Lesson 6: Projecting in the mind's eye

Wednesday we started working with the environment scenes in a few people's heads. I learned not to try to project outside, but to keep the image clear on the inside where your mind's eye sits. I happen to have a small 10 gal aquarium, but boy does it let me know when it needs more water because the filter is LOUD. Following Jon's advice, I tried incorporating it into the scene and then it was just a cute little pond to the right of me. lol.

These lessons serve as a foundation for knowing who our character is, what they are doing and where they are doing it. The other important takeaway is the HOW. This is where essence comes in. Lauren and I can both sip a glass of water and look completely different doing it and that's a pretty amazing part of being human. We don't go to auditions to play out a scene. We go to show how WE would play that scene.

Acting is taking the essence of one person to create another.

The homework assigned reflects that.
Observe another person doing something (A youtuber filming a video, an actor doing an interview online or even someone outside gardening) Watch them from head to toe. (This part was really difficult since I used an online interview and it only showed waist up). If its not a video online, take a short clip of the subject doing the activity. Then play it back and imitate them physically and if possible vocally. Work on 5 seconds at a time to REALLY get it. We will be recreating that moment in 30-40 seconds as that person to the best of our ability and then create a NEW character based on their essence for a totally unrelated scene that will be provided on the spot.

I have to admit, I vastly underestimated how much time I would need to allocate for this, even working on it once a day. I'm going to be going HARD at it today for sure.

Love your definition of character acting. Yes, it is hard. However, if you do the work and others don’t, you win.