Studio Shoot 5- Nigel Bristow's Acting Workshop (Part 1)

During day one of the workshop we had with Nigel, I learnt several things and found the whole workshop very interesting and helpful for our current project/any projects I do in the future that involve working with actors/actresses.

First day of the workshop:

During the first workshop day, we looked at a variety of things, for example:

. Difference between Screen acting and Stage acting- Screen Acting is more about what is on the screen, so the actor/actress is limited to where they move, and placement is crucial, whereas stage acting is different, as actors can move freely around with little restriction, which is more similar to real life. The scenario shown to us was Sam, an actor who graduated from a top London acting school, standing within the boundaries of the frame (shown on a TV monitor directly plugged into a camcorder). He was made to position himself in different ways to get the shot that was needed (Standing/positioning himself in ways that looked strange to us however it worked when looking at the projection on the screen from the camera).

. We were briefly shown Camera Shot types, which was a continuation from the last exercise. The main shot types labelled by Nigel (Image on the right). As the camera was already set up from the previous exercise, Sam was made to act out a scene where he had to pretend he'd been waiting for his sister at an airport for hours and he thinks he sees her coming out of the tunnel, however its not her. But suddenly, it is her. This scene allowed Sam to show a variation of emotions, and position himself and move depending on what camera shot type Nigel wanted. For example the first shot was a simple full body shot, where his backpack was on the floor, and as he thinks he sees his sister, he picks it up to put it on his back, to only discover its not her. This then moved onto a mid shot, which meant the bag was not out of shot, so he had to position himself and the bag in a way that gave off the same feeling as the first shot. This carried on until a close up, where facial expressions were solely relied on.

We them moved on to 2 films with similar sequences (L.A. Confidential, made in 1997 and Heat, made in 1995). We had to analyse the footage shown to us and discuss the actor's performance, comparing their acting abilities. The actors in 'L.A. Confidential' simply read their lines with no improvisation or extra performance added to their role. This made it more difficult for the editor, as they had to attempt to edit it in a way that brought out the scene more. In 'Heat' however, the performance by Al Pacino and Robert De Niro was exceptional. They based how they would speak and move on each other, and play with each other's performance. In L.A. Confidential, they simply would read there line and each character would wait for them to finish there line and say their's, however Al Pacino and Robert De Niro would react to each others dialogue, changing the tempo of the speech/when they would execute their lines, to make for a much more interesting sequence. This made for a much better edit, allowing the editor to change camera's more fluently.

Overall, the first day of the workshop I found to be really interesting and helpful when looking into casting actors/actress', and how I would go about filming them/interacting with them.