Screen Acting, Thursday Afternoon

[actingreaper]

Daisy was quite unhappy with being doomed to teach. At least the school seemed to have a decent budget for it. She perched on the edge of a table at the front of the class with a glass of water, an arrangement of handheld cameras, tripods, boom mikes, and other sorts of film things behind her.

"Right. Let's get this thing going, shall we? I'm Daisy. Daisy Adair. This is Screen Acting. In case you were wondering, yes, I'm an actress. Yes, I've been in movies, and no, you probably haven't seen those movies. Moving right along. Let's do that little introduction thingy that all teachers seem to love. Tell me your name, first and last, and a middle initial, please, as well as why you're taking this workshop, and what your favorite thing about movies is. Heck, I know, grab a camera and a partner, and take a shot at filming each other's introductions. Might as well dive right in, right?"

Once that was done with, Daisy set down her glass. "So, screen acting. What is it? How is it different from acting on stage? Well, the first and most obvious thing is this: the camera is much closer than a theater audience. Sometimes so close you think it's going to whack you in the head, but I assure you that very seldom happens, and when it does, it's usually not fatal. What that means is that everything you do has to be that much more real. Think of it as lying really well, if that makes you happy.

"There are a few basic rules to screen acting. Always remember exactly what you do, and I mean exactly, when you're in a scene. Never look at the camera unless the director tells you to do so. Be prepared for long, boring hours standing around on your feet, and always make sure that you know where the food services table is. Which we don't have for this class, sorry."

Daisy picked up her glass again. "The only rule for this class is no divas. I'm the only diva allowed. We're going to be working on producing short films, with everyone working behind and in front of the camera. At the end of the course, we'll show them off, to each other or to the school or something, I don't really care. So let's get started, shall we? Let's make a scene. Don't worry about shots or angles or anything like that, just yet, let's just figure out what our movies are going to be about."

Daisy started writing things on the chalk board. "Right. First you'll need characters. Who the hell is in the scene? They're going to want something. Have some motivation. If they both want the same thing, that's boring. You need conflict. You need a setting. Are they in a park, a classroom, at war? Figure these things out in a group of two or more, then play around with it. Pick a character, and see where your scene takes you. Next week we'll start going more into the mechanics of it all."

[ooc: wait for it, OCD is up. If you want interaction from Daisy, it'd be best to ping in the evenings Eastern time, though I'll try to catch anything any time.]

Comments

Sign In

[actingreaper]

As you do

Re: Sign In

[threeweapons.livejournal.com]

Alanna Trebond.

Re: Sign In

[swerval_zero]

Zero Hopeless-Savage

Re: Sign In

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

Charlie Kawalsky

Introduce yourselves

[actingreaper]

Grab a camera, grab a partner. Try to make sure you're actually filming your partner's face, and not . . . other things.

Re: Introduce yourselves

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

Kawalsky grabbed a camera and waited for his partner. When it was his turn to do the introduction, he did what you do during introductions. He introduced himself. "My name's Charles Kawalsky. Middle initial J. Everyone calls me Charlie or Kawalsky or just K around here. I took the class because...well, I dunno. I never got to do much of this stuff at my old school because it wasn't cool. This time I don't care. My favorite thing about the movies is the stunts and special effects. Gotta love stuff that goes boom."

Re: Introduce yourselves

[actingreaper]

Daisy jotted that name down in her notebook and underlined it, with a note of "likes explosions" next to it.

It was her roster of students. No, really. It certainly wasn't a list of people who might die and how.

Re: Introduce yourselves

[swerval_zero]

Zero selected a camera identical to the one she'd lost in the Middle Ages and waited for her turn. "Hi, I'm--oh, right, first, last, middle initial--I'm Skank Z. Hopeless-Savage. I'm in this workshop because I'm goin' to film school and I'm gonna make films, an' even though I wanna do documentaries, I thought it would be good to know somethin' about acting. Since it could be useful. My favorite thing about movies is how you can use 'em to tell a story and get a message across and really get to people, y'know? Also, how people in the movie industry don't chase you down the street throwing merch and drugs...here's where I say 'cut,' right?"

Re: Introduce yourselves

[actingreaper]

Daisy wrote down Zero's name with a big question mark next to it, since that couldn't possibly be her real name. Then she wrote "Mercenaries and drugs?"

Re: Introduce yourselves

[threeweapons.livejournal.com]

Alanna tried not her best not to drop her camera. "Um...I'm Alanna Trebond. I have no idea what a middle name is, so I don't think I have one. I'm in this workshop because someone signed me up. See, I was frozen as a statue in the clinic for the past three weeks along with my talking cat and didn't get to choose my own classes. I like movies because they have the freedom to be about anything and anyone. Um, yeah."

Re: Introduce yourselves

[actingreaper]

Daisy wrote down Alanna's name, with the note of "crazy" next to it. Then she underlined it three times.

Re: Introduce yourselves

[multi-madrox.livejournal.com]

Jamie grabbed a camera and fiddled with it until it was time for him to introduce himself.

"I'm Jamie Madrox and I can literally be a cast of thousands. Well... maybe not thousands but at least a dozen without giving myself a major headache."

Re: Introduce yourselves

[multi-madrox.livejournal.com]

"Oh. And my middle name is Arthur. Which makes my initials J-A-M. Any wisecracks about how I must be jelly because I don't shake like JAM will be met with a stiff punishment."

Re: Introduce yourselves

[grand-fallguy.livejournal.com]

Tim picked up a camera and filmed someone's introduction, then introduced himself.

"My name's Tim A. TimA!! Desmond. I like the way movies can make impossible things seem possible. And I'm taking this class because my sister is Daisy's Mun, uhm, It seemed like the next logical step after storytelling."

Re: Introduce yourselves

[actingreaper]

Daisy jotted Tim's name down. There didn't seem anything terribly deadly about him, so she marked down "irony" after his name.

Make a scene

[actingreaper]

Groups of however many you like, really. Daisy doesn't care. Remember, Characters, Motivation, Conflict, Setting.

Re: Make a scene

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

Kawalsky turned to the nearest person. "Hey."

Re: Make a scene

[swerval_zero]

"Hey," Zero said back.

Re: Make a scene

[threeweapons.livejournal.com]

Alanna hovered. Faithful carefully groomed himself.

Re: Make a scene

[multi-madrox.livejournal.com]

Jamie pointed the camera at Alanna. "Okay Red. What kind of scene do you want to do?"

Re: Make a scene

[grand-fallguy.livejournal.com]

Tim was lonely. Tim found himself momentarily the odd man out. "Anyone have room for one more?" he asked.

Talk to Daisy

[actingreaper]

She's only asking for a middle initial because she's curious. Really.

Re: Talk to Daisy

[grand-fallguy.livejournal.com]

"So, Daisy Daisy Adair, if we wanted to seek out the movies you were in so we could point at the screen and go `She's teaching my acting class!`, what movies should we look for?"

Re: Talk to Daisy

[actingreaper]

"Old ones."

OOC

[actingreaper]

Because everybody else is doing it. . . . I have no OOC icon. Woe.