2.2.15 ACTING ON CAMERA

"Good acting is easy acting, and then you will have all the time in world"

In class, we filmed the last scene with Chloe and Liam in it and then continued to watch our scenes. During filming we especially focused on the acting rather than technicalities, since we have done them quite many times before already. Andy pointed out very important things during filming about acting;

•  Voice was a very big topic in today's class. We have been trained to project our voices, but as we later saw on the film, almost everyone was talking much too loudly, making our voices seem unreasonably loud, rainy and interfered with the sound recording.  With Liam and Chloe Andy made sure that they were talking at the right volume, which was surprisingly quiet.
• Being sure which side of the camera you are looking is very important when trying to show are including or excluding someone from the conversation. If you look at the side of the camera that is on your counter actors side, you are still including them in your thoughts, but if you look the other side, you are excluding them and can even show in your facial expressions how you feel of the other character, without them knowing about it. This is accepted with film, since it will seem that the other person won't see you. 
• Walking in from the direction of the camera looks better, rather from the side
• "Good acting is easy acting --> You will have all the time in the world" 
• We talked a lot about preparation and I feel that this sentence truly internalizes the benefits of it. If you prepare on time and do your work, the acting will come easily and naturally. Since you won't be thinking about your lines, you will be able to focus on the emotions and becoming the character. 
• Also, being relaxed when acting is extremely important. Watching back on the tape, automatically people who were more relaxed seemed more in character and more natural than those who were stiff. For me, I felt I wasn't relaxed at all and it didn't look like I was relaxed on camera either. This really shows how much the camera picks up and shows.
• During a scene with Yunusa, Sav, Harry and Jade, it was interesting how Jade, who took Sophia's place on the scene and so didn't have so much time to learnt he lines and marks, actually seemed the most relaxed. This was probably because she wasn't thinking so much about what she had to do, but rather just let herself come up with the emotions naturally. 
• During Chloe's and Liam's performance Andy talked about internal thoughts, and how what the character is thinking becomes extremely important when there is subtext. During the scene, Chloe's character is supposed to be very professional, but inside feel conflicted. This should be shown to the audience by the way she holds her body and reacts to Liam's character.
• Later, when watching the scenes, it often notable when people didn't actually know their lines, and you could see when people were thinking, even if it might have not been seen before.   
• We also learned the technical term 'rushes' or raw footage, which is basically unedited footage.
• I also operated to boom this time. I found out that it is actually very tiring to hold the microphone up for the entire scene(which was maybe 3-5 minutes).  It did get easier when I centered my body and found a better balance. 

It was interesting to see yourself and everyone else on camera and how we actually acted. It was very cringie at first, but after you set aside how you looked and started to focus on how did your voice sound like, how was your acting, it became more educational and critical, rather than just bashing yourself for what you looked like. I tried really hard to get over the way I looked and focus on the important to be able to grow and learn from it. There was some things I did notice in my acting, some I already mentioned, but for example I noticed how my English sounded strange. My accent is getting better, but I felt the pressure in my sentences was unnatural. It might have been because I was trying tot slow down my lines but perhaps I wasn't as memorized with my lines as I thought I was.