Thursday 13 October 2011

Tuesday 11 October 2011

Saturday October 8th Of Clowns and Auditions

Today was a big day for some members of Acting Club.

Attercop are currently in pre-production for our third short film, 'Treasures', which is being directed and was written for screen by a certain Ben Murray-Watson (that's me!). On Saturday, immediately after Acting Club we set about finding the perfect girl and boy for the film.

But first things first. Clowning!

Tanushka was back from her travels and raring to go. The red noses were out and Acting Club was going to clown school! This was my first experience of being a clown so I was thrown mercilessly into class with the other students. The clown master, Tanushka Von Clowningness, put on her 'sternest' face and best authoritative tone and put us through our paces.

Luckily, the themes of the day were a far cry from 'Chucky' and remained harmless and fun. It was fascinating to see how the use of the 'mask' red nose, gave the students an amazing freedom in performance. Clowning is about knowing nothing, about being free to play games and about being totally natural. As soon as you start 'performing' as a clown, the impact on the audience lessons. In a similar way to 'Meisner' last week, we are putting emphasis on 'realness' in performance. Performance that happens 'in the moment' and performance focus that doesn't find its creation in self-conscious displays of individualism.

Noses bagged up and clowns sent home for the day, I began preparing for the 'Treasures' audition. It is a testament to the quality within Acting Club that I was able to call in 5 girls and 3 boys from our group. I remember my first ever professional audition and how terror-inducing it was. But Tanushka and I have consistently encouraged a professional outlook in class and so I was expecting great things from our kids. They didn't let me down!

Not only did they work well with other children that they had never met but they also shone as individuals. Unfortunately, I couldn't call them all back for a recall but here's the thing. When I announced who I was recalling (a horrible task when working with kids) the reaction from our Acting Club students was a real eye-opener. They applauded and congratulated those that had been recalled and really stood out from the other non-Acting Club girls who for the most part, looked extremely disappointed. Of course, it's disappointing - hugely so - but they celebrated the success of others over their own feeling of loss. How great is that?

I would also like to champion the work of Theatre Workshop, Brighton. The professionalism and talent on display from their children was superb and we recalled a large percentage of those that we saw.

So who was cast? We're working on it - suffice to say that there is a member of Acting Club and a few members of Theatre Workshop who are still on the shortlist. Watch this space!

More clowning next week!

Thursday 6 October 2011

The 'X Factor' on Young Performers

Okay. Let's get one thing out of the way. I watch 'X-Factor'. I enjoy 'X-Factor' - it is great TV, produced, edited and scripted in order to manipulate the highest possible amount of emotional involvement from the viewer. Having said that, I approach watching 'X-Factor' in the sound knowledge that I am being manipulated. Years of watching TV, doubled with an ever increasing life experience, has taught me to be cynical about such mindless entertainment for the masses. In the back of my mind there is always the thought that those involved are being used for no other reason than to make Simon Cowell another million or two.

What has struck me about this series however, are the reactions from the contestants - particularly the younger ones. One of them recently commented that they had grown up watching 'X-Factor' and that being given this opportunity was the only thing they had ever cared about. This is frightening. Is this generation of performer so rooted in the 'X Factor' culture that they see success, in fact, the only path to success being the 'X-Factor' way? Not to mention the fact that caring entirely for their own success might mean that they are missing out on other, quite important aspects of life, for example, other people!

It's as if this generation thinks that it is entitled to success. Society has taught them that 'being happy' is about 'having it all.' The media champions 'celebrity' as if it were some kind of pinnacle of life. Success is measured in the size of your house, the car you own or the looks that you're blessed with. Programs like the 'X-Factor', 'Big Brother', 'Britain's Got Talent' and countless others do nothing to dissuade young people of this. The riots around the country were a prime example of young people thinking that they had every right to go in and steal possessions that they hadn't earned. Virtually every 'X-Factor' contestant has stated at one time or another that they 'want this so much'. Well, fine. So you think that if you want something enough that gives you some kind of right?

This is beginning to turn into a rant so I'll pull it back. However, it is important to note where western society is pushing us and what it is championing. The result?Recession, greed, rioting.

But where does that leave a generation of young performers who are fighting for the success that society tells us should be ours?

Last term, I started an after-school acting club and found it to be a huge eye opener. A number of students, aged 8 - 11, simply refused to put in the work on technique and building group ensemble. They demanded that they wanted to do 'proper acting', as if I should have simply given them 'King Lear' and said, right, there you go, get on with it. It was frightening to see the complete and total individualism of a child of that age. Their needs were what were most important and there was no realism around their own talent or what was needed to create good results.

The facts of the matter are that so much more can be created in community or if you like, ensemble. Blatchington Mill Acting Club has been going for years. I have had the privilege of working with them for over a year and in that time I have seen a group of individuals transformed into an ensemble of performers. The students feel confident in each other and are prepared to focus on each other's work rather than purely their own. And what's more, they love it and find focus, definition and fun in working closely with other people their age. The result - every performance is better than the last.

It is our duty as adults to champion community. We can complain about the lack of it until we're blue in the face but unless we step up and begin to create it ourselves then no one else will. Yes, 'X-Factor' is great entertainment but what it creates and what it advocates can only lead more and more young people into an age of greater individualism.

The government, society, our culture or whatever you want to call it has pushed us to breaking point and it is up to those of us who have lived through it to teach the next generation where we went wrong.

Monday 3 October 2011

Saturday 1st October Of Ghosts and Stowaways

The scorching sun energized all as it shone down on the 1st October.

With sweaty brows we started with some light warm up games and vocal exercises. It's always hugely important, particularly early in the morning, that we warm up together as a group. The voice is the toolbox of the performer and therefore needs to be looked after as an athlete looks after their body. It's a strange fact that so many actors, singers and dancers smoke cigarettes when this means that they are directly damaging their means of earning a living.

Ghost ships and stowaways were still fresh in the mind from last week, to the point that two students shared wonderful dreams of Captains and ghost battles, inspiring us all to look more closely at how to create a performance from these themes.

Earlier this week I had attended a Meisner workshop as an actor. It's increasingly rare in Brighton to find high quality professional acting classes and I must admit that I held some trepidation as we started. However, my fears were soon dispelled as two experienced practitioners stood up and showed us all how it was done.

Sanford Meisner champions the behavioural aspects of Stanislavski's 'method'. He developed a series of workshops that were designed to hone the art of using 'impulse'. Now, impulse is a bit of an 'actory' word - we talk about following our impulse, going with our impulse or reacting truthfully to our impulses. I suppose one might also describe it as our 'instinct'. Putting that into an acting context, it's the feeling inside us that pushes us to react in a certain way. However, it isn't an idea. We don't 'think', "right I'm going to stand now", rather we simply stand because we feel 'impulsed' to do so. When working with a partner this helps us to put the attention directly onto them rather than focusing on our own thoughts. Hence, the moments when we respond to our impulse are completely unplanned but wholely truthful to who we are and the situation that we're in.

So it was interesting bringing this with me into the acting class. The question still remained, how do we convince 7 - 12 year old actors that they need to follow their impulse?

Following the warm up we split the class into two. One half worked on creating story through text and devising, whilst the other half looked at how repetition of physical acts could begin to tell a story of their own. Of course, the theme of ships and ghosts still prevailed.

I am always amazed and yet more and more I find myself expecting great things from this class. They never fail to live up to the expectations us adults put on them and it's important to remember that in directing. If we expect greatness then a child responds. If we expect them to fail then how do they know different?

With some great physical representation of life on the ship, mixed with some original pieces of text both scripted and improvised, things began to slowly take shape. Then came the Meisner. Taking a small piece of text from each piece we began using the repetition exercise. Each actor takes one piece of text and then repeats it in dialogue with another actor. Slowly, through repetition small stories begin to emerge alongside telling subtext.

It wasn't long before the group were acting totally on impulse, responding truthfully to every moment and yet all they were doing was repeating movement and text. Meisner was certainly onto something!