nervousgoateephantom

[nervousgoateephantom]

Module Journal and Book Review

Film genre:

In Rick Altman’s ‘A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre’ (Altman, 1984, p. 6), he claims that there is a lack of sufficient theory to film genre that, instead, often contradicts itself. He poses the question of what determines a film genre, explaining that one of the contradictions elaborates from the misunderstanding of what causes a film to be a musical. Altman manifests the semantic/syntactic theory to solve this problem that ‘seem worthy of a good scratch’ (Altman, 1984, p.6). In this essay, Altman clarifies that film genre can be defined by either exclusive or inclusive selection. Inclusive defines genre in a broad sense, whilst exclusive is determined by more theoretical grammar. He states, ‘Because there are two competing notions of generic corpus on our critical scene, it is perfectly possible for a film to be simultaneously included in a particular generic corpus and excluded from that same corpus.’(Altman, 1984, p.7). Altman’s second contradiction speaks about theory and genre history, elaborating that the semiotic approach tends to ignore its historical development. He states, ‘With the heavy influence of semiotics on generic theory over the last two decades, self-conscious critical vocabulary came to be systematically preferred to the now suspect user vocabulary’ (Altman, 1984, p.7 ). His argument illustrates that the theory of genre should take the history more into consideration, instead of completely opposing it. Within this essay, Altman raises questions of genre theory by stating that the application of semiotics to genre study is inadequate and contradictory, stressing the importance of historical development to what determines a film genre. However, David Bordwell’s article on ‘The case of Film Noir’(Bordwell, 1988, p. 74), showcases the amorphous trend film noir has as a genre. He breaks down the fundamental elements to theorise what film genre is, arguing that you must look at the motivation behind why we have been using this term to determine what it truly is. He evaluates both sides of the argument on whether Film Noir is a style or a genre, but ultimately, Bordwell leans slightly towards the notion that it is in fact a genre. He raises the point that the term ‘film noir’ originated from American detective novels of the 1940’s.  He states, ‘This etymology is significant because every characteristic narrative device of film noir was already conventional in American crime fiction and drama of the 1930s and 1940s’ (Bordwell, 1988, p. 76). This connotes that the narrative devices that the hard-boiled detective novels used started to become conventional in film noir Hollywood cinema. This ticks the boxes to what forms a genre, since it follows a pattern of traits that would constitute the story, therefore, audiences can understand what they are going to get. A noir film that epitomises this theory is in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944). The film adopts the popular crime fiction structure, following the hard-boiled protagonist that is terrorised by guilt and murder. From evaluating the two peer-reviewed academic readings, Bordwell highlights the recurring patterns in film noir, which, arguably, keeps it in its own category of genre.  This argument stresses the contradiction that Altman makes in defining film genre as an entity which is subjective and malleable, depending on the varying perceptions of film classification.

Transnational Film Noir:

Ginette Vincendeau makes a clear-cut argument that American film noir was hugely influenced by international successes, stating; ‘The Hollywood film industry of the 1930s and 1940s was an international one’ (Vincendeau, 1992, p, 58). The reading ‘Noir is also a French word’ binds American film noir to the German Expressionism, but through the influence of French cinema between the two. She highlights this by tracing back through history to showcase the influences French cinema had on American film noir, stating, ‘A less biased and more thorough look at the French Cinema of the 1930s reveals strong intertextual links with American film noir’ (Vincendeau, 1992, p. 58). On the other hand, an argument was raised by Borde and Chaumeton in the reading that there is no true evidence that John Huston or Howard Hawks, who both had directed film noirs, had not been influenced by the French films of the 1930s. However, Vincendeau argues that many other film noir directors, such as Fritz Lang and Billy Wilder, were not only exposed to French cinema, but had also spent time working in the French studios before they travelled to Hollywood. These directors came to France predominantly from an Austrian-German descent. Because of this, the French film industry produced a more mixed blend of styles. Alongside this, we had poetic realism, and Bruce Crowther in his book ‘Film Noir: Reflections in a dark mirror’ articulates the influence émigré directors had to American film noir. He in particular delves into the aesthetic Fritz Lang brought to Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, stating, ‘Fritz Lang directed two strong noir movies. There are several similarities between ‘The Woman in the Window’ and ‘Scarlet Street’’ (Crowther, 1988, p. 41). Below is a link to the end clip of the film Scarlet Street (1945), in which the protagonist, Christopher, begins to hear voices of the couple he intentionally murdered through jealousy and betrayal.  He begins to lose his mind, and the lighting effects epitomises his descent into madness.

https://youtu.be/LC9klLi_bfY?t=96

Crowther highlights this himself, implying, ‘The use of lighting to show Christopher’s slowly changing attitude towards Kitty as he discovers her true feelings is highly effective’ (Crowther, 1988, p. 42). The use of voice-overs to get into the interior mind of the character is another trait that film noirs tend to use. The movie becomes a character study, and Crowther argues that these techniques were influenced by German realism. In chapter three ‘The origins of film noir: Émigré and other directors’, it begins by outlining; ‘The ties which bind American film nor of the mid-1940s to the German Expressionist cinema of the 1920s are visually self-evident’ (Crowther, 1988, p. 39). He makes the argument that American film noirs are reminiscent of the gothic elements from such films as ‘The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919)’ and ‘Frankenstein (1931)’. Crowther does not go into detail on how German Expressionism came to formulate into the Hollywood system, but he does articulate precisely the impact specific movies from 1920s and 1930s Germany had to what came to be film noir as a genre.

Women in Film Noir:

Hollywood motion-pictures was considered male-dominated on the production side of the industry, which hindered against having a female perspective in their films. Bruce Crowther in his book ‘Film Noir: Reflections in a dark mirror’ highlights the impact this had on the films being released in the 1940s; he denotes that this limited vision caused women in film noir to be either ‘a tiresomely predictable stereotype’ or ‘a powerfully impressive group’ (Crowther, 1988). This reacted well with audiences and changed people’s perspectives in Hollywood. Janey Place in her book ‘Women in Film Noir’ argues that the female characters in classic film noir films were still portrayed from the male’s perspective; she elaborates that, ‘Film noir is a male fantasy, as is most of our art. Thus woman here as elsewhere is defined by her sexuality’ (Place, 1998). Double Indemnity (1944) embodies this ideology. Phyllis, played by Barbara Stanwyck, is first revealed at the top of the balcony in just a towel wrapped around her body. With the dark noir lighting, she glows, looking down at us, asserting dominance and holding a sense of sexual mystery. When Walter Neff speaks back to her, he is looking off-camera, as if we are watching from his perspective. The camera follows her as she moves down the stairs in a close up of her shiny heel shoes, directing our attention to her sexual beauty. A quintessential femme fatale. Furthermore, Place observes a pattern to this term, highlighting that Double Indemnity, amongst other noir films, establishes the femme fatale’s control of power, but yet, gets destroyed by the end. She elaborates by noting that ‘The femme fatale ultimately loses physical movement, influence over camera movement, and is often actually or symbolically imprisoned by composition as control over her is exerted and expressed visually’ (Place, 1998). Phyllis’s dominance is expressed by not only in the blocking, camera angles and lighting, but also in her intentions of not escaping from one man only to be tied up with another. She shoots Walter towards the end of the film, telling him; “I never loved you, Walter. Not you or anybody else. I’m rotten to the heart. I used you, just as you said.” Dramatically however, she decides not to kill him, and so Walter kills her instead. ‘This ambition is inappropriate to her status as a woman, and must be confined,’ notes Place, ‘She wants her husband’s insurance money, not her comfortable, middle-class life’ (Place, 1998). To one degree or another, it is unarguable that seeing women having such ambition and three-dimensional characteristics can only enhance their acting careers by broadening horizons. Nevertheless, Double Indemnity is told from a male perspective, and so it gives us a perspective of the crisis of masculinity. We get a sense of lost power, and so, the female character must be condemned. Phyllis demonstrates her dominating power, her wild ambitions, only to be shot down quite literally. And so, the threat to the patriarchal structure can only last so long in a male-dominated world.

Book report:

Mark Bould’s ‘Film Noir: From Berlin to Sin City’ is a detailed monograph that offers a problematic approach towards the definition, and yet, is reluctant to make a conclusive argument. Instead, Bould interweaves between its historically contingent nature and narrative strategy to deconstruct the main historical influences and context behind what film noir really is. This is relevant in relation to my film genre module, pertaining to our discussions on what determines a film genre and the impact of historical associations it can have.

The book’s sub-title ‘From Berlin to Sin City’ is a clear reference to the influence German expressionism through to neo-noir films had on film noir, and chapter 2 delves into this. Here, Bould introduces us to Weimar expressionism, only merely making the observation that noir derives from the rapid change in German culture, emphasising the dark Weimar cityscape as; ‘debauched and libertine decadence, crippling inflation, unemployment, anti-Bolshevism, anti-Semitism and resurgent traditional authoritarian conservatism’ (Bould, 2005, p. 25).  This chapter begins by listing numerous Austro-German filmmakers that emigrated to American between the mid-1920’s and World War Two, claiming that film noir traces back to German expressionism through Weimar cinema, producing innovative lighting and camera techniques and constructed new narrative devices such as flashback and voice-over narration. Bould declares that this movement had a big influence on the Hollywood system, bringing up references from Jonathan Munby, who states that film noirs still bear visible traces of its expressionist aesthetics. Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street (1945) is given as an example that epitomises this modernist movement into the American crime genre. This, in hand, determined what caused the aesthetic to film noir and how the term can somewhat be argued as a style. The importance of this chapter highlights the influences of the aesthetic, however, Bould purposely stays reluctant to offer any clear-cut argument, and instead, paints broader strokes to give an overview to the reader on the subject matter.

In chapter four, ‘against all odds: neo-noir’, Bould finally introduces us to neo-noir, a term that does not seem to be any easier to define; ‘If a single definition capable of producing a clear sense of where film noir’s boundaries lie remains elusive, then defining neo-noir is even more difficult’ (Bould, 2005, p. 92). His main argument is looking at whether film noir and neo-noir can be differentiated as two separate genres. Calling the noir remake No Way Out (1987) as easily justified yet labelling the same for Die Hard (1988) is usually disputed. The film contains generic noir traits whilst simultaneously implementing other traits from other genres (some people assume Die Hard is a Christmas movie, for example), yet it still remains in touch with the action genre that it was primarily marketed for. The chapter also touches on the impact British and French cinema had on neo-noir. Again, Bould delves into the context and historical influences to deconstruct the terminology, stating that British crime films ‘developed a nourish sensibility’ (Bould, 2005, p. 93). Beginning in the 1940’s and expanding through to the 70’s.  He claims that when film noir started ending its development, and perhaps popularity in the 1950’s, French crime movies and thrillers began integrating its style in such films as Casque d’Or (1952) and Le Salaire De Le Peur (1953). Alas, Bould is competent but not subjective with the information raised here. He does, however, swiftly progress by looking at such crime films produced in Hollywood in the 1990’s and twenty-first century, calling them ‘film noir and blockbuster aesthetics’ (Bould, 2005, p. 95). Which had a big impact on the development of neo-noir. From making the observation of the variety of movies that started being produced, neo-noir became a more recognisable genre. However, the transformation into the more blockbuster spectacular suggests the lacklustre of inclination towards the historical perspective for film nor, making it become indistinct for audiences to recognise.

Bould has a unique take on film noir; never concise with his theories, yet very consistent in his methods to give objective viewpoints. He never labels the term as either a genre or a style. Having said this, David Bordwell identifies the subject matter in a similar way, yet his approach looks at both sides of the argument in a way that articulates his opinion concisely yet substantially. In Bordwell’s reading ‘The case of Film Noir’, he argues that film noir is not a style because ‘critics have not succeeded in defining specifically noir visual techniques’ (Bordwell, 1988, p.75). But yet, in a typical academic way, he listens and values both sides of the argument. In this regard, you could see the comparative similarities to Bould’s reading in the sense that they sprinkle over different theories and pose the argument with an objective approach. What is unique to Bould’s argument it that he keeps things very broad to allow it to be accessible for a wider audience, whereas Bordwell takes the same complex argument but shines his point of view a little bit closer to the surface, leaning slightly towards the theory that film noir is in fact a genre. This can be seen as a weakness to Bould’s book. In my opinion, keeping his argument indistinct holds the limitation that he never particularly goes into depth on any specific topic. I never got a feeling of what he stood for, nor did he really go into depth of arguments that counteracted these observations. The target audience of this book is primarily for university students, since it gives an introductory insight on what the origins of film noir is. It opens the doors for new students to the topic, giving them a taste of what could be evaluated and identified deeper in further readings.

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Bibliography:

Bould, M. (2005) Film Noir: From Berlin to Sin City. London: Wallflower Press.

Bordwell, D. (1988), ‘The Case of Film Noir’, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Made of Production to 1960, London: pp. 74-77.

Altman, R. (1984), ‘A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre’, Cinema Journal, 23 (3), pp. 6-18

Place, J. ‘Women in Film Noir’ in Kaplan, E. Ann. (1994) Women in Film Noir, London: BFI, pp. 35-67

Vincendeau, Ginette. (1992) ‘Noir is also a French word’, Cameron, Ian. (ed.) The Movie Book of Film Noir, (London: Studio Vista), pp. 49-58

Crowther, B. (1988) Film Noir: Reflections in a dark mirror. Great Britain: Columbus Books Limited

Scarlet Street (2009) Directed by F. Lang. Available at: YouTube (accessed: 13 April 2020).

[nervousgoateephantom]

Why we stick out in movies

I watched ‘Call Me By Your Name’ earlier, a 2018 movie that was nominated for many oscars, including best adapted screenplay. I didn’t know what to expect other than the fact that it’s about a young man and an even younger man, falling in love with one another - and the first 40 minutes of the movie, nothing much on the surface really happened. So why did I stick out with the movie? Here’s why:

The director buried the exposition of the story underneath all the scenes where we hang out with the characters, that we didn’t even realize that we’re being told an important plot point. What Luca Guadagnino, the director of this movie did, is he subtly directed the audiences attention on little details that hinted towards whats to come later in the story. For example, having a scene where the two young men casually touch each other in a friendly way with their shirts off. Or the framing of a ritualistic dinner-eating scene, which doesn’t become ritualistic due to the blocking of the actors. Due to framing of the camera, it shifted the audiences focus to see the key moments in the scene. Therefore, we recognised the fact that the two young men were looking at each other during dinner. We noticed the movement of the hand onto the other person - without cutting to any lazy close ups. The directing is subtle yet effective. We the audience didn’t realise what we’re being told, and therefore we subconsciously wanted to stick out to the end of the movie. 

Another good technique Luca Guadagnino included to the story structure, was the use of decision of when to cut away from the scene. The first 40 minutes is like a montage of the protagonists life, but like I said, the exposition of the story was buried underneath all of this. Not only that, the scenes never dragged out longer than it should have done. The film cuts, cuts, cuts, from scene to scene, showing the key points. This gives the story a good pace to begin with, but also keeps us on our toes as to what will happen next. This leads onto my next point;

Timothée Chalamet, aged 23 that portrayed the protagonist of this story, gave a terrific performance. I would go as far as to say he was smart about how he approached the character. He knew the writing was brilliant, therefore he knew to not indicate too much in his performance. In other words, his portrayal of the character was so subtle and low-key, it leaves the audience to make up our own interpretation of what he’s really feeling and thinking. A lot of the acting is already done for him because of the brilliant writing done by James Ivory. All Timothée had to do was be present and keep it simple. That’s my take on it anyway, and it’s harder to do this than what people think. 

I believe the vision that Luca Guadagnino wanted this film to have, is for the audience to know that something is building in their relationship, but we don’t know when, and we don’t know what exactly. The suspense element comes from the specific directing. The surprise element comes from Timothée Chalamet’s performance. Of course it doesn’t come just from these two things, but I felt it was important to point them out anyway.

I believe that the audience would happily stick around if they feel they are in good hands. They know something will happen eventually. It’s okay if they’re temporarily confused. Now, a bad movie gets boring because the director didn’t dictate the audience’s attention in the right way, or no way in some cases. If we don’t feel as if we’re in good hands, that’s when we don’t stick out until the end.

[nervousgoateephantom]

King Lear evaluation

Directing is fundamentally the central effective agency in a production. The direction is the core of the production, and all decisions, choices, and discriminations come from the direction. The first problem I had with King Lear was the lack of clear direction we got given during the rehearsal process. I have a distinct, and specific way of how the rehearsal process should, and would go if I directed. I like the idea of letting the actors follow their instincts as to where they want to move in the scene - then question it. What we did was block every scene straight away without really delving into the motivation behind it. The outcome came to us looking like struggling college students trying to portray well-written characters without knowing why they’re well-written. I think I speak for everyone when I say we did not have nearly enough time as we should for the rehearsal process. I guess if we had more time, we could have worked more on the blocking and studied more of the finer details to the directions. Shakespeare isn’t for the faint-hearted, and it isn’t meant to be rushed. It was unfortunately rushed.

So putting the blocking aside, a big challenge I faced was to learn my lines as quickly as possible, so I can feel comfortable in the later rehearsal lessons. A technique I used, and have done so in the past, is record an audio copy of a shakespeare performance, and listen to my scenes in my own time. This is a great way to not only learn the lines, but inspire me with ideas as to how to perform the words. A risk was made here, in that I could so easily fall into the trap of just simply imitate the way the audiobook version was performed. Therefore, my performance would only be a mere copy-cat of a performance that’s already been done, and no inner-action from myself. This isn’t acting. I like to work from the inside-out, and that means making sure I have a motivation in mind, and performing from my own experiences and feelings. Listening to the audiobook taught me that Shakespeare can be performed in many ways, and that you don’t have to be ‘married’ to the punctuation written in the text.

I noticed that King Lear (as does many of Shakespeare’s works), doesn't have many stage directions written in. The way I approached this was by telling myself that there is many variations of the way this scenes can be performed. I think Shakespeare wanted to leave it for the director’s interpretation on how the blocking should go, and even the actors. I wanted to be open-minded for this production. Keep myself open to different variations to perform the scene. Sadly, we blocked the scenes too early, but more positively, never was I approached with an establishment on how I should perform the text. I enjoyed performing the lines in many different ways in rehearsal, forming a conclusion for the final performance.

One thing I was very satisfied about during the rehearsal process, was that we decided on a whole unity to the whole production. The more integrated the core for the work is, the more integrated will be our production. We restated succinctly King Lear, it’s meaning and form, in our own terms; almost to go as reconceive it as if we created it. What do we think the premise is? I came to the conclusion that it’s ‘blind trust leads to destruction’. The play is full of irrational decisions and trusting the wrong people. Of course our views on the play is different to Shakespeare’s time, but that’s all that’s important. Our own response to the play was to make it contemporary. We wanted to relate the story to how media can be a distraction from our lives, not realizing what’s really happening around them, but instead, be concerned with what’s happening on social media. It’s a nice connection to the play that works well, and it was important for us to be clear on this right from the get-go.

What I’ve learnt from this production? That can be a tough question to answer, but for King Lear it’s been a whirlwind of education for me. Honestly and truly, this project has been the biggest learning curve for me than any other projects i’ve done at college. Firstly, Shakespeare is completely new to me. Performing King Lear has opened my eyes to realize that Shakespeare isn’t as intimidating as what first seems. On the surface, the text didn’t make too much sense to me, but after analyzing and performing it, it’s cleared out the wonder of what’s happening in the scenes. Secondly, I’ve realized that character development is a big factor to focus on as an actor. I’m portraying a character that was written back in the 16th century, meaning my attitude, posture and views on things has to be different. I researched into the life and times of the 16th century, and I took note on the reality that men used to look down upon women, particularly the higher-class men. This adjusted my performance subtly in a key way to make more realistic and honest to the character of Cornwall. Another adjustment I made was that I gave myself the objective to look to find a way to kill the character I was interacting with, and what I could steal from the other characters without them knowing. Once again it subtly adjusted my performance to make me come across as a more sly, conniving, power-hungry character.

In terms of my own final performance, I felt I achieved what I set myself out to achieve; perform my lines word for word, project and articulate clearly, move only on motivation, and most importantly, portray my character believably. Of course I’m giving myself these compliments with the consideration that we only had a few weeks to rehearse, study and perform the play. Their were plenty of details and decisions that I regretfully made, such as forgetting to change costume from portraying Cornwall to being a soldier. I wish I took a few extra risks in my performance. For example, raising my voice more in necessary circumstances, being more physical with the other actors, and perhaps ad-libbing in times when unrehearsed awkward silences occured (that’s if you can get away with that in Shakespeare).

Did we not have enough time to rehearse the play? Almost definitely, but the fear of running out of time made me embrace the challenge to work harder, learn quicker, and to push myself further. All of this will be thought upon in consideration, as I will learn from these mistakes, and improve for my final performance.

[nervousgoateephantom]

What I've come to realize over this year as an acting student:

Below I have listed and explained in detail the key things I have come to realise over the past year at Reading college when I’m on stage or in a rehearsal process. These points are key pieces of information that I myself have learnt in which I’ve put into my own words.

It is information that I will never forget in my life…

1. Relating to the character

Acting gives you the chance to reflect one’s truest self. Acting is an art form. When acting, it allows you to reveal different parts of yourself that you are too afraid of revealing in every day life. Yes, it’s a cliché saying that, but it’s true. How often to do get to scream and slap a student who you don’t like? When do you feel comfortable to start weeping in tears in front of a bunch of people you are unfamiliar with? In life, we don’t want to show our vulnerability to people. We want to give a good impression to everyone. We want to be polite, friendly, funny. cheerful, etc. We act for a living. It’s in our human nature to act. Show me a person who never lies, or pretends to be somebody else in front of other people and I’ll say, yes, God has made something from another planet. There’s no such thing as a person who cannot act. I’ve heard people whisper to others saying “this person cannot act”. The people who said that obviously doesn’t understand what acting really means. You see a person giving a bad performance on stage. well, maybe that person is extremely nervous and tense. If that’s the case, then not even the greatest of actor could pull off a great performance. It’s all about training your instrument (your body) to be relaxed, calm and warmed up to perform. I see actors as emotional athletes, so why shouldn’t we warm up? My point is, is that with the right training, we can all act on stage.

When I’m at college, I’ve notice how different all the students act in lesson in front of the teacher compared to at lunch time. We show different parts of ourselves.

And what I believe in, is that we are our worst parts of ourselves when we are left alone - because there isn’t any reason to be acting. We are all mean bastards. We are all lying deceptive people. We are all funny, manipulative, selfish. We are all everything. When you look at a character on the page of the script, don’t separate yourself from that character! Don’t look at ‘Lady Macbeth’ as “the bad gal” because that is two-dimensional. When have you ever met anybody who is two-dimensional? Humans are three-dimensional. If you were looking at the character ‘Tybalt’ in Romeo and Juliet, don’t separate yourself from that character by saying he’s the “bad guy”. Look at it and say “I have those parts of that character in me, and I’m going to reveal that  part of myself on the stage. Find a reason to support every decision your character makes! Adolf Hitler wasn’t a bad guy! He was an artist, a husband, a human being! THREE-DIMENSIONAL.

So to conclude this point I’m making…I don’t want to ever be playing a part unless I am really there. I don’t want to be playing a prick, unless I reveal the prick in me. I won’t ever dare to say to myself that “this isn’t me, it’s the character”. No, we are all everything. That’s why I said at the start of the blog that acting gives you the chance to reveal one’s truest self. Marlon Brando, a great actor in his time was so good because he showed his vulnerability in his such masculine, tough body he had (e.g. ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’).

I think the most difficult part about being an actor is to admit those parts of yourself by saying “Yes, that’s me. That mean bastard is me!”

Being revealing involves being fearless - and the best actors are fearless.

2. Being in the moment

In life, what I think people sometimes do is that we lie to ourselves constantly. This is how I feel anyway. It’s sometimes hard to realize how painful life is. If we’re coming close to some realization about yourself, you jump off like a hot furnace. For example, if someone tells you something about yourself that’s painful, it’s like sitting on a hot furnace - you jump off. And in life we go through jumping off that which is painful. I honestly and truly think that our conscious part of us is the least part of ourselves, that we, like it or not, most of us go through life based on what our unconscious tells us to do. The problem with the unconscious is that it’s unconscious, so it’s slippery. You can’t find it. In a performance you want that unconscious to take control of you.

What I say (and many will disagree) is that as an actor, you should not worry about where the scene is going. Just be in the moment (another cliché). Whatever instincts you have at that moment, use it. Don’t be afraid to go someplace that you haven’t gone before. That’s how you get surprising results. The audience is there to be surprised. The actors job is to be surprising, and that’s why (like I said in the first point) the actor must be fearless. Don’t be afraid of where the scene is going. Don’t be afraid to fail, or mess up the scene. I believe there is no such thing as a messed up scene…. Unless you truly do mess up.

This, for me, is what being in the moment means - and it take a heck of a lot of concentration. Actors needs to be good at concentrating as much as being good listeners.

3. Being a good listener

Acting is about listening and reacting. Morgan Freeman famously said that “being a good actor is being a good listener”. It’s a famous quote because it’s completely true. Let’s say an actor shouts the line “Go to your room!” and the other actor responds by storming off to his room - good acting, huh? well what if the actors plays the scene again, this time the actor shouts the same line but in a calm, polite tone, and then the other actor responds by storming off to his room. That’s bad acting because the actor wasn’t listening. If he was listening, then his response would be different. Why would you storm off after someone politely saying to go to your room?… I mean the character might still want to storm off, so I guess it’s a bad example I said, but you get the point I am making.

4. Having a great imagination

Actors should go through the script and list all the facts about your character, and from there you work out your backstory. If a character hasn’t got many facts about them in the script, create them yourself. Create your own backstory to the character. Be creative about it. Tell yourself that I have bad anxiety because I got bullied a lot when I was younger, and that’s why I have this stutter now.

I think the actors should give themselves the problems. The audience doesn’t need to know about their problems because they’ll be invested in the characters problems in the story. If the actor can relate to the characters problem in any way, if say, the actor has been in a similar situation of a sense of loss like the character in the scene has, use that. Personalize the problem to yourself. The audience won’t know you’ve personalized the problem. They’ll be thinking you are crying about losing your wife to Riff Raff in Rocky Horror, but really you’re upset because of that sense of loss you had when you were 16 when your girlfriend broke up with you.

Acting isn’t about having a good ability to concentrate, it’s having the ability to have a great imagination. Concentration always moves to the most interesting thing around. Telling an actor to concentrate doesn’t help them because they will naturally focus on whatever is the most interesting thing on the stage. Now what if the thing on the stage is boring? An actor must choose something interesting to focus on, and by this they need to create an objective for themselves to strive towards.

If concentration is a problem for the actor, it will be for the audience.

What actors do is they fantasize for a living. Directors dream for a living. The whole creative process is about using your imagination. Acting is reacting honestly in imaginary circumstances.

5. Why my acting can (sometimes) become mechanical

‘If you speak any lines, or do anything, mechanically, without fully realising who you are, where you came from, why you came from there, what you want, where you are going, what you will do when you get there, then you’ll be acting without imagination’ - That was written in Constantin Stanislavski’s book on ‘An actor prepares’.

I’ve come to realize from acting on stage in college is that the actor needs an objective to focus on, otherwise he or she will only be focusing only on themselves. If your concentration is on yourself, it can’t be on what you are trying to achieve In the scene. The thing you want to achieve is called the ‘objective’. This doesn’t have to be something that will necessarily happen in the scene. More or less the objective is just an interior adjustment to the actor. If a director told an actor “Get her to hit you”, it’s not necessarily going to happen because it’s not in the script, but it’s an interior adjustment to the actor, and it might cause the scene to have a bit more tension.

Often I find that my acting becomes mechanical because I’m not giving myself an objective to focus on - but sometimes it’s okay to be mechanical. I’ve been taught at college that sometimes I just have to do it, even if it is mechanical. At the end of the day, the audience is the final author of the story. I don’t literally need to get angry in a scene. What I could do is get my voice to break through the wall on the other side of the room, and that will cause a shout. It’s mechanical but the audience will easily work out that I’m angry on stage even though I’m really not. So for me, mechanical acting can work and sometimes I should use it, but I strongly feel that being mechanical takes away the fun from acting.

What I want to do on stage is to be organic. What the organic actor is going to do is to strive to understand what the character wants, and to go on stage every night and try to accomplish that. Mix this in with what the other actors do on stage to get what they want will create an improvisation within the acting. This creates fresh, organic life every night on stage - meaning, every performance on stage will be different from the last.

That’s the kind of actor I want to be.

6. Transforming into the character

When you see an actor ‘transform’ into the character on the screen or on stage, it’s an illusion. To the audience they’re somebody else but to the actor they’re still the same person. I find that it’s a strain when an actor hears the words “I need you to transform into the character.” It’s impossible to do so. From an actors point of view, we are using our own body, our own voice, it’s still us - we’re just revealing a part of ourselves that people may or may not usually see from us. At the end of the day, their is no character, just words on the page. I create the character through myself and my instruments.

7. Being fearless

The biggest thing I have learnt from this year at college is how to overcome fear when performing in front of an audience. Through experiencing in different performances, I’ve realised that it makes such a difference when you are not scared to perform in front of people. I remember my first ever performance in front of people at college. I was incredibly scared, especially how I was the lead character in the piece. I remember having to start the story off by pretending to be on a phone call to my mother. I probably rushed the conversation, making it look unrealistic. Then after that I had to shout at the top of my voice to two people who I’ve never met before. I thought it would be easy but in rehearsal I couldn’t get my voice out well enough - and that was caused by fear. Before the performance my ‘ego’ hat came on and I told myself that I needed to nail this performance. I need to show everyone my amazing talent as an actor. Coming into a performance with this attitude is the worst thing to do because it is literally setting yourself up to fail. I find that if I come in with the almost complete opposite attitude, I perform much better. This works for me anyway. I seek to fail.

When I’m on stage, I want to follow my instincts, I want to create something honest and surprising. When fear is on my mind then I can’t think of anything else. “Relax Oli, let your mind drift” I tell myself. The biggest thing I want from myself during a performance is to not be afraid of following my instincts. And if I can say I’ve done that after a performance, then I can say “That was worth my time”.

What Reading college brought me this year was experience. I’ve gained experience in performing in front of an audience many times, and that’s the biggest ingredient I need to improve my craft.

Thank you for reading.

P.S. I wrote this blog post more for my own enjoyment than anything else.