Hard work breeds perseverance.....
"A winner is just a loser who tried one more time"~George Augustus Moore
You can always tell when someone has put in the behind the scenes work at their craft vs the person who does **just** enough to get by. I encounter it every day, as most people do, with everyday interactions. With awards season coming up, you will see a lot of actors, directors, producers, studios, designers, musicians, animators, all clamoring for that moment of recognition that could propel their work and their careers to new heights.
The interesting thing about it though, is that despite all their speeches or interview responses to the contrary, most WANT to be recognized....but if they are being honest with themselves, did they really pour enough into a project to warrant the public praise?
Last week in class, we finally got to see some of our on-camera work from previous classes and it was instructive to see little nuances that the camera catches that you never quite realize are going on in life. While listening to a monologue, I nodded way way way too many times at what the speaker was saying. That's actually something I learned in active listening skills during an interpersonal communications class in college. Nodding to the speaker would let them know you are still connected to their words and engaged in the conversation. However, on camera it came off as passively being disconnected and nodding for the sake of nodding.
The next take, where we could actually interact with the monologue of the speaker and make it more of a conversation, Cecilia was eating my lunch. Since I knew what words were coming in her monologue and I was supposed to be her lawyer, I kept trying to anticipate her words and then come back with a response. However, the more I tried to give natural responses, the more she threw me curve balls to throw me off. She did superb. The teacher thought I was trying too hard to "act" like a lawyer, when in reality it was the exact opposite. I was trying to hard to "be natural."
At one point, where the teacher thought I'd given up on the conversation, I looked to my right (which you can see on camera) as if searching for something and thought to myself "Tom Cruise, A Few Good Men" and came back and started......acting. All I needed was a point of reference, which I found by digging into the film bank of the thousands of films I've seen throughout my life. From there, the scene went much smoother and what seemed like more natural, when in reality it was actually more being in character than being "in the moment."
I would have never gotten to that point in a split second while on the spot in losing ground had it not been for the thousands (and I do mean thousands) of films I've seen over my lifetime. But that's only the starting point. In between classes, I've been diligently working at the OTHER aspects of being an actor. Reading countless blogs on the industry, events, pitfalls others have faced, podcast on off set life, etc etc etc. It's not always easy, and it can be time consuming, but that's what it takes to be able to deliver a clutch performance when the stakes are high. After all, it is awards season. If they are being honest with themselves, have they put in the work?
You can always tell when someone has put in the behind the scenes work at their craft vs the person who does **just** enough to get by. I encounter it every day, as most people do, with everyday interactions. With awards season coming up, you will see a lot of actors, directors, producers, studios, designers, musicians, animators, all clamoring for that moment of recognition that could propel their work and their careers to new heights.
The interesting thing about it though, is that despite all their speeches or interview responses to the contrary, most WANT to be recognized....but if they are being honest with themselves, did they really pour enough into a project to warrant the public praise?
Last week in class, we finally got to see some of our on-camera work from previous classes and it was instructive to see little nuances that the camera catches that you never quite realize are going on in life. While listening to a monologue, I nodded way way way too many times at what the speaker was saying. That's actually something I learned in active listening skills during an interpersonal communications class in college. Nodding to the speaker would let them know you are still connected to their words and engaged in the conversation. However, on camera it came off as passively being disconnected and nodding for the sake of nodding.
The next take, where we could actually interact with the monologue of the speaker and make it more of a conversation, Cecilia was eating my lunch. Since I knew what words were coming in her monologue and I was supposed to be her lawyer, I kept trying to anticipate her words and then come back with a response. However, the more I tried to give natural responses, the more she threw me curve balls to throw me off. She did superb. The teacher thought I was trying too hard to "act" like a lawyer, when in reality it was the exact opposite. I was trying to hard to "be natural."
At one point, where the teacher thought I'd given up on the conversation, I looked to my right (which you can see on camera) as if searching for something and thought to myself "Tom Cruise, A Few Good Men" and came back and started......acting. All I needed was a point of reference, which I found by digging into the film bank of the thousands of films I've seen throughout my life. From there, the scene went much smoother and what seemed like more natural, when in reality it was actually more being in character than being "in the moment."
I would have never gotten to that point in a split second while on the spot in losing ground had it not been for the thousands (and I do mean thousands) of films I've seen over my lifetime. But that's only the starting point. In between classes, I've been diligently working at the OTHER aspects of being an actor. Reading countless blogs on the industry, events, pitfalls others have faced, podcast on off set life, etc etc etc. It's not always easy, and it can be time consuming, but that's what it takes to be able to deliver a clutch performance when the stakes are high. After all, it is awards season. If they are being honest with themselves, have they put in the work?
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