Voice

Speaking of not talking, I think that voice acting would be pretty hard to do, especially if I had to do a character like Meat Wad on Aquateen Hunger Force. But maybe it's easier to get into a character if it is a wierd voice that isn't your own because you can trick yourself into believing that you are not yourself easier. Anyway I was thinking about this since our acting is without talking and some people act only with talking.

not speaking

I feel that it is good we didn't start speaking right away, because it helped us to understand that acting is more than just standing up in front of people and talking.  I think that the bus stop activity we did was awesome and really helped us show how we've learned and get us ready for when we do start talking.

Rocket Ship and Talking

Yeah that was fun. It wasn't nearly as fun as the jumping when getting hit by a bus, but it was pretty close.

As for the talking which I see people liek to talk about, I would have to say that not talking certainly makes you think more about how your body works and operates during a scenario. It would seem easier to just say something, but it probably would not appear to be real. Body movements probably are a lot closer to what you would do if it was real. I think this is probably the main reason that we don't start talking in the beginning because hardly any of it would seem real.

No talking

I have given some thought as to why we don't start talking right away in class and its because it makes it easier. I agree with Brittany when she said it is easier to convey a message when you can speak. When you can't speak you have to think several different details of an object and show it instead of us telling us. Also it makes it more challenging for the viewers too because they have to pay attention to just as much detail to know what is trying to be conveyed. When you can speak facial expressions seem to just come naturally along with the words but when you cant that is another aspect that you have to pay attention too. Overall i believe that you don't start the class off with talking because it is a challenge and makes us much more aware of our surroundings.

Reasons We Don't Start Out Speaking

In many of the acting experiences I've had, including shows, we always started out with activities that did not include speaking. In one particular activity I remember, we had to pick an emotion out of a hat. We proceeded to act as if we were sitting on a bench outside of school waiting for the school bus and we had to sit there and portray this emotion. This particular activity sticks in my head because it really helped us to think about our emotions first.

Speaking is, of course, an important aspect of acting...but it is most certainly not the only aspect. If fact, dialogue can just be distracting when you are trying to portray something. To be able to portray what you are saying, it is important to first focus on what you are doing. You can go up on stage and say the line "I feel sad." but is that what your body language is showing? If not, you won't be very convincing. First, it is important to realize what you are doing physically and whether or not you are really portraying the emotion of what you are doing through your actions. Once this becomes a bit easier to realize, then adding some sort of dialogue will be easier because you will be thinking about the emotion rather than just reading off a page and sounding fake.

Why we don't talk right away

I have a thought as to why we don't talk right away in acting class. I think that it is much easier to convey a message if you are speaking. You could easily tell if someone was hurt, angry, or upset just by what they were saying. When acting, the hard part is making what you are doing believable. In real life we do talk, but we also use body language such as facial expression, movement or gestures to communicate. Sometimes when acting we can forget about these things (details) and just try to convey our message through spoken words, when in actuality that is not at all how it goes down. It is important for use to first be able to take advantage of the details that can be conveyed through body language, then it will be much more believable when we add words.

moving objects

During class Thursday I liked how professor planco challenged the class by adding more to the circle, bringing on another level of multi-tasking objectives. I also had some problems thinking of an object that can move us; I believe I was thinking way to hard on this task. I felt a little weird when professor planco suggested our group to do a rocket. I never been on rocket so I don’t have a clue on how to act while on a rocket although I did like the challenge of it and I am glad the group gave their all. Thanks team, peace.

Why we don't talk

Does anyone have any thoughts on why we do not speak in class right away?

why

Hello Friends,

You guys are doing great on the blog, but let me remind you, like it says on your syllabus, it is not enough to say you liked something. You have to explain why. If you do not, I can't give you credit for a post.

That being said, see that you are thinking about the lessons that our exercises teach especially the less obvious and, ironically, more important ones.

Keep it up.

Getting Moved by Object

I really liked the getting moved by an object activity. I thought that the balloon in the parade was a great idea. My group (the remedial group) had trouble coming up with an activity. I thought Professor Polanco made a good point when he said that none of us have probably seen anyone get hit by a bus, so that makes it harder to act out. The only time I have seen anyone get hit by a bus was in a movie, and it was very unrealistic. Final Destination had a scene where someone got hit by a bus, and I remember when I watched it I commented on how unrealistic it looked. When we acted it out, people knew what we were doing, but it did not look real. Acting out more familiar activities makes the scene more realistic.

Empty to Full Activity 2 - sorry you couldn't read the first one.

When doing this activity, I picked something that I literally do every day so that I would be able to reenact it in front of the class with little difficulty. However, that did not go as planned at all. I figured since filling my bag with books is something that I am obviously familiar with and do a lot, the hardest part would be acting like it was heavier rather than putting the books inside the bag. I was shocked. I guess it is routine so I do not actually think about how I put the books in my bag when I do it. Therefore, throughout this activity I realized the importance of detail even more.

Empty to Full Activity

When doing this activity, I picked something that I literally do every day so that I would be able to reenact it in front of the class with little difficulty. However, that did not go as planned at all. I figured since filling my bag with books is something that I am obviously familiar with and do a lot, the hardest part would be acting like it was heavier rather than putting the books inside the bag. I was shocked. I guess it is routine so I do not actually think about how I put the books in my bag when I do it. Therefore, throughout this activity I realized the importance of detail even more.

I like wizzbang. bling bling, ca-ching... I did not do my empty/full thing yet, but the objects that move you was pretty entertaining. I like to see what other groups come up with. As a class, I think we are pretty darn entertaining. I too, am excited to talk because people say funny things, and I like funny things.

Can we speak yet?

So i am really excited that we get to talk soon. I understand why it is important to do things without speaking, but I feel that it is a little bit unnatural to never speak during the activities. If we are supposed to be as real as possible, then I think talking should be a part of the scenes since real people have a tendency not to be mute.

bus stop

i thought when we did the bus stop activity everyone was acting there age. no-one was really over doin it. i didn find it hard to start acting the certain age like instantly though . but i guess that what u have to do when ur an actor/actress, be able to change charaters or ages at the drop of a hat.

Class Tuesday

Class was pretty interesting on Tuesday. I really enjoyed the whizbang game and I keep wondering where he comes up with some of these games. Half of them I have never even heard before, I must have been deprived at a young age. I think that the buss stop game was pretty interesting in that it was definitely easy to see the different age groups. I could mostly depict the different ages out by watching how much energy each person had. The older the person was they seemed to be like a bump on a long and the younger people had tons of energy.

bus stop activity

This was a fun activity and good learning experience about stereotypes with age. generally we stereotype by culture, color, or physical characteristics but this was an interesting twist, after the class I started to carefully watch several people of a diverse age group to examine what we did was close to what actually happens with movements and body language and I have to say we were not that far off from the stereotypical actions of what people do, also I think everybody is giving excellent energy towards the class objectives and activities, peace.

bus stop

I really likes the bus stop exercise. It did not look that hard and then i got up there and i had no idea what to do. I had to think about how the people i see daily really feel and try and become one. It was very hard, i had to be a 99 year old lady and i could not imagine how she would really feel. I just tried to imagine how her body would feel and how weak she would be. It was very hard but i enjoyed a challenge.

Yeah, Yeah

I also thought about stereotypes during that bus stop scene. It seems like it is kind of unavoidable. The character that we were only had an age and maybe a gender. There was no goal we had to achieve other than to convey someone of that age. When I think about that, acting like a stereotype is kind of what we were supposed to do, which is fine with me. I stereotype people all the time, and am bad like that.

Watching

I've noticed that we've been doing a lot more watching in class for the ast 2 days. Like, we watched other people have difficulty with small objects on Thursday and on Tuesday we watched other people on a bus stop for the majority of the class. But I don't mind it at all. I really enjoy watching other people and seeing what crazy ideas they come up with for our many different exercises. Even just watching someone try to take an earring out for like 2 minutes straight was really intersting to me and I've found myself paying way more attention to little details not only in the classroom but elsewhere too. For example I just notice how people eat or the way they carry themselves or things like that, and I just think it is all very interesting.