Just a reminder that there will be no Ongoing Scene Study for Film & TV this Tuesday, November 26.

To hold you over until our next class, please watch this informative video called, "How the World's Most Successful Actors THINK". Along the lines of working on our character's thoughts, here are the thoughts of actors who have been successful at doing this. We can see from this video that how and what we think affects what we do and our outcomes.

Enjoy your holidays and stay safe. Keep on working on those scenes.

​See you on Tuesday, December 3!

We had a FULL class on Tuesday night, 11/19/19. Kia Abilay and Sean Contreras joined us for the evening. Welcome! Sean did a great job reading for everyone and Kia worked through her scene for the first time. I think the new scenes are a really good fit for everyone.

Chris and Rob, great work on your scene. If you'd like to continue with that scene, great, but I'd like you to also take a look at HAPPY TOWN (click this link) and have Rob look at BIG DAVE and Chris look at TOMMY. I think it would be a fun scene for the two of you to work through. We could possibly get this up on its feet and shoot it like a scene.

Sean take a look at the SIDES FILE (click this link) and pick a scene for next class.

Kia, let's take a look at the other scene you picked for the next class. We can decide from there which one you'd like to keep working on. 

Geede, great work on your scene from . Let's look at the blinking in the scene and also take a look at exactly what kind of TACTICS you can use to really get to the priest (SHAMING, BLAMING, PLEADING).

We talked a bit about CHARACTER and how we find character for our scenes. We watched the following video:

What we got from the video is that rather than thinking ABOUT character, we need to think AS the character. I reiterated how important SUBTEXT and CONTEXT were and how we can use CONTEXT (given imaginary circumstances) to find out what our SUBTEXT is. The SUBTEXT are your active thoughts as the character to get what you want (DREAM or OBJECTIVE) and avoid what you don't want (your NIGHTMARE).

This experimentation, this search we are on is for honesty, truth and authenticity in our acting and in our work as the character.

Here is the link to your SCENES FROM TUESDAY (click this link).

We will NOT be having class on Tuesday, November 26.
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Please have a safe holiday season! I'm grateful for each of you: your bravery in class, your talent that you share with us, your creativity that you are exploring and your time and focus to try to figure out this, at times, mysterious-seeming craft. Thank you! 

I'll see everyone when we return on DECEMBER 3!

​Please check here and your email for any further announcements.

cWow! What a great night on Tuesday night. We watched an intense video (see below) about TEXT, SUBTEXT and CONTEXT, a video about writing dialogue, and we related it to the ideas we've been discussing in The CAPTURES Method about Subtext in Acting.

We watched two versions of an audition that someone in class submitted recently and discussed what was strong about them and what we could do to make them better.

We then took a few moments to set up the camera and lights and everyone worked on great new scenes in class.

We took a look at the idea of SUBTEXT again in regards to the new scenes and I urged everyone to dig deeper into the subtext to find the calculated emotional verbalization of the character's objective.

By knowing the CONTEXT (given imaginary circumstances, moment before, relationships, etc.) we can find in the TEXT (the words on the page) the coded messages (SUBTEXT) relating to what the character wants (an action word, a VERB, that relates to the OBJECTIVE) to change the other person in a powerful way through TACTICS that evoke an emotional charge.

As we move forward, we'll continue to explore this idea in depth in class. I highly recommend watching these videos more than once until the concepts really start to sink in. If you have any thoughts or questions, please ask them below, or bring them with you to class.

I've uploaded your files from class to the Google drive. Please make every effort to download your files before the next class so I can clear the servers! Also, as we approach the holiday season, please keep an eye on your email for weather and holiday cancellations. 

LINK TO FILES

We had only a few folks join us for our first November Ongoing Scene Study class, but everyone did some great work on their scenes.

We talked a bit about AUTHENTICITY again. I think it's a really important part of The CAPTURES Method. Finding out what is authentic about the character and how they react and respond in the scene is key.

I showed a bit of the following video:

We did a quick recap of some of the important steps of The CAPTURES Method and then we got up on our feet and worked through the scenes. Everyone made some great progress. We looked at STILLNESS, SUBTEXT, how if we are really PRESENT, we can respond AUTHENTICALLY to what the other person is saying. We examined what we were trying to CHANGE in the other person and then we made some adjustments and worked on the scenes a bit more.

Watching back, we could see how certain movements (blinking, too much distracting hand movement) can take away from the power of your acting. We looked for "tells" - micro-expressions that give us away as someone who is pretending instead of really responding and listening.

Here are the links to this week's files: CLICK HERE FOR FILES

We start the November VO Intensive tonight at 7 pm! Looking forward to working with everyone! Time to get ready for those Commercial VO auditions!

WP