2.1 Demonstrate preparation for an acting role

Understanding the Role: 

For this performance I chose to perform a monologue by Al Pacino in the movie "Any Given Sunday". In the film, Al Pacino plays an American football coach (D'Atamo) who leads a struggling team to victory, but has to overcome many hurdles in the process. 

In addition to this, D'Atamo has also had a difficult relationship with one of the players, which makes things more tense for him and his team. 

Sheets/research: 

To understand my role better I decided to do some research on the film and the character. I then made some notes on these, as it is important to know both the character and their feelings and objectives in the scene. 

Who am I? 

I am an american football coach for a struggling football team, the Miami Sharks. 

What do I want? 

I want my team to win their upcoming football match and improve their reputation. 

How does this impact my character? 

He is stressed and desperate for his team to win. He would do anything to help them. 

What stands between my character and their objective? 

The skills of the team and their ability to put aside their differences and work together for a shared goal and to motivate themselves to win, stand in the way of my objective. 

How can my character overcome these obstacles? 

He needs to motivate his team and make sure they are ready to play their best. 

Where am I & how does this location impact my character? 

I am in my team's locker room. There is a tense and anticipatory atmosphere as the whole team is crowded in, yet they are completely silent and focused on my character.

Who else is in the environment & who am I talking to? 

The rest of the team is there with me, and I am talking to them as a whole. 

Annotated monologue: 

I have annotated my monologue with instructions for actions at specific parts, as well as how my physical and vocal skills should progress throughout the scene. In addition to this, I have also annotated when I will moce to specific marks in the shot when my scene is being filmed. 

The link to my monologue performance can be found here. 

Backstory: 

To further deepen our understanding of the role, it can be useful to find out the backstory of the character you are playing. This can be done by researching them if they are a character that already exists, as well as watching previous performances of them, or asking your director or producer about them. If this is not appropriate, you may also make up your own backstory for the character, as a way to deepen your connection to them and make the character feel more authentic. 

For my character, I inferred from his monologue that there was a deeper reason that he was so passionate about football. I decided this would be because he wants to feel proud and successful at something because, due to bad decisions he had made earlier on in his life, he hasn't felt like that in a long time. I also think he may have felt isolated before joining the team as a coach, and has begun to feel connected with the members of the team and cares for them, despite their differences. I also felt he may feel responsible in a paternal way towards a lot of the team, as many members are quite young. This felt like something that may motivate the emotions I believe my character is feeling in his monologue. 

Line Learning: 

In this lesson we learnt about different effective methods that actors use for learning lines. It is important to memorise lines accurately and ahead of time for a shoot so that the filming goes as smoothly as possible, as this saves money and makes it easier for the director, cameramen and editors. Scenes can be reshot if a mistake is made, and there is less emphasis on learning lines in film compared to theatre because of this, but this costs both time and money, so it is important to keep the number of reshoots to a minimum. 

There are many different techniques that can be used to memorise lines. We tried these with a script from the movie Legend, starring Tom Hardy. These methods include: 

• Mind Palace: this consists of thinking of an image for every word in a line, and connecting them in some way, to act as a prompt to remember the line. For example, oone of my lines was "hang on, I know you. But you were just a girl. You've all grown up, haven't you?". I decided to visualise the line like this:  
  
• I found this method an interesting concept, however I do not think it worked very well for me, as it made me focus more on remembering the images I had associated with the lines than the lines themselves. 
• First letter writing: the actor will write out the first letter of every word from the lines they are trying to learn, complete with punctuation and capitalisation. This allows them to have a prompt for their lines as well as writing them which will help them to memorise them. I found this method very helpful as it helped me to learn my lines quickly. 

• Recording other actors' lines: this consists of recording all lines in the script belonging to characters other than the actor's, with pauses in between for their own lines, to help work on acting and reacting skills while learning lines. This will also help the actor to remember where their lines are in the script, as well as their context. I found this worked better when I had already used another method to memorise my lines, as I felt this was better for remembering cues and acting. It was also significantly more time consuming having to record all the other lines. 

• The Lego Technique: the actor reads their first three lines of the page, then covers them and says them out loud. They then continue this with the next three lines, and the next until they have all of their lines memorised. The actor can look at the lines again if they are struggling, however they must keep this to a minimum so that they can work harder to remember. I found this method worked well for me, as it helped me to remember my lines more strongly and did not need much preparation. 

This is the script for the scene we performed. I was playing Tom Hardy's character, Reggie: 

The strategy I found most useful for learning lines was the "first letter writing" technique, as I found that it helped me to understand and learn my lines far more quickly than other techniques, giving me more time to practise my cues and acting in each line. 

A new strategy I am going to incorporate at home is the Lego technique. I have already made effective use of the first letter writing method multiple times when learning lines, and I would like to make my memorisation even more efficient by adding another technique to cement the lines in my memory better. 

Actors on Acting 

In our lesson today we watched a video of different famous actors talking about what acting means to them and giving advice. The link to this video can be found here. 

My notes from this were: 

• Characters that are complex feel more real – you love them because of their flaws
• When acting you must feel it out, take chances, ground it in reality
• Try to play a character to convince people that you ARE that person in that circumstance
• Do homework so that you are well equipped and prepared – come with ideas – this gives you more freedom
• Incorporate parts of your life into your work subtly
• Create a strong background for your character – give them depth and a backbone to them
• Treat their characters as if they are real in order to feel the correct responsibility for their existence – care for them, treat them as a complex person
• Be emotional, be cathartic, “let rip” – invoke emotions for others
• Acting is versatile
• Action movies are more fun to make than to watch
• Use body language – it is a
• Acting is 3D anthropology/archaeology – digging away in the mineshaft of collective human beings across the span of time, bringing their findings to the screen
• Could the character live outside of the script? Can you do something with it, bring yourself to it?
• Think about what the film represents as a whole – this can change but it doesn’t matter, need clear intentions throughout
• Do research, give the best of yourself, make sure you are memorable – actor has the least control in a production compared to editors, directors, etc.
• Acting can bring you to different places and situations, help you grow as a human being 

Analysing Actors: 

After this we watched some scenes from some different films, such as Gangs of New York, The 

Reader and What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and analysed different actors' physical and vocal skills, 

and how they used these effectively to convey emotion. 

The Reader: 

In The Reader, we observed and analysed Kate Winslet's performance in the courthouse scene, where her character was defending herself to the court. The link to this clip can be found here: 

My notes for this scene were: 

Physical skills: Facial expression, body language, gesture, eye contact	Concerned facial expression, tense, one eyebrow raised & one furrowed  Hands tightly clasped, body language stiff giving impression of fear, discomfort and tension  Hitting hand on table at peak in tension Chest heaving, lots of blinking to show fear Pale makeup to give impression of sickliness and stress
Vocal skills: Volume, pace, pause, tone, emphasis	Quiet, short sentences Intense, defensive tone with breathlessness  Gradually becomes louder Quietens at climax of tension and end of scene

What's Eating Gilbert Grape: 

In this clip, we watched a scene between Gilbert (Johnny Depp) and his brother (Leonardo DiCaprio). The link to this clip can be found here. 

My notes for the scene were: 

Physical skills: Facial expression, body language, gesture, eye contact

Depp: Stiff, slightly hunched posture, looking slightly downward, body language changes abruptly when he sees his brother - more open, faster, happier  Gentle with his brother, less imposing body language Shows that he cares about his brother    DiCaprio: Excitable body language in scene, fast movement and open body language, flapping arms around to express joy  Close proxemics when near Gilbert to show their close relationship as well as happy facial expressions

Vocal skills: Volume, pace, pause, tone, emphasis

Depp: Quiet, urgent, concerned tone at beginning of scene Voice gets louder as scene goes on Quiet with his brother, higher pitch to show gentleness - contrast with his demeanour to adults      DiCaprio:  High pitched voice to show childlike demeanour, loud volume which gets louder when interacting with Depp to show excitement  Shows their close relationship as brothers

Gangs of New York: 

Physicality

• Stiff, upright posture at beginning to show class

• Lower class people have slightly more closed posture: arms crossed, slouched

• Space between them suggests hierarchy

• Women have more closed body language in comparison to the men – shows a patriarchal society

• Looking back over shoulder to show regret/curiosity

• More stiff body language to show discomfort in scenes

• Clear discrimination between the americans and the irish

 
Voice

• Clear, enunciated speech to convey class – slightly quieter at beginning to show nervousness or dislike around lower class 

• Contrast to the lower-class people that speak less distinctly – irish accents which americans consider common

• Women speak more softly – reminder of patriarchal society

• Silence during moments of tension

• Louder volume when angry

• Slow pace in quiet, tense scenes, with long pauses

 
Creation of a character

• Some characters appear to have ulterior motives 

• Some characters seem more confident whereas some are more nervous 

• They are all shown to have specific goals in the film - DiCaprio's character wants to get revenge on Daniel Day Lewis' character, who wants to keep control of his region of New York 

 
Focus in close ups (blinking/stillness)

• No blinking

• Shows their facial expressions – focused on the other characters in the scene

• Closeups of hands show steadiness

• Closeups generally focus on topics at hand e.g. the butchery scene, faces, hands, the scars scene which displays their intimacy

• Shows intimacy when characters are close together

• Long stares in moments of tension – no blinking

• Shows tension in close ups between rivalling characters

 
Continuity in acting and technical elements

• Consistent character presentation throughout scenes and when interacting with different characters 

• Use of vocal and physical skills to show emotions and intentions