Class 3 - Week 2: Rough Blocking

Well, here's my first stab at my shot. My mentor, Mark Behm, emphasized to us last week to plan very, very well. To overplan. To explore all the possibilities and to draw all that out and to definitely not go with our first thumbnails. As you can see from my thumbnails, they got successively clearer and (hopefully) better.







I thumbnailed before I did my reference, except for that third page. Those were distilled down to key, storytelling poses and sketched from the reference. The first two pages were where I tried to capture the emotion of key moments.

Actually, I take that back. I had some friends come over and we all took turns going through it and filming it before I thumbnailed, but I didn't look at it. Just got some ideas and went back to listening to the audio over and over and over. Mark said I should listen to it for a few hours. I know I listened to it for at least an hour, probably a little more, over the course of several days.

So then I started feeling the words in my body and tried to sketch my ideas out in little snippets. I watched myself in the mirror, thought about what my body might be doing, while still thinking broad ideas - whole body gestures. Really, really hard thing to do, I might add - visualizing a nuanced performance in your head and then trying to get it onto paper. Nothing new though - welcome to the world of artmaking.

So yeah, like most ideas I've had, I had a very clear idea of how I wanted it to feel, but not so sure on the specifics that would get me there in an authentic way. Not super happy with the thumbnails in terms of nailing down any specifics, but that's not really what it was for anyway.

So then, I decided to film more reference. The stuff I shot earlier didn't ring true, but then I got a wild hair in my you-know-where and pulled out an old halloween costume. "I'll just put on a wig", turned into "well, a wig will look weird with no makeup", which turned into "well, a girl's face is going to look weird on a man's body"...not that I want to have to go to those lengths every time to get into a character (I mainly just did it for sh*ts and giggles, cause I'm crazy like that), but I think it really helped to get into character on a different level and I'm glad I did it. Props are always great for changing things up enough to get you out of your comfort zone and take some risks.

So then I took some time and walked around the house "in character" - and when I was ready to film, mentally I put it in the context of a bigger argument and tried to channel that specific moment within the argument as best as I could, over and over and over and over.

Another thing that helped was where I filmed it. I'm sitting on the bed in my bedroom, pretending to be yelling at my ex (I think it helps to tap into your own past experiences that remind you of the situation - you use what you can) and that also helped get a truer performance I think. I wasn't really thinking about it at the time, but being so exposed in how I was dressed also added to the vulnerability, I think. Have you ever noticed how you carry yourself differently depending on how tight or loose your clothes are?

Like my mentor said, the more depth and layers you are aware of in your character, all that stuff will feed into what you do, and you'll have a much richer performance as a result. So that's kind of where I was coming from in my approach.

I filmed dozens of takes until my delivery started coming completely naturally but not so much that I went into auto-pilot mode and lost the freshness.

It's tough work being "on" and engaged like that in such an intense, focused way - 10 seconds of desperation times 40 plus takes. I didn't take breaks, really, so I wouldn't get out of my "groove".

But after the first set of takes, I watched the footage, and then lip synched to a song that had a similar emotional tone to get some inspiration and approach the scene fresh again. Something else I tried when my face started freezing in "life-is-so-damn-serious" mode was to do a take playing the opposite emotion - you know, same dialogue, same delivery, but I acted all happy and silly. Makes for a great "acting breather", if you will.

By then, though, I could tell I was getting tired and the performance was suffering, so I called it a night and like a true procrastinator, didn't start my blocking til Sunday morning.

After blocking it, which only took about an hour and a half, I was actually quite surprised at how much emotion our muppet-style "Bishop" character is capable of with the limited facial controls it has, but then again, I was equally amazed at how much I was able to squeeze out of Stewie, too, who only had two eyes that could blink on a sphere of a head.

Anyhow, my goal is for someone to see my shot and think, "I've HAD that conversation, and that's how I FELT!"

We'll see what my mentor has to say. In the meantime, feel free to share your comments with me as well - would love to hear if the acting is convincing or not.