Camera Skills #4 - Finally Finding Comfort In Front of the Camera
- Emily Jade
- Nov 1, 2020
- 3 min read
In this session, we had to read the scenes that were sent to us through the mock casting call that we were given. There were two scenes, one from Ozark which was a mixed gender scene, and one from Signs, which is a foreign show translated into English, which was a same-sex female scene. I was reading for Nina, who was part of Signs.
Nina is friends with Agata, who’s brother has just been arrested for murder, and Nina’s father is a police officer, and Agata shut’s Nina down after assuming she told her father about her brothers whereabouts. Nina is actually in love with Agata, and so therefore wouldn’t want to hurt her.
I had a lot of fun learning and playing around with this scene. It was a fun one to learn, especially as I had to go out and do my own research on the characters. There wasn’t that much because of the fact that it is a foreign show, but it was fun nonetheless. It was also fun to play an emotionally charged character, as I myself am very emotionally driven so it was fun to put into play.
I did one take with Martha and one take with Amber, and naturally I felt more comfortable with Martha. We clicked so much better than myself and Amber, as ours was very rigid, which I then immediately knew that Martha and I were better for one another for this task.
I felt that for a first take, mine and Martha’s video went quite well. I had my phone in my hand through fear of forgetting lines, however with the angle and frame of the shot you can’t see the phone, and I really tried to make the scanning over of the lines quite natural so I wasn’t losing track. I felt a bit more pressure as we were told that we had to keep going if we forgot our lines as there's no ‘second chances’ in a casting call. It was my first casting call experience so I wasn’t really sure what to expect.
My second take was with Amber, which as I mentioned was very stiff and rigid, which is nothing against Amber.
I just think our ways of working and performing are a lot different, as we play complete polar opposites in the scene and I think that’s why I was put off by watching this scene back. I think that in this one, I was trying to be a bit moodier to try and match Amber’s version of Agata, and that’s another reason why we just didn’t fit well together.
I had never heard of the ‘Meisner Exercise’ before, even though I had heard of Sanford Meisner prior to this workshop. It is a set of exercises to ‘get the actor out of their head’, focussing on repetition ‘so that the words are deemed insignificant compared to the underlying emotion’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meisner_technique#:~:text=The%20Meisner%20technique%20is%20an,instinctively%20to%20the%20surrounding%20environment.). This exercise suggests that the words are less important than the emotion behind them, which is truthful to a certain extent, but if you don’t find importance in the words then you’re never going to be able to comprehend their emotion.
I enjoyed this exercise, as it was simple but effective. Martha and I spoke one anothers lines back to each other in different tones and different emotions until we felt like we had gotten the right emotion, or that we had understood the meaning of it’s text. It worked well in preparation for the final take, as some of the repetition was taken from this exercise and snuck into the tape of Martha and I, as it just fit so well for the scene.
After rewatching the final take,
I felt like my acting was much more genuine. I felt like I could feel Nina’s emotion much more than I could before, and I really like the effect it gave on both the characters as they developed through the speech.
Overall, for a first time doing a mock casting call, I was less nervous than I thought I’d be, and I feel at ease knowing that I now have a vague idea as to what a real casting call will entail. I do think I am finally comfortable in front of the camera now, which is a huge leap forward from the first session where I felt so awkward and uncomfortable around the camera as I felt like it wasn't for me. Since developing, I have thoroughly enjoyed working in front of the camera and the opportunities we've been given.
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