Acting 103 Assignment 2 – “Adventurers – Bait Club”
Your assignment for this week has several parts, including watching someone in real life; memorizing some dialogue; and watching some short videos. Be sure to scroll down so that you see them all.
Part 1: Watching a real person (in real life)
The first part is to watch someone in the real world (not an actor) for a short time, without them realizing you’re doing so. The person you’re watching might be a friend, family member, co-worker, or stranger. You might watch someone at work, at home, on the street, in a store. They don’t have to be doing anything unusual; you might watch them engaging in some common activity, such as:
- preparing a meal
- talking on phone
- taking out the garbage
- standing and talking with someone
- eating breakfast
- working a crossword puzzle
- putting on a coat, getting ready for work
- or some other ordinary, everyday activity.
Don’t just watch, but pay attention and take in as many attributes as you can. Notice how the person stands, gestures, moves. If they’re sitting, are their legs apart or together? Ankles crossed? What’s happening with her hands? Also listen to what they’re saying (if you can hear any words). Notice the inflection in their voice, the tempo and energy. Try standing in the same way they’re standing while you’re watching, if you can do it without being noticed, to get a feeling of what life is like in that person’s body.
Don’t stalk the person you’re watching 😉. Just watch them surreptitiously for a couple of minutes. Then, when you’re alone, practice “becoming the person you were watching” and recreating their actions (and words).
Have fun with the exercise, and go easy on yourself if you don’t immediately feel able to recreate their actions as accurately as you would like. Practice recreating what you saw a couple of times so you’ll be able to recreate them in class.
Part 2: Read over this script aloud a couple of times, and give some thought to the characters.
- .You do not have to memorize it, but you will have a chance to perform all fo the characters (as cold reads) in class.
- Give each character a life story, a back story, and give some thought to who the character is and what their life is like when they’re not in this scene.
Part 3: Watch Some Videos
I sometimes share these in other classes, but if you haven’t watched these yet, take a look at these short videos, in which the same actor is playing multiple (different) characters:
THE BREAK
In this video, I was aiming for a naturalistic style of acting, and aiming to create subtle distinctions between the characters; one is more domineering, one is more submissive (more like a typical movie):
Alien Side Story
In this short which I made for a competition during Covid, I’m playing two characters, in a looser style, “going larger”. The short was comedic, so the acting style, and the differences between the characters, are larger than life.
ORPHAN BLACK
Here’s a clip from a show called Orphan Black in which streetwise Sarah meets suburban mom Alison (both played by the same actor). Pay attention to the choices the actor is making to portray two very different characters with an underlying connection (they are clones of the same woman):
… and this one…
Sarah meets Cosima