Saturday, April 19, 2014

-27.4-

Today I saw Only Lovers Left Alive directed by Jim Jarmusch (I had been anticipating it since two actors I really like are the main characters!)

I liked the movie, but it isn't one many people would like since it's very slow paced (about the speed of The Stationmaster), and had only one semi-fast action scene. There was a lot to analyze, and many allusions made, but the movie gave a very thoughtful look into the concept of eternal life. I'm not a fan of the current vampire genre, but this movie definitely didn't have sparkles. The vampires seemed more like erudite drug addicts than anything else.

The differences between the two main characters was my favorite part of the movie. The man, Adam, took eternal life as boredom and focused on the past (he stayed shut inside and used old technology). He saw people as "zombies" and wasters of the future. Alternatively the woman, Eve, viewed eternal life more positively. She had an iPhone, and seemed a bit more social with others (There was a nice scene where she chides Adam saying something along the lines of, "you could spend all this time helping others than thinking about yourself.")

Other aspects that stood out to me were the first scene, the darkness, and the humor. In the first scene of the movie, there was a cross dissolve between Adam, Eve, and a record playing. As the record went around and around, the actual sound in the theatre moved in a circular motion (Another decision to think about when directing!)

Other scenes that amazed me were scenes of the night sky (since the characters were vampires, the whole thing took place during the nighttime). I kept wondering how they shot those scenes, or if those scenes were CGI.

Even though all of the scenes were shot at night, and the movie had a serious tone, I was pleasantly surprised that there were quite a few humorous scenes. They balanced out the metaphorical bleakness in the lives of the characters and reminded the audience that the movie was fictional.

I'd definitely see the movie again, but I'd need to be in the mood to see it since it is in a slower style.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

-26.4-

Directing Dalmation by Conrad Bishop was my first time directing a play. Before this, I was used to directing film (for both STAC and Chinese class), and the differences seem to me to be quite large. Theatre directing felt as if I was directing for a single shot that we had only one take to do, and I felt like I was repeating myself a lot.

What went right:
-Ashley and Grace were able to hit the important lines (and didn't point it out if they skipped a line)
-People laughed
-Most of the main actions were hit

What went wrong:
-I'm not sure if a dynamic really occurred between the actors...but I can't remember the actual performance that well since it was so quick and I was so (?) worried
-A significant action was skipped (Grace was supposed to push items off her desk and walk up so she was shouting in the audience's face)
-We all should have gotten off the script sooner (I ended up not even bringing it to rehearsals)
-Memorizing the script was an issue. We should have spent a day to break down the main points of the script and focused on memorizing then improvising around those main points
--We utilized the recording technique of rehearsing, and we should have started doing this sooner in order to get off the script sooner
-We should have taken more advantage and practiced more in the main STAC room space (we only had one rehearsal there, and half the cast/one person was missing)
-There are many ways of rehearsing (recording+only actions, only dialogue, recalling memorization+dialogue, improvising), and I felt like I should have stuck to one instead of experimenting
-It was a little worrisome when the day before rehearsal half of the cast wasn't in
-I should be more confident/firm when directing, and have done more physical examples of what I wanted the actors to do

What escaped me this time:
-How to create a dynamic between the actors (?)
-How to hit the key points of both action + dialogue
-How to talk about motivation behind the actions