Hitting The Mark 2

continuing my blog....

use experiences from our life to bring out these emotions. I think I did that with the aforementioned referenced gesture.

We learned “hitting the mark”. My slight familiarity with the phrase was close. There are marks for every person who is speaking. This first scene we did had a mark for the speaker, the person spoken to, and also a third person. This was someone who was talking to the person at the time I arrived on the scene. I learned that you do not need to move much either. If there is a close up being taken, just a few inches of movement is very noticeable on the screen.

What I found very interesting was not to panic if you forget your line. Just pause take your time and it will come to you. You know the lines, but for whatever reason you can’t recall it at that moment. The person who panics is you. Not the audience. When you see the playback, the pause is not nearly as long as you think it is while you are thinking of the line. Interesting how that works. We messed up on that, but we all eventually managed to work through it. As Darryl said, “Do not leave the scene. No one knows you made a mistake unless you announce it".

First position, second position, and so on are other terms I learned. I suppose you could have several positions but normally no more than two to three. The actor waiting off camera to enter the scene is in first position, and then when the actor enters the scene, that is second position. After that scene, we were given partners to work with on a different scene. Darryl did the match up and as luck would have it, Robin Garner, my partner from a yes and no exercise, was my scene mate. Ummm is that a phrase? We cut the scene first by doing a master. That is when the entire scene it shot at once and all players are in the scene. Then one by one each person is given a close up. Robin and I did the scene. Then the camera was placed just next to my left shoulder and they did a close up of her. We did the complete scene, but she was the only one on the camera. It was then my turn, and the camera was just behind her shooting me. Again, you do the complete scene, but only one person is on camera. I have watched television shows the past couple of nights and I see this now. I know when they do a close up, they have already done the complete scene. This is one way that the director can change the scene around for the viewing audience. But, you must make sure that the movements you make in the single scene are the same as when you do your master.

I really felt like I learned a lot in this class. I had an excellent instructor and was in the presence of very good and talented classmates. One young man was just completing a film he was producing and was taking the class to learn more about how the actors work. The name of his film is "Greyscale". Look for it soon. “Hey, Ryan! Need an old man to be someone’s father?”