About

Method Acting for Directors: Camera

John Clark (AM Director of NIDA): "Acting is the ability to get up in front of a lot of other people to tell a story and to involve those people in your life."

I just made a few pages for "Acting for the Camera" (here and in filmplus.org/biomx) -- and another page @ Actors in Film Directing. [ see "film acting" menu, right table ]

First, read film pages @ Film-North.

Yes, I placed the alert for actors on several webpages:

Please, read acting for the camera pages in advance: Actors in Film Directing, Film in BM and Camera in Method Acting -- before we have video-sessions in class! You have to have your monologues shots-broken (Actor's Text). Post it to our Method Forum -- and give your feedback to others.

[ I don't know when I will teach Acting III next time -- 2005? ]

The dymanic of primary and secondary motions. When and how actor gets priority vs. camera? Always? Camera is actor's givens. Wide Shot (WS) -- exposition (Establishing Shots) and on big movements.

Close Up (CU) -- climatic sequences.

Indicate it on your Actor's Text and give the copy to me (and to student-directors).

* Test on basic film terminology (see TESTS pages in Film Directing 101).

[ There is no main directory for acting theory; acting page in theatre theory is the only gateway -- to nowhere...

So, you have to pick it up here and there on acting pages. Anatoly

Books List, Method Acting:
Hits	Links
230	your link http://vtheatre.net/yourlink.html
121	anatoly's blog http://filmplus.org/anatoly
104	anatoly.org http://anatoly.org
3446	Method Acting for Directors http://method.vtheatre.net/title.html
164	Mailing List & News: subscribe! http://egroups.com/group/2002plus
3645	Great Scenes and Monologues for Actors http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0312966547/film600
1580	Acting for the Camera http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0060928190/film600
2516	The Stanislavsky Method for Analyzing the Characters in Drama http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0929587944/film600
2456	The Method http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0394744128/film600
3010	The Stanislavski System http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0140466606/film600
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I tried to stay away from this subject for years! Why do I break my promice to myself not to make new webpages?

Spring 2004: film directors did monologues shooting in my intermedite acting class. I thought that on camera experience was benificial for both -- the camera forced actors to do what I couldn't imposed on them, regardless how long I try...

Camera imposses the space and time discipline: "acting areas" -- after one take they all uderstood that they can be out of frame -- and the entire act is for nothing...

Is it possible that camera (technology) represents much bigger audience? "Addresses"? The eye of all!

Introduce the concept of POV (use samples from literature).

[ excer. in class on breaking down monologues for POV only * get some from my PLAYS online directory, including from films (Wild Strawberries, 7th Seal, Antonini + Ibsen, The Possessed, Cherry Orchard and other Chekhov's plays, including the one-acts. ]

"Open yourself!" -- they can't hear me. Not with the camera! They understood that we must SEE them! Their eyes...

Method Acting:
Hits	Links
832	Stanislavsky http://method.vtheatre.net/stanislavsky.html
206	The Development of the Method, Strasberg http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0452261988/film600
399	An Actor Prepares http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0878309837/film600
226	Method Acting Reconsidered http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0312223099/film600
382	Realism & Method: 3sis Forum http://egroups.com/group/3sis
626	Acting for the Camera http://afronord.tripod.com/film/actors.html
609	Method v. System http://afronord.tripod.com/thr/system.html
249	Part 4. Theory in Action http://method.vtheatre.net/part4.html
323	Stanislavsky Technique: Russia http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0936839082/film600
18	anatoly.org http://anatoly.org
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Questions & Homework

Select a monologue for analysis; break into shots and bring it in class (my copy for record).

[ film acting menu in the right table -- where to place the sample of the actor's text broken into shots. ]

"Line-by-line" dramatic analysis for the camera.

"Vocalization" and "physicalization" for the screen: go beyond the obvious ("smaller" means nothing, if you don't have your choices for the camera).

Camera and shifting POVs -- how to understand the multivocal (polyphonic) nature of "camera acts"... (Bakhtin)

Read Chekhov Pages in script.vtheatre.net -- do your homework (dramatic composition, 5W's, floor plan/acting areas -- scenes and monologues).

We do not have time to repeat what you should know about stage acting, we have to apply it!

* Again, I have to have MY COPY of your Actor's Text (no grade without it).

NB

Both (at least) your audition monologues should be redesigned for the camera (dramatic and comedic).

** Where are the reaction shots, when we shoot monologues in class?

Your ideas -- when do we go for details (hands, props and etc.)?

Pauses and camera --

Next : Film Actors

Spring 2003: StageMatrix * direct.vtheatre.net Meyerhold's Theory of Mise-en-Scene + METHOD: Private in Public *
Acting: method acting: strongly internalized acting that emphasizes emotion memory and personal experience in creating a character. The term is closely associated with Lee Strasberg's teaching at New York's Actors Studio.  Marlon Brando Jr. was born April 3, 1924, in Omaha, Neb., the youngest of three children. His mother was a local actress who had founded the Omaha Community Playhouse; his father was a salesman. According to "Brando: A Life in Our Times," his mother was an alcoholic and his father "an unyielding moralist."
After the family moved to Evanston, Ill., and a brief stint in military school where he first studied drama, Brando joined his sisters in New York in 1943. He enrolled in the New School for Social Research's dramatic workshop, where his classmates included Harry Belafonte, Shelley Winters and Rod Steiger.
There, he learned Method acting from Stella Adler, whose motto was "Don't act - behave." After appearing on Broadway in "I Remember Mama," Brando was hired by director Elia Kazan for the Broadway version of "A Streetcar Named Desire." The play, and the film that followed, introduced the vulnerable and volatile persona that was his trademark.

[ Brando dies ]

ACTING:
Hits	Links
801	Act w/Anatoly http://geocities.com/anatolant/thr/act.html
780	Acting Directory http://geocities.com/anatolant/acting/index.html
780	Auditions http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0553272950/film600
515	Books on Acting http://geocities.com/anatolant/books/index.html
1075	Acting 101 http://afronord.tripod.com/classes/121.html
963	MonoBooks I http://vtheatre.net/books/monobks.html
208	MonoBooks II http://vtheatre.net/books/monobks2.html
487	Improv http://vtheatre.net/books/improvbks.html
263	DramaBks http://vtheatre.net/books/dramabks.html
469	Acting Books http://vtheatre.net/books/actbooks.html
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