Self and Peer Evaluation of unit 7

Self and Peer Evaluations

Victor – Looking at what you have done, I feel that you have progressed in your acting, progressed in developing your character to fit with TV. With your final assessment, I liked how you did something different from the eccentric monologues that you have done in the past. When watching the video, you showed the assertiveness of the character, I enjoyed how you perceived the character to have full control of the situation. To develop the scene more I would suggest bringing the character out in your physicality more, maybe playing around with it, possibly standing while saying the monologue or leaning on the table. But overall I feel that you have clearly advanced in your acting abilities.

Shivy – I loved that you made the decision of leaning on the table and to look straight in Joe’s eyes throughout most of your performance, in my opinion I feel that this presented the character to be intimidating. In your piece I loved how that you played a relaxed character with moments of slight anger, which made the persona of your character more intimidating. if you were to do this again, I would suggest to definitely keep the physicality, and perhaps play around with the delivery, by looking at what moments to get angry or louder. Or possibly play it straight face and dead eyes, just playing around with seeing how else you can do the scene.

Jordan – First take – I found it interesting how you managed to take on the character and how he was feeling at this moment, it was clear to me that you spent time thinking about all aspects of this character in this situation. There were a lot of pauses and you took time to deliver the lines, which wasn’t a bad thing, I felt doing this showed how the character was feeling internally.

Second take – This take was a lot faster, and a lot different, you were very unfocused and showed almost no emotion into what you were saying, which was a good decision to make. I felt that your second take was better, because it felt a lot more natural, and showed what I think a concussed person is like in that situation. I also like how you didn’t stay focused looking at the same place, this was really good because I felt that how you showed the character fit with the monologue.

Jakko – I like the use of eye contact and leaning back and forth, I felt doing this made it engaging, like you were wanting to get your point across but I feel that you were uncomfortable saying how you felt. Which was good I felt that this part of how that character felt. Then throughout your monologue you showed how passionate the character was and how he didn’t care that he was in front of his mates. I felt that you you succeeded to make that character was so real, that there was a truth to what you were saying, for example, the line ‘Fuck you’, made me think about the truth in what you were saying and showed how you love this girl and that you didn’t care what your mates thought even if It was a bit drippy.

My evaluation.

I have really enjoyed this unit so much, I have learnt so much that will help me if I did future script work or character work.

-Minding the text – this is when you get given a scene of a script. And you try and answer these questions.

-       What I say about myself?

-       What I say about others?

-       What others say about me?

-       Where am I?

-       When am I?

-       Previous circumstances – where have you come from?

-       What is your objective & super objective?

Using question as a tool helps me to understand the character and the script further. When using this I found that I was more confident with this script.

- Really helpful feedback and advice – I found that after every monologue I did I got specific and detailed feedback from the both the tutor and the rest of the group, and this helped me to understand what I can change and develop specifically.

Things that worked and didn’t work during both of my final performances.
 

-       keep looking over to the left a lot L - I found that I look over to the left to much, doing this made me as an audience member feel less engage with the piece, I felt it was the same as turning your back to the audience in a theatrical show.

-       very monotone L - I felt my delivery of the lines are very monotone, I during the take I wasn’t concentrating on the delivery, I was concentrating on the how I was saying my lines and what points should I move. If I was going to do this piece again, I would define when I should move and how I should move.

-       Really listening to him J - the feedback I got back from Joe says that I acting like I was really listening to him. The line, DAVID – “your wrong about me.” MYRA – “wrong? In what way?” was used as an example for this point. Joe said that at this point I used facial expressions, like I knew what he was saying.

2^nd Take of the first duologue.

-       I felt that it was more of an argument J - I felt that it was like a quick-witted argument. It was like a game of tennis, very fast pace and back and forth.

  

-       I liked this duologue so much – I enjoyed this duologue so much, I love having to work off the other actor. I find that doing this duologue is so much fun, and exciting. If I was to do this duologue again, I would try it moving around, change the setting, for example from how I was sitting I thought that we were in a quiet pub or something. I would definitely think about where I am in the scene and how my character would act in a different environment. I would trying moving around to see how the physicality of the character changes when the character move and how she reacts to looking at objects when performing the duologue.

2nd Monologue

-       Bethany – I wasn’t happy of this piece, because I couldn’t get the right feeling behind it, for example I couldn’t understand her objective behind this monologue, I got that she was angry and frustrated, looking at the text the line “… trying to council me through this thing.” I had a possible idea that she was trying to not let her friend know that she can’t have kids.

-       Faking it – I felt that I couldn’t get any truth in what you where saying, i felt that If I understood more about what its like to not have kids, I could get more out of the scene.

-       Trying to say the lines while thinking ‘I cant have kids’ – Following on from the Faking it point. I tried doing the monologue while continuously telling myself that I can’t have kids, because I would imagine from someone who cant have kids that thought must go over and over her head, that could be a possible link to her frustration.

-       Moving around moving my hair. – I wanted to make this monologue as natural as possible so I made the informed decision to move my hair, to pull my sleeves down and wrapping my cardigan around me, little things I wanted to do to make this character feel more natural.

-       Develop it – If I was to develop it, I would bring back a movement that I did when I was working on the piece, I would do this monologue when I got home from university, because I would be moving around, taking my coat off and sort my hair out. I did this to show a sense of relaxation from a busy moment, because in the scene the character has just gone on her break. i chose not to use this in the final piece because I thought it was better to have the character sitting down and showing that the character has been in this surrounding a while. I thought having the character stand up and do things would made that audience think that she new to her surroundings, but I would want to develop the piece and play around to see if I could make the moving around idea more natural, informal and relaxed. 

Transformers Presentation 3

Death over debt -  Sophie Stewart, Callum

Alternative endings; Character options and ideas. Audience solve the mystery and turns out detective was murderer. Set in London apartment in the 80's 90's. Mix of atmospheres and styles thriller and comedy. Lots of interactive clues for audience.  Actors to think about characters and incentives and motivation for murder.

Transformers presentation 2

Josh - Pepper's Ghost

all to think about ideas that would work with this. Possible sources Rear View, Memory Palace, Ghosts, children theatre, art?

Transformers presentation 1

Cliff - theatre bar.

Shadowplay - Cliff

widelense projector
laptop projection
mini mac
smartboard
JBL PA

Source Gogol's diary of a madman.
Idea of duality; what main character believes he is seeing and what is happening in reality.
Actors to think about characters, and how audience can have a say in development of show.

Unit 7: Acting For Camera

Unit 7: Acting For Camera

Johnny Depp

I am going to be focusing on how Johnny Depp portrays and develops his characters.

Captain Jack Sparrow

One of his acclaimed characters is Captain Jack Sparrow, a free spirited pirate who’s mannerisms are rather odd, hilarious, lucky and at times quirky but always seems to get himself into trouble but with his charm manages to get out of a sticky situation. His inspiration for Sparrow was the guitarist Keith Richards who appears as Jacks father in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest, “I sort of thought that pirates would be the rock and roll stars of the 18th century, you know? Then, when you think of rock and roll stars, the greatest rock and roll star of all time, the coolest rock and roll star of all time, in my opinion, is Keith Richards. Hands down." (Depp, J. 2003)

Not only just Richards but the animated skunk named Pepe Le Pew, "…this guy who was absolutely convinced that he's a great ladies man”, goes on to say “…just blinders no matter what the actual reality is happening around him. This guy sees only what he wants to see. Pepe Le Pew was the kind of character who always was able to run between the rain drops. He'd just always make it through." (Depp, J. 2003) Mentally understanding your character’s personality is good but physicalizing it is much harder, Depp came up with the idea that Sparrow should have “perpetual sea legs, you know from being on the water to much, so land becomes really hard and uncomfortable” (Depp, J. 2012). This gives the effect that Sparrow looks constantly moving, not being able to keep his balance, which in way describes what’s going on in his head “a complete drunken fool, not that he was drunk but every time I looked at him on set I always thought he had about eight vodkas or something because he could barely get his words out which would throw things off – it was such a cool performance and very masterfully done” (Rush, G. 2012) described by his co-worker Geoffrey Rush who plays Captain Barbossa throughout the sequel’s.

As a result of all his time and effort when it came to wrap up the movie “you go through a sort of a decompression, and a depression where you feel like, 'God, I've just been this other guy for six months or seven months. I'll never see him again.' It's very strange. I'm not real spooky about that whole, 'You become the character,' that's not it at all. Just, knowing someone so well and having played them, having them be second nature, it just happens naturally. It's very foreign to the body to stop doing it" (Depp, J. 2003). Overall Depp had executed his character extremely well physically, mentally and though his speech he articulates his words so that they are clear and easy to understand and hear, despite speaking like a drunken man he can speak very quickly at times but you can still hear that his diction is clear and precise with an undertone of epigrammatic to it to portray his character. Although sometimes his speeches as Sparrow become flowery and incoherent to express what he is feeling or to emphasize his physicality, or to enhance his facial expressions to show his emotions “It's a truly piratical performance: with his flamboyantly fluttering fingers he steals every scene in the movie.” (Ansen, D 2003) it all brings his character together, Sparrow to life.

Willy Wonka

In 2005 Depp joined up with Tim Burton to re-create the adaptation of the Roald Dahl book ‘Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory’ and took the chance to become Willy Wonka. Although Depp is known for taking on an atypical roles this was a hard one to do due to Gene Wilder who played Wonka in the first move (1971) variation so there was a lot of pressure on him as an actor to bring the magic, “To have a chance to inhabit Willy Wonka for a while and take him in another direction and kinda try and imagine what type of Wonka Roald Dahl would like to see today.” (Depp, J. unknown) “The idea behind Willy Wonka certain ingredient’s you add to these characters like Willy Wonka for example was I imagined what George Bush would be like incredibly stoned” (Depp, J. 2012). As an audience member and as an actor myself I never thought anyone would base there chosen character on a person that everyone knows but I guess in a way maybe that’s how he works out exactly what his character says and does – just like he did with Captain Jack Sparrow. Unfortunately even though the movie was a massive success and involved many amazing actors such as Freddie Highmore (Charlie Bucket), Christopher Lee (Dr. Wonka), Helena Bonham Carter (Mrs. Bucket) and David Kelly (Grandpa Joe) Gene Wilder believed that “Johnny Deep was an insult”(Dodge, S. 2013).

Rango

Rango, a lizard played by Depp in 2011, not only did he just voice the character but also got to grips with how “using the actors as a reference as an animated character” (Depp, J. 2010). Instead of just speaking like the nervous, rambling lizard he physicalized while saying his lines, which helped out massively for the animators as they could use his body language as well as his facial expressions to animate Rango. This gave Depp the edge of creativity because he was using his whole body to inhabit all the senses.

My thoughts

What I find fascinating about Depp is that no matter what he does or which character he takes on he always finds he pin point of the personality through other peoples manners or looks weather he picks and mixes from distinguished famous people, characters or animations. Looking at how he explores his journey to get towards his character is enlightening because even though I thought of trying it out myself I have never really delved into it and now listening, reading and watching Johnny Depp’s adventure of character making is going to have an effect on how I work as an actor. His devotion though out the whole progress of characterization, physically, his speech and diction to movie making is inspirational to me. “Scissorhands was a combination like the idea of a new born who see things for the first time and a dog that I’d had where it’s conditional love, this purity in my dog and those were the basic ingredients”, “There was something being very safe in being in that open to things and seeing things as in very new” (Depp, J. 2012). As an actor and as a performer I would love to expand my knowledge and understanding of acting and how acting works and I believe looking solely at one person has done a lot for me and I am going to put his practice in to play.

Bibliography

Michelle Zoromski, 2003. A CONVERSATION WITH JOHNNY DEPP.

Available at: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2003/07/11/a-conversation-with-johnny-depp

[Accessed on 19/10/14]

majoliroja, 2012. JOHNNY DEPP IN BECOMING CAPTAIN JACK.

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsInvQ2gFLM

[Accessed on 19/10/14]

David Anses, 2003. And A Bottle Of EyeLiner.

Available at: http://www.newsweek.com/and-bottle-eyeliner-139775

[Accessed on: 20/10/14]

Sarah Debenham, 2010. Blue peter, Johnny Depp & Charlie and the chocolate factory.

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioNRnkokRmg

[Accessed on 17/10/14]

ItalianFansOfDepp2, 2013. Ellen 2012 – Johnny Depp SUB ITA (1/4).

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whKXrh8funA

[Accessed on: 18/10/14]

Carla Escalona, 2011. JOHNNY DEPP ACTING OUT FOR RANGO.

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m48ZEa3MkdA

[Accessed on 17/10/14]

Film Work: Short Movies

Joe had suggested that we looked at “BaneCat” as a good starting point, which I did and found that it brought me to find other short movies like “Identity”, “Post It”, “The Hunt” or the beloved short animated movies from Pixar “Presto”, “Day & Night” or the hilarious “For The Birds”.

The most outstanding one I found out of all the ones I watched was a short movie called “Mr. Forgetful” which is a children’s adaptation of Mr. Forgetful from the beloved Mr. Men T.V shows and books. While watching this it gave me an idea that we could do something like this for the Fringe, either re-creating a book or a myth (like Beowulf) into a piece of theatre while using well known characters that both the children and the adults would recognize. For example Sponge Bob could only battle in while it was raining or at nighttime or else he would dry up in the sun and Bugs Bunny shocked his friends and enemies when jumping out of the ground from collecting a carrot.

Headshots

These were done just over a year ago, I will need to get them done again due to the fact that I now have longer hair and would like them done not just on a black and white background but outside to so they look much more natural, with natural lighting.