Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
"what story are we telling?"
olly and I were talking about the visual artist. and it's always what are we drawing, "an eye?" what KIND of an eye?
what story are we telling? and you can always get more specific.
what story are we telling? and you can always get more specific.
a piece of classical music
requires interpretation.
interpret please.
the action is there to PROVE that you are naturally and unconsciously capable of interpretation. and the key to applying your intellectual ideas about a part is to play your ACTION with a slight amount of artistry. Don't leave it all to the unconscious.
interpret please.
the action is there to PROVE that you are naturally and unconsciously capable of interpretation. and the key to applying your intellectual ideas about a part is to play your ACTION with a slight amount of artistry. Don't leave it all to the unconscious.
"what KIND of old man?"
I'm playing an old man.
What kind of old man? A dotty one? A shrewd and jealous one? Use the type.
What kind of old man? A dotty one? A shrewd and jealous one? Use the type.
Pick up your cues.
We can talk about punctuation as a clue to the character. That works sometimes, and other times it can make everyone extremely self-conscious about the text, and too many pauses and all that.
If you really want a physical experience of the rhythm of the text in DIALOGUE the most important thing is: pick up your cues. Then you'll begin uncovering the pattern. Sentence length. Line length, I guess you could call it. But it's really sentence length, how the speech goes back and forth between people.
Let's see: a summation:
Pick up your cues.
Pay attention to sentence length in relation to surrounding sentences. In other words, become aware of the PATTERN of the length of thought.
Know the difference between ponderous speech and "back and forth" or "repartee"
In a SPEECH you want to pay a lot of attention to punctuation and sentence length to begin to figure out the pattern of back and forth within the speech.
If you really want a physical experience of the rhythm of the text in DIALOGUE the most important thing is: pick up your cues. Then you'll begin uncovering the pattern. Sentence length. Line length, I guess you could call it. But it's really sentence length, how the speech goes back and forth between people.
Let's see: a summation:
Pick up your cues.
Pay attention to sentence length in relation to surrounding sentences. In other words, become aware of the PATTERN of the length of thought.
Know the difference between ponderous speech and "back and forth" or "repartee"
In a SPEECH you want to pay a lot of attention to punctuation and sentence length to begin to figure out the pattern of back and forth within the speech.
illustrator to a children's novel.
Make costume and character choices in the vein of an illustrator to a well known children's novel. The wizard of Oz, alice and wonderland, etc. The children's illustrator has to take the extra step and make the tin man a certain height, a gertain gait. what does the face look like? you cannot make a middle-decision, or your illustration will be not relevant.
character always works from the outside in, because the reason it's there is for the audience's recognition/development.
character always works from the outside in, because the reason it's there is for the audience's recognition/development.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
semantics
semantics don't save you. trying to decide between a douchebag and a sonofabitch is not going to save the scene. You have to act the scene, and you have to act it based one what's going on in the moment.
the action is there to give you a point of view and a goal. it should be worded clearly to give you a point of view on their behavior. use whatever language you want, but there's no magic to it.
the action is there to give you a point of view and a goal. it should be worded clearly to give you a point of view on their behavior. use whatever language you want, but there's no magic to it.
bifold action purpose
The purpose of the action is obviously to give you a goal, or a cap to go after.
BUT the other and more important purpose is to give you a point of view about the other person's behavior.
The point of view is more fun and more insightful.
BUT the other and more important purpose is to give you a point of view about the other person's behavior.
The point of view is more fun and more insightful.
You can't force a release.
You can only release a release.
And you can't make anyone do anything against their will.
And you can't make anyone do anything against their will.
SciFi Fantasy Prologues
Why does the prologue happen in the fantasy books and movies? Because when you're creating a new world/universe, it's necessary to make the premise as clear as possible so that development can be enjoyed. So you just get it ove with in the prologue. You tell them WHAT IS IS. That's what you do.
Cynthia notes
1. Speech patterns.
The trouble of rote memorization, an atlantic practical aesthetics "trap."
Practical Aesthetics "traps."
The architecture of thought IS found in the punctuation, and on a more subtle level in the parts of speech, the way of speech. i.e. antithesis and all of that, but that's all in the punctuation. punctuation is your clue to all that.
You are memorizing thoughts. What is a thought? anything that falls between two punctuation marks. any kind of punctuation marks, commas, colons, periods, and each punctuation mark and each sound is part of the architecture and contributes to the crystalization of the impulse.
"The architecture of the scene."
The complexity comes from the architecture of the scene and the thought, which is all contained in the literal. The literal is the architecture of the scene, and the step 1 is not all the literal is good for, but it is a summary of the literal elements. complexity doesn't come from the complexity of your human soul, or human implse. unecessary pressure on your impulse having self to have to carry the complexity of the scene on the back of your human truth. the complexity is already LITERALLY there in the architecture of the scene.
The diagram with the laser light at a certain angle shot into a reflecting shape, and vibrating the thing.
What is literally there. You're "sherlock holmesing it." be an effective detective. more fun that way.
The literal is hot, it should get you hot. nothing should take energy out of the scene. everything in the analysis should make the scene more specific and exciting, and dramatic. In ther words the literal should comprehend the STORY. call it drama, or call it story. I like stoy. but the literal should be excitin because it is specific to the STORY.
2. The want is not the whole scene. It's the first moment of the scene. Okay? Doesn't that make more sense. Because that's how e want things in life, and it makes the whole business unexpected. You don't want to anticipate the whole scene.
why is acting hard? Acting is hard because you have to do the same thing every night as if it were not the same. You have to act like you don't know what's goig to happen when you know exactly what's going to happen everysingle night. Let analysis help you with that.
By making the want start at the beginning of the scene, you do yourself a favor in not acting your idea of how the scene should play.
THIS APPLIES LIKEWISE to the as-if. Let the as-if be as heart-wrenching as you need it to be, but make it something you could theoretically get at the first moment.
3. Action: "what kind of an act would that be?" if you were to get your want. Avoid the obstacle thing, unless you need to.
4. As-if. see above note. Why is as-if into scene not a good representation of the scene itself? it's just an exercise. As-if into scene is just an exercise to let you play the action in the scene. HOWEVER> a scene that starts at the beginning of a want, will not start as-if it were in the middle or emotional peak of another scene. It's the beginning of the scene.
The beginning of the scene IS THE BEGINNING OF THE SCENE.
as-if into scene is not real.
The scene is the scene. effective detectives. The play is your everything. uncover it. Literally. THe literal is hot.
The trouble of rote memorization, an atlantic practical aesthetics "trap."
Practical Aesthetics "traps."
The architecture of thought IS found in the punctuation, and on a more subtle level in the parts of speech, the way of speech. i.e. antithesis and all of that, but that's all in the punctuation. punctuation is your clue to all that.
You are memorizing thoughts. What is a thought? anything that falls between two punctuation marks. any kind of punctuation marks, commas, colons, periods, and each punctuation mark and each sound is part of the architecture and contributes to the crystalization of the impulse.
"The architecture of the scene."
The complexity comes from the architecture of the scene and the thought, which is all contained in the literal. The literal is the architecture of the scene, and the step 1 is not all the literal is good for, but it is a summary of the literal elements. complexity doesn't come from the complexity of your human soul, or human implse. unecessary pressure on your impulse having self to have to carry the complexity of the scene on the back of your human truth. the complexity is already LITERALLY there in the architecture of the scene.
The diagram with the laser light at a certain angle shot into a reflecting shape, and vibrating the thing.
What is literally there. You're "sherlock holmesing it." be an effective detective. more fun that way.
The literal is hot, it should get you hot. nothing should take energy out of the scene. everything in the analysis should make the scene more specific and exciting, and dramatic. In ther words the literal should comprehend the STORY. call it drama, or call it story. I like stoy. but the literal should be excitin because it is specific to the STORY.
2. The want is not the whole scene. It's the first moment of the scene. Okay? Doesn't that make more sense. Because that's how e want things in life, and it makes the whole business unexpected. You don't want to anticipate the whole scene.
why is acting hard? Acting is hard because you have to do the same thing every night as if it were not the same. You have to act like you don't know what's goig to happen when you know exactly what's going to happen everysingle night. Let analysis help you with that.
By making the want start at the beginning of the scene, you do yourself a favor in not acting your idea of how the scene should play.
THIS APPLIES LIKEWISE to the as-if. Let the as-if be as heart-wrenching as you need it to be, but make it something you could theoretically get at the first moment.
3. Action: "what kind of an act would that be?" if you were to get your want. Avoid the obstacle thing, unless you need to.
4. As-if. see above note. Why is as-if into scene not a good representation of the scene itself? it's just an exercise. As-if into scene is just an exercise to let you play the action in the scene. HOWEVER> a scene that starts at the beginning of a want, will not start as-if it were in the middle or emotional peak of another scene. It's the beginning of the scene.
The beginning of the scene IS THE BEGINNING OF THE SCENE.
as-if into scene is not real.
The scene is the scene. effective detectives. The play is your everything. uncover it. Literally. THe literal is hot.
It's easy to teach.
advocate the rules. it's hard to follow the rules, but not hard to enforce the rules in the capacity of "coach."
Recognition/Development
Pleasure in recognition, knowing exactly what it is you're watching and then surprise and delight in the development of the knowns. That is the pleasure of the theater.
Recognize not only the characters but the premise.
Recognize not only the characters but the premise.
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