Hitting Your Mark

This last weekend I took another acting course. The class was “Acting for the Camera”. And as advertised, that was exactly what it was. What a process this is – filming scenes. Our instructor was Darryl Cox. Darryl is a professor of Film and Video Studies at the University of Oklahoma, with an extensive movie and television background. He will soon be seen in the upcoming television series “The Deep End” which will be shown on ABC soon after the first of the year. He is very passionate about his craft and brings that passion to his class. He is very entertaining we learned so much.

He instilled in us that this class is not a competition and no one comes in first. All of us will make mistakes, but that is how you learn this craft and it is all right to get nervous when you are on camera. He tells you not to project past the camera. My over enthusiastic loud voice I found not to be appropriate. Big projection is fine for stage, but not film. That is the first of many mistakes I made. He gave us a small part to memorize and then perform in front of the camera. After my first take, he reminded me of the talking past the camera. I did better after that. It was a scene where each of us could interpret it any way we wanted. I assumed the person I was talking with was a long time employee who was trying to do something nefarious to my company. It started out with the words “You’re nothing. What I thought of you! How I felt about you-- etc”. l was full of adrenaline and really lashed out at the other person. I even scared me. I even ended the scene with a one finger expression people might use when a person cuts in front of them while driving.

Once I finished, I had to do it again. “Keep the passion but speak much softer”, was my instruction. The microphone is very close and therefore one does not need to speak loud at all. I wonder where that built up passion came from. Dad gum, I can be intimidating. I once had a lady embezzle a large sum from my business and I thought about that. Maybe that is what caused the passion. Also, could have been nervousness. I even surprised myself. The performance was repeated, I was softer, used the hand signal and walked off. I expected accolades. Instead I heard, “Your voice was better, but you still did not need to use the hand sign”. Bad news on my part. I was so concentrating on his message about not over talking the microphone, I completely missed him mentioning the hand signal. Less action is best. Growing up in a refined household, I was just not around vulgar. So from where my obscene gesture arose – I do not know. But for emphasis, I had shot the finger! Egad, you’d have thought I’d murdered someone on stage. Darryl used me as an example of “over the top” or “over acting” throughout the rest of the class. From then on through the rest of the two days, I was constantly reminded not to use gestures. It fact, it became a good hearted running joke, but I got the message.

When I arrived home that evening, I walked straight to my wife, said my spiel about, “You’re nothing! What I thought about you ..etc etc” and walked away. I found out that my new familiarity with “belittling” dialogue wasn’t popular. She came up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned around – she punched me in the stomach.

Darryl asked us do the scene again, but this time we were all on the receiving end. His intention was to have us respond naturally to what was being said to us. We were not to say a word, only react. That is much easier said than done. I was very impressed with how the class handled this. Some had great expressions and reactions. Gosh, this must be acting. He had told us to

.....It has been strongly suggested that my blogs may be too long. So, I am cutting it in half. The rest of this one is continued under the heading "Hitting The Mark 2".