Update: How I've Progressed So Far This Semester

Looking back at the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the semester, I think I've made big strides in what I want to accomplish. In terms of my first goal, listening actively, I have practiced a new type of listening: listening with an animal brain. This is different from human listening because, well, first of all, when we are acting our animals we don't use language. So listening becomes something different, a more sensual experience that involves not just my ears, but my eyes and my touch. If I listen with just my ears, I will miss out on a lot of listening that can be done with my eyes and my touch. So listening has become for me less of a passive action and more of an aggressive, explorative action. I say explorative because that's really what I enjoyed doing the most as the blue heron, especially in exercises like Watering Hole - exploring the room and what/who was in it. I loved walking into Studio A for Watering Hole and seeing the room arrangement and having the sudden thought that I was allowed to explore every new aspect of the room as my heron. The exploration became my listening.

Listening actively as Jackson was also different than normal listening. Although we began using English, and communicating as human beings, the physical listening of the heron did not end. When I met people, I listened to them speak, but what told me more was the way they physically approached and communicated with me, because everyone was doing such specific and varied movements. There is a lot to be learned in listening physically, and I think I am just starting to explore that as an actor and the tools it can give me in a scene.

In terms of engaging my body and being specific, I think the first is quite obvious. The animal projects were all about engaging my body and how a physical animal can create a human character. I would also say that I have gotten better at being specific, but not because of any physical change with me - it has more to do with the specificity that I am now able to pull out in what I see. Starting with observing Taylor at the beginning of the year, then the guy on the street, then the blue heron, I have had much experience in observing people and animals and their movements. When I look at them through the lens of "their movements are specific and deliberate" as opposed to the lens of "their movements are general and random," I am able to really see how they move, how they communicate physically, and then it's not difficult to imitate this. It just takes a certain eye for seeing specificity that I have developed over the course of this semester so far, and will continue to develop as my acting training moves forward.

Motion Capture Lab!

Wow!

That's pretty much all I can say after using the Motion Capture Lab today. Like, damn. I'm so happy I go to CMU and get to experience all these wonderful opportunities. As a semi-closeted geek, I have always enjoyed seeing the green-screen motion-capture work of Lord of the Rings and EA Sports games - seeing Tiger Woods in a black suit with lots of little reflective balls doing his signature swing in a film studio is quite the interesting image. However, I didn't think I would have the opportunity to have 1st-hand experience with this technology, and performance method, until much later on in my career, and so the work we did today was really special.

Because I haven't yet seen my stick-figure image of the blue heron yet, I can't really use that information to make an informed journal entry about how my movements have been matching up with how a blue heron moves in real life. However, I will discuss how watching other people's movements on screen matched up with what I have learned about animal movements thus far, and I will also talk about what can be learned from working in this type of environment.

The biggest thing I got from seeing the dots moving on screen was a really clear sense of how important Matt's undulations are in how an animal moves. When an animal is covered by skin, by muscle and fur and fat, it can be really difficult to see this undulations - it really just looks like one movement. But if you take that movement apart, study its various features, you will actually notice that the animal is using lots of different movements (sometimes contradictory!) to forward a single movement. Take a tiger walking, for example. It may just seem like the tiger is lifting his paw and moving it forward, in tune with his back paw - but in reality much more is going on. In reality, the tiger is often subtly moving side to side as he moves forward, especially when he walks slowly, and his opposite paws are being activated in movement as the "walking" paws move forward. So there is much to think about, and I think the Motion Capture lab can be a really good place to step back and look at all of this movement. When you have little balls all over your body, you can see how all of those balls are moving distinct from one another - so you can see when you're taking a step, for example, the way your static foot is moving. I use the tiger as an example because I saw the undulations particularly well with Zanny's animal. The way she moved her back showed up on the screen as this up-and-down movement that I had never really noticed before, and like I said previously, I noticed for the first time the way her paws moved as she took steps. With Jordan's llama as well, I noticed a different type of undulation going on in his shoulders - it was like his shoulders were moving forward and backward, propelling his forward motion. Perhaps he leads his animal with his shoulders? I'm not sure. What I can say is that I am excited to look at the display of my own animal and see where the hidden undulations are, because I know they exist.

In terms of how this experience was a taste of what I may get in the Business in the future, I am excited by the opportunities that computer technology provides for film. I can see this happening in most of the movies I see - special effects have become the norm for summer blockbusters, sci-fi flicks, action flicks, horror movies, vampire movies, werewolf movies, and other supernatural movies. But I have just begun to scratch the surface with where this technology is being used. Although you may not realize it, effects are used to remove camera crews from shots with mirrors, to color correct, and to put cities and skyscapes in where they don't actually exist. Matt told us to check out the effects reel of Black Swan, and I think it is a perfect example of the breadth of how this technology can be used. The video (check it out here: http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/check-out-this-black-swan-visual-effects-reel) shows a range of techniques that sometimes contribute to the weird shit happening with Natalie Portman, and sometimes not. For example, the camera crew removal is a common effect, along with simple additions of audience members in a seating house that doesn't exist and smoothing over the floor of the dance floor to look more pristine. But then, of course, there are the animated feathers growing out of her back, the mirror shots in which she appears as someone else or her reflection turns suddenly in contradiction with what Nina is doing, and the various times in which she sees someone else who has her own face. The effects reel makes it look easy, and, although I am just starting to get a knowledge of how this technology works, I think it may actually be easy in this day and age. For example, the work that Justin and Mo are doing in the Mo Cap lab is already outdated, Justin said - for Avatar, for example, they did not use little reflective balls but instead an entire reflective mask that made the process much simpler and quicker. They were also experimenting with reflective paint and glitter that could be easily spread across an actor's body. So the point of this is that the opportunities for the work that can be done, from both a director and an actor's standpoint, are almost limitless; perhaps only limited by time and money given to the production. I would like to think that in the future, as a director, I will be given the time and money to work with these effects, because they are completely changing how the entertainment business is being run. It is no longer the case that we only see special FX in big summer blockbusters like Transformers; now we are seeing accomplished intelligent directors like Darren Aronofsky utilizing, in sometimes very subtle ways, the advanced technology to their advantage in movies where the special FX don't detract, but rather enhance, the story.

Oh, and one more thing I learned: when buying a leotard, try to buy one meant for both women and men.

The Social Dance

THE SOCIAL DANCE. As the final culmination of our animal work this semester, writing this journal entry is a little daunting. I'm not sure how to start on a 90-minute improv, so please excuse me if my thoughts ramble, or are disorganized, but I will try to keep them coherent. To provide a structure, I will discuss what I discovered that worked, what I discovered that didn't work, including in these discussions other actions I took that were particularly notable and connections back to the animal character, and other miscellaneous thoughts. Here we go.

DISCOVERIES/THINGS THAT WORKED:

• Coming into the dance, I was all about me and the dance. As Jackson du Blanc, I was prepared to BLOW PEOPLE AWAY at this dance - because let's face it, that's what I do, and that's what I've been doing all my life. In preparing for the dance, what worked was for me to come into it with a specific idea of why I was there (to dance, meet people and dance with them, and win the dance competition of course!). The night before, I held a dance rehearsal for the Entertainment Committee - we prepared a dance to B.o.B.'s "I'll Be in the Sky" (a favorite from my hometown of Atlanta). I also organized Zanny to have her rehearsal for a "sexy stripper dance," but that never actually happened; I'm not entirely sure Zanny was comfortable with doing the dance, which I understood, so I didn't push her on it. I then wanted to have a dance rehearsal to get everyone comfortable with dancing, but unfortunately the energy on Thursday night was a little all over the place and only a couple people showed up, so instead we pitched our energy, like everyone else, into decorating the room for the next day. Which I think we did a very good job of, if I may say so myself.

• So standing in line for the dance, I was getting pumped for all the dancing I was about to do - exercising, warming up my muscles, talking to the people in line, etc. I was getting pretty pissed off that people like Brittany's character were going to be allowed in - weren't they too young to be let into the dance?? They are just going to ruin it! I began to meet people for the first time, and that was quite interesting - I found that it worked for me to kiss people's hands when I met them, if only because it gave other characters something to work off of from the get-go. Some of them enjoyed the hand-kiss, others (like Kyle Wilson's character) were completely flipped out.

• Coming into the dance, something I instinctively did that worked really well was NOT wanting to take off my glove for them to put a mark on it, as entry into the dance. I didn't, in fact, want to take off my gloves at all during the dance, except to pour drinks, perhaps. The gloves were part of my aura, part of my preparation, and I couldn't have them off.

• I found that, as Jackson du Blanc, I really liked being the life of the party. As I was on the Entertainment Committee, I organized people to get their dance cards filled out, and I tried to get as many people to sign my card as I could. I ended up dancing with about 12 different people on different dances, and for each one I learned something new about how Jackson related to those characters. For example, I danced with MiMi, Nicky Robles's yoga teacher character, who danced very slowly and methodically, but it was a very pleasant dance - she's a very pleasant person to dance with, although she wasn't as energetic as I was. And then I also danced with Olivia's character, who really didn't want to, but I got her onto the dance floor anyways and taught her a few moves. I enjoyed being the person who gets people moving, who gets people dancing, and people enjoyed participating in my energy. So what worked for me was being a source of energy for the rest of the party. Of course, there were those, like Taylor's characters, who simply didn't want to dance with me - but I felt that Jackson, as a non-confrontational being, would simply ignore them rather than force them into something that they ultimately didn't want.

• I was very excited for the dance competition, because dance competitions are what I do best - I put on my resume that I had won several of them. So of course I expected to win this one. I got together with three other dancers and I danced my ass off to get into the next round - but Barbara Mackenzie-Wood tapped me out! I didn't believe it at first - at first I stayed on the dance floor, and my dance partners came to my rescue, telling Barbara about how famous I was and how revered I was throughout the world. But when she told me to get off, I had to leave. I was furious. I didn't speak to anyone, I just stood at the side of the dance floor and judged the remaining dancers as harshly as I could. After Kyle's character ended up winning, I mumbled to someone that he didn't deserve it, and as his winning song was put on, I went up, took the crown off his head, and performed a solo dance. I discovered in that moment that Jackson has a bitchy side. He wants to dance, and for other people to dance with him, but he is also proud and when he does not get recognition for his talent he will force his talent on other people. I went into a very abstract dance, taking all the time in the world to showcase my abilities as I owned the dance floor. For Jackson, it felt good; but of course, he was alone.

• The last discovery I made that I want to comment on is my reaction to the armed robbery. When the guys came in with guns and told everyone to get down, I was extremely frightened. Jackson is proud, and he will fight for his respect, but he is a peaceful person and simply wants everyone to recognize the beauty of dance. So when the guns came crashing in, my animal brain kicked in immediately, and I dipped heavily into the heron for what followed. I flapped my arms as I ran/flew in no general direction around the room, finally ending up on the bleachers by the television. I stayed incredibly still, hoping the robbers wouldn't see me, moving my head just slightly to take in the entire room (similar to how I acted in parts of Watering Hole). One of them saw me, however, and told me to get down on the floor - so I hopped onto the floor and sat on my knees. At this point, however, I was over the initial shock and now I was more pissed off. As perhaps a testament to how much I had gone back into my animal, I raised my head and shoulders and screeeeeeeched very loudly at the robbers - as if I was protecting my territory. One of them heard this and pointed the gun at me, at which point I put my head back down; but the anger was still there. I wouldn't even really call it anger, though - it was like something had disrupted the status quo of the heron's brain, something had set off the heron because it had been so frightened that it just wasn't the same afterwards. When the robbers left, I found myself wanting to keep to myself and my headphones, consoling myself with my music much like I did in my Private Moment. Lawrence (Thomas Moore's character) tried to get through to me by getting me to dance with him, which I did quite half-heartedly (and still wearing my headphones). In the end, I was really happy that the robbers had come in, because I discovered much about the instinctual animal nature of Jackson du Blanc - that in moments of stress, he will appear more like a blue heron than at any other time.

DISCOVERIES/THINGS THAT DIDN'T WORK:

• Something that was really difficult for me in the Social Dance, and something Patrick Wilson pointed out afterwards, was that it was quite difficult to keep the physicality of the character the entire time. In fact, for most of the dance, I would say it wasn't even on my mind. Now, that is not to say that it should have been on my mind the entire time; I think I have done enough rehearsal with Jackson to have an innate physicality of how he is supposed to walk, dance, and relate to other people. Still, for a 90-minute improvisation, keeping his physicality was difficult. After speaking with Matt about how perhaps Jackson is the type of dancer who simply doesn't use his hands, I tried to use that to combat my problem from the Private Moment (about how the dancer is in full control of his body, but the bird is not). Still, what I really lost during the improv were the undulations, and it was not until we reverted back to our animals that I was able to regain them and remember to apply them to all of Jackson's movements.

• Eating. Eating just didn't work for Jackson. The issue is that when I eat (and because I did so much eating as the heron), I want to eat by jabbing my head at the food and using a beak that isn't there. This doesn't really work for most foods, let alone drinks. So in order to feed Jackson (which I had to do several times - dancing is a calorie-burner!), I cheated a bit; I kept the animal brain and let that guide me physically, but I did physically that which I had to do to get food and drink into my mouth. It was not a pretty sight.

• Reacting to everything that was going on around me. There was so much going on around me - every few minutes a new scuffle would start between two characters, or people would start yelling at each other, or people would be dancing inappropriately on the dance floor - and I just couldn't respond to it all. And perhaps I shouldn't have. I didn't respond to all of it in Watering Hole; in that exercise, I just chose to respond to what was happening directly around me, and it made reacting much easier. Here, though, I felt like the energy was higher because people were simply moving more. As animals, we tended to stay in one place for a while, take in what was going on around us, then move on to the next place; but as human characters, we were always on the move (except for the gorilla characters, and a few others). So I often had to pick and choose what I wanted to react to. For example, Tsilala and Taylor's characters got into a fight right next to me at one point, but I chose to simply not react to the situation. Thinking about it now, I perhaps should have - but what was I going to do? Jackson is a peaceful person, not one to step in the middle of a violent fight, and that's what security is for anyways. And I didn't feel in danger as the character. So I simply walked away and kept dancing.

Perhaps, in that way, dance became for me like a status quo for movement - my "greatest hits." As this was a social dance, I don't think that that was a terribly awful decision; but if I could do this over again, I think I would actually want to dance less, and explore what else there was to do in the room besides dancing.

So, overall, the Social Dance was quite an incredible experience for Jackson du Blanc. He met dozens of new people, had the opportunity to dance with lots of different types, and he even stepped back into his animal character in the moments of extreme stress. As an actor, what I learned from this is to go places that are uncomfortable, like dancing with Olivia's character (who was practically immobile the whole time). I learned much about Jackson's connection to his animal that I will definitely be able to use for characters in the future. And finally, I was given yet another opportunity to step outside of Brian Pettitt-Schieber and try something new with the other members of the Acting class - and, from their comments afterwards, they really enjoyed acting with Jackson. In fact, a few have told me that they miss Jackson, even though it has been less than a week since the Social Dance. Perhaps we will see him again?

Private Moment Redux

I was given the opportunity today to do something that I feel like I rarely get to do in Acting class - rework and re-perform a previous exercise. Now, the fact that I usually need to rework my exercises to bring them up to my level of satisfaction says much about my working method, and the rest of the class's working method, in Matt's opinion. He discussed recently in class about how we were "waiting" to improve, like God was going to come down out of the sky one of these days and touch us and we would become ACTORS. Well, what are we waiting for? Before we know it, we'll be seniors, and at the rate we're going will we be any better at acting? (directing for me?) It's a good note to have because it's really all about your mindset. If you say, "OK, I'm going to go this far and then stop," the only thing stopping yourself is how high you set the bar for yourself. But if you say, "OK, I'm going to go this far, and then take a rest, and then keep going," you'll simply get farther. Not only that, but if I think about it, when again in my life will my parents pay for me to go to college for 4 years to just study directing/acting? Where I have no other responsibilities except to keep myself well-fed and well-slept and study the art form? So really, if I change my mindset, I can imagine myself really developing over the course of these 4 years and, perhaps as a goal to set for myself, creating work I'm really proud of and can show people after I have graduated.

Anyways, pep talk over. Before I get into how I developed my Private Moment, I want to discuss another exercise that really has helped me solidify Jackson's character - making my resume. The making of the resume was really a fun thing, because Jackson's history was completely up to me - I could make him into whatever I wanted him to be. So I ran with the idea of this obsessed dance artist, and I used something important I discovered in the General Hospital improv last week - Jackson du Blanc is French. The French accent gave me something to work with that immediately took me away from Brian Pettitt-Schieber - I was surprised at how easily it was to be somebody completely different just by having an accent! I suppose this is why they say language is everything. So I worked with the idea that Jackson was raised in France, worked on the streets of Barcelona in Las Ramblas for a while, went to a French dance academy, and moved to New York to continue to craft his form. While he was in New York, he interned at the Alvin Ailey school where an agent saw him and got him work with The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, after which he made it big and performed at (!) Super Bowl XLV as will.i.am's understudy. Kind of ridiculous, I know, but that's how talented Jackson du Blanc is.

Even better preparation for the Private Moment (although I had to wait to do my Private Moment until Monday) was when I used this resume for the job interview. Matt asked me a few questions about my training and why I moved to the United States (because New York City is at the forefront of contemporary dance, obviously) and what I would do if I couldn't dance (probably use my minor in gender studies to examine the roles of men and women in society - but I would still dance on the side). More than anything, practicing conversation in my French accent with another person was perhaps one of the best outcomes from the interview.

I also had to practice my movements for the Private Moment Redux, however, and I used these as I walked to and from the job interview. I keep my walk with my shoulders and head held high, like the heron, but I give my head freedom of movement to bobble around as I go. The undulations move through my legs as I walk - I try to lift my thigh first, then roll the energy down my leg as I poke my foot forward. So I end up lifting my thigh vertically and moving my feet forward horizontally. The undulation also moves subtly through my upper body, although it stays generally straight. I try to only let my arms move from side to side, like I'm flapping my wings, but this is difficult to keep. I run against this problem: as a dancer, Jackson should be in full control of all of his body parts; but as a heron, he really shouldn't be using his hands, and he shouldn't be moving his arms around in front of his body. So I have to compromise between my idea of who Jackson is and the animal brain I am using while controlling his body.

After practicing the job interview, with my accent and walk, I then had a weekend to improve my Private Moment to show again. I decided to change the song, first of all - no more dubstep! I instead used a song called "Ca m'enerve" ("He annoys me") by Helmut Fritz. An upbeat French song. I then decided that, instead of having a loose idea of what I was going to do like I did for the Private Moment, I would write it out and create a story arc out of it - give the audience something to root for and give me some stakes to play with. So, running with the idea that "dance is my soul," I started with my morning routine - gelling up my hair, buttoning my shirt and popping my collar, and putting on my shoes and my headphones. I've gotta look fresh. Then, I stepped onto my yoga mats and did my morning routine - head rolls, arm (wing) flaps, with undulations all up and down my arms, and leg-balancing exercises - the same exercises I would do to improve my balance for the heron! I really tried to keep as much "heron" as I could in all my movements. Then, I exited my house and displayed my moves on the street. This time, instead of tripping and falling on my own accord (something, in retrospect, the trained artiste Jackson would never do), I instead tripped on a banana peel someone had carelessly tossed onto the ground - how rude! And what was even worse, I hurt my ankle! Using this banana peel gave me something to play against as I looked around to see who had thrown it - but I could not see who it was. So, dejected and physically hurt, I put my music back on to console myself (Jack Johnson's "Belle," another song with French lyrics) and walked back inside.

This showing of my Private Moment was well-received and I think it showed a closer connection to my animal. I focused less on what was happening in the moment and focused more on how Jackson, with the heron brain, would react to what was happening. I went through a more detailed journey, and I showed the range of Jackson's emotions more. By this point, I would like to think that I have a good sense of who Jackson is - but I'm always open to discovering new things.

Private Moment (Jackson Gets Down)

I performed my Private Moment for Jackson today, and I think I made some key discoveries that will help me as I continue to develop this character. In thinking of what to do for the Private Moment, I was really trying to pull some characteristics I had found with the blue heron that worked well. The key, I have found, to performing the blue heron is to imbue the heron with some kind of human characteristic. Matt is always talking about animals with human characteristics, and that helps me understand (get inside the mind of) them, because then I can judge how they will react to certain situations. (And if there is anything to be learned about acting from animals, it is how to react with complete and utter honesty. For example, an experienced CMU actor will not react in the slightest if the walls in the studio next to him start to shake, as often happens in our acting class - but how would a bird react if the walls started to shake? A bird, due to its lack of awareness of what's really happening, would perk up, recognizing a threat, and take every sound and movement into its awareness).

So, the upshot of this method of looking at the blue heron is that I took a key characteristic that I found in it and translated that to my Private Moment. I chose the word "proud," because, based on the costume I picked and the way I worked my character before the Private Moment, this seemed to me to be something I could hold on to. My blue heron, as all blue herons are, was king of his ecosystem. He will eat anything without prejudice, and he does a very good job of not getting eaten. With his incredibly large wingspan, he can soar off to different places with grace and ease, and finding food for him is never a problem. As I explored this in the exercises done after I picked my costuming (a blue polka-dot shirt, tight black corduroys, and flashy LaCoste white shoes), I found that this new human character wanted to be graceful, at ease in his situations, but he did not like being offended and had a very high sense of who he was. In translating this to a Private Moment, I decided to try dancing, because that is perhaps the perfect example of a being using their body with grace and ease while being proud at the same time. What really called to me for this moment was using dubstep - when I listened to it with my animal brain, I found that it had Jackson had a peculiar attraction to it.

So, for my Private Moment, I decided to go for it - to just throw it all in the wind and make a strong choice. Using the word "proud" as my guideline, I decided that, to Jackson, it didn't matter what people thought about his dancing, which freed me to dance however I wanted (a good thing considering my lack of dance training!) My choice was to have Jackson get ready in his house, prepare himself to look good, then go out into the street and start dancing to dubstep. The conflict of the moment occurred when Jackson accidentally tripped and fell - he was surprised that he had fallen, and it shook him up, but he is the kind of person that will get back up again and continue dancing, and that is what he did.

This moment worked for Jackson as a starting point, and comments from Matt afterward really helped me develop the character. Matt suggested that I really investigate Jackson's relationship to his dance - that perhaps "dance is a connection to his soul," and so when he falls, the fall is more severe - the stakes are higher. Instead of simply being embarrassed that he fell, perhaps he must stop the dance because his connection to the dance has now been severed. These ideas were quite interesting and will give me some things to consider as I rehash my Private Moment. What I would like to develop for the next showing of the Private Moment is 2 things: a better definition of who Jackson is, and a stronger story within the moment itself. At the moment, there is not much of a story because the stakes aren't very high, and I haven't found a strong ending - but by finding the conflict, the obstacles, the reversals in the action, and deciding on a strong ending, I will have something stronger to show the class.

A Number

I wanted to jot down a couple thoughts I had on the acting in A Number, because, as both a director and an actor, I am trying to develop my skills at seeing what good acting looks like, and what challenges me or affects me the most.

• The first thing I want to talk about is Denver's performances. I say performances because I really liked the variety in Denver's characters - for each scene I could tell that he had really worked on creating the specifics of different characters. In the first scene, as Alex's son he had raised, he went through a specific journey of finding out he was one of 20 clones - and through that journey I saw a specific character portrayed. Then, in the 2nd scene, and then again in the 4th scene, I saw a very definite other character - angrier, with more passion, and with a bone to pick with his father. What is quite interesting and quite relevant to the work I'm doing now is what Denver talked about during Conservatory Hour - that he actually used a dog as his "animal" for the clone of the second scene. This was quite interesting because I could tell, especially by the way he handled his chair, that he had this 'dog' attitude about him. And then, of course, his third character, which in his dim-wittedness was quite funny and provided a cute, although not incredible, ending to the show. So it was a good example of two things: how to differentiate 3 characters played by 1 person in the same show and how to use an animal in a performance. Bravo, Denver! Thank you for keeping me engaged.

• Alex's performance as the father of the clones was the more difficult role, and made me realize something important about acting. I think Alex did a very good job, and he played it his best. Although sometimes I was looking for a little more variety in his character, he was responding well to what Denver was giving him. The issue was, I think (and this was confirmed to me by Jed Harris and Matt) that it is not really possible for a CMU School of Drama student, a 22-year old, to play such an old role - and I think especially a father's role - without having enough life experience behind him. Jed was telling me that "in ten years, he'll be itching to get his hands back on this role to give it another shot," and I think that that is an important thing to think about when casting, or deciding which show to do. How well can even the best CMU actor perform an old man's role? I saw the same problem in The Wind Farmer - I really just wanted the actor to be older, to act older, to move slower and with more weight into the floor, instead of young and sprightly. I even left the show thinking, "Is it possible for a man to play a father's role like this without having had kids, or without having done extensive research into what it's like to lose a kid?" I'm not yet sure. Matt thinks it's possible, but I'll have to see - I just haven't seen it done yet.

Michael Chekhov Exercise - thoughts

Every so often in Acting class, you do an exercise that just kind of blows your mind - tears it apart and forces you to rethink the old judgements and barriers you had to what was possible. I'm happy to say that the exercise today was one of those days. We did a Michael Chekhov exercise in which we explored 4 movements: Molding, Floating, Flying, and Radiating. I want to discuss two things - 1st, how exploring Flying changed how I will relate to performing the blue heron in the future; and 2nd, how exploring Radiating actually brought me to tears, and what that teaches me about the power of the human imagination. (Side note: Molding and Floating were both interesting, but I did not experience them as deeply as I experienced Flying and Radiating. I was sitting back in my judgement corner for a lot of Molding, and it was honestly difficult for me to imagine what Floating upwards through water would feel like. But I was working very hard through both of them and it payed off for the last two).

So, Flying! That was such an incredible experience. We floated up through the air until we were up on top of a tree branch, and then we were invited to fly to another branch in the room - and all of a sudden I realized the mistake I had been making with the heron for so long. Every time I imagined the heron flying, I imagined him starting at the ground and flying up to something - so every time he had to flap his wings to get up into the air. Here, though, we were already in the air, and when we were flying Matt told us to imagine we were lighter than air - and all of a sudden I had a breakthrough from my old way of heron flying. Instead of flapping my wings, I simply spread them out, and the wind took over and glided me to the next branch. Instead of flying, now I was soaring! The key difference was that before, I had never imagined the heron to be lighter than air, perhaps because my legs were always connected to the ground and that distracted me. In any case, and after watching more heron videos, I have found that the heron, with its giant wings, actually doesn't have to flap its wings very much - it can just gracefully soar from branch to branch. Discovering this was an epiphany, and something I will bring into my work in the future - not just with the heron, but with any character that needs to have the appearance of being lighter than air.

The part of the exercise that moved me, and made it a game-changing exercise in the end, was the Radiating part - the end. We stood on a small silver platform and were raised up, up, up, through the clouds, through the atmosphere, out to the edge of space. What really got me into the exercise was that I took my time with it - I closed my eyes and imagined seeing the ground from tree level, then from cloud level, then from atmosphere level, until I could see the curvature of the Earth. We were then told that the energy from the sun, our life source, was actually mimicked by a small sun within all of us that was radiating outwards, heating up the Earth with our hearts. I don't remember exactly when I started to cry, but I know it was at the point when I realized, without a doubt, that I was completely and utterly alone - completely cut off from the rest of the human race. Writing about it now, it seems a little ridiculous; I mean obviously I wasn't, right? I was still in Studio A. But my imagination took me to a place I had never been before, and I swear I experienced what it was like to be in outer space. And I honestly don't know how astronauts do it. It was just about the worst feeling I've ever had. I suppose because they go up with other people, it's not as bad, but that feeling of loneliness is fucking brutal. It was slightly relieved when Matt told us to start accepting the radiation from the other members of the class in space with us, to both radiate and accept radiation at the same time, but I think that relief was quickly replaced by more angst when Matt told us to direct our radiation at a place somewhere on Earth that was important to us. I, of course, directed it straight at my wonderful home in Stone Mountain, GA, and I imagined my mother cleaning the kitchen inside and my father sitting at his computer, and at this point I was bawling, but I kept radiating. And radiating. And accepting radiation. It was a new feeling, but something I need to keep using in the future in my characters, because I rarely stop to think about the energy I am giving to my partner - just what I am receiving. And I need to be experiencing and understanding both in order to be an effective actor.

Anyways, after I stopped crying and came back down to Earth and debriefed with my fellow actors, I realized my imagination can really take me places I've never been before. It really is a transformation in sensuality - how specific and authentic can you make your environment, your where? How does this outer environment affect the inner self (because it always does)? As Matt said, the exercise doesn't work on you emotionally - it works on you sensually. The emotions are just a byproduct of the specificity of your where and the strength of your imagination.

Besides a revelation in how strong I can make my "where," I also have 4 new tools in my toolbox: Molding, Floating, Flying, and Radiating. As the blue heron, I will definitely work with Flying, but I am also going to try experiment with Radiating and Molding too - like how could Molding be used when I stand up or sit down? Like Matt said, "Flying into Molding is a clearer beat change than 'OMG my life is changing!'" So these 4 techniques will be new ways to approach a character, an action, a beat change, and give me a new perspective on what I am doing as an animal/character.

The Problem with Niche Theatre

We had a really interesting conversation in Acting class today that I want to write down my thoughts on, because it's something I've been dealing with since coming to CMU. Before I came to CMU, I didn't really know how the theatre business worked - I mean I had a general idea, but I didn't know a lot of the specifics. One of the specifics that really blew my mind was how cultish the theatre is, and how people can be so put off by it. But I mean, why should they be? It's not that much different from film, right?

Not true, and here's why. First off, people see it as over-intellectual - like they can't just sit back and enjoy it when it's really "good" theatre. My sister, a chemical engineering student at Georgia Tech (go Jackets!) is exactly like that. I talk to her about theatre and it often times puts her off, and quite understandably. See, this is the issue I have, which is that many of these stereotypes that people put on theatre - well, see, actually they're kind of true. I enjoy theatre I have to struggle with to understand, something I have to uncover like it's an egg waiting to be hatched, but a good portion of people, and perhaps the majority, don't enjoy struggling to understand theatre. They want to see a good story, well-acted but not necessarily creatively directed.

Another shocker for me, and this relates to the first point, is that theatre is often times made only for theatre-goers - and this is exactly how I felt about the new work Blind Alley Guy. I actually enjoyed Blind Alley Guy, despite the fact that I couldn't always follow it, but I was not immune to the fact that Blind Alley Guy was made exclusively for Eugene O'Neill fanatics. Like, seriously. It was basically a creative way to show Eugene O'Neill's notes on his final play and the things he was struggling with as he wrote it. Instead of writing O'Neill's final play, the deviser/director took the script notes and created a play out of them. Now, this is a really cool idea for a play, and I think it worked out reasonably well for them, especially on their first try - but what is the point?

The problem is it was a niche theatre piece, a piece made only for theatregoers, and unfortunately, leaving the theatre, I did not gain much from it. I was not taken on a journey, I did not feel for the characters, and all those other things you're supposed to get from a theatre piece. Or are you? Perhaps Blind Alley Guy didn't want to take you on a journey, didn't want to make you see the characters go on an arc - perhaps it just wanted to be clever and kind of funny, which it was. So is this acceptable as a piece of theatre?

I would say it is. Here's the thing: it would be naive to say that theatre has only one purpose. Obviously, a Eugene O'Neill play is going to give the audience different things than a Broadway musical (and you could even argue that different showings of the same Eugene O'Neill play is going to give the audience different things on different nights.) Maybe the director of Alley Guy only wanted me to leave the theatre with what I did. In that case, he accomplished his goal. The only thing is that I was not fully satisfied. I was intellectually satisfied, to some extent, but not emotionally satisfied, and that angered me. And the only reason I was intellectually satisfied is because I am a director and I appreciate the work done with O'Neill's scraps of script, even though I knew little about his life before seeing this play.

So what I'm trying to say here is that I think theatre can do a lot of different things, but some of those things won't always satisfy the audience in the way they want to be satisfied. One of the things a theatre piece can do is be niche and only play for the CMU School of Drama and no one outside of it - and that's perfectly fine as long as you don't have higher aspirations. A theatre piece can also just try to be clever and interesting but not emotionally appealing, and that's also perfectly fine as long as you don't have higher aspirations. But I have higher aspirations for what I put onstage, and I have higher aspirations for what I think CMU SOD should be putting onstage, so next time, Blind Alley Guy - do something my sister would enjoy.

The Wind Farmer

I have just seen Dan O'Neill's The Wind Farmer, dir. by Jessica Mills, and I saw some very specific things in it that I have been working on in acting class that it would be beneficial for me to discuss. Overall, I didn't think the script was bad - the subject matter was very interesting, contemporary and relevant, and the characters could have been really engaging - but unfortunately it appeared to me like the actors were generally playing on one note and that they weren't going anywhere. I also thought that the stakes just weren't very high, in any of the scenes, despite the constant arguments between the characters.

There are several reasons for why I reacted as I did above. The first, and most glaringly obvious flaw in all three actors' performances, was simply the pacing of the dialogue. It was so fast that I almost had trouble keeping up. I can see how keeping the dialogue fast made the scenes funnier, wittier, etc., but no one was listening to each other or responding to what the other person was saying. There were a few times when the characters' reactions would actually jump the previous character's line by a few seconds! What would have made more sense, if the director was really intent on keeping a quick pace to the play, would have been to keep the daughter's lines fast and, in contrast, slow down the father's and the stranger's lines. But the way it was, there was no contrast, and no believability to the rapidity of their speech.

Stemming off of this, I really didn't see the characters going anywhere, or taking blows, or trying different tactics. I could see them going for the objective - I could see the stranger convincing, to his best, that the farm should be sold, and the old man, to his best, convincing the stranger that his connection to the farm was more important than the world's need for green energy. The issue was that "the stranger convincing the old man that the farm should be sold" was really just the stranger yelling at the old man for 10-minute long scenes, and the old man yelling back. What would have been stronger, if the old man was really this intent on keeping the farm, would have been if the old man, at the start at least, ignored the stranger completely, and didn't let him inside the house so easily. Then the stranger would have had to work to get inside the house, and even getting into a conversation with the old man would have been an achievement. As it was, nobody achieved anything.

The yelling I mentioned above was repetitive and, accompanied by the pace of the dialogue, the reason I felt like the scenes weren't going anywhere. During the play, I kept thinking about the opening scene to Inglourious Basterds, one of my favorite Tarantino films. In that opening scene, the villain of the movie, Hans Landa, comes to the Frenchman's house to make sure he is not hiding Jews. Landa's men are waiting outside to kill the Frenchman and anyone inside the house if there are any Jews inside, and we learn halfway through the scene that there are Jews hiding under the floorboards. Now, the stakes here are obviously incredibly high - but the two actors (Christoph Waltz and Denis Menochet), in ironic contrast, engage in quiet, cordial conversation that in fact increases the tension because they are not yelling at each other! Hans Landa does not need to yell at the Frenchman, because he has the force of a Nazi regiment behind him; and the Frenchman, because the stakes are so high, doesn't dare yell at the Nazi officer. Now, imagine if the scenes in The Wind Farmer had been treated this way? If, instead of yelling, they quietly battled, leaving most under the surface, making the yelling a climax instead of the norm? I assert that the scenes would have been stronger and more engaging to watch.

Finally, as a result of the quick-paced dialogue, the lack of listening and really giving and receiving blows, and the repetitive tactics in pursuit of the objective (i.e., yelling), the play simply did not have very high stakes and I didn't care what happened at the end - I didn't care whether the farmer signed it or not, and I wasn't fully engaged by the question of whether his land was worth more to him than to the clean energy company. The debates in the script were quite interesting, and if paced correctly would be very engaging to interact with - but as it was, I felt like I was watching more of a political debate than a piece of theatre.

Animal Brain, Human Brian

We had an exciting exercise today - we took our first step towards our transition into human characters. Starting with an animal character improvisation, we, step-by-step, began to exchange our animal parts with human parts. The first to go were the feet - suddenly I had a heron's body with human feet! Then ankles, knees, thighs, hips, etc., moving up into the upper body and finally the head. But never, of course, the brain - the brain was still an animal brain. Then we explored the room, trying out our new human limbs for the first time, seeing how we would treat and react to the various things in the room. Then we began interacting with people with the word "Hi," although the way we used the word "Hi" was completely up to our interpretation and did not have to have anything to do with a greeting. Finally, we were allowed to use names, and to play with the sounds of different names, and perhaps even introduce ourselves.

Reflections on the Exercise

I found a lot of cool new things in my animal today as I transitioned into a human being. Having human limbs, as a start, was absolutely revolutionary - especially having hands. When I obtained hands, I just wanted to touch everything in the room, to see how it felt to grasp it in my fingers. What an experience! It was like I had discovered a new color. I touched not only things in the room, but my own body. I felt what it was like to have human skin, human teeth, human fingernails, and with my animal brain it was like I was exploring my own body for the first time.

Not having wings or a beak was another huge transformation. Moving my arms was a surprise for me, and I even was acting like I had a phantom beak - trying to poke at things with my mouth and my tongue without fully realizing that they functioned completely differently from my beak.

I also experimented with what it was like to lie on the floor, to roll around, to make movements that the heron could not have accomplished. While I don't know if I'll be able to bring these movements into my human character for the bird, I still liked to experiment with them to challenge my animal brain into exploring the world around me. That's what I really liked about today - it was about exploring our environment in a completely new way, much like I explored Studio A during Watering Hole. Except this time, I was exploring it as a newly transformed human being. So I tried out lots of different things and made discoveries of Studio A that I had begun to take for granted as both Brian P-S and the blue heron.

And, of course, interacting with the other characters was just as fun, because it was so completely new. I was meeting people for the first time, except they weren't really fully formed people because we were trying out so many different ways of interacting with each other. I used "Hi" in about 10,000 different ways, trying to elicit different responses from different people. I used it to attack Jordan, for example, but I also used to seduce Andrea. We were all playing, in a state of anything-goes, and that was really engaging to be a part of.

After today, I'm really excited to see where our characters go from here. Honestly, I think my character could go in several different directions; I'm going to need lots of exercises like the one today to decide on what works for the blue heron, and what doesn't work. But getting to play without limits today created a state of fun that really opened me up to what is possible.

Watering Hole

Watering Hole

Yesterday the entire Acting class came together and performed Watering Hole in Studio A. The experience was messy, fun, and exciting - I was subjected to stimulations that my animal, the blue heron, had not yet experienced, so there was always something new to play with. I’ll discuss Watering Hole in terms of what worked, what didn’t work, discoveries I made, and any other thoughts that I have on the work we accomplished yesterday.

WHAT WORKED:

• Exploration. The first aspect of Watering Hole that I really enjoyed was that I got to really explore Studio A. The room was quite different from the way it usually is, and when we walked in the room, we were immediately suggested by Barbara and Ingrid to take in the room as much as we could - to become comfortable in where we were and what there was to engage with in the room. The exploration that I undertook in the first 5 minutes established the “where” for me very well, and I immediately identified the places where the blue heron was most likely to hang out: in or around the water in the middle of the room, or the water near the window. I also found my food sources. What was nice about the complexity of the room is that, as the exercise progressed, I was still able to discover new things about my where even after my focus had shifted away from exploring everything in the room. As the exercise progressed, I found that the heron would always be, in the background, in a state of exploration - the heron is always ready to discover what’s underneath a pile of newspaper or around the other side of a block.

• Keeping focus on the immediate. For much of the start of Watering Hole, I was overwhelmed - so many noises, so many animals, so much movement! A real blue heron would be completely freaked out by 3 elephants and a tiger scampering by. But I found a way to focus my attention so that I could handle what was going on around me and respond specifically and appropriately, and that was by focusing mostly on what was happening within about a 5-foot radius of me. That way, I could have interactions and specific communication with the other animals instead of trying to communicate with every other animal in the room. So, for example, instead of looking to see what Kyle's condor was up to on the other side of the room, I would instead look to see what Jordan's llama was up to right next to me, so that we could have some kind of interaction. In terms of what I learned from this, it became clear to me that in a seemingly overwhelming state of chaos, it is important for an actor to pay specific attention to each thing in turn instead of trying to take everything in at once.

• Maintaining the physicality. For such a long improv (more than 1hr, I believe), I really had to prepare ahead of time how I would occupy my time so that I didn't revert back into my "greatest hits." The biggest thing I found when watching the heron videos and going to the aviary was that a bird spends much of its time in one place, in one position physically, but with perhaps some isolated movement in the head or wings. So I spent much of my time maintaining balance on one leg, or two legs, or enjoying the feel of the water on my talons. I didn't force actions onto the bird, but rather I tried to work from some sense of instinct that I think I've developed over working with the bird for two weeks. Which brings me to my next point on something I tried that worked well, which was:

• Working from reactions. What is interesting about animals is, of course, how instinctual they are - and what that means in practice is that they spend much of their time reacting to their environment. What I found is that I didn't need to think of new actions to play or new things to do as the heron because there was so much to react to in the room. I could simply let it wash over me when I was unsure of where I was at the moment, and let myself listen both physically, visually, and aurally, and respond to that. I think I'm repeating myself a little here, but the main point is that a big thing I learned yesterday was listening to my environment and reacting honestly to it.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK:

• Eating. My beak, despite my best efforts, is simply not up to par with the strength and capabilities of a heron's beak. I've tried to reinforce it with plastic cut from a gallon of milk, but that hasn't done much. So during Watering Hole, I was finding tons of food that the heron would eat, but I didn't have the satisfaction of being able to pick it up and eat it. I mimed it, of course, so I could practice the movements of eating, but it was disappointing for me not to be able to realistically portray the heron eating - especially because I feel like I have the movements down very well after watching so many videos of the heron eating and after practicing it in class.

• Flying. Flying through the classroom was quite difficult for me today because there were so many animals in the room - I wanted to fly over them to get to the other side of the room, but of course I had to use my legs to get there and maneuvering between them was difficult. So I flew, but the flying was not natural or graceful like the bird - it was dodgy and uneven. I wasn't really able to take advantages of the undulations of flying while I was doing it.

• Killing/Being Killed. When we were allowed to start killing and being killed, I immediately looked around and realized something very grave: everyone is a threat. I could no longer be next to a bear or monkey without being afraid that they were going to attack me. Right from the start, I could tell that Taylor was after me, and sure enough she assaulted me about 30 seconds into the killing section. I tried to fly away, but due to a wing malfunction I didn't move very fast and she nabbed my wing, rendering me almost immobile. I ran straight into a herd of elephants who I thought were trying to kill me (turns out they were just trying to push me away), and so I just decided to lay down and die. It was a very anticlimactic ending to the exercise. As the blue heron, I am actually king of my ecosystem, and I was planning on nabbing a naked mole-rat or two before I was killed, but I didn't get the opportunity. However, that initial realization of "Oh my God, anyone can kill me now" was quite interesting because, in one moment, my relationship and method of communication with the other animals completely changed. It's like people who walk around and take everyone else as a threat to their existence - they're not very amicable or fun to be around because they're always on the look-out. I'm not sure to what level an animal is always on the look-out; I think it's a background instinct, part of that background listening that is on the other side of the coin of constantly exploring the environment around you. It's hard to know when you can't get inside the mind of the heron, but I think I can find a compromise in the future between knowing that I could be killed and having the courage to step outside of that and explore my beautiful environment anyways.

Trainspotting

I recently saw Danny Boyle's Trainspotting for the first time, and I have to say: after watching the movie very attentively for 1 hr. and 30 mins I still don't know why it's called "Trainspotting." That's not really my issue with the movie, though; I have many others that I will discuss in this review, because I feel quite strongly about how bad this movie was. I went in expecting something quick, edgy, and foreign, like Snatch, and instead I left the theater feeling like I had seen something dull, boring, and forced - not like Snatch. I will try to pinpoint the issues I had with Trainspotting by bullet-pointing the main issues I had (not to mention I like to use bullet points).

• The voiceover. The fucking voiceover was the first thing I reacted violently to in the movie. I thought the visuals of the first scene were quite interesting, and by themselves would have been a catchy intro to the movie - but the voiceover completely killed it, along with every other scene it was in. When I'm in a movie, I don't need to be told the theme of the movie in the first 3 minutes or I won't be surprised by the development of the movie - the journey of the characters through the plot. What Trainspotting did was explicitly say, in the voiceover, how all these heroin addicts were choosing a fix over "life," and, of course, the last line of the voiceover at the end of the movie was Ewan McGregor saying "I choose life." Now, my question is: shouldn't I, as an intelligent audience member, be able to see that he chooses life by the actions he takes in the movie without the need for a voiceover to enlighten me? Apparently not...

• The plotline. I don't even know what to say about the plot except that it was didn't go anywhere, it was confusing and even disjunct at several places, and OH WAIT nothing happens. Literally I spent 3/4 of the movie wondering to myself, "Why am I watching this? What about this situation is important for the characters?" Of course, throwing in a dead baby and a tough withdrawal provided McGregor with obstacles to fight against, but I didn't see how he grew from those struggles at all. In the end, the big thing that everything was leading up to was Ewan McGregor stealing money from his friends, which he does in the entire movie anyways, so at the end I was quite angry at feeling like I had just watched an hour and a half of nothingness.

• The subject matter. Trainspotting is basically a comedy of heroin addicts - a funny version of Requiem for a Dream. Except nothing about Requiem is funny... at all. It is the single most depressing movie I have ever seen, because it deals honestly and appropriately with its subject matter. Now, I'm not totally against the idea of a comedy based on heroin addicts - I think Tarantino did a damn good job making a comedy out of killing Nazis in Inglorious Basterds, to make some kind of a connection with dark comedies - but heroin addiction is a serious matter that must be dealt with just as honestly as Requiem did it. As Matt says, assume at least 10% (20%?) of the audience has had direct experience with the subject matter. I don't have any experience with heroin addicts, but I can at least tell you that in most of the scenes I didn't care about Ewan McGregor's struggles. Which brings me to my final point...

• The acting. Once again, I have difficulties seeing where the problems with the script end and the problems with the acting begin. I don't think Ewan McGregor is a terrible actor, but his performance felt "acted," probably because if he had dealt with his addiction honestly it would not have been a comedy. The other characters were generally unmemorable, except for Begbie - Robert Carlyle's depiction of a hard-ass fighter was fun to watch. If the other supporting characters (Sick Boy, Spud, Tommy) had been as well defined and as clearly acted as Begbie, perhaps there would have been some interesting ensemble relationships developing through the course of the movie - but I couldn't really keep track of who was who, let alone what kind of a character they were.

In all, I'm glad I saw Trainspotting because I learned the problems with the overuse of voiceover, the need to have an engaging and well-paced script, and the problem with not dealing with the subject matter appropriately. But I still wish I had that 90 minutes of my life back.

Notes on Animal Project

A few notes that I have been given from Matt in the past few classes that have really helped me improve:

• Go outside of your animal's "Greatest Hits." Without realizing it, I fell into the trap that Matt pointed out after one of our first animal improvs - I was only doing the Blue Heron's "greatest hits." My greatest hits, as I have identified them, are: eating food, lifting my foot in the air, preening my wings, attempting flight, eating more food, darting my head around, and eating more food. Obviously, you can see how this might get boring after about 10 minutes! So I am going to work on branching out by reacting to things around me, and that will hopefully give me more inspiration for new movement and physicality.

• UNDULATIONS. This concept, once I started practicing it, has really transformed my animal. The idea is that movement is not here and then there - it undulates like a wave, and the best way to think about any kind of movement for your animal is the undulation. That way, you're moving naturally and specifically instead of making generalized actions. An example is when I walk as the bird. I know I should lead with my foot - but it doesn't look natural when I simply stick my foot out and put it down. Rather, it works better when I lift with my thigh and undulate the movement all the way down to my foot, finally ending by sticking my foot out. The same can be used for my work with my head and shoulders. Instead of bobbing my head out and sideways, I instead start an undulation in my spine that moves through my neck and into my head, engaging my entire core in the movement. The effect works really well!

• A note that Matt gave me from the start that has helped me perform the heron is the way I hold my back. In my first improv with the bird, I hunched my shoulders and tried to raise my head at the same time, trying to mimic what the bird looked like exactly. As you might be able to guess, this was not sustainable for more than 4 minutes. I had to raise my back before it literally fell off, and my head was never static. My problem here was that I wasn't properly transposing the bird's posture onto my own body. A heron (see pic) may look like it is hunched forward, but it is actually standing up straight - it simply that the wings come out the back. The wings do not hunch the bird over - in fact, they help it to stand up straight. So instead of hunching my back over, I held it up straight, pretending that my entire spine was the bird's neck. Then, with the creation of wings, I will be able to jut my hands behind my back and get that sideways volume that makes it look like the heron is hunched over:

Also notice something very interesting about the heron that I had never noticed about bird before this project: their legs bend FORWARDS. Like their knees are backwards. This is quite a challenge for me to figure out, but I will keep playing with it in rehearsal. Once again, I will have to not try to make myself look exactly like the bird, but instead copy the key characteristics of the bird.

Blue Heron

After performing our first exercise yesterday as our animals, it has become clear to both me and Matt that the White-Faced Saki simply won't work. We did an exercise in which we began to inhabit our animal - I worked with one of the 3-legged tables in Studio A to try to replicate the swinging off the branches that I saw at the zoo, but it just wasn't happening. A big problem is my broken thumb - that really limits my mobility and thus my possibilities.

So I tried something new, and Thomas Moore and I went to the National Aviary! It was an incredible experience. It kicked the zoo's ass by a factor of like 12 to 1. The birds were much more active, much more fascinating, very social, and I enjoyed spending time with them very much. I went there specifically looking for the Great Blue Heron, a bird I once saw in coastal Georgia that caught my imagination, just because it's so badass - it's huge and beautiful and graceful. However, they didn't have the Great Blue Heron. They had herons, but not the Great Blue. Set on performing the heron, I decided to spend my time watching the pelican instead, which provided me with lots of specific movements that I think I can transfer to the heron. A video I took (too large to be uploaded) that I will continue to watch in order to find movements for the bird has really informed my practice. What seems key is that, like the White-Faced Saki, the bird also preens, except it preens itself with its beak - it turns its head 180 degrees!

Because the Blue Heron wasn't at the aviary, I have been forced to watch lots, and lots, and lots of Youtube videos. Here are a few that have helped me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXqhrRdtl4I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO7Uunk-nfg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUM7vdGWid8&feature=related

Notice the way the legs are separate from the wings/upper body, and the way the heron naturally likes to stand still. I will try to incorporate these natural tendencies in my work. Another part of the body that is isolated is the head - it moves separate from the wings and body as the heron (with eyes on the side of its head) looks out for possible danger. Isolation is a very good tool I will use to structure my work with the heron, because then I can improve my specificity - working on every body part separately.

Animal Projects

Animal Projects have begun!

After thinking about what animals I wanted to be, I suggested to Matt that I be something big, something that takes up a lot of space, like a bear or a gorilla. I also thought a rhinoceros or giraffe would be fun to try. Matt suggested I try something down a different path, something that bounces around a lot, is always the center of commotion, and fucks up before he realizes he's fucking up. Instead of looking for a specific animal, then, I went to the zoo with just these characteristics in mind and looked at everything they had.

Well, I discovered that going to the Pittsburgh Zoo in January is not the best time to see animals bouncing around a lot. I saw a tiger pacing, and a lion sitting on his ass, and some sharks swimming. I was hoping maybe the snakes would be up to something, but not so. However, I did see an animal that I think I've decided on: the flying monkey.

I've picked the flying monkey because I'm enticed by all the possibilities for movement it presents. Here's a video I took of them that shows their capacities for movement quite well:

As you can see in the video, they are apt to be on the move - they don't like to stay in one place for too long, and they really engage with the environment around them. This is something I'd like to explore as an animal in the projects.

Another reason I picked the White-Faced Saki is another characteristic that Matt said I should check out: an animal that is always engaged with other animals. I noticed that the Saki, more than any other animal I saw at the zoo, engages with its fellow species members - picking at hairs, usually, and preening, which they do very often. This picture (sorry for the sub-par quality) shows what I am talking about:

As you can see in the photo, they really get particular with preening each other, and they are very social animals.

So as a start, I will start experimenting this week with Saki movements and playfulness and see what comes up. It may not be the best fit, but I think it will work, and I am excited for the challenges it presents.

Looking Into My Sole

Starting with the first assignment of the first acting class, it became clear that this semester is going to be all about physicality - something that I know I will enjoy working on, not only because it is one of my goals as an actor, but also because it impacts how I relate to my body and how I feel whenever I use it (which would be whenever I'm not unconscious). I picked Taylor out of the hat, and although I don't have any classes with her except acting, I was able to observe enough of her movements for the acting class to get it on the second guess. Her walk was a little difficult; I think she centered her weight around her hips but honestly it was really difficult to tell, especially because I couldn't stare at her or she would know. The most telling positions were when she was sitting - with her legs directly beneath her, or splayed off to the side - and those are the positions that, after I performed them in class, Taylor later said she identified with.

I spent a great deal more time watching the man who sells Pitt gear on the corner of Forbes and Bigelow on our second assignment. I picked him because he was standing outside (where I could watch him from lots of different angles) and he was always on his feet, giving me a good sense of his movements and where he placed his weight. I noticed several things about him that I tried to emulate in Wednesday's class:

• His pacing. This was the very first thing I noticed. He tended to walk forwards, and then backwards, turning slightly as he did so, and always placing his heel down first. Placing the heel down first slowed his movements and gave me a sense that he was choosing each step, although I doubt he was - but his movements indicated so.
• Subtle hand movements. A few things he repeated were to pull up his pants (I don't think he was wearing a belt), scratching his nose and chin, and even readjusting his junk once or twice. However, learning from the idea of specificity, I knew when emulating him that, if he only readjusted his junk once, for example, I should only do that once in my entire performance - not repeat it several times because it was one of the few things I saw.
• His reactions to the cold. It was a very, very cold day when I viewed him, and he did several things to adjust to the temperature. One was, of course, the pacing. Another was the way he stretched his fingers, opening them and closing them to increase blood flow to his hand. He also sometimes clasped his hands together.
• His weight. This guy was big - much bigger than me. I'd say at least 50 pounds heavier, probably more. Also, he was just a little bit shorter than me. I noticed that, in his slow movements, he held his weight down in his hips. He didn't move his arms much; all of his hand movements only involved the lower arms. I found it quite difficult to perform as him with that much weight, but that challenge was another reason I picked him.
• His voice. Obviously, when I had the conversation with him, I tried to immediately pick up on his accent, which I probably didn't do very successfully, but I didn't talk to him for very long.

In watching other people's performances, what immediately struck me was the small movements that they had all picked up on to emulate - Chris's tapping of the credit card, Taylor's nervous grasping of her wallet, etc. Some of them had done very convincing accents, as well, and of course their general body movements were varied. I thought Zanny performed especially well the speech pattern of the RiteAid manager - the way she was always trying to find common ground with the customer, to please the customer, was realistic and something I come across all the time. And it wasn't just the speech pattern - it came out in her face and her body movements as well. Very well done!

Of course, watching all these people's physical movements, performing as other people, makes me notice my own body movements even more. I have been investigating my own body since I came to CMU, because I know there are things I need to work on. I have grown a LOT in the past two or three years - about 5" - and I am not yet quite comfortable with my height. My posture just absolutely sucks most of the time, and I realized that perhaps it is because I am so skinny - which is why I was working on building my upper body. Working out was improving my posture because I really felt like I took up space as a result of building core muscle, but then I fell skiing. The fall not only broke my thumb, making me unable to do workouts or pushups, but also gave me a chest contusion and strained ligaments in my back. I really haven't felt the same since. I am committed to rehabilitating myself, however, and once my thumb is fully healed I will be back to stretching and exercising daily. I looked at the soles of my shoes and found something that I had already known - I usually walk more on the balls of my feet, hunching my shoulders over my feet and sticking my butt out just slightly. This makes me about 3" shorter, and it is not uncommon for me to suddenly realize I am hunched over, stand up straight, and feel COMPLETELY DIFFERENT as I walk wherever I am going. Seriously, I feel like an entirely new person, which scares me and causes me to hunch back over once I've forgotten. Habits are hard to break, but I know I'll get there.

Recent Successful and Not-So-Successful Performances

For our first journal entry, Matt asked us to discuss recent performances that we thought were particularly positive or negative. Going with what comes to mind first, I will discuss Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky's latest movie that I saw over winter break.

Overall, watching Black Swan, and often while watching many movies, it is difficult for me to separate the actor's performance from the script, from the cinematography, and from the other elements that are brought together in a film. This is probably me looking at the film from a director's standpoint. In terms of Natalie Portman's performance, then, I thought it was a successful performance insomuch as she showed a descent into the Black Swan, her "evil" side, that developed a journey for her character over the course of the movie. Now, my issue with Black Swan is that it is a one-note story: terribly predictable (is the final OMG moment where she turns into a swan at the end supposed to be a surprise?) and, as such, quite boring. I really didn't care when Portman's character died at the end, let alone when Mila Kunis's character "died." So, Portman does an excellent job of playing the innocent, sweet girl that descends into this awful bitch, but it's not a particularly exciting performance because I could see it all coming, and there was no point in the movie where I thought that Portman would actually be strong enough to resist the darker nature of herself.

As such, the only way to really appreciate Black Swan is by looking at it as Aronofsky's retelling - in a film adaptation - of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake - in which case it is very interesting. But that's not the outright point of the movie, and by itself the movie just doesn't work. The point is, however, that I wouldn't blame that on Portman, because I think she excelled in the stereotype of her character; just the fact that her character was a stereotype undercut the story.

The best parts of the movie by far were the scenes between Portman and Barbara Hershey, who played her neurotic mother. These were the best scenes because the real cause of Portman's innocence, the reason she is so perfect as a white swan, is because her mother has babied her for her entire life - but this lack of independence on Portman's side gives lead to incredible tension between the two actresses. You can see the tension in every scene between them, but it is expressed in different ways throughout the movie. At the beginning, the tension is covered up as Portman plays the subservient daughter. As Portman begins to assert her independence, that's where things get really interesting because Hershey is provoked into committing harsher acts to control her daughter and the madness in her character is revealed. Then, as Hershey starts to work harder to keep Portman under control, and as Portman accepts her "black swan" more and more, Portman fights back against Hershey, leading to hands getting smashed in doors and the like - scenes where the tension is out in the open and the two actresses are making strong choices to defeat the other.

What I also loved about those scenes were how much they reminded me of another of Aronofsky's parent-child relationships: that of Ellen Burstyn and Jared Leto in his strongest film, Requiem for a Dream. The scenes between Burstyn and Leto are successful performances in a different way - theirs is a relationship based not on hate but on love, and on Burstyn's desire that Leto become successful - whatever that may mean. Of course, Burstyn is living in a world of drugs and television that has replaced reality, and so Leto, while dealing with his own problems, must have the strength to also watch his mother spiral into madness.

The following scene in particular is an excellent performance from Burstyn. As you watch it, notice how she tries to stay strong in front of her son by not crying, by holding onto the "red dress" and being on TV, but how in doing so she even more clearly reveals the struggles that are going on inside her. Meanwhile, Leto doesn't know how to help his mother and resorts to drugs in the end to make the pain of seeing his mother like this go away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3OK0KgXjmk

(video could not be embedded)

Overall, when thinking about what makes a performance successful, especially on film, it comes down to spontaneity, making bold choices, developing a journey of the character, and reacting to the situation honestly and with great thought. The problem with the script for Natalie Portman's character was that the character's descent was entirely predictable with no opposition - no signs that might make the audience think "maybe she'll turn out alright after all." So, although Portman showed a journey very well, and her internal struggle, she didn't give me any hope that I could cling to. In Requiem for a Dream, however, all the characters seemed to have hope throughout the movie - Jared Leto thinks if he can just score that pound of pure he'll be alright, and he almost does; and then they think if they go to Florida they'll be able to escape. Ellen Burstyn loses weight, fits inside the red dress, and seems to be set to go for the television until we realize how much the drugs have actually changed her. The point is, I don't want to know where the character is going to end up halfway through the movie - so give me performances that keep me on the edge of unknowing.

Goals and Challenges

I want to start this blog - a new method of journaling for me - by stating my goals for this semester and the challenges I expect to face as I continue developing my acting skills. Last semester with Barbara Mackenzie-Wood taught me a LOT about myself - my acting abilities, my strengths, my weaknesses, and even how I naturally interact with other people - what my tendencies are and what I usually shy away from. Having never taken an acting class in high school, last semester I made some major breakthroughs in how an actor approaches his craft and what "good acting" looks like. In that spirit, I will lay down my goals - where I need to improve - and discuss the challenges that I faced, and will continue to face, this semester.

Goals:

• Listening actively. This goal I think of almost as a muscle that I have to train - train myself to be present to what is going on around me, especially with my scene partners. One of the biggest breakthroughs I made last year was when I realized that experiencing losses is a key part of listening and being a good scene partner. The most interesting scenes are a give-and-take: I go for my objective, I fail, I experience the loss, I recuperate and try again. The acting I did in high school, and much of last semester, was instead: I go for my objective, I fail, but I'm not listening, so I don't realize I fail, I just keep going expecting that if I try the same thing over and over again I will succeed. That kind of acting is really, as Matt likes to say, throwing enormous energy at the objective instead of using tactics and a small amount of energy. If I train myself to keep listening, staying in the moment, I can be more versatile and confident as my character.

• Playing for the audience. Last semester, I became quite good at playing the character internally, "feeling" the character and responding honestly, but not thinking about the audience in the process. As Matt said on Monday, the audience doesn't give a shit about what I'm feeling - they give a shit about what they're feeling. And the way I make them feel something is by playing outwards instead of inwards. So, this semester, I want to make stronger choices with the intent of provoking the audience and showing my character. An important way this will be done is by:

• Engaging my body. Already this semester we've done several exercises to engage our bodies in our work, and with the Animal Projects coming up that will be the focus of much of my work this semester. As an actor, my body and my voice are my two instruments, so I must learn how to listen to them onstage, remember that they are, in fact, there, and that they are always telling the audience something whether I am making a conscience choice of it or not. For example, if my hands are mindlessly in my pockets, that is telling the audience something, even though I probably just forgot that I had hands at all in that moment. Working with each part of the body will help me develop this, I think.

• Being specific. Matt quoted Stanislavsky on Monday when he said, "Generality is the enemy of all art," and it is an idea that I have been aware of for several years. In my Commedia dell'arte work in junior year, I learned that comedy arises out of specificity in gestures, movement, and thought, and now I am starting to see how specificity aids any theatre practice. But once again, specificity requires being on your toes as an actor, noticing the details, listening actively, and finding the unique aspects of a character that, in their minutiae, honestly tell his story.

Challenges:

• Confidence onstage. Last semester was a little rough for me - coming to college, meeting more new people than I had ever met (coming from small private schools my entire life), being in a conservatory where the other people seemed to be far more sure of their interest in a career in theatre than me, etc. - excuses and reasons and whining and such of course, most of which I am in the process of growing out of, but it affected my confidence onstage such that I was often unable to make a real stage presence. However, like I said, I made some major breakthroughs and I am excited to meet this challenge head-on this semester.

• Playing different characters. Last semester, I found that I was pretty good at playing one specific type of character (the shy, nervous, desperately-in-love type of dude, not too far removed from myself), and I would really like to explore more transformative characters this semester. I often think, and am told, that certain actors are "made" for certain parts - but what is the point in acting if I am always typecast, if I can't make a real statement as a completely different character? So this semester I am challenging myself to play something completely new, dangerous, and different.