On Monday
25th November Shenagh showed us 8 postcards with a photo of
a person and we got to pick one of them. We then had to get into pairs and do a
performance of acting as those characters on the postcards. I partnered with
Hanna. I played two roles, one of a police officer and the other as the sister
Summer. Our performance was about Hanna killing her sister Lucy whilst she was
trying to kill her. She then confessed to the police about what happened. Hanna
then met her lawyer who was also her sister Summer. Summer helped her sister by
telling the police that it was self-defence, under pressure and she was not
able to think. This was then left on a cliff hanger. This helped us to know how
to improvise and how to do a performance from looking at a photo with no
information about it. This was fun to do because I was able to give many ideas
about what our performance should be about, and Hanna did the same. We were
able to listen to each other and work as a team. The improvements we had to
make were our facial expressions.
We were then
given a script called “citizenship”. We read through scene 1 and we then got
into pairs or threes, read through it and then had to perform it. But due to
time we were only able to watch one performance. This was fun to read because
after when we talked about our thoughts, Alice said there was too much swearing
which was funny.
The photo above shows the skills we
need to improve on for our acting, what we planned to do in the lesson.
Skills for my acting:
Improvisational skills
Physicality
Projection
Confidence - it has grown since
September
In class we planned to:
Work on objectives
Warm up
Script - read through, pairs, own
words
Show - feedback
We were then asked if improvising a
script helped, some of the class said yes because it gives you an idea on how
the character behaves. The rest said no because we did not have enough time to
improvise on the script
On Tuesday 26th November, we worked
with the same people from yesterday. I worked with Aso and Albiona, we went
over the first scene of “citizenship”. We then performed it to the rest of the
class. I was feeling nervous as the script was given to the class yesterday, I
felt I was not able to know the character Amy well enough to act as her.
Rob then showed the class the white
board and talked about the acting terms “objectives” and “subtext”.
Objective –
What your character wants or needs in a scene e.g. the girl wants the boy to
love her
Subtext - the
hidden meaning behind a line e.g. when someone is asked if they are OK and they
say “I’m fine” in an annoyed tone to their voice which shows they are actually
note fine.
In tech work we were given a sheet
with an outline of a person’s body. We had to pick a character from Citizenship
that we would like to play and think of what they would wear. The character I
chose was Chantal. I decided that she would wear ripped jeans, a hoodie and
trainers. This would show that she is a teenager.
On Thursday 28th November we spent the lesson with first year level 3 students. We got into 6 different groups and we played games such as:
1. Postcard where Rob gave us a
country and we had to do a freeze frame of something that is popular or is
happening in that country
2. We then had to do 2 freeze frames
of a happy family Christmas and what really happens at Christmas so the first
freeze frame would be a happy family but when we change into the second freeze
frame the family would be arguing and shouting at each other in hatred
This was a fun experience to work
with the first-year level 3 because it gave me an idea of how level 3 works.
Q&A Session
We went into the theatre and had a
Q&A with 7 actors who studied at Westminster Kingsway college.
We asked questions
such as:
The 7 actors we met were:
- Tobi King-Bakare (hes in Temple on Sky One)
- Brunilda Haxhijaha (she is in her final year at Brunel Uni)
- Zulaiha Sheikh (she just qualifieed from the Courtyard Theatre School and is now working)
- Michael Mulqueen (essentially "self trained" , workshops etc and is acting/writing, he starts filming a new comedy short in Feb 2020)
- Francis Lovehall (Ex Rada and recently appeared in Midsummer Nights Dream at the Bridge Theatre and curently filming)
- Elizabeth Adjemi (actress and running her own agency)
- Romario Simpson (in Timewasters on ITV 2 as well as Noughts and Crosses, soon to be performing at the Tristan Bates Theatre in a new play "Syndrome", Feb 2020)
1. Do you have to go to acting
school?
2. How do you know if you have a good
agent?
3. Easy ways to get an agent instead
of trying to look online?
4. Should we also focus on something
else as a backup?
For Q1 some of the answers were
mixed. Some thought it was a good idea to study drama, others thought you did
not need to go study.
For Q2 one of the actors told us how
she got conned, she told us to be very careful with agencies.
Tobi said that he was about to sign a
contract for a production in South America, but he did not have life insurance,
so he decided not to sign the contract.
We were told by the actors if an
agent meets you after an audition ask them why they chose you. If they stutter
or cannot think of anything, this shows they do not want you, they just want to
show off how many actors they have. So have an agent who really wants to work
with you.
For Q3 an easy way to get an agent is
to go to drama school.
For Q4 whilst attending auditions it
is a good idea to get a job, maybe working somewhere you enjoy, e.g. dance
studio, fashion or as a gym instructor.
We were also taught that being zero
is enough you do not have to be number 1 to be enough. Being Zero is saying
that you are good enough.