dialogue would be clear to the audience in our final performance. We also continued to refine our spacial awareness by rehearsing our scenes several times but all in which we were in different proximity to each other. We further developed our spacial awareness during one of the class exercises we participated in where we were instructed to place our bodies in different positions such as tall, flat etc. I think this also developed our physical theatrical abilities and it helped us to deepen our understanding of our character's physicality.

After we finished our rehearsals, our group ran through the entire performance twice which I believe helped solidify the quality of our coming final performance. The run-through was quick and had no stoppages. The director had initially stated before the run-through that the cast would run-through the rehearsal without stopping and that this would aid us in remembering our positioning and entrances and exits throughout the entire performance which will be a contributing factor to the overall quality of the performance and each actor's individual final grade.   

Acting Skills Audit Lesson-1/10/2014

Acting Audit

Lesson-1/10/2014 

This lesson I further developed my acting skills in my participation of various exercises that the entire class took part in. Although these most exercises are designed in order to push the actor's mindset in to the correct phase for rehearsals, performances and lessons on various techniques for them.

The first way I have analyzed my developments was by looking back on the rehearsals that I went through over my scene. My entire class rehearses for our final performance every lesson and I believe this not only strengthens our existing acting skills, but I also believe that it encourages growth as actors as it gives us a level of responsibility to make our rehearsals as effective as possible without the director's supervision and even to begin developing skills that could potentially aid some of us in becoming directors which would be an extremely powerful development as actors. In my rehearsals I practice my use of key acting skills and immediately analyze how I have used them and how much they have developed since my last rehearsal. Every rehearsal I act the scene that I will be performing, therefore I automatically utilize a range of acting skills without conscious choice. However various skills that I have not yet fully grasped how to properly apply to my performance, I make a conscious choice to apply and immediately make an analyzation on how I have developed them. 

Another technique that I believe has further developed my acting skills  was when I participated in the exercise that mainly focused on strengthening my abilities in physical theater. The exercise required my partner and I to go through our entire scene using only our physical movements and gestures towards one another during the actual scene, however we were not allowed to make any sounds which was what our standard performance required. I believe this helped me to better develop my character's physicality and to have more spacial awareness during my performance.

Target Achievement

Target Achievement

Lesson-22/9/2014

This far to date I think I have achieved a range of my targets over a range of many lessons. When I was first required to set myself specific targets, I set myself a variety of different targets across a variety of different areas. However I set myself two main targets, which were to further develop my acting skills and to expand my current understanding of the character and mentality of Jude.

During this lesson we were given a long period of rehearsal time in order to better the quality of our scenes, and I believe that this has further strengthened my understanding of the character of Jude as well as allowed me to strengthen my performance of his character in my particular scene and tone. I also believe this has helped me to become more confident in my portrayal of Jude as an actor and I believe that this will further increase the quality of my overall performance at the end of term. This will help me to achieve one of my other main targets which is to achieve a Distinction grade for this entire unit.

Every lesson, I have used various exercises to help prepare myself for the lesson and therefore to prepare my mind to learn new, or even further ability and understanding of current acting skills. I believe that only towards the end of this unit can I fully analyse how my knowledge and ability of acting skills have expanded and strengthened. 

Character Profile

Lesson-18/9/2014

Character Profile

I believe that there is far more to Judd's character than what may outwardly appear to the audience or any actor that may be approaching the character of Judd earlier on. Judd's character has experienced a lot through the story of "Noughts & Crosses". I believe that his experiences have had an effect on his perception of the world that may be a little bit greater than what would have perhaps expected of any other person. 

Judd's character seems to have been intensified in all his choices and actions. I believe that this is due to the fact that  the society he lives in has pushed and ravaged his mind by all its cruelties, mistreatment's and overall unfairness towards him simply because of the colour of his skin. I have analyzed the entire play and I have personally determined that every single character has been developed and shaped to their personality at the actual beginning of the play because of the society they exist in and by the end have developed into the fully developed characters they are at the end of the play because of the experiences they had been through, and that in itself is strongly influenced by the society. 

I view Judd as being someone who is easily misunderstood and is a character that can be potentially approached by an actor that could develop into a character that does not have much depth or many layers to him. Personally I believe that Judd is a character that looks outwardly cruel and filled with intense rage, but in actual a fact, Judd is a character that does not have any personal hatred towards noughts or towards any of their culture, but only to the society and idealism's that have placed them above crosses. The overall goal of the character of Judd and all of his choices and decisions are to completely destroy and rebuild the society it self. The only problem with Judd's approach to his goals are that the elements he was using to solve the problem were the same elements that created them in the first place. This may even add a twinge of pity or even tragedy to the character of Judd, as the audience know that he is fighting a war in such a way that he can never actually win it.

From my own perception of Judd's character as an actor, I have come to the conclusion that there are two main ways to approach Judd's character. The first is you can portray him as someone who has been so deeply ravaged by his society, that he has become loud and filled with rage and violent towards everything that has to do with the society he has so come to hate. Another approach is portraying him as someone who is more spiteful and venomous towards everything around him, and who is not necessarily prone to loud outbursts, but as someone who is cold and clearly harbors a feeling of bitterness. Both approaches are effective towards conveying an effect or message to the audience, however I do personally feel as an actor that the second approach would take more skill and development as an actor.    

Acting Skills Audit Lesson-18/9/2014

Lesson-18/9/2014

Acting Skills Audit

I feel that I was able to demonstrate a range of acting skills during that lesson. One of which I believe was particularly strong during my rehearsals was my characterization. I really tried to understand the character of Judd and his motives as I believe this will help me to strengthen my connection with Judd and help to intensify my own perception of the character of Judd. I also think that this is also causing some of my own personality to spill into my enactment of the character of Judd which I would like to keep to a minimum, however (as long as it is controlled) I believe this will actually make my portrayal of Judd's character more exciting and far more interesting. 

I have come to the conclusion that my tone and vocal colour have developed to perhaps be one of my strongest strengths and I think that this will work as a large positive contributing factor to my performance of Judd. However despite my vocal strengths, I have noticed that I may sometimes lower my voice when adding more emotion to my voice which can be a lasting error especially on stage. Tone and vocal colour are one of the most important skills that strengthen and even make up an actor's overall theater ability. I also think that my vocal skills are my fastest developing skill along with one other. 

I have analyzed my rehearsals and have determined that my facial expression skills are my other fastest developing performance skill. I believe that it takes time and patience to for any actor to fully develop and gain control of their facial expressions. I think that my facial expressions may sometimes change and not match the current emotion of my character or tone of the moment of the scene. I believe that this may be due to the fact that I shift a substantial amount of my focus to my other acting skills and elements such as my spatial awareness, tone and vocal colour etc. I believe that facial expressions are one of the most powerful elements of physical theater as a whole.

My target over this whole unit is to gain a clear and complete understanding of what acting skills are and of all acting skills and how I can develop and improve my own. Secondary targets include further development of my acting skills and a Distinction grade for my performance, blogs and overall unit grade.

Homework 2: Lesson- 11/9/2014

Homework 2

Lesson- 11/9/2014

Eric & Susanna- I felt that their status' were clear and well perceived. Their facial expressions were good but could have been more refined in the sense that they could have tried to convey them to the audience a bit more, where as looking at each other was effective as actors they could have allowed the audience to see more of their expressions. Following off of this, their eye contact was exceptional which included the eye contact away from one another as Eric's stare towards the floor expressed to the audience how deeply hurt he was. I was also very impressed with the way Eric continued on with his scene and managed to remain in character when he made an error in his dialogue. I believe that this a key skill every actor should posses in some form.

Benji & Roseby- I concluded that their speech was filled with emotion and I admired the way that they were constantly changing their levels to suit their speech. Roseby was exceptional at raising her vocal levels, but still maintaining the same amount of emotion that would have been easier to convey at a lower level.They had their own clear, personal perceptions of what each character's status would be in that current scene and one of the the things that made this performance impressive was that they acknowledged this and yet still found a way to make it flow. This works a s a good reflection on their personal skills as actors.

Connor & Taffy-  I believed that their facial expressions were notably refined. Taffy seemed to be in a constant state throughout the whole performance, where she would try to convey as much emotion as she could through all of her dialogue. Connor was notably good at varying his voice's volume levels which helped to further convey his character's status and position in the scene. Both their spacial awareness was impeccable as they were both continually moving to suit the dialogue and tone of the particular moment of the scene, all the while still being in positions that the audience could clearly see their actions, facial expressions and hear all their dialogue. Connor could have improved his performance if he focused on the amount of emotion that he conveys in his voice as well as he does with its volume levels.

Homework 1

Homework 1

I believe that my acting skills are more developed in the performing and practical side of theater than they are in the more theoretical. I believe that I need to try and develop my theoretical skills of theater more and work on a few key areas of my performing. 

I believe that I have adequately developed certain performance skills such as learning my lines accurately, facial expression, audience awareness and tone and volume variance.  

One performance skill that I feel needs more development is my cold reading. I feel that a majority of the time, I slightly struggle to immediately grasp the emotions and intentions of my character at first glance and usually begin to read in an almost emotionless voice and limited facial expression. I believe this may also have a negative affect on some of the auditions I attend which may require me to read of an immediate script. On the flip side to this I feel that I have the ability to fully grasp whatever character I may be playing with some time to read over his lines, whether that time be 5 minutes or 5 days, as long as it is not immediate.

I feel that my performance skills (although there are key areas that could use some working on) are my more stronger side of my theatrical knowledge whereas my theoretical side could use further development. 

I believe that my theoretical side can be strengthened through my understanding of what theater truly is and broaden my knowledge of it as well as create my own personal understanding of what it is to me. I think that theoretical theater is just as, if not more more important than practical theater. I believe this because our own understanding and perceptions of theater positively or negatively affect the quality of our practical performance. 

I believe that I should work on every theatrical skill that I have as I believe that you can never stop growing as an actor.