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airenyah · 1 year

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on analyzing acting: ohm pawat as an example

attention: read my additions to this post first for some more context as it might help you understand a little better what i'm on about here...

ok so this post was born out of me wanting to give an example of what i mean by "actors perceiving something" bc you can see that really well in bad buddy ep 3 [3/4] in the music shop scene where they're hiding and pat smells pran. however, i realized i actually have a lot more to say on this moment and that i can also use it to try and showcase what i mean with "(having) thoughts"/"creating images" as well as what "directions" are supposed to be (i'm struggling the most with explaining directions in english lmao). i ended up having so much to say that it absolutely is worthy of its own post, so here it is

so this here is the moment in question that i'm going to analyze and i'm going to look at ohm specifically:

[sorry for the image quality of this gif, i had to compromise it in order to get the file size down]

before i say anything, here's a little disclaimer: obviously i have absolutely no idea what was going on in ohm's head in that moment when he was shooting that take. so whenever i make a mention of a specific sentence that the actor or the character could be thinking it will be my very own interpretation of what i personally am seeing or getting out of it. there are many thoughts and emotions one can read out of an actor's performance (often multiple at once!) and there are many ways of putting all of this into words. i will try to keep everything as technical as possible but sometimes i do need to say what i think is going on in the actor's/character's head in order to explain my point

ok so let's go and break down some of the acting things that ohm is doing here

[gif 1]

this is a wonderful example of an actor actually and actively perceiving something. at this point pat hasn't actively smelled pran yet, he hasn't reacted to that smell yet. in fact, up until this point pat is more focused on not being caught by chai. what ohm is doing here is showing us the process of going from "don't get caught" to "pran smells good af". and it starts right here. in order to do so, in order for this change of topic to work smoothly pat has to become aware of pran's smell first. and ohm is acting it out for us: he really is perceiving and noticing that smell as the actor and we can see the controls in his brain going "oh my nose is sensing something"

another thing i want to point out here is his "spielrichtung" (god i GOTTA figure out a word for this in english) aka this is where i talk about his "directions" even though it's difficult for me in english bc it sounds rather clunky. (for those who didn't read my original reblog where i talk about acting concepts: the literal translation of this german term is "direction of playing" or "direction of acting". this direction can refer to many things, such as where the focus is directed, or an action, a thought, etc...)

here in this moment ohm's directions are both downwards and very inwards. as in: his focus goes downwards to where the smell is entering his nose while his thoughts are very much directed inwards. this is a private moment for pat and ohm shows us this by acting towards the inside (ohm/pat is completely inside his own head in this moment) ("by acting towards the inside" – sorry, this sounds so clunky in english, i mean to say "indem er nach innen spielt")

alright, moving on. so in real life, once a person has perceived something and the brain has processed and determined it... what happens next? the person is going to react to it and have one or the other thought. in real life we go through a process of perceiving - processing - (re)acting and the same thing should happen in acting:

[gif 2]

first ohm showed us that pat has perceived something, now ohm shows us that whatever pat has perceived causes some thoughts/feelings inside of pat

(quick side-note on his directions: he's still very much inwards in his direction, the private moment in his head is continuing. and despite his eyes going to the side, the focus of his actions is still directed downwards because again, that's where the smell is)

(edit: i had my mom read this post and on the topic of directions in gif 2 she pointed out that you can actually split it up in three directions even: everything is happening on the inside, then you have the sensory direction that is going downwards because that's where the smell is, while he's sending his thoughts sideways)

i can't read minds, nor can i time travel so i have absolutely no idea what thought was crossing ohm's mind in that exact moment, but it has to be something along the lines of "i gotta smell that again". ohm/pat has perceived the smell, he considers it for a moment and whatever he's thinking here leads to the next moment where pat smells pran on purpose (note: i do love how his head is subconsciously moving slightly down towards the source of the smell again even before he's actively taken the decision to sniff pran):

[gif 3]

(edit: another thing that my mom said is that in gif 2 it's like his thoughts aren't quite focused yet, they're not quite formed, while in gif 3 his thoughts are very much focused. it's like his thoughts went from a subconscious level in gif 2 to a conscious level in gif 3. anatomically speaking you could even say that in gif 1 and 2 he percieves the smell emotionally and in gif 3 it goes over into a cognitive perception of the smell. because he percieves the smell subconsciously in the beginning and the very first thing that happens when you perceive a smell is that it goes to the emotional center of the brain. then the smell goes on to the cerebral cortex and only then you get the cognitive perception of the smell. ohm's performance here really is FLAWLESS. in the words of my mother, a trained nurse: "he plays that EXTREMELY WELL because you can analyze it anatomically even, and use his performance to showcase how the sense of smell works")

and now we have arrived at the point where pat is sniffing pran. what i really like about this is how subtle ohm portrays this. he doesn't stick his nose into nanon's back and we don't even see him breathe in. and yet we still know that pat is smelling pran here, all bc of ohm's body language where he moves his head down to the source of the smell and the thoughts that ohm is having in his head in that moment. you can just see that ohm is really and actively smelling something here. and by that i mean not only just the motion of him moving his head down, but rather that again he is actively perceiving a smell as his head is filled with thoughts (his thought process goes from something like "what was that smell" to "ok i'm smelling, i'm checking this out")

and now we're back to the point where we were earlier. once again our character is perceiving and processing something, our actor is acting it out for us and so what has to happen next? exactly, a reaction to the new information the character's brain has just processed:

[gif 4]

and again we can see that ohm's head was filled with actual thoughts in that moment (probably something along the lines of "wow he smells really good" or "oh what a nice smell". and it looks kind of unexpected to me, as if there's also some surprise coming with it along the lines of "oh i wasn't expecting to like his smell so much" or "i didn't think he would smell this nice")

i keep going on and on about thoughts, and it's because that was hammered into me by my fave monologue teacher. he kept going on about "getting your thoughts straight" and "having thoughts" ("die gedanken haben") and whenever we students had no idea what to do with our bodies he'd tell us that if we know exactly what we're thinking in that moment we shouldn't worry about our body because our body will follow our thoughts automatically. we can see that beautifully in gif 2 where an underlying thought (and i don't necessarily mean thought as in an actual thought or sentence inside the mind, but thought kind of in the sense of an emotion or feeling, if that makes sense), anyway in gif 2 there's an underlying thought along the lines of "this smell is good i want to get close to it i want to keep smelling it" and ohm's/pat's head is already moving slightly downwards towards the smell before ohm/pat has taken a conscious decision to take a purposeful sniff. the power of thought y'all. thought is a powerful tool when it comes to acting. and it's really obvious when an actor is in no-thoughts-head-empty mode. unfortunately i don't have an example of a thought-less actor on hand, or i would show you. ok, that's a lie, actually. i do have some examples, but they either don't work as a tumblr post (once again i wish i could do this one acting analysis project i did with my uni friend with online people as well) orrrr i don't want to share them publicly bc i don't wanna hurt anyone's feelings and i want to avoid angry anons in my ask box or getting into arguments with random internet users (i quite like my quiet, peaceful tumblr life where i'm a nobody, thanks)

okay, now back to bad buddy and ohm:

in the other post where i talk about acting i mention that while my monologue teacher would talk a lot about thoughts, my mother instead likes to talk about "creating images". my mom likes to think of it as a flipbook where you have individual pictures that make a moving image when going from one picture to the next at speed. personally i think you can also think of it as individual panels of a comic book that together tell a narrative arch. if we look at the first part from this perspective, as if if were a comic, we can see that ohm provides the audience with these clear images:

image 1: perceiving a smell, becoming aware of it, noticing it

image 2: reacting to that first whiff, something along the lines of "is this pran's smell? i gotta smell pran. for science. to see if that nice smell is him"

image 3: smelling on purpose, there is an aim to the action, it is motivated by thought and by what happened previously

image 4: another reaction to the perceived smell, this time it's a realization and/or a conclusion (the realization could be something like "oh i like the way pran smells" and the conclusion would be "yes what i sensed earlier was in fact pran's smell")

in full:

[gif 5]

it has only been three (3!!) seconds (yes i went and checked the duration of that clip on premiere pro) and ohm has already told us an entire story arc. god, i LOVE it when actors do actor things

alright, let's continue with part 2:

so now we get to the part where pran (nanon) comes in with an impatient "what now?" and pat (ohm) reacts

[gif 6]

since ohm is a good actor he once again presents us with that split second where we can see that he was actively listening to nanon's line, we get to see the moment where pat's brain is processing pran's comment and comes up with a reply. once again ohm is acting this all out for us. this is also what helps make it look like everything is spontaneous: as if the character didn't know pran was gonna say something and what he was gonna say, even though the actor, having memorized the script and likely having discussed it with his co-star and/or the director, definitely knew about it

now let's look at his directions again before we move on to the next gif: he's still in inwards-mode, but pran's line distracts him and snaps him away from the downward focus and now it's going to the side instead, towards nanon/pran

remember what happens after the processing? that's right, a (re)action. pat reacts to pran's comment with the action of saying "you smell good"

[gif 7]

what i find particularly interesting here are ohm's directions. before i sat down to gif these 10 seconds of scene i distinctively remembered ohm's spielrichtung (fuck it, i'm going with the german word bc "directions of playing" or "direction of acting" just doesn't sound right – quick german grammar lesson: spielrichtung = singular, just one single direction; spielrichtungen = plural, two or more directions) being very much towards the inside. and i had assumed that pran's comment would snap him out of it, that nanon's line would trigger a jump in his spielrichtung. but looking at it now? this... is not quite what i'm seeing. what i'm seeing instead is actually fascinating to me

you see, his actions and his line definitely have an outward focus, to the side where nanon is. however, it looks like that outward focus hasn't quite reached his eyes (it's in the way his eyes travel towards nanon, but they're not really focusing on anything in particular, he looks very distracted instead, as if his mind is somewhere else)

to reiterate: his words are traveling outwards while his eyes look like they're still in inwards-mode. outwards and inwards – two opposing sides. this creates conflict and it's exactly what makes me as a viewer sit up in curiosity and go "huh? what's this? what's going on here?" it fills me with a lot of questions about the character: why can't he snap out of it? did pran's smell really affect him this much? so much that his mind is still on it even when pran starts talking to him? why is it affecting him so much? what's going on inside him? aww does he have feelings? (yes. yes he does 🤭) it's these little subtle things that make me start caring about a character, that make me want to keep watching in order to find answers to my questions. (also! this would be an example of what i meant in the reblog from the other post when i talked about actor's showing conflicts that aren't in the plot/the script)

to be honest, i'd love to double check ohm's spielrichtungen during this line with my mom, but unfortunately it's gonna be another two weeks until i go home for semester break. because this is one of those moments where i realize that i still need to practice my acting analysis skills a lot, because to be quite honest i'm having a moment of is it just me or...? where i'm not entirely sure if i'm seeing this "right" (not that there's much of a right or wrong here...)

alright, moving on... once he finishes talking?

[gif 8]

right before ohm says his next line he falls back into inwards-mode again and once again we see that there are actual thoughts going through his head. what those thoughts are exactly i can't say, but to me it comes across as if pat is reflecting his statement of "you smell good", it looks like pat is lost in thought about pran smelling good (to be honest? at the end of the day it doesn't actually matter what ohm's exact thought process was, the important thing is that he had one at all, because now i as a viewer get to have fun with interpreting it)

and now we're finally coming to the end of the sequence i've decided to analyze. after a short moment of reflection pat adds "you smell so damn good" and goes to sniff pran one last time

[gif 9]

and what's ohm's acting choice here? this time he goes for an exaggerated sniff, he points his entire nose at pran and breathes in loudly (which we can't hear in a gif, of course, but we can definitely very clearly hear that sniff in the episode itself). and delights me very much because this sniff right here? in comparison to the ones in the beginning? is very much for show

the first two times pat/ohm smelled pran was very "quiet", rather small and subtle, and very much for himself. it was a private moment. this sniff now? it's loud, it's exaggerated, it's big with ohm bending his entire face down in order to almost shove his nose right into nanon's back. and of course he sniffs extra loudly, to make sure pran can hear it (and yes, i'm specifically referring to the character now, bc ofc nanon should hear the sniff, but more importantly pran should hear it bc pat is about to be a little shit to annoy him)

the reason why this big sniff delights me so much (especially with regard to how the scene continues after the excerpt that i have chosen for this analysis) goes away from the technical aspect of it and is much more about my own interpretation, but i'll tell you anyway: again, in the beginning it was a private moment, pat was smelling pran just for himself. but this causes him to fail to react to what pran just said about chai being gone now and that pat can get up. having that little story arc where pat notices pran's smell and goes to check it out causes pat to linger and that makes pran suspicious. pran more or less catches pat in his own private moment, and so pat turns sniffing pran into a full on show. "you smell good" he says, "do my laundry", he says. pat was nearly caught having feelings for pran (bc we all know this is why he's so affected by the smell) (fun fact: in german we have this idiom that goes "jemanden nicht riechen können" which translates to "not being able to smell someone". it means that you don't like someone and that's why you can't or rather don't want to smell this person. this idiom actually showcases how important the sense of smell is interpersonal relationships) pat was nearly caught and now he deflects. he gets annoying on purpose (by shoving his nose into pran's back and loudly insisting that he likes the smell) to keep pran from asking more questions, he jokingly demands that pran does his laundry bc obviously pat likes the smell of the detergent, it's definitely not the smell of pran that he likes, okay? yes, exactly, pat likes the detergent, not pran, and him sniffing pran definitely had a heterosexual reason and there were definitely no romantic feelings involved. that's the story pat is putting out into the world, that's the show he's pulling off here. ohm goes from quiet and inwards to loud and outwards (spielrichtungen!) and it just delights me because there is so much i can get out of it when it comes to my interpretation

alright, so i've now reached the end of my chosen excerpt and now that we've gone through the entire thing i just want to talk about one last thing: changes.

in the reblog of the other post i mention that when i analyze acting i look out for whether anything changes. (i didn't explicitly say it in that reblog, but it gets boring when an actor keeps doing the same thing over and over again). in the reblog specifically i take emotions as an example, but also make a note that changes can apply to things other than emotions as well. in this scene of bad buddy ohm provides us with a beautiful example of what changes look like when it comes to a specific action

in this 10 second excerpt that i have chosen, pat smells pran 3x in total:

do you see how each time the action of pat smelling pran is different? each time when pat smells pran it's motivated by a different thought, each time there's a different reason behind it:

the first time is all about pat noticing the smell in the first place, becoming aware of it at all. at this point it's rather accidental: pat never made a decision of "i'm going to smell pran now". no, it just happens. he percieves the smell on an emotional level. sniff one is all about the thought of "oh, i'm sensing a smell".

the second time is where the active decision to smell pran comes in. now he starts perceiving the smell on a cognitive level: this time pat is smelling pran on purpose, it's no longer accidental. pat has a reason to smell pran, he has a goal and it's to investigate that smell that he has just sensed. and as i've already said, he is in his own head and it's a private moment. his thoughts are kinda unfocused and he almost gets a little lost in these thoughts, in the smell. and it's a quiet, subtle action, he only slightly moves his head down to be a little closer to the source and get a better whiff, but that's it, no big loud breathing in, no exaggerated head bending. that sniff right here is for pat. that sniff is between pat and that smell, no one and nothing else. what ohm is doing here is creating a relation between pat and pran's smell

the third time the sniff also comes from an active decision. and again, it has a purpose behind it. this is also what happens in sniff no. 2, so in theory the same thing is happening twice, right? except no, bc the way ohm sniffs nanon for the 3rd time is completely different. while sniff no 2. was quiet and small, now sniff no. 3 is loud and big. it's exaggerated and it's for show. this sniff is no longer only between pat and pran's smell, no, now pran himself is involved too (whether pran likes it or not)

i've said it before and i'll say it again: i LOVE it when actors do actor things

alright, i really am done now. to be honest, i wish i had the time to go to my hometown and go through this whole analysis with my mom first before i post it. despite 3 full years of drama school and 2.5 years of intensely analyzing asian drama with my mom i still don't feel confident in the knowledge i've gained so far and i feel like i need someone with more experience to check my thoughts before i can go publish them for the whole internet to see. but i guess it's time for me to become a big girl that doesn't need to rely on her mommy's opinions. i guess it's because i feel like there is still so much more that i need to learn and there is so much more that i don't notice yet and so i'm afraid that what if what i'm saying is wrong? what if i'm talking bullshit here? but i guess it's time i trust the skills that i have gained so far. besides, when it comes to this there often isn't necessarily a right or wrong but rather a what do you see and how does that make you feel? so i'll go and post this anyway without having anyone look over it, because this is what i see right now at this point in time as i'm writing this. and if at some point in the future i realize i disagree i can always write an update (or another post)

all in all i had fun with this not so little analysis. and i hope you too had fun reading it <3

(edit: as you could already see from the previous edits, well, i actually did have my mom read this whole post at some point after all. she was very impressed and said my analysis is extremely well written. she had almost nothing to add. it's truly about time i start trusting my own skills fklslkkdlsf)

#airenyah talks acting #bbs #bbs ep3 #airenyah plappert #sometimes i'm annoyed that english doesn't distinguish between singular you and plural you the way german does #but this time i actually love it bc you'll never know if by you i mean tumblr user gillianthecat or you as in all the readers of this post #i started this analysis around 12pm and it is now midnight oops (writing this on friday january 14th)#(admittedly i did take a break for mealtimes and grocery shopping and for a short uni assignment)#tho you need to know that i've actually been sitting at this since 10:30am bc i wrote the 2nd reply on the reblog in the other post first #i wish i knew how to say the word ''anspielen'' in english bc that's something ohm does exceptionally well #it's one of the things he does that make everyone always say that ohm has chemistry with everyone #(the concept of anspielen is less relevant here i this short excerpt but it IS relevant in many other bbs scenes)#(er spielt seine spielpartner immer so verdammt gut an und sendet dabei so stark and it's BEAUTIFUL)#(hmm sollte ich das wort ''spielpartner'' im vorherigen tag gendern... then again it's mostly boys anyway lmao)#(at least the things i've watched)

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airenyah · 7 months

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Hi, fellow ace enjoyer of JoongDunk here! I'm also nearer to the sex-repulsed end of the spectrum yet wanting to see JD in something saucier! Kiss scenes generally gross me out, but for some reason, I can watch Joong and Dunk kiss just fine. They're like the ship equivalent of a cheat day — a Cheat(?) Ship.

omg hiiiii, high five ✋ glad i'm not the only one hahaha

personally, kiss scenes in media generally don't bother me or gross me out, in fact, often i like them even! but if it's like a (heavy) make-out scene, those often kinda just bore me, especially if they go on for a long time. i might just end up sitting there like "aight i got it, they're slobbering all over each other. now can we move on with the plot, please?"

that being said, i have watched and rewatched the end of hidden agenda ep8 multiple time already! there's something about it that i really like but i can't put my finger on what exactly it is. part of the reason why i've rewatched it a couple of times was to figure out what exactly about it it is that i like so much, but i just don't have an answer. idk, maybe it's just the vibes 🙌

though i feel like sometimes the reason why kiss scenes bore me might also just be a problem of the acting. and that actually includes some of the hidden agenda kisses...

for example the first kiss scene from ep4? i really like that scene up until the moment they start kissing. like, they're just kissing for a while and absolutely nothing changes?? the tension and the emotions, the urgency, all of it just stays the same for the entire time. i can't even pinpoint what the characters are thinking or feeling in that moment, which is quite a shame considering this is their very first kiss, aka a very significant kiss. we've got zo who is in the middle of trying to figure out his feelings (i wanna know: how does he feel about the kiss? is he into it? is he nervous? is he having a realization? does he start to regret it while still in the middle of kissing? all of the above? WHAT is going on in his head, show me!!) and joke who is being kissed by the person he's been crushing on for a while now (again, i wanna know: how does he feel about the kiss? is he excited that what he's been dreaming about is finally happening? is he nervous? is he maybe not entirely happy with it since zo's feelings are unclear? all of the above? again, WHAT is going on in his head, show me!!). and i'm just not getting much out of it apart from the fact that "yay they're having their first kiss". now compare that with the ep8 [4/4] kiss scene that starts out slow and soft and tentative almost and then goes up in tension to then slow down again and keeps being broken up by dialogue. idk i just think it's neat. or also the ep7 yank kiss yeet scene!! there's so much urgency behind that kiss, it feels like it really matters. i love it!!!!

actually i have a similar problem with bad buddy. idk if you've seen it (if not, feel free to skip this paragraph), but the ep11 kiss at the beach is just so boring. they do get a little faster when they go back to kissing after they separated for a moment but there's aboslutely no urgency behind it and that just results in the opposite effect of making me feel like the characters want to be doing this, that it matters to them. it just doesn't feel like that at all. meanwhile the rooftop kiss... god, the rooftop kiss. that one is SO important and they let you feel it. the longer it goes on the more the tension rises and the more urgent it becomes and you as a viewer are just left breathless. the rooftop scene is a thing of beauty for so many reasons and this is one of them

oops i went off on a nerdy tangent.... sorry about that 😅

aaaaanyway, as i've mentioned before, kiss scenes are usually ok for me. it's the sex scenes that i'm a bit wary of, especially the more explicit they get. the more clothes come off and/or the more the kisses get further and further away from the head, the more likely i am to feel uncomfortable watching the scene. and if moaning is involved, that's usually the point where i'm like "ok i'm out". (and before i get an angry anon in my ask box telling me i'm being homophobic bc "yay gay sex" – i do not give a single fuck (quite literally) about the genders of the people involved in the sex scene. i find watching straight sex just as icky kjdfjkdg. ideologically i'm all for normalizing gay sex, put practically i'm just simply not the right target group fjfjhd)

though i have to say, it's gotten a little better now, the older i get. i guess i'm just getting used to those scenes. it's a slow process, but still, i find myself getting less uncomfortable now at age 26 compared to when i was, say, around 20

like, only friends has mostly been ok for me to my big surprise?? well, that bostontop scene in the car was a bit too much for me (and a definite skip on rewatches) and so was the sandray scene in the camper from last episode, like, i didn't really need that to watch that, while other scenes i'm having an easier time with (i haven't yet been able to figure out how a sex scene needs to be shot in order for me to enjoy it)

but even if i don't get uncomfortable as quickly anymore, i still don't really actively seek out media with overly sexual content/plots. UNLESS. i have a reason to do so like, uh, first kanaphan. (ngl if it wasn't for first, i probably wouldn't be watching only friends at all. i would have watched the trailer and been like "ok this show is too horny for me, i'll let the others have fun and maaaybe follow the show via gifs on my dash at most")

or, you know, joongdunk 😂😂 although i have to say that in reality i actually want a saucy/sexy series (like an only friends-style series) more for them rather than myself! i feel like they'd have fun with it. there's just something about them doing dum dum for lol fanfest and that choreography ending in some neck biting action and them having the idea to switch up who bites who for day 2 in order to surprise everyone. there's just something about how they kept talking about how hidden agenda is more mature than star in my mind and how there were some scenes that they'd never done before (here is some of that interview with eng subs, but unfortunately it's heavily edited rip). there's something about the way the two of them actually sat down together and did a whole ass instagram live in which they watched, reacted and provided commentary to the entirety of hidden agenda ep8 (as far as i'm aware of they didn't go live on instagram for any other episode. and i'm 1000000% sure they chose ep8 specifically for the love scene and the love scene alone fkfjjfjf). not to mention how joong immediately went "episode 8" when asked for his favorite episode and grinned and looked at dunk and when dunk was like "i'm thinking either 7 or 8" joong repeated "eight" and when dunk still didn't get it joong nudged him and firmly went "eight!!" and then dunk went "oh yeah, ep 8"

so yeah. i want a sexy joongdunk series for them, for their sake. i think they'd have a blast with it djkfgjkdkjd

#SexyJoongDunkVampireSeriesWhen #JusticeForJoongDunk @ gmmtv

#why r u was also reeeally overwhelming for me withsome of those scenes dfkjkdfgd #the sauna scene oh god i just Can't #or also everything from the finale where they do that thing with the necklace #that just has me go ''???? i don't understand help''#aaaaanyway sorry!! this got long!! and pretty nerdy in between sdkjfskd #i keep saying that i don't want to talk about acting publicly and then i can't keep my mouth shut after all lmao rip #asks #airenyah plappert #adrm #sexy joongdunk vampire bl #considering my tangent in the middle i think this should probably also be filed under #airenyah talks acting #also i love how it's like #me: ''i haven't watched bbs in june and i've mostly consumed JD content lately so i think i'm finally over bbs and am in my JD era now''#also me: *compulsorily finds a way of making a joongdunk ask about bad buddy anway*#goddammit #who was it again who said ''this isn't about bad buddy but when is anything not about bad buddy anymore''#bc it still holds up two years later rip #no matter how much i think i may be finally getting over bbs.... yeah no i think i'm gonna be staying a bbs blog for a while still

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airenyah · 9 months

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how lucky we are to live in a world where there is an official stage recording of cats the musical where you get to see john partridge as rum tum tugger up close and in (relatively) good quality

#if i had a time machine i would travel back to the late 90s/early 00s and watch him perform live #it's the way he MEANS every single movement he makes and every single word that he sings #esp the meaning every single word like!!#it's one thing to be able to do that in your own native language but doing it in a foreign language? that's a whole other thing #and my dude john partridge goes on stage and not only nails the role in english but in german too #honestly what the FUCK #like. even in german you can tell he MEANS what he says #(source: the recordings from berlin 2003 that i found on youtube)#cats #airenyah talks acting #airenyah plappert #it's also the way that technically rum tum tugger is supposed to be a literal pussy magnet #but the way john partridge portrays him he comes across much more like a showman (showcat?)#that simply likes the attention (and that's what the girl cats are giving him! attention!)#his rum tum tugger is a performer who knows he's hot shit and thrives on being the center of attention #bc you can't perform without an audience #but at the same time he also knows when to take a step back and let someone else shine in the spotlight #just look at the mr mistoffelees song #like. he'll absolutely take the spotlight when he's telling you all about mr mistoffelees. he's putting on a big show presenting his boy #but he's also showing off his (boy)friend and making sure every single person (or cat) knows how amazing of a cat mr mistoffelees is #he's all ''look at me while i'm telling you all about this fantastic cat and now stop looking at me and just watch how amazing this cat is'#giving him all the spotlight #same thing in the old deuteronomy song #he joins in in the narration but not in an ''i'm gonna steal the spotlight'' way but instead he has a conversation with munkustrap as equal #and then when old deuteronomy shows up he stays back #and you can tell just how much respect he has for old deuteronomy and how much he adores him #and also that he respects munkustrap (see: conversation as equals)#anyway. john partridge as rum tum tugger. that is all.#(it's so funny bc when i was like 8 i was so obsessed with rum tum tugger. like. SO obsessed. like. half in love with him obsessed)#(and now as an adult who knows a thing or two about performing i'm like. oh. OH. little!me had a point even if she didn't know why)

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airenyah · 1 year

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thinking about my tags on this post, specifically about:

#i keep watching ships on other shows kiss and it's like#this is nice and all but!! it's just not แค่เพื่อนครับเพื่อน bad buddy series ep. 5 [4/4] (11:33)

and it's like. not gonna lie but this applies even to the patpran ep11 beach kiss

#bbs #bbs ep11 #airenyah talks acting #airenyah shut the fuck up challenge #it's all about the dringlichkeit!!#during the rooftop kiss the actors add more dringlichkeit the longer it goes on #meaning the longer it goes on the more important and more urgent it feels #we as an audience feel like it's a now or never situation‚ like that kiss is the only thing that matters right now‚ like there's no tomorro #through the increase in dringlichkeit that the actors are showing #meanwhile in the ep11 kiss.. sure they get a little faster but. apart from that nothing really changes #and that's BORING. esp in comparison to the rooftop kiss #and yeah the stakes are higher in the rooftop scene but still. the ep 11 kiss also needs some dringlichkeit!!#esp considering that the characters end up sleeping with each other afterwards #so that beach make-out session also needs a kind of importance. in a completely different way from the rooftop kiss #the rooftop kiss was all ''i need to kiss you NOW bc i don't know how else to address all the unspoken things between us''#the rooftop kiss was all ''i need to kiss you NOW bc it might be the only chance i get''#whereas the ep11 kiss should be something like ''i need to kiss you NOW bc i want you''#to borrow patpran's food metaphor: the ep11 kiss should be something like ''i need to kiss you NOW bc i'm hungry and want to eat you up''#that's what the ep 11 kiss should be. ESP when they kiss again after they've pulled apart for a moment #it's not the speed of the action that makes the difference‚ it's the dringlichkeit!!#that's what the ep11 kiss needs. less speed and more dringlichkeit #(speaking of: my voice/articulation teacher once told us a trick that we can fake faster speed through an increase of dringlichkeit)#adrm #also it's not just a problem of dringlichkeit but also the haltung and the gedanken #the haltung (attitude?? mindset??) should be ''i wanna eat you up''#and the gedanken is like. what exactly are the characters thinking when they're kissing? what are they feeling?#in acting every single thing that you do needs to be filled (and felt) and that also applies to kissing #if you're just kissing bc the script says to kiss and the director is yelling ''nowww kiss!!'' well......#that will never hit as hard as when you're actually filling up that kiss with throughts and feelings and telling a story with it #god the rooftop kiss is just so fucking GOOD maybe i should just go rewatch ep5 immediately

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airenyah · 8 months

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apparently i can't seem to keep my mouth shut so here i go rambling about acting again...

so i was watching some behind the scenes from hidden agenda and there's this one point from when they were filming the biking scene from the practice date in the park and joong makes fun of dunk for not holding onto him properly and then dunk discusses with staff how exactly he's supposed to hold joong/joke (from 2:45 on)

and there's this one thing that dunk explains afterwards (min 3:37) that delights me a lot in particular and it's this:

because YES!! he's right!!!!

it delights me to hear him say this because growing up my mom would often point out acting things to me and especially since the start of the pandemic we've done a lot of analyzing and this thing about the hands that dunk is talking about here is actually something my mom has mentioned to me before on multiple occasions when we were talking about body language in acting

in fact, i remember this one moment in particular from a year ago: we were watching the eclipse together as it aired and towards the end of the series (ep 9?? or 10 maybe????) there was this one point during an akkayan scene where my mom suddenly pointed at khaotung and went "he looks tense". and i was so confused because the boys were lying in bed in that scene, they were lying down and i was like "how the FUCK do you even see that????"

and so over the rest of the episode (and the following ones) my mom started to look out for scenes where that tension she was referring to was easier to see so that she could explain to me how she could tell. she did find a scene and i was like "ohhh ok yeah i think i get it"

and then the final episode dropped and we were watching it together as usual when suddenly my mom hits pause and goes "do you see it?"

and i immediately knew she was referring to the curled up fingers:

in fact, i had watched the ep without subs for thai practice before watching it together with her and even by myself i'd already noticed that (and i knew my mom would say something about it lmao)

and the issue with khao's hands in this scene is exactly what dunk is saying in the hidden agenda behind the scenes clip from above. khao is touching first's waist only with the tips of his fingers and it looks tentative, as if he doesn't quite dare to maximize the physical touch by using his entire hand to hold first

and that isn't to say as an actor you are forbidden from ever curling your fingers like that! however, everything you do in front of the camera (or on stage) needs to be on purpose. so if you're curling up your fingers when holding onto your colleague? well, it should be a conscious decision that you've taken in order to tell the audience a particular thing regarding the story/the character(s)/the relationship between the characters/etc

and here in the eclipse those curled fingers look strange because here we are basically at the end. we're in the final episode, more than halfway through the final part of the episode (part 4/4, min 9:04 out of 14mins to be exact). at this point the characters have been through a lot together, they've gone through character development, after a long, tumultuous story ayan and akk are finally on the same page as akk is finally comfortable with and open about his feelings for aye. so aye looking like he's afraid to touch akk just feels completely off at this point in the story (esp considering that in the story ayan is the one who is open and unapologetic about his feelings and his wants)

anyway, this is just something i was reminded of when i was watching the behind the scenes of hidden agenda and dunk brought up the hand issue. and i just always get really excited when i watch interviews and especially behind the scenes videos and the actors mention/talk about/explain something that i was taught myself

(also, disclaimer just in case: i don't mean to say that khaotung is a bad actor bc we all know that's not the case. it's just, that particular moment is off for the reasons that i've explained above. and it's somehow relieving to know that even pros don't necessarily nail every single second of their screen time kdjffdkjgf)

#airenyah talks acting #hidden agenda #the eclipse #adrm #i got really excited watching the behind the scenes of not me ep8 too #p'nuchie was working on the scene where sean finally opens up to white about his dad with offgun #and she was telling them something my camera acting teacher would tell us over and over again in class #like. he'd tell us this thing at least once a week. for 3 years in a row #and so i was all !!!!!! when p'nuchie was saying that exact thing as well #edit: i had my mom read this before uploading it and when she got to the screenshot where #dunk is like ''it looks like i'm afraid to touch him''#she nodded and went ''YES exactly because'' *curls fingers* ''that's tension!! so that's like.. fear...''

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