Be sure of what you want...

As of late I have been wondering what my best options are for work and education and whether I made the right choices at school and college. Then I thought about the system we had to go through...UCAS

To apply for college or university, you have to apply before Christmas if you want to get in for the following September. This is fine for people who know exactly what they want to do, but for people like me who aren't really sure, this was a bit pushy.

I picked A levels at college rather than the BTEC I wanted to do in Music because I thought it would give me a better chance at getting into uni and give me a wider range of subjects to explore. To be honest, I regret this now. I absolutely adored my A levels and they were good learning curves, but now I am at university, doing something different to what I originally wanted to do, I am unhappy. My course isn't what I expected; when I applied for this course, they said there would be a lot of practical work - there really isn't. Also, even though I love acting, I cannot see myself teaching drama at school. I still want to be a teacher, but in music, my first love.

Now this has left me with a terribly difficult situation: do I leave university and go back to college doing what I wanted to do in the first place, or finish university, then go on to do a music course and do what I wanted to do before?

I have decided that my decision is to leave university early and go back to college, but only if I am successful in my application process for college. Personally, I do not see the point in finishing something I am unhappy with if I have the chance to change it. If I'm not successful in enrolling at college, I will continue my course at university because that seems the more sensible option instead of getting a full time job; at least then I will have a degree under my belt.

If anything good is to come out of my experiences is that I know now what I would rather do for the rest of my life instead of being stuck in a job I don't like. Also, I can tell others of my experiences and it may help those to really think about their options at college and university. If you want to do a certain subject, do it! No matter what anyone says or anyone thinks, do it! You'll only regret not doing it later.

The future of the character

I've said before how important it is to use Stanislavsky's methods of using your emotional memory to become the character but this is in terms of being in the moment. As well as knowing your character's past and present, you must know what they want for the future. Don't get mistaken for knowing what is going to happen to your character, but more about what your character's goals are, what they want in life, who they want to see etc.

Here's a quick, fun exercise you can do to help you think about your characters future:

Make up a character; give it some given circumstances, who are you, what have you done before now, who is your family, who means the most to you, what have you done recently?

Now place yourself in a prison. You have committed a crime. What is the crime?

You have fifteen minutes of time in the exercise yard. What will you do? How physically fit are you? Do you like the time in the yard? You cannot speak to anyone.

With the last five minutes of the time, you can do what ever you want. What is the first thing you want to do? You cannot speak to anyone during this time or you will be shot by an armed guard.

You find out that some letters have arrived at the prison. Is one for you? How will you react if you have a letter? What does it say? Who is it from? Who did you want it to be from? How do you feel? What if you didn't get a letter? What is your reaction? 

You are allowed to write to your loved one. Take 3 minutes to write everything down what you want to say to this person. How are you feeling? What is on your chest? Are you sorry? 

You hear that half of the prison are going to be freed. How do you feel? What will you feel like if you are freed? How will you feel if you have to stay in the prison? Who do you want to see the most?

Doing this makes you realised how much you look into the future without realising. You need to know your goals for the character to blossom. Do this for other characters that you are playing. Find out what they want from the events or people in the play. What is there ultimate goal? Do they reach their goal?

Sorry again that this is a short one! But it is really effective! I love this which is why I've posted it! If you have any comments on the exercise or want more information, please comment below, or email me at sophiimaria@gmail.com or tweet me at @SophiiMaria

Voice of an Angel

The voice is the primary tool for the human being; it allows us to communicate to let others know how we are feeling and to give commands etc. It is essential for us in day to day life but we are able to extend the voice to beyond its natural boundaries for entertainment purposes, whether it's singing or vocal techniques in acting. The voice includes the whole body! So make sure you warm up your body as well as your voice before you try any speech!

To be able to be good at acting, or singing, or being a good public speaker, you need to have a good vocal range. This means you must be able to work through all the different scales in your voice, and try to extend them if you feel you are quite monotone. If you constantly talk on one level, it becomes boring, and it's not entertaining for anyone watching you. The voice should be fluid and interesting, so changing pitch naturally is a good way to keep people interested in what you are saying. And the chances are that if you are interesting to listen to and sound fluid in what you are saying, you are more likely to be believable and the character and the text show through rather than your process.


You also need to have good resonance in your voice. This is the volume of what you are saying. A lot of inexperienced actors fall into the trap of shouting their lines rather than projecting them. Sometimes you need to say something quietly, but loud enough so the audience can hear; using resonance exercises can help you with this. There are a lot of exercises out there to try, so have a look at a few that deal with resonance. If you have problems with being too loud, however, you may frighten or annoy people in the audience because, although they can hear what you are saying, the way you say it won't be very natural and will start to look amateurist. It's good to be loud sometimes, but if there is no change in your voice, the piece will become very boring.


You also need to be able to breathe. Sounds stupid, but there's a reason for this. If you learn to breathe between the thoughts of the text you are performing, you will be more believable because unfortunately, a lot of the time we breathe at the end of a line (especially in Shakespeare) rather than at the end of a thought. You breathe between the thoughts in real life without even thinking. Try to break down the thoughts, and keep reading through the text slowly. Eventually, piece together everything that you are saying so it is fluid, is believable and the audience is more likely to see the character, not you.


Always take care with any exercises you find on the internet to do with your voice. Only do what you are comfortable doing and make sure you drink LOTS of water when you do. If you find your voice is getting sore, drink hot honey and lemonade, it tastes gorgeous and is very helpful for sore throats! Also, it is known that pineapple juice is good for the voice (I forget why). Avoid drinks like tea and coffee when practising your voice and don't eat a lot of chocolate either (but you can as a reward afterwards ;D). 


Sorry this is a short post but I have been very busy today! :( Bad times... But I will do more on the voice at a later date! Put comments below with any sort of exercises you know or any tips and tricks you could tell us all! Thanks for reading 


:D

Phenomenology (pt.2)

Trying to understand phenomenology is hard! This is why I wanted to this blog post in two halves. This analytical approach isn't something you should try to do on it's own, it is better to use this approach to push your analysis into another analytical approach, such as semiotics. 

To understand this approach, you must learn how to use it. If you are analysing an object onstage, you must look at how you react to it, without using many adjectives...

...yeah, I know!

Generally, if you eat a lemon, you would say it is 'sour' or 'bitter', but this wouldn't be a entirely phenomenological approach. You could say, however, how you reacted to the tasting of the lemon, even if you just make a noise. The next challenge is to transform this reaction into language, as close as you possibly can to the real reaction. Avoid using adjectives as these are only signifiers to your emotions or reactions, rather than the correct way to describe this. 

If you are to write about an object and your phenomenological approach to it, you would describe how you felt around it, what it feels like in weight, texture, the smell of it, the taste of it, everything to do with your senses that you instinctively react with. 

There is no right or wrong answer to your own phenomenological approach and this makes it difficult to be of use to other people around you that read your phenomenological analysis of a performance, however, it is very useful in conjunction with other analytical approaches. Finding how you react to something, then getting into the nitty gritty of what this means and the semiotic approach to it is a far more effective way of analysing a performance. Nevertheless, you shouldn't dismiss phenomenology, but don't get too bogged down into the meaning of it.

I could go on and on about how to write about the phenomenological approach to something, but I find that all research on phenomenology is very repetitive. In a sentence, phenomenology is the build up to a very effective analysis of a performance, and can be used in conjunction with other analytical approaches.

I know this is a very hard subject, and it can relate to many other industries and subjects of interest, but it is very hard to discuss this without over-complicating. If you have any questions at all, please leave a comment, email me at sophiimaria@gmail.com or tweet me (@SophiiMaria), and I will try to answer your question as much as I can; after all I am here to help you understand! If you have any examples of this, please leave a comment or if you just want to say hi! again, please leave a comment. 

:D

Phenomenology (pt.1)

Until recently, I thought phenomenology was more complicated than it actually is! Rather than being an analytical approach to find the meaning of a certain object on stage, like semiotics, or an approach that digs into the extraordinary circumstances of a play (like the themes, techniques or approaches to the making of a production), it is simply a way of analysing what is in front of you and how you experience it. 

Phenomenology looks at "the world as it is lived rather than as it is objectified, abstracted and conceptualized." (Stanton B. Garner, 1994) This means if you are looking at an object onstage, you look at the way you experience it, don't try and find a meaning to it! If the object is an apple, analyse what the apple looks like, feels like, tastes like, etc. instead of finding the hidden meaning like the forbidden fruit, for example. 

It would seem that semiotics and phenomenology would go hand in hand and yes, you're right. You can successfully analyse a performance using the analytical approaches of phenomenology and semiotics because you are analysing the object and what it means to you in the way you experience it and the meaning behind the use of this object (or lighting design/scenery/performance style etc.).

I know this is a very simple way of looking at phenomenology, but I wanted to guide you in before I go all guns blazing into this topic so have a look out for the second part of this blog next week!

Also, coming soon will be a Glossary page for all those words you don't quite understand! This will be an ongoing page that will update frequently as I discuss more and more topics! :D

Finally, if you have any ideas/theories/approaches/techniques/gossip/music releases etc. that you want me to cover, email me at sophiimaria@gmail.com, tweet me at @SophiiMaria or comment on any of my blogs. I will happily research into anything you want me to cover on the entertainment industry!

:D

Drama Queen!

A lot of people who study drama often have to put up the so-called "Drama Queens". The people that have to be the centre of attention all the time so talk utter rubbish to get in the limelight. Not to be confused with the earlier topic on Drama Snobs, the Drama Queen doesn't necessarily have to study or be involved with acting. We all know that one Drama Queen that drives us up the wall...

We all have a little bit of a Drama Queen (or King!) inside of us, but how often that part of us shows is what describes a person to be a full on Drama Queen! Personally, I believe there are more Drama Queens in the acting world than any other industry because we are constantly trying to get 'discovered' so we need to be a bit full on, but sometimes, it can get out of control.

As far as I know, there are two types of Drama Queen: the first being the full-on "it's all about me!" type who constantly speaks up with their own opinion and displays emotion to the fullest when it suits their fancy; the second being the subtle type who find a talent that they milk without anybody else (except a few) realising it. 

The first type are known to be friends with everyone, but at a certain point, all hell breaks loose and you either don't want to know them at all, or get shoved out of your little clique after a huge bust up on a day out with everyone. 

The second type are known to be a little more sneaky. They use social networking sites to promote their views/opinions on other things, or people, and often have a talent which they abuse to get attention. This sort of people aren't always malicious. They probably just get a lot of attention from the things they say online because they are too scared to say it in public, but it's still a bad habit to get into.

I know this is mostly my own personal opinion and experience but there will be the Drama Queen at some point in your lives. How do you deal with these kinds of people? What can we do to relax and not want to be in the spotlight all the time? I know I can be a Drama Queen sometimes, I admit it! But I'm pretty sure I'm on the scale of just wanting to have a little bit of attention to make me feel good, rather than the full-blown bitch a lot of people fall into. Let me know what you guys think! 

Sorry this is a rather negative and a bit ranty. But these kinds of people annoy me, and I'm sure they annoy you too. I just wanted to get it off my chest and see what everyone else thinks. Even if you're not in the industry, tell me about yours! I really do read all comments and I will publish!

:D