busy, butterflies, and bored

It's been a busy couple of days.

Had the read through on Monday and it went really well. I got extremely nervous before I was about to go because about thirty minutes before it was time I got a text from my director changing the stage directions around. We hadn't rehearsed what she wanted to do and I would be doing it for the first time and it would be in front of my professor and all the other directors. So I was a little nervous. It was like the episode of Entourage when Ed Burns changes Drama's sitting monologue to a walking monologue and Drama freaks out. It wasn't quite as intense but similar nonetheless. Anyways, I did fine with the stage direction changes and when I sat down on stage and was about to start all the butterflies flew away. So that has to count for something, right? Then the next day my professor, who is also the professor for the directing class told me I did a good job, so that was refreshing to hear.

Haven't had another rehearsal since Monday, so one should be soon.

I registered for classes today for next quarter. Marketing, Managerial Accounting, History, and Writing. We'll see how that turns out.

In terms of my character development... I have the walk down, I have the voice (mostly) down, I hope I have the emotionality down, now it's just a matter of mastering my lines.

running to prove something

In continuing to better myself for my character I went running yesterday. The reasoning behind this is, I figure, that soldiers are in pretty good physical shape and that in playing a soldier that I should at least be in decent shape. It's not that I'm in bad shape, just that running would help a little more for the physicality of the role (and by physicality I mean sitting in a chair and reciting soliloquies). I did this once before for a role I thought I would be playing. We had been planing out our senior video project for an entire year before we had to do it. I was planing on playing Neely Crenshaw who is the greatest high school quarterback in Texas football history, from the novel Bleachers by John Grisham. To prepare for this role I started running about two miles almost everyday to "get in shape" for the role. Now that I think about it I was even trying to "become" the character back then, like I am now. I worked on passing a football even though the film probably would not have even included any football throwing. But there was going to be a running scene so the training for that was legitimate. For LOST Lit all I really had to do to get into character was put the shades on and change my voice and I was Captain Beatty. That's why if you noticed when I get my glasses knocked off and have to give my farewell address to Frederick, I drop my eyes and stuttered in a different voice (this could have also been due to only having one take). Having the sunglasses on really made a difference for me.

In other news, today we had another rehearsal for the one act. I had to yell my lines today to give an over the top performance, one of the girls and to read her lines in valley girl voice, anther girl had to do a really cheesy French accent, and another had to whisper her lines. It was really funny and hard for me because my character is playing it super serious, so I had a few breaks of character that Mr. Fallon may know a little something about from a few SNL skits. Overall though it was a very good rehearsal and tomorrow is the first read through in front of the directing teacher and all the other directors that passed on me. So let's just say I've got a little bit of a chip on my shoulder and something to prove.

what a waste

This post is not related to acting.

I found something out today that I kind of already thought I knew but it's not exactly real until it becomes "official." So that officially sucks, and what sucks even more is that I should have stuck with the realization I made on January 13th, cause that would have saved me a lot of time and effort could have been devoted elsewhere.

I guess I just wasted and threw away a whole year. But don't worry, I won't let this happen ever again.

Hey, maybe this will reinvigorate my screenwriting by supplying me with more ideas. AND it has definitely given me some real world experience for my EX GI character, so now I can relate to him a little more (oh look! there's a funny choice for words).

I guess this post did turn out to be related to acting. How About That.

acting and ideas

Forgot to post yesterday, probably cause rehearsal got canceled and I went to go see The Phantom Tollbooth play.

Anyways back to the acting. I have now developed a specific style of walk for my character. When I speak his lines it is now in a different tone, almost as if there is something more behind what he is saying. My character, as an ex soldier, has to put on a front of his stoic nature as a soldier. He is trained to show nothing is wrong, when something actually is wrong and that's what I have to show when I am preforming.

Rehearsal was canceled again today and the next one should be Sunday, so more to come.

On a different note I've been watching a lot of the SNL Digital Shorts lately and have some ideas for SLO Digital Shorts. We'll see what happens.

third time's (not quite) the charm

Had my third rehearsal today for the one act. I did a little better in parts than the first day we did a read through, but I still am off on a few lines. I'll have to work on that a little and be ready for the next rehearsal tomorrow.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy busy busy day.

Went and saw Ralphie May tonight at MY school, and it was HIL-arious!

That's all for now, more tomorrow in which I'll go into more detail about the process I'm taking to create a fully imagined character that also lives outside of the context of the play.

the second

Had another rehearsal today. I practiced my lines the hour before it, trying different phases, voices, tones, and emotions, thinking that we were going to do a read through but we didn't. It was much better actually. We did a memory exercise where we found something in the room and studied it for one minute and then closed our eyes and recited everything we remembered about it. This gave me a chance to show the director my partial photographic memory, so much so that the amount of detail I was describing made her laugh with amazement. Then we did a mirror exercise. Following that we did a following exercise. All were very fun and interesting to do. It was my first time doing these exercises and they worked really well with connecting to the other actors.

A good second rehearsal.

AND I got a note from the director about the emotionality of one of my lines.

For this certain emotion, I have to reach back to graduation night and find what I was specifically feeling then and then duplicate that for the line she wanted me to focus on; because if I can do that, that's all I need.

An Author in Search of the Future

Rehearsal was canceled for today.

I read the play Six Characters in Search of an Author tonight for class. I didn't like it so much in the beginning but then I started to really enjoy the writing style (it reminded me a lot of the Jack Nicholson "You can't handle the truth" speech from A Few Good Men). I even found myself acting out the lines in the study lounge of Tenaya Hall. Hey, whatever I was the only one in there so who cares if it's a 24 hour quiet zone.

I read over my lines again for the one act and practiced a few different things with pauses and such. It is a really different writing style than Six Characters... which I found more enjoyable to act. So, I guess I'll just have to make my lines a little more enjoyable.

Oh, and don't forget you got drilled by an 80mph tennis ball in the hallway today in the worst possible place.