-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.

-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

-25.4-

Things I have done this past week, which I should have also talked about for my videoblog:

1. Competed for a scholarship at McDaniel college
2. Visited the American Visionary Arts Museum (in which I saw ok folk art and some cool mechanical art)
3. Planned and partially filmed a music video with friends (filming in public places such as the Highline was exciting!)
4. Became frustrated at iMovie's limitations
5. Rediscovered my love for Shimejis

-18.4-

Over the weekend, I took a tour of Denison (a small, liberal arts college in Ohio), and I must say...if you want to convince me to go to your college, just introduce me to the cinema house (And have a good bio program, small classes, band, and low cost that also helps!)
I've never visited the film building on a college tour (sadly, most of the college tours opted to show the football field instead of the art buldings) and the first thing I saw was a huge (about my chest height), old-fashioned, camera from the early movies. It got me excited, because I've only seen those in "The Artist," and "Hugo."

It looked something like this

Although the camera was only for display, a film major showed me some old technology that still was in use.
Like the photography class in Herricks, the Denison film class starts with the basics before going digital: they shoot and develop film with traditional techniques.
I haven't paid much attention to traditional film making, but seeing all of the different machines people had to use gave me a new appreciation for how quickly we are able to shoot and edit film today! For example, the film major took me to a room where an old film editor was. She gave a brief overview of the process, and mentioned how hard adding sound was to the movies (Most graduates used the machine for silent films, because adding sound was that hard!)
Although I'll probably stick with digital, it was fascinating to see how people had to film in the older days.

http://denison.edu/get-to-know-denison/cinema-house

-16.4-

I believe the Shakespeare workshop, taught by James III, was my first pure acting workshop in STAC. I enjoyed it, but felt a little shy because I'm not usually an 'acting' person.

As I discussed when writing about the Shakespeare documentaries, Shakespeare IS about debating the meaning of the work, and presenting your results on stage, but it's also about making sure the audience can see your actions (it's also about getting used to speaking in iambic pentameter.)

During this workshop, we mainly focused on making our actions big (as if people in another room had to see us present Shakespeare.)
Before the workshop, we all chose a sonnet (it couldn't be the more popular sonnets). I chose sonnet LXV (65) because I thought the rhythm of the words was calming.
After warming up and introducing ourselves, we reviewed how the iambic pentameter sounds, then read the first line of our sonnets in this way. For some, breaking down the syllables was a bit harder than others, but we all managed to say our lines smoothly.
Next, we focused on action. We chose words in the sonnet that stood out to us, then thought about actions that suited each word. When comfortable, we silently performed the actions, then added sound effects to the action.
I was used to focusing on action, rather than getting into the mind-frame, from Luke's acting advice, but yesterday was different since we had a physical "script" to act from.
Acting individual words out of context seemed a little strange to me, but when people started to present their sonnet to the group; the actions fit the meaning of the sonnet!
After the initial performance, James started to go over making movements bigger (be big because you can always pull back if needed), and adding in context. For example, Brian's sonnet was directed towards a love intrest, so James had one of the girls stand next to him, and the rest of the guys stand up, so Brian had actual people to refer to while acting. Since many people had sonnets that involved antithesis, James encouraged them to emphasize the differences in order to get the meaning across even clearer.

When I went, I was nervous, but I tried to speak clearly and with the iambic pentameter in mind (people before me had some trouble with destressing words commonly stressed. The night before I didn't have time to go over the meaning of the sonnet, so I acted blindly. It went all right, and after we discussed the meaning of the sonnet (although time erodes everything, I hope my love for you in this letter withstands time). Without meaning to, I emphasized the meaning of "rocks impregnable"by pausing before doing my action for rock (James said the pause interrupted the rhythm, showing how even the words were stopped by the strength of the metaphorical stone.)

After I went, we ran out of time, so we recapped what we went over. While recapping, I began to think about how hard acting Shakespeare is. There are many ways of approaching it, and it's easy to get caught up in your approach to acting. However, when it was my turn, almost everything went blank. I suppose in the end it's as Charlie Parker says: "Then you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail."