Sunday, September 30, 2007

acting

Class on Thursday was good times. I definitely felt like we were on "Who's line is it Anyway". It was fun to watch what each group was able to come up with. It was hard to get the person up there to work with what the groups idea was, but in each case it was hilarious

Thursday, September 27, 2007

I really enjoyed doing the improv today in class and also watching others do it to. Not only was it a good laugh but it allowed us all to dive into our creative sides because all we knew was our relationship to the leader and they only knew what they were doing.

Ages

Doing the ages was a lot of fun. I got an age that was fun to do and not too difficult either. It makes it tough though to do something like that when we get a middle age because some of us don't know how to relate to that age. Doing the roller coaster activity was fun but it was tough to follow all the movements of everyone else because it was tough to see the other person.
Class lately has been pretty enjoyable. The acting of the ages was pretty difficult for those of us who had ages between 40 and 60ish. It is interesting to see everyone's different interpretations of everything. Class goes very fast when we do some sort of acting.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

I really liked the activities we did Tuesday. When we were doing the bus stop one, my only hope was that I didn't get an old age. I drew 21 and so the whole time i just thought of things that i would when i was at a bus stop, because i'm close to that age. When we did the moving object activity...it was really nerve-racking to let out a scream for our "roller coaster" ride. I seriously got the clammy palms and racing heart. Once the whole class did it though, i thought it was hilarious. Can't wait for tomorrow!

A New Age

I thought the acting a different age was really hard at first. When I drew four, I had no idea what to do. I tried to think what a generic four year old would do when waiting for a bus. I still had no idea. Then I started to think about four year olds I know. My little cousin, kids at a park I worked at, and so on. When I started to think about them it became a lot easier to act like them. That helped me.

Bus Stop

The whole bus stop acting thing reminded me of Forrest Gump, but it was enjoyable. It is hard to portray a certain age by just waiting for the bus. The whole acting out being on a rollercoaster was fun, and I was laughing the entire time. I could not make myself scream blood murder, though. I guess I'll have to work on that.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Today was fun. I apparently suck at the circle game pretty bad. oh well. The acting is getting more fun now that we are doing more talking and role playing, as opposed to imagining an object...class is getting more fun all the time

Age Exercise

I thought everyone did a wonderful job today during the age/bus exercise. It was very enjoyable to watch and you could actually tell how old most people were portraying to be. When we were first writing down numbers I didnt realize what they were for but once we started the exercise, I really enjoyed it. I hope we do more activities like this soon!
i liked finally being able to be vocal in the acting we are doing. it makes it more interesting for me to watch the rest of the groups and makes things a lot harder because it is all improv. Not knowing exactly what the other actors in your group are going to next makes the whole experience that much more fun.

Last Class

I really enjoyed the group scenerio that we did last week. I think it is fun after all of the practicing and exercises that we did with things that were not actually there we could culminate all the ideas and put them together in a scene.

Monday, September 24, 2007

I enjoyed the activity we did on thursday when we drew items out of a hat to act. It's crazy how you dont notice the details until you have to act something out. If I were to mess with any of those objects...except the skateboard....i wouldn't even think about what i was doing. I'd just do it and move on. but you when you act it out, you have to pay attention to all the details and really thing about what you're doing. i think it will be quite a task to add speaking into our acting. one more thing you don't really pay attention to in real life, but you have to when you act.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Talking

Talking was a very strange thing to add to our acting. In normal conversation talking seems so natural and unavoidable, but when we added it to acting it was very strained and awkward. I thought about everything I said, and wondered if that is how I would actually act in a real situation. I think adding talking to our acting is going to be fun but a lot of work.

mixed thoughts

I really like the new warm-up exercise because it is something new and I think it wakes you us more than stretching. I was a little embarrassed when I didnt guess the leader within the first three tries and had to go out in the hall again. But then after the exercise was over I realized who really cares...Then when we drew from the box what we had to act out I over dramatized. I think that is going to be very difficult for some people because you want your viewer to know what your doing. I do like drawing from the box though. Lastly I think its going to also be difficult for us beginning to add conversation into our acting. Alot of people are going to laugh which will make the actors laugh as well. I hope this new addition of speech goes well!

Friday, September 21, 2007

Talking

I really liked talkin today in our excercises. It is gonna make things a lot tougher though. I feel this way just because it will be tougher to focus on the task because we will want to laugh and naturally some of skits we are doing will be funny. I really like the new game to that we use to warm up because it is something different.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

I really liked being able to talk today in our excercizes...i think that this is a new concept that will take some getting used to and i know that personally i will have to work on not abusing it...and i never wanna do the Carlton Dance again
I liked how towards the end of class we are started exercises where we can speak. While doing many of the non-verbal exercises it has been tough for me to be quiet because they were exercises where generally in real life we would talk. Other than that good class today.

Talking

Today was especially exciting for me because we have finally begun to start speaking. However, when I acted out the scene with my group I was completely unsure of what I wanted to say. I noticed that I was focusing on other things like the reality of what I was doing. That made it awkward at times because I felt like I should say something but didn't know what. It was definately different being allowed to talk, because that is a whole new aspect of what we're doing. There are more things to focus on. Perhaps I was silenced for too long and will never be the same.
The game we played with the circle and you had to find the leader was pretty sweet. The acting was pretty cool to, just basically what I expected out of the class except I thought their would be props. It is interesting to see what everyone comes up with.
The circle game that we played was really fun, trying to figure out the leader!! A lot of the acting we do without objects is difficult, but challenging in a fun way. It is mostly difficul to think of something to do!!!

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Circle Game

I thought the circle game was great. Finding where people were looking was one very easy way to tell who the leader was, but I also found that the leader will only change when the person is looking away from them. So standing in one spot and seeing if the motion changed was a good way to find out who the leader was. I also have to wonder why it is so hard to come up with things to do in the smaller groups. People do things in groups every day, and yet it is so hard to think of an idea.
the mirror exercise is really starting to get fun. when we first stared doing just the arm movements and that i really did not like it, but now that we are actually doing things with the mirroring it is really fun. i hope that this class just keeps getting better like it has.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

What Next

Its cool to see how our activities are building off previous ones, such as the group mirror excercises opposed to just mirroring one person's arms the first week of class. I wonder what we'll be doing at the end of the semester. I couldnt help but put in a random video, because I saw the option to. I have nothing better to do with my time.
I also really liked the circle game we played today. It was fun because you were able to play a role in the game. You could easily deceive the guesser by staring at someone who wasn't the leader or by not looking at anyone at all. I enjoy the group activities a little more than partner ones. Its nice because there are more people working on an activity with you...more people to play off of and to take the focus off of you. It calms my nerves a bit.
I liked the sitting in a circle game that we played today. People's eyes gave away who the leader was. Creating scenarios is something that is not easy for me, because my mind always goes to sports or some sort of game that everyone can play. It is hard to be creative on the spot. I hope we eventually get to use something that is tangible when acting out a scenario.
I think the mirror activities are easier to do when there are two people leading. It is interesting to play off of what the other person is doing and make a certain motion work. I also think that it is hard to think up ideas of what to do for activities.

Indians Vs. Tigers

So I went to the Indians versus Tigers game, and boy was it a good one. The indians scored first, but as the game went on the Tigers pulled ahead 5-2. But in the 8th inning the Indians had 3 runs to tie the game. The game ended up going into extra innings and in the bottom of the 11th inning Casey Blake hit a walk off home run. It was a riot. Good times!!

Monday, September 17, 2007

Class on Thursday was a little easier. It was nice because we didn't have to mirror someone else's actions as much. We were able to do something a little more familiar and concrete. I thought the fishing exercise David and I did was tough. There are a lot of small actions with your fingers that you don't realize beforehand. I'm definitely still enjoying the class.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Keeping Hands the Same Size

I thought the stuff we warmed up with on Thursday was really neat. I enjoyed the imaginary ball. It was difficult to make it look like you had a ball in your hand. I also found it hard to keep my hands the same size. I noticed that when we do things like that my hands often change size. I found that to be one of the most difficult things to master.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Class

Today was a difficult day because I had to focus on the little things that making acting. I mean trying to make sure your hands stay the appropriate distance apart to make it believable to your audience that you are actually holding a ball. The more I go through this course the more I find out that acting is over darmatizing what your doing but rather that you act normally as if no one was watching you.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

I really enjoyed getting to do something outside of mirror exercises today. Even if it was something as simple as brushing my teeth.
Class today what a lot of fun. Doing the different activities was pretty enjoyable and throwing the ball around and pretending it was heavy or hot was pretty interesting to see how we all sort of dramatized it. Also, have to say Jennaka was pretty interesting as well!! =)
I think it is difficult to act like you are doing something when you have no physical materials to work with. For example, the whole playing tug of war with no rope involved a lot of factors. You had to hold the rope as if there was tension and look like you were exerting force without looking fake. It is not easy.
I thought that class on Tuesday was what the whole course was going to be about. It was more acting. Like when we had to pretend to play tug of war. I never realized the detail in just pretending to tug on a rope, especially with the hands. It just goes to show that there is a lot more about acting that what we think!!!

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

09-11-07

I found the exercises on tuesday relatively difficult. i've finally got the hang of blocking out the whole acting thing and actually trying to feel what i'm supposed to be doing, but it's still kind of hard for me. i found that during the tug-o-war exercise i was thinking, "win win win" the whole time, because naturally if it were real, that's what i'd be thinking. however that mind frame didn't work, because my partner clearly wasn't thinking "lose lose lose." so i definitely need to pay attention to what the other person is doing to during these activities....
I really enjoyed the exercise were we had to either dig a hole, paint a wal, etc. as a group. It made me realize that I when I actually have an object in my hand like a shovel I never sit back and think about how I'm using it. I just use it. I really think that trying to dig a whole without a shovel was harder than tug of war b/c you had to put so much more movement into it. That is something that I would like to try again because it really gets you thinking about everything.

Rope

I thought the rope exercise was very difficult. I could not quite figure out how to make it look like I was off balance. You had to lean back and pull, but you could not actually pull or you would fall back. I also could not get holding my hands in the right way or really any of it. But I enjoyed the mirror exercises again. I thought it was cool when we did it with two groups at the same time. Even though we did not start out doing stuff together, sometimes we ended up acting as a group.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

The Rope

So i thought the tug of war thign we did today was kinda fun....its alot to concentrate on, deciding how big the rope is, where to hold iut, how too look like its real...it took alot of trying

Monday, September 10, 2007

Taste in Convo

Reading some of the post from the other students i noticed that many of you talked about tasting and watching others taste while in Convo. Tasting is something that is going out of style fats do to the fast paced life style that a lot of people seem to think is mandatory. If we were to all just take a step back we would be able to taste the food we are eating and see that not all of it tastes as good as we once thought.

Taste Exercise

I think that the taste exercise that we did in small groups was by far the most difficult for me. I was slightly able to “taste” the sweets that I was eating. But it just seemed so unnatural while attempting to eat, I felt very uncoordinated and jerky in my motions. Then as I watched the exercise it didn’t seem like any of us truly acted the way we do when we eat. In the exercise we were in slow motion while “eating” and our movements didn’t really match up because we were trying too hard to be natural. I thought that was very ironic comparing it to some of the other post about how fast many of us eat, and just get in and get out of convo. I totally agree on the fact of how quickly we eat and we look like “cows” as someone mentioned. But I just think that it is odd that in reality we buzz through food when we are given the chance to taste it (and probably don’t most of the time). Class gave us the chance to savor the food that wasn’t there and began to work on my taste a little bit.

miror exercise

i thought this week that the mirroring exercise was quite intense. It was really difficult when multiple dimensions were added and we could move on more planes. The key is moving really slow so that the other person can get a feel for what you're doing.
In class on Thursday it was very interesting pretending to eat food. Our group pretended to eath cotton candy, which is one of my favorite sweets to eat and not only was i focused on the taste, but it also reminds me of multiple trips to Disney World and eating the cotton candy there! It is amazing! A lot of us tend to focus on when we pretend to eat something or see something, trying to put it on for the audience. We try to make it apparent of what we are doing. Overall, this is still my favorite class!

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Eating and Listening

As I was eating today in convo, I noticed that everyone seemed to be in a rush. I mean no one was really enjoying their food they were just shoving food down their throats and not really paying any attention to the conversation that they were having with their friends. Maybe this was because they were all pre-occupied with homework or with other things going on but it just seemed like no one had any really interest in the other people at the table. Now obviously I can't speak for everyone I was just listening to one table but it struck me as odd.

Mirror Stretching

I thought the mirror imaging was exciting. It was a bit difficult if your partner is going fast, but that is obvious. I really enjoyed and hope to do it again. But the stretching, is long and it hurts. But of course it must be done!!!

Listening in Class

So I thought about the recent activity we did in class with the listening. So I sat in one of my classes, and just tried to listen like I would, and realized all I did was sit there. Sometimes I would look down to see what she was talking about. And one of the main things I found was that the professor doesn't usually sit in one spot, he/she walks through the room.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Mirror Image

The mirror activity on Tuesday was quite an experience for me. It was really strange at first to look directly into another person's eyes that I had just met. After a while though, I became comfortable and realized that if you looked away the activity didn't work the way it was supposed to . Also I taught some of the girls on the team how to play whiz/bang. We played it in the airport...haha. Now if only I could not get kicked out of the game in class...

Class

I really like the group activities that we were doing in class. I think the more you can visualize an actual situation, the better it translates into a scene. Also each individual component that is in a scene is not easy to convey to an audience. What you see and hear for example are two things that are not always easy to get across. I was definately feeling the teamwork theme which will most likely be a very important aspect of acting.

Mirror Exercise

I really enjoyed the mirror exercise that we did in class on Tuesday. I had a hard time not laughing but after I stopped lauging it was cool to mirror someone else. I also enjoyed watching other people do this activity because besides seeing who first started the movement you really couldnt tell who was the leader.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

listening exercise

I really enjoyed this excercise even though at first it was hard not to do more action and move movement. My head was saying it wanted to do more than just sit there and listen, but then I know if I did then the exercise we were doing would look very unnatural.

Missed one...

Just wanted to make sure I wrote some comments from last Thursday. You told us to sit down and observe our surroundings for 5-10 minutes. So I decided to do it while traveling in Colorado. I focused more on what was outside of the van, rather than inside since I had never been there before. Immediately I noticed the landscape. It was like nothing I've ever seen before. As we went farther into the city we were at, I noticed the people. They had a different style to them. I could tell the culture was different. Many of the guys had long, shoulder length hair, scruffy beards, and dressed very casually. There were lots of boots and hiking shoes. The more people we passed the more I realized how in touch they were with where they lived. To live in the mountains you have to love the outdoors and really respect your enviroment.

Mirror Image

Today was the most comfortable I have felt up to this point. I really enjoyed the mirror activity because it was something you had to really focus on and it presented a challenge we have not had to face yet. I also learned today that acting is largely in your mind because if you can make yourself believe you are in a jungle the audience will get that impression from you because you believe it.

Listening

For this exercise i was a little confused about what to do. I did just sit down in my dorm and listen to what was going on around me. I could hear my roommate breathing soft as he slept, i could hear the guys in the next room taping on there desk, and i could here the TV in our room making a soft noise so that my roommate could sleep. However i was also aware of the room itself. This may sound wired but even with my eyes closed i was able to see everything it. It was as if I was seeing the room but without my site. If i tried I could stretched this feeling it was like i coud exaclly what guy was walking down the hall.

Monday, September 3, 2007

Second Day

The second day was a lot of fun. The exercises definitely pertained to listening and being aware of the space around you. This, I thought, was easier said than done. Also I felt that acting, but not looking as though you are trying too hard is certainly an art. I definitely liked the sense of a group dynamic that was created with the machine game. That game had me cracking up. I like music a lot, so I like anything that has a rhythm especially when you can build on it. Next class should be pretty amazing.

squats

the machince activity was the best activity we have done in class so far it was very humorous to watch people have to come up with something on the spot.

MACHINE

I really thought the Machine game was funny. I hope we can do it again sometime, it was crazy how everything fell into each others rythym. It was weird when someone ran up there and started ____ing Blaine's hand.... kidding... it was funny.

squats

Wow... I think I might have figured this blog thingy out. There is something I would like to talk about though, our workout we had on friday. I am on the track team so we are currently in fall conditioning. We did a thing called Tabata Squats... it is 4 minutes of squating light weight. I did a front squat, and I just wanted to say that when I was laying on the floor after I was done, I WASN'T ACTING!!!!! It was rough... really rough!

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Listening

For the listening excercise, I sat in my room alone. The first thing that I heard was music from the floor above me. It was the song "You and me baby, 'aint nothing but mammals, so lets do it like they do on the discovery channel." I also heard extremely loud insects outside my window. I assume that they were being so loud, because they wanted to attract a mate. Even though they werent mammals, they wanted some action, too I guess. I also heard the elavator dinging as it arrived at different floors, and people talking outside my window, but this is probably unrelated to sex. The sounf of the insects grew louder.