pretty tense day around here. one thing after another. distractions, (a ticket on my car, a sick friend i feel i need to help and start working on that). i take the distractions and don't do my work for today.
Now I only have a few hours left before i'm going out and feel bad my 'to do' list is untouched. think about it for a minute. think: it's fear in 'moving forward'. and i'm REALLY out of sorts.
So. because i "can't ask you to do what i won't do mysel"' -- I decided to 'work the practice' for 10.
set the timer.
takes me about 7 or 8 to relax enough to start. (Started w/shoulders - ouch crackle made sound. worked actively by moving the places which revealed themselves to be hanging on. Then went to my spine. ouch. made sounds.
started to work on a cup of coffee. lightly. then realized my face was really held. went back to just looking to free those muscles and so did exercising of my face and tongue. really stretched and rubbed my face. then felt really it was SO released.
almost drolled into my coffee when i started to work on it again.
Had the thought "i wouldn't be able to do this in class - let anyone see me with my mouth hanging half open like this"
- went back to the work. it happened then that I played w/ the cup as it, the object, suggested things to me - to my hands and shoulders really.
phone rang. i let it go.
felt itchy all over and did a vigorous all-over scratching!
distractions came up; remembered i didn't take my vitamins. wanted a REAL cup of coffee and started 1/2 way to think about fixing that
timer went off.
felt like going another minute or so
returned to the 'work'. felt a FEELING of enjoyment/pleasure, at being surrounded by the smell of this nice coffee.
noticed i had more tension in my fingers. shook them out and cracked my knuckles.
let go of the exercise.
experienced that there is even more tension in the front of my shoulders, in my wrists. worked them a bit as i came over to write this down.
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Hey, this is Bret.
I think I had a very productive class on Monday, I particularly noticed a great ease with following my impulses, relaxing my body, being aware of things, and the scenes were very good and helpful, especially the Meisner technique. It may have been because I skipped my very stressful morning class that day and thus got a full night's sleep, but more likely because I didn't take my medication that day, and therefore the artificial constraints on my mind were not present, and I could more easily tap into my true impulses.
All week since then I have been having some really deep talks with actor friends of mine about the class and about technique... My roommate is in Atlantic and I spent a good half-hour to an hour one night before we both went to sleep talking with him and questioning him about the difference between 'character' actors -- such as Gary Oldman or Phillip Seymour Hoffman-- who transform themselves and the way they act both mentally and physically for each role -- and actors such as Al Pacino and Bruce Willis, who essentially play themselves or an optimally exxaggerated version of themselves for each role. He talked a lot about each style being tied to either 'internal' or 'external' training. It informed my exercises this week highly, and I tried on wednesday to let my nervous tics and habits to take over completely, instead of supress them. It was scary, but very enlightening.
Did an exercise today where I did nothing but adjust my glasses for 10 minutes straight. Really self-indulgent, really obsessive, and really made me notice when I did it the rest of the day, as well. A good way of looking back at my own character.
Well, see you around!
Hey, Dan here,
As this week is coming to a close, I just wanted to share a little bit of it with you.
These past few days have been really crazy—mainly because of my sight and sound film. The film was a film noir murder mystery that completely deprived me of sleep but the footage looks really great so it was all worth it in the end. But through all of the craziness, I still managed to set aside time each day for my relaxation and sense memory exercises.
I started each day this week with a brief relaxation exercise. I really like how in class we jump up and down and shake out our anxiety and tension so I do the same in my dorm room. For some reason even when I am exhausted I feel energized by shaking my arms and my hands.
My biggest accomplishment in terms of sense memory this week was visualizing my little sister’s Chinese dwarf hamster—his soft fur, his little nose, his eye, his little feet, etc. It was actually a lot of fun because the hamster would crawl up my shirt and run around in the palm of my hand.
Can’t wait to see you all in class tomorrow
—Dan
Hey everyone,
I've been practicing a specific sense memory this week, after being guided by Rae the first time through. I'm currently attempting to revisit the experience I had putting my dog asleep a few years ago. It's a very vivid memory of mine and is not too difficult to conjure up; I am trying to experience the entire 10-minute incident with utter relaxation and the lack of any self-consciousness. Depending on a mixture of how I was feeling that day and the success of my breathing and awareness workout, it has been both easy and hard to execute this practice. I'm excited to employ my seemingly improved ability to release tension in class with every one on Monday. I hope everybody's weekend is going well, I'm going surfing, so wish me luck!
-Isaac
PS: Thank you so much Rae for your help, everything is finally starting to click!
Joey D here,
I had an interesting moment the other night.
I was catching up with an old friend in Columbus Circle, just walking around the statue of good ole' Chris when I nearly almost fell into the surrounding fountains. And then a sensory recall kind of thing happened to me.
The smell of the water and the fountain I guess immediately reminded me of Disneyland. Just that musty, underground themed waiting area kind of places that smell the same as these fountains. Plus, all the resorts and the parks are littered with these types of spurting fountains, so just the smell alone brought about vivid memories of going there as a kid, the road trip down, and then even my trip to CA this summer complete with a trip to Disneyland. I could immediately remember all these things just because of the smell of a fountain.
I feel like I'm becoming more aware of these things. Random things in the city that appeal to one sense, and consciously/subconsciously remind you vividly of otherwise opaque memories.
I dig it.
Looking forward to Monday
Joey D
It seems that the variation possibilities for my name have actually had a significant impact on my sense memory work. I go by Dan(regularly), Daniel(in my classes), Danny(with my family)and this dynamic reminded me of a simpler time. I was in preschool, and there was a boy named Daniel Fitzgerald in the class. Mrs. Fitzgerald asked the teachers specifically for her son to be called Daniel, so I became Danny. All of my work in the class had the name Danny on it and the day that preschool year was over I asked my mom if I could be called Daniel again.
The relevance of that story is in the emotion. I have had an easy time recalling the feeling of helplessness through that small story and that has been the focus of my practice this week.
Word Up,
Daniel Horowitz
www.purevolume.com/theragingfjords
Yola,
So, I don't know what to write, but I'll go ahead and write anyway.
Because I'm doing a documentary about drug addiction/abuse I've been focusing on my own addictions in order to get more into the mindset of the addict in order to ask "legit" questions to my subjects.
(By the way, if any of you know any drug abusers, please contact me, because I'm desperately in need.)
I've especially been focusing on my addiction to the internet, the feeling of loss of connection to a synthetic community when I'm away from it. It's even bad when I'm trying to read. I'm taking the related feelings and using them to get into the role of the drug abuser, which I feel is similar.
Anyway,
hope all is well;
as dan horowitz says: I'm spunky, I like my oatmeal lumpy.
Sincerely,
Anonymous McAnonymous II Jr.
A moment of unfettered awareness
by
Raquel Cedar
I've noticed recently that I have been expressing things I would normally keep to myself. Perhaps it was because it was Halloween, or perhaps I was giddy with the brisk new weather, but last Wednesday I was having a particularly good day and was in a particularly good mood.
Wednesdays are usually very hectic for me. I work from 9am-1:45pm, then I have class from 2pm-5pm and then I head home to finish my prep for my film shoots on Thursday. This past shoot was particularly stressful, and yet on Wednesday I could not shake my pleasant mood.
At 5:20 I arrived at my dorm and waved to the guard as I headed for the elevators. When I got in the elevators, the door closed and I realized I had 12 floors to ride alone. I suddenly had the urge to dance. Normally I would ignore this impulse, embarassed that the guard would be watching on his monitor, but on Wednesday I could not resist and when it was happening I didn't even think about the guard, my little jig just came out and it wasn't until I reached my floor and the doors opened that I realized how silly I felt.
I was so happy that I followed that impulse, it was very liberating and gave me an amazing burst of energy.
Later that night at 2am, I sat trying to finish my prep for my film shoot. I was no longer unexplainably happy. I was stressed and exhausted and knew I would be miserable the next day. I stopped everything I was doing, closed my eyes and tried meditating for a few minutes. I surprised myself and ended up meditating for seven minutes. It definitly helped me calm down and made the rest of my work expreience easier.
Overall, Wednesday was a day full of different emotions and feelings which were individually inspired by impulses.
Sincerely,
Raquel
Hello All,
So this last week has been a crazy crazy time for me. I feel like i've read a lot of people writing that on this blog but it really has. I find myself no longer going out with friends, no parties, no fun that I used to call my own. Nowadays, I plan shoots, go to production meetings, and get irritated whenever my phone happens to ring and I see that its my family because I can't concentrate enough to talk to them because so much stuff is running through my head. I constatnly wonder if doing all this is worth it.
This weekend I shot my 4th sight and sound film and the night before my actor decided to not return any of my phone calls. I realized that evening that he was most likely going to bail on me for the next day so I had to come up with a whole new story the night before shooting. Coming from a shoot the previous day and going on 4 hours of sleep I shot my fourth and thus far most important sight and sound film. I felt a bit helpless and being our in the middle of no where in jersey could not cast new actors or anything.
However, in many ways I feel like this may be good. personally I know that I over analyze my life (conversations with people, experiences, encounters) way too much and so I felt like just going on a whim was a breath of fresh air that i needed.
It's important I believe to keep a good balance in life between work and fun and I feel like i havn't been doing a good job of that. This school can get very hectic, competitive, frustrating, draining, and a slew of other similar words sometimes and its hard to relax or find peace of mind.
Sitting around and thinking about where i am now in life as opposed to one or two years ago helps me with that. I think about all that i've learned and I think about all the other stuf I want to learn and how I still have so much to experience and see and that gets me excited. I just really hope I can stay motivated, and open to everyone and everything around me and not lose my sense of drive.
Hope this is what we needed to write but i kinda just wanted to get it off my chest.
-Misha S.
Reading through other posts, I really connected to what Misha said about talking on the phone. Lately, I've had the same experience of not being able to focus during conversations with my parents and siblings.
There is a certain sadness in realizing this about yourself. It is bad enough being hundreds of miles away. Being "too busy" to talk makes me feel even more inadequate as a son/brother.
While I realize this semester is unusually busy, I fear such disconnectedness will become an ongoing problem in my life. Am I to blame? Maybe it's the fast-paced lifestyle of New York? Perhaps it's my chosen major and career path. Or, can we blame society for pulling apart family and friends?
I apologize for bringing up such weighty, morose shit. I guess it's been on my mind lately.
It did occur to me that cell phones may be the source of my woes. Sure, it's easy to point our finger at "the evils of technology", but consider this:
So, we've been focusing in class on sensory experience. Well, I think it's fair to say that cell phone conversations are definitely lacking in that department. The machines seem designed for the very purpose of shortening our attention span.
I really don't think it's enough to merely listen to someone's disembodied voice. I want the REAL thing. I long to see their face, watch their lips move, experience them gesturing, smell their cloths and their breath. What is a conversation without touching, without body language, without real physical interaction?
My goal in the upcoming weeks is to try visualizing all these things as I talk to friends and family over the phone. Maybe, somehow, this will help bridge the gap.
Party On,
Mike
This is natasha.
So it took me about ten minutes to figure out how to get to this page. For someone who does alot of projects about sci-fi, i'm very lo-tech.
Today on the subway there were four seperate people rockin out to their ipods, like, really getting into that shit, bobbing the heads, tapping the feet, even lip synching. it was an eerie moment because:
1. i've never seen anyone emote that much on the subway who wasn't on some sort of serious drug (perhaps, woody, the subway would be a good place to look for subjects for your doc)
2. i'm in the midst of making a musical for sight and sound, for no other reason that i like to make things as difficult as possible for myself. so seeing people so evidently enjoying music made me feel a little bit better about my endeavor.
tomorrow i am shooting said musical and i could feel my back and neck reaching new heights of tension, so i laid down on my back and did the whole "counting back from 10" meditation thing. despite feeling rather silly, it was pretty effective, and it cleared my mind.
i've also seen the class affect the way i write-- while working on script stuff, i tried approaching it from the point of view of the actor, and that approach really affected the end result. the dialogue and actions of the characters was more organic, motivated, and honest.
by the way, misha, your story about the actor bailing is horrifying. i think the worst part of film school/ making movies is people bailing out on you. FIVE out of my TEN fucking extras for my musical backed out yesterday/today.
i was going to go whoop some actor ass, but i decided that i was going to be mature about the whole thing and go with the flow.
this musical better be ballin' out of control.
-Natasha
Hey guys Al here,
Misha I completely agree with you. I have been doing nothing but constant school work and Apple work for a couple of weeks and now and there is no end in sight. I can't wait for Thanksgiving Break! But I have been working on feeling ecstasy. Not necessarily the drug (however I imagine it would have similar effects). Feeling a rush go through my blood and focusing on that and letting it overtake me and having nothing else at the moment matter. Letting go of the school work, the stress, the films everything and just focusing on pure energy. I think that energy is one of the overlooked senses, and that we humans most naturally can access it. I close my eyes and imagine my entire body shaking without moving a muscle and my entire body tingles. I think that this energy is the source of all other senses.
Hey everyone who might happen to read this. Alex here.
What have I been working on this week? Hard to articulate. You see, I've got this major problem with procrastination, as I'm sure all of you do. In high school it was different because 99% of the time, the procrastination didn't actually prevent me from getting work done. What's settled in these last few years is more of a procrastinatum ad infinitum, or, slackage; the inability to complete work.
This applies to waking up, as well. Procrastination (i.e. I'll wake up a little later, etc, etc).
Knowing all this, lately I've been trying to remedy the ailment by doing sense memory work...with the future.
We put ourselves in our 7 year old bodies, right? So what I've been doing is placing myself in my body the way I think I'll feel in ten minutes, or an hour, or the next day.
Most of the time, the point is to tell myself that I'll feel exactly the same way, that is, not inclined to do any work, so I might as well do what I need to do now because it's not like my work ethic is going to be any different in the future.
It's a schizo-psychotic battle between my mental will and my physical self, with the latter emerging as the winner if not always, then definitely most of the time.
I don't know if this kind of inside out thinking is as effective as sensory work with the past, but I imagine it can't be too far off, since in both cases one attempts to put one's body and mind in a different space/time.
Anyways, missed you all yesterday, sorry for being a flake, catch you on the flip side, Monday.
Hey, Bret again.
This has been... hey, you know what, let's just start every post on this blog with a base assumption that everyone had a stressful week, huh? This is not exactly a low-tension environment here... except in Actor's Craft, where I get two hours every week to relax and feel really good and physically ready for anything.
That feeling is I guess what we are aiming to reach again each time we attempt to "arrive at unfettered awareness", and I had trouble on some of the days this week. Today in class the film I was screening BROKE in the projector. The film is okay and is can be fixed pretty easily, but I still have the knot in my right shoulder from when I heard the film SNAP. I guess it was a little too much of a high-tension environment for it. But that held me back from getting anywhere today, especially after tuesday and yesterday's successful session.
I've noticed a lot of things factor into distracting me during a AAUA session, so on tuesday I deliberately tried to actively ignore just one thing. I opened one window in my dorm, then I did my personal set of physical things, and then my Roommate, who is in Atlantic, had time before leaving for rehearsal to shake out and just go crazy releasing all these primal grunts and screams, which probably pissed the fuck out of my neighboors.
For the entire ten minutes or so of the exercise, I focused heavily and fully on ignoring the breeze from the window, which is like not thinking about an elephant. It's a great trick, because it's something that's theoretically impossible, yet you can throw all of your capabilities at it and take them away from everything else. It ended up getting me really in tune with the rhytyh of the wind blowing the hair on my head and arms around, while at the same time making me forget about everything else around me... the cars outside, my tics, my tension, the work that needed to be done...
I used this good feeling to try several exercises, starting with fire very strongly, then trying to imagine the slip[pery feeling of doing dishes by hand, then the feeling of being on a ladder. I found it very hard to recreate the unbalaced feel of being on a ladder without moving around, but I think I got the feeling very well.
on wednesday, I rdid the ignoring exercise after a load of push-ups and shake-outs, and I got back to the ladder place again, but this time I had asked my other roommate, who is in addler, to do an improv with me, where he would relate his character to an inanimate object while I related mine to the ladder, just as we did with the animals. We did two drunks trying to walk home, with him as a tub of water, and then people in an office, with him as a clicky pen. It was incredibly helpful and a fun as hell, I can't wait to do more stuff like that.
I just saw Juno an hour ago, and holy crap is that movie amazing. Funny, deep, truthful, perfect.
Anyway,
hello all. this is natasha again.
i've been thinking about the ideas brought up in characterization excericizes-- i think they're very interesting, becuase they bring you out of your own mindset/self. and as important it is to be honest in one's writing/film projects, it's also important to have interesting and unusual characters that are fleshed out. the various approaches in acting to creating a character can be used to create a character on the page as well, i think.
also, musical footage looks gooood. now the hard part starts.
i cannot believe how busy i am. this is ridiculous. ri-di-cu-lous. ok see everyone monday.
Daniel Marc Horowitz says,
This week I had an interesting moment of confusion. Like the rest of us on festivus, I have been running around like a chicken without his gizzard recently, and at some point on Wednesday I returned home midday without another task to complete. The feeling of not needing to be anywhere or having to do anything was accompanied by an odd feeling that I must be forgetting something. How could it be possible that there was nothing I could accomplish at that given moment? I think amidst the feeling of confusion there was a tinge of joy.
That moment and feeling was fleeting but I tried to recall it the past two times I have done my practice but I have not been able to. I think it is due to the complexity of that one feeling, and is harder to recall than a simple and single emotion or feeling.
May your days be plentiful,
Daniel
Hey y'all,
I've been insanely busy this week, but I've been able to practice sense memory the last 3 days, helping ease the stress during these hectic times. I am constantly trying to prohibit the realization that I'm attempting to recall a memory. I feel that when I temporarily forget, or emancipate myself from self-conscious thoughts and awareness that I'm conjuring up something that is not in the present moment, I am much more successful. Confused yet? It's hard for me to explain... I just try to be aware of nothing but the senses pertaining to that experience, not how I could do it better or what I might be doing wrong.
Basically, the less I think, the better it goes. Period.
-Isaac
Hey folks-
I purposely waited until I got back from Boston to make this post.
I can relate to what Mike and Misha both said about being irritable on the phone with my parents and having little patience with them. I was thrilled to go home this weekend, and we all got along great, so I think it's just been my frustrations here that interfere with them.
I went home to Westwood, MA this past Friday to support my younger brother who stage managed our high school's fall play. The play was Medea- a depressing tragedy about a Mother who kills her children because of her marital situation (it's a lot deeper than that though...)
I knew going home/seeing this play would stir a lot of emotion up in me, and fuck I was right.
Sitting in the audience of my high school auditorium was something I did for the first time last year, as I was usually doing something on that stage during high school. But now that I'm in an acting class again, I feel like I've been bit by the bug again and I wanted nothing more than to be back up on that stage, trying to correct all those annoying high school acting idiosyncrasies that are horrible and everybody does. I.e.- never knowing what to do with your hands. As one of my best friends' Mothers cried in the seat in front of me, I kind of wanted to cry too. I missed that stage- I miss my other 3 best friends and acting with them incessantly. So many good memories up on that stage, and I felt like nobody up there gave a fuck about the play, as it was absolutely flat. I feel horribly for my director, because it was clear he was unenthusiastic about the show. It shone through in the weak lighting, awkward blocking, and conversations he and I had after the show. It was quite depressing, the whole show.
I guess I just miss acting a lot. I'm not quite sure exactly why I turned away from it after Junior Year, but thats not to say I dont think Ive made the right decision with film.
I think I'm going to audition for a community theater thing outside of NYU somewhere.....
See ya'll tomorrow
Joey D
Raquel here -
This weekend I did a lot of acting work, which is rare since I spend most of my time in New York doing film. I acted in my friend's personal film project (a project he isn't doing for a class). It was very satisfying to get into character and go back to acting. I have never really acted on film. I grew up doing theatre so it has been very nerve racking doing film acting.
I have to say that I think that this class has allowed me to have the confidence to act again. This is mainly because when I came to Tisch I was extremely intimitaded by the talent of the students in the drama program. This class is helping me recognize my talents as well as the amount of work I need to do to improve as an actress.
Tommorrow I am acting in a webisode. All this acting has made me realize how much I miss it. It is actually confusing me a little bit. Not enough to make me consider leaving film, but enough for me to want to make time to learn and expand the craft.
I'm interested to see where this new discovery will take me.
Raquel
Hey Everyone, It's Dan Sprouse again,
This week (and I guess every other week) has been a little crazy, but I'm glad to say that I made it out safe and sound. I know it’s a little late but I just wanted to let you all know what I've been up to this week.
My focus this week, in my sense memory work, was on specific objects from my old house that held particular significance to me. For example, the work of art that hung in our living room or the arcade machine in my brother’s room.
I would begin each exercise in my dorm room by shaking out all the tension in my body. By this time in the semester, this sort of relaxation exercise is still a little silly but I have come to really enjoy it. In fact when I was on set today I had one of the actors do jumping jacks and shake out his tension before he continued his performance.
The sense memory this week worked extremely well and unsurprisingly each object that I visualized brought with it a sense of nostalgia. Some were harder than others to visualize because it has been so long since I’ve seen them, but once I worked out all of the details they came in me in vivid clarity.
Before I go I thought I’d like to share something else. This morning I had to wake up at 6:00 and drive from New Jersey into Manhattan for a film shoot. As I was driving in, the sun was just rising and the gorgeous oranges and deep purples of dawn silhouetted the entire city skyline—it was an extraordinary moment and one I wished you all had been there to see.
—Until next time, Dan
Greetings, Alex here. The past week has been more or less normal for the time of year. Mid-november, first semester: lots of work, not enough time to do it in, temptation everywhere making productivity even more difficult.
Topping it all off was the weekend, as Friday night I was beginning to feel ill. And not in the good way. In the actually ill way. Sick. Sick, and it got worse as the weekend went on. Writing this now, Monday morning, I feel a little better, but the remnants of the damned and annoying little bug are still with me.
It got me thinking, especially after seeing Rae's post, about the continuing struggle between brain and body. "More doing than thinking" sounds easy when the action doesn't require much thought. But what happens when your thoughts actually inhibit or prohibit you from physically feeling a certain way or doing a certain thing?
Being sick, for instance, might very well force someone to neglect their duties in an attempt to "rest" and "get better." My experience has been, though, that at the first sign of sickness, what you need to do is basically just ignore it. Mentally, that is. If you think about it and think about it, it becomes, for the period of illness, a lingering and ever more irritating thought. The fact that you're sick to begin with. The fact that you got sick when you could least afford to do so. The fact that your immune system isn't performing up to your standards and demands. All this plays into what I feel is an authentic physical reaction. Reverse placebo. Psychosematic hypochondria. Crazy. You actually convince your body that you're too sick to do anything. In a way, it's true. But it doesn't work as well as just plowing straight through it. If you go on through the day acting like you're not sick, doing all the things you would regularly do, I like to think the cold feels neglected, and just shies away like a bored child.
So Saturday and Sunday night, after long days of crewing for one film and pre-production for two others, I ended up at home, using the only time I had for some R&R...for R&R. Before I went to bed, though, I tried doing something Rae and me discussed on the phone a few days prior, which is set myself an early , almost unnaturally early, bed time. 11:30. That's ridiculous.
I feel it probably would have been impossible if I had thought about it at all. But I really didn't. The initial thought popped into my head, and I told myself that if I didn't do it right away I wouldn't do it at all, and from then on it was just like I was going through the motions. I mean, I was acting like I did it all the time. Checking my mail, brushing my teeth, arranging some things I'd need for the next day, laying down, and then closing my eyes.
And it fuckin worked! It was crazy. I wasn't even tired, but after doing all that, maybe because I was subconsciously in a state of like, pre-sleep or something, I had no trouble at all in drifting away. Sunday morning I woke up still sick, though, which was disappointing to say the least, but this morning I feel a whole lot better, at least overall, though my nose is still leaking.
Animaniacs moral of the day is that actions not only speak louder than words, but can sometimes also replace them entirely.
Sorry about the tardiness in this post. M. Woods here. This week I went about achieving this state of "unfettered awareness" by going to the gym and biking until I could no longer think about anything except for my body in motion. It was quite interesting. I was able to avoid contemplating the televisions, other people on their bikes, etc...
I've been doing sensory exercise to work on the feeling of a pin prick - or rather, because it's a timely subject - a hypodermic needle, after which I would like to work on the feeling of something being pushed into the blood stream, the feeling of a liquid penetrating the body.
I began to feel a pain, but it was more of a burn instead of a pinprick. It lasted only a couple of seconds, but I guess I would consider it a success. I did this 3 times this week after riding the bike, and twice after doing a set of 50 push ups and twenty jumping jacks. I found the bike worked a lot better. That being said, I'd like to explore other techniques.
Peace and Harmony
M. Woods
Hey all-
Interesting moment last night.
I went to see a two man show at Stella Adler last night- "Top Dog, Underdog." Incredible show.
Anyways, I was sitting on the stage right side and a girl was sitting directly opposite me on the stage left side. I found myself watching her for about half of the show because she was so reactive to the range of emotion the play evoked. I think most, if not all the students in there were Drama majors, and I could tell she was probably a very good actress because I could tell she was so easily moved by the beauty and the pain of this play. Her reactions were genuine and fascinating to watch. I found myself cutting back and forth between the play and her reactions- almost as a way of enhancing my own vision of beauty and pain within the play.
Very cool indeed.
See ya'll soon
Joey D
Ahoy! It’s Mike.
This is my first of two posts. (I didn’t post last week, so I’m trying to make up for that.)
This past Friday, I saw Summer with Monika, an old Bergman movie, at IFC. I made a conscious effort to keep in mind some of our discussions topics while watching the film.
Bergman is known for writing characters of passion and intensity. He dealt only in emotional extremes. For his actors and actresses, performing in a Bergman movie must have been a dream—but exhausting, too. Each scene, each moment of Monika seems to come from the depths of the actors’ souls. Their words and actions come from a place in their soul of tremendous anger, fear and desire. The actors were not conjuring these emotions out of thin air. Rather, their behavior seemed to emerge from their body, first and foremost, and for this reason it always felt authentic.
This is what struck me most: the sensual and physical quality of the film’s images and acting style. I realized that Bergman probably approached writing and directing like an actor. He thought in terms of human emotion, truly embodying each character by allowing their physical and emotional identity to become his own. Instead of presiding over the film from a detached, analytical stance, according to the popular conception of movie directors, Bergman was willing to dig deep in order to discover the how and the why of his characters’ lives.
My favorite scene in Monika involves a fight. Monika and her lover, Harry, have escaped to a rocky island to live in isolation. One day, a fellow islander, whose presence they are unaware of, tries to light the couple’s boat on fire. Harry discovers the attacker and begins to beat his ass in retribution. But the scene is more than just one dude beating up another dude. What the audience realizes along with Harry is that his display of masculinity is a turn on to Monika. Each successive punch gets her more riled up.
To me, this subtext of eroticism was the epitome of “acting through the body”. Great inspiration.
Al Here
Sorry about the missing post guys,
Before class Prof Wright and I had a meeting that went really well for me as far as being an actor. I was really able to find the connection between the physical aspects of acting and meditation/Sense memory and the emotional. And That acting really comes out of the body. We specifically worked on feeling warm and cold which are sense memories that I have tried to work on before but without enough emphasis on the physical and allowing the physical act, the warm up to take over, and then recalling the sense become so much easier. I tried to use this exercise in class yesterday to apply it to acting and for the most part I think it was a big step in the right direction, of actually physically experiencing the characters we are asked to portray instead of making an overt conscious effort to imitate. I hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving
-Al
Hello one and all,
M. Woods writing in a state of semi-weakness. I am still attempting to conquer my condition of concussive coughing while concurrently cramming for countless classes, which needless to say is an inconvenience. I have, however, found - finally - a Bergman screenplay, although it is not Winter Light. I will be working on the far less depressing, Wild Strawberries. I've begun reading through it, but alas, I have about half left.
This weekend I saw a very good film - I don't know if we're supposed to recount these experiences but I will anyway - entitled Bad Lieutenant (by Abel Ferrara & starring Harvey Keitel). It is one of the more disturbing things I've seen on film, and I like to think of myself as a connousieur (sp?) of the disturbing bits of cinema along with the more surreal ones. While there are elements of surrealism in the film (Harvey Keitel hallucinates Jesus and kisses his feet after smoking crack, snorting coke, doing smack, and countless other bad bad things) it is mostly a study of the degradation of the human being who manages, up until the end, to hold a powerful position in society, therefore allowing his weakness to take root even deeper. There is no traditional narrative. There is simply a man who becomes more and more corrupted. Harvey Keitel is fucking brilliant, though. He completely loses himself in the role, a role in which I would find it hard not to judge the maliciousness of my character, and he is still compelling despite the fact that there is not one redeeming quality to the person he's created. We want to feel sorry for him, but there is a void, a very tangible void within Harvey Keitel's character that permeates the atmosphere of the film, so in a way it is looking into nothingness. The power of Keitel's performance is that he manages to make us feel that nothingness. Pretty bleak shit.
Anyway, hope all is well. I'm going to go cough up my lungs.
M. Woods
Mike again, still playing catch up.
I was talking to a friend today, and he complained about his shitloads of end-of-the-semester work. He pointed out that his assignments "cancel each other out". In a sense, his mind is so overwhelmed with projects that he is prevented from successfully completing any of them.
I was reminded of our discussion of unfettered awareness (the name of the blog!). Is it possible, I wondered, to have an excess of focus? To be too unfettered in our awareness? Maybe, if pushed too hard, our attention begins to break down.
On the other hand, this may be a sign that our attention has not been fully developed. As with our bodies, we must exercise our minds. I don't really know what this means in concrete terms, but I suspect that our activities in class are a huge help.
The simple task of imagining drinking a cup of coffee is just one example. (Rae told me Paul Newman does this to rehearse.) I make an effort to practice like this every week. I just hope I can keep it up, even after the semester ends...
Pax!
To respond to Mike's comment I would like to cite Rocky in "Rocky IV". "If I can change, and you can change, maybe we can all change" with these 13 magical words, Sylvester Stallone single handedly ends the cold war (let's not forget Rambo 3 in which he takes on the whole soviet army). To end the cold war once in a career is an achievement, but twice? That's saying something.
This is Daniel Horowitz by the way.
It seems my greatest problem with achieving unfettered awareness is allowing my body to relax and the release of physical tension. I think the way I choose to live my life or the way I have been brought up is very prone to the storage of physical tension. I put a huge stress on punctuality, which means I am always walking very fast, and to communicate with my friends who are not as tall as I am, I hunch over to hear them and so they can hear me. Both of these things make me an enabler(DARE term) for allowing my body to be tense. My relaxation exercises seem to only temporarily release the physical tension because there is always somewhere else I have to be, making me always on the go(like Rachel Rae in the Dunkin' Donuts commercials). I'm not even sure if I am relaxed when I complete the exercises, because I am not sure what relaxed is.
So the fight for unfettered awareness continues and if Sly can beat the Russians, I can beat tension.
AND SO CAN YOU!
-Daniel Horowitz
Raquel here,
Physical tension is something difficult for me to let go of and I think it really affects my work as an actress. I believe it stems from my desire for control, and just the stress I have from school. Letting go of phsyical tension would mean opening up myself to be vulnerable. Which is really scary! But as we excercise more in class, and I become more comfortable with people in class, I feel like I am slowly more willing to alleviate myself of the physical tension.
Yesturday night Tyler and I practiced improving our scene from Anniversary Party. The first time we did it we were sitting down casually. This scene ended in about 2 minutes because I started laughing out of character. We tried it again, but again had diffficulty. We were close to giving up and just seeing what we could do in class, but tyler gave the suggestion that we stand up and try the scene again. We instinctively shook our selves out and walked around the room before we began.
This small action made a huge difference. Not only did the ability to move help us feel more comfortable, it enhanced our connections with the characters. This improv ended up lasting for 5 or six minutes and went in a completely different direction than the actual written scene.
Overall, I'm interested to see how our work evolves in class on Monday.
Raquel
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