As a somewhat reflective monologue-like scene, this dramatic scene
was probably the scariest scene that I have ever done. One thing that changed
the scene more than I though it ever could was lighting. It surprised me how
much turning the lights off gave the entire scene a depressing mood. The little
lanterns that Dayna, Abby, and myself held made the scene more mournful, and
though we didn't turn them off a the correct time and made it in sync, it still
looked neat how they were scattered, and surprisingly it worked out in a
certain way where they went off in the order of final solo lines, as Abby spoke
solo for the final time first, Dayna second, and myself third. This is the
order that the lights went off in the filming, which thought it was a coincidence;
I think it worked out in a nice way.
In preparation for the scene, my group did
a few acting exercises such as saying our lines as we pushed off of a wall, and
though they were a bit wacky at the time, I do think that they helped out
overall with the exaggeration of specific words and the connection of emotion
to words. We did a few other activities that worked on similar things which
were very helpful.
Timing was a bit of a struggle with this scene, as it took us
FOREVER to find a scene that we could all agree on. Though it took forever and
at first I was a bit hesitant about doing this scene, in the end I do think it
was a suitable choice for both myself and the group.
As far as my performance individually
went, I feel that this is the best scene I have done so far. Though there
is definitely still a lot of room for improvement, I think that my emotional
portrayal as well as line memorization were very good, especially in comparison
to my other scenes that I have done in this past semester. Writing the lines
out in relation to lines spoken before and after was the tool that I used for
memorizing, and it definitely worked really well. I do want to work on improv
(which just so happens to be the next unit) because I remember during filming
at one point that there was a line or two that was jumbled over and it confused
everyone. The skill of improv would be really useful in a situation like that
because during an actual live performance you can't sit there in an awkward
silence for a long period of time, and by doing improv you can think on your
feet and make it so those awkward silences aren't as awkward.
Unfortunately I was unable to see other
group's final performances as they were being filmed because my group was out
of the way practicing. I did enjoy Lisa and Duncan's performance as well as
that of Jack and John. Both fit into the dark theme that played a constant in
this performance.
