Back to the Basics.....
"Price is what you pay, value is what you get" ~ Warren Buffett
Everything is life has a price attached to it, everything. That price isn't always a monetary tag you can attach to what you're "buying", although many times you can. The most expensive commodity everyone in the world is handed is time, and whether you spend it wisely or not usually shows up far too late down the road, way past the point of no return in terms of cost spent.
I haven't been able to venture out to my favorite past time of going to the movies because I've been diligently working on being healthier. Two weeks ago, my work did a free medical screening on site, and I was excited to find out what things looked like. I knew I was a bit heftier than usual because my suits were fitting a **little** too tightly. I was DEFINITELY not prepared to be handed a bio-metric card that showed how unwisely I'd been spending my time: not only was I overweight, I was actually OBESE for my age. In essence, I was ten years from suffering the effects (in this case a heart attack at the current trajectory) of poor time management. How does this tie into acting?
In college, I used to do hours upon hours of strength work for track and field and that meant popping in a movie and watching it while I did rep after rep of abs, lunges, wall sits, calf raises and push-ups. To get healthier, I went back to the basics and started doing that again, but this time with 94% worth of my DVR full and ready to provide the background entertainment. First on tap was "The Walking Dead."
The acting itself has always been a little above average, and I don't think it is a coincidence that the main core of characters are usually the one's who have better on-camera presence and skills. Now in it's ninth season, the hit AMC original has been on a steady decline from their Season 5 peak ratings. From Season 2 through Season 7, the show was drawing over 9+ million viewers! Last season's total was a "paltry" 7.9 million. What changed? The show got away from their bread and butter, having the audience connect to the characters and plot line. As has been the recurring theme of my blog, you can't have a good product if the intended audience isn't connecting with what they are viewing. People won't spend their most expensive commodity that I mentioned if the product isn't delivering.
The next half of my workout I watched part of the spinoff "Fear The Walking Dead", and to be perfectly honest, I was lost because I hadn't watched this show since their first season. I was pleasantly surprised that BOTH shows spent quite some time developing the characters and backstories that made the shows successful in their early runs. More importantly though, the acting from the lead roles in both shows was superb. It caught my attention how minute details of emotions can be caught so vividly by the cameras, which reinforced my mantra that "less is more" when it comes to camera work. As Stanislavsky's book briefly mentioned, a theater audience requires a more over-the-top delivery of a performance, while film and television you let the camera catch the nuances.
Which brings me to the monologues we performed in group this week, not my best performance by any stretch of the imagination. Most the rest of everyone had a good handle on their monologues and they needed minor tweaks or suggestions on what would fit their character impersonation more. My delivery was ok (aside from fumbling a couple lines from the scene), but I felt too constrained and rather unprepared for the setting (I actually thought I had an extra week to prepare, ha). Getting into character was no issue, but being a perfectionist to the core, I know that had that been an actual camera/show scene....it would have required 3+ takes, which is not good. That would not bring value to a production and even less so to an audience, so it's back to the basics of "less is more" and choosing a more appropriate monologue for a better performance.
Everything is life has a price attached to it, everything. That price isn't always a monetary tag you can attach to what you're "buying", although many times you can. The most expensive commodity everyone in the world is handed is time, and whether you spend it wisely or not usually shows up far too late down the road, way past the point of no return in terms of cost spent.
I haven't been able to venture out to my favorite past time of going to the movies because I've been diligently working on being healthier. Two weeks ago, my work did a free medical screening on site, and I was excited to find out what things looked like. I knew I was a bit heftier than usual because my suits were fitting a **little** too tightly. I was DEFINITELY not prepared to be handed a bio-metric card that showed how unwisely I'd been spending my time: not only was I overweight, I was actually OBESE for my age. In essence, I was ten years from suffering the effects (in this case a heart attack at the current trajectory) of poor time management. How does this tie into acting?
In college, I used to do hours upon hours of strength work for track and field and that meant popping in a movie and watching it while I did rep after rep of abs, lunges, wall sits, calf raises and push-ups. To get healthier, I went back to the basics and started doing that again, but this time with 94% worth of my DVR full and ready to provide the background entertainment. First on tap was "The Walking Dead."
The acting itself has always been a little above average, and I don't think it is a coincidence that the main core of characters are usually the one's who have better on-camera presence and skills. Now in it's ninth season, the hit AMC original has been on a steady decline from their Season 5 peak ratings. From Season 2 through Season 7, the show was drawing over 9+ million viewers! Last season's total was a "paltry" 7.9 million. What changed? The show got away from their bread and butter, having the audience connect to the characters and plot line. As has been the recurring theme of my blog, you can't have a good product if the intended audience isn't connecting with what they are viewing. People won't spend their most expensive commodity that I mentioned if the product isn't delivering.
The next half of my workout I watched part of the spinoff "Fear The Walking Dead", and to be perfectly honest, I was lost because I hadn't watched this show since their first season. I was pleasantly surprised that BOTH shows spent quite some time developing the characters and backstories that made the shows successful in their early runs. More importantly though, the acting from the lead roles in both shows was superb. It caught my attention how minute details of emotions can be caught so vividly by the cameras, which reinforced my mantra that "less is more" when it comes to camera work. As Stanislavsky's book briefly mentioned, a theater audience requires a more over-the-top delivery of a performance, while film and television you let the camera catch the nuances.
Which brings me to the monologues we performed in group this week, not my best performance by any stretch of the imagination. Most the rest of everyone had a good handle on their monologues and they needed minor tweaks or suggestions on what would fit their character impersonation more. My delivery was ok (aside from fumbling a couple lines from the scene), but I felt too constrained and rather unprepared for the setting (I actually thought I had an extra week to prepare, ha). Getting into character was no issue, but being a perfectionist to the core, I know that had that been an actual camera/show scene....it would have required 3+ takes, which is not good. That would not bring value to a production and even less so to an audience, so it's back to the basics of "less is more" and choosing a more appropriate monologue for a better performance.
Comments
Post a Comment