actually talking

As i watched the first group today in class do the first voice activity i could tell that some of the language used was just used as a crutch or a filler... it did look harder than i thought it would be.  I think that finally getting to talk is actually going to make things a lot harder.  

Voice Acting

I agree with Ryan, I think voice acting would be really hard. ( Sorry I know that comment is from a really old post, but I just saw it.) At first, it seems like it would be really easy- all it is is talking. But it's not really- it's acting. After spending so many weeks acting with no talking I feel like it would be really hard to disconnect movement and words. Perhaps that was the point of not talking , to reinforce the importance of action . I don't want to overthink things, but now I'm wondering how much harder it is going to be when we have the added complication of speech to our exercises.

And then they spoke...

I am surprised how fast I got used to acting without speaking. I thought that it was weird at first, however now that we are starting to speak during our scenes, I see the point of starting the way that we did this semester. It allowed us to be able to focus on our actions without having to also figure out what to say. Now that we are more "advanced" and prepared, we are going to be able to handle the situation better than we would if we did not do the activities we did until this point.

It is kind of ironic because when going into this class, I figured that we would simply start off with acting activities that involved speaking. Now that we are used to acting without speaking, it is intimidating and nerve-racking to go up in front of the class and speak...even though we talk to each other when not acting. It is funny how something that we do all the time can be so challenging (which goes along with my blog from last week).

I agreed with Professor Polanco when he said that people may be uncomfortable doing these activities because they are not planned out. I always like to have everything planned out and I have found out that this has been a struggle for me in this class. I do not think I am very good with thinking on my toes! For example, today I was trying to plan out our scene and figure out what each person was going to do. I think it is great to be able to be spontaneous and hopefully I will get better at this!

sit, stay, speak

I think that maybe another reason or an addition to someone elses reason for not speaking until now might be that we hadn't broken ourselves in yet. Not knowing what to do is scary, but not knowing what to say and do is worse. It might have been more uncomfortable if we started just talking and then had to move into ridiculous motions to go along with it. We would revert back to talking too much. Also, it is alot harder to go from starting off with alot and then taking things away, while if we start with just doing and add talking later it would be easier. Last thing, I felt entertained when I watched the first group have their dinner party. excellent work

this week

i am starting to get the hang of all the excersises we are doin and i think they will get easier bc we will be able to talk i think you will see a big difference in everyones acting ability.

basiclly

The class is getting a lot easier for me! I was glad to hear that we might be able to talk this week because i think it will make things a lot more funnier. I know that acting is hard and that when you add lines then you have to add so much more! So i think it will be interesting to see what happens

No talking.

I agree with most of the others when they say that starting out talking would not be a good think. When we were acting in class we couldn't speak and so we had to look in the detail of our acting in order to make it look believable. I think that by starting out not being able to speak will hell up pay more attention to the details when we are aloud to speak. Being able to say something is a lot easy than having to act it out. I think the acting part will be much easier; however, I think that since being able to talk we will have to pay more and more attention to detail. I guess the more detail you have the better actor you are.

Not being able to talk has been a good and bad thing. It's good because you get to concentrate on the finer details of acting. You get to concentrate on movements instead of worrying about what you are going to say. The way that it is bad is that it makes it hard to communicate exactly what you are doing. Just like the one exercise where one person goes up and starts doing an activity and others join in. There were times where people didn't know what's going on and they changed the scene.

not speaking

I agree with Hallie that it was best for us to start off the semester without talking. I think once you incorporate talking it makes things a little bit easier (however I could be totally wrong because maybe acting with speaking is actually ridiculously hard). But I remember watching this behind the scenes thing on TV about the movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith. There is this scene right after they fight and pretty much tear their house to shreds where they just do stuff around the kitchen and all they do is look at each other, they don't talk. And the director was saying that originally they were supposed to have words but Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie thought it would be more difficult and more meaningful to just use their faces and gestures and emotions to complete the scene. I thought that was really cool because attention to detail is what we always learn about in class and this was an example of that exact concept in a big time movie with big time actors.

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.