Cameron Bonners Portfolio

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Cameron Bonner 24102627

Cameron Bonner’s Portfolio

Development of acting technique- introduction

Upon starting at Drama school, I had some limited knowledge of forms of acting technique (mainly being Stanislavsky (Stan) technique. While being at Leeds conservatoire We had gone greater into depth on Stan techniques in the earlier stages of the year, this was to later be complemented with other Practitioners such as Uta Hagen and Larben technique being examples. Key areas of my performance that I wanted to work on was being able to give a genuine and believable performance that was different to how I am as a person.

Stanislavski work was based around achieving a naturalistic performance for stage. To explore this, we were tasked with building our own characters from the use of an object. From this, we would create a reason to why this object was of significance to us spring boarding us to make decisions on why it meant this to our character and giving them their own given circumstances that inform how they act. Given circumstances are a technique used by Stanislavski to help an actor build a greater picture of who a character is and how they act, being a basis for making decisions about a character’s characteristics and mannerisms. Typically, they can be found throughout a text. Given circumstances are also used in informing the technique of uniting and objectives. This technique gives a character different wants across a piece, A super- objective would be characters overall aim across an entire text objective in a scene and units snips of a scene, typically were a stage direction or piece of dialog changes the content of the scene.

We also had a session where we talked about our past. This was used to display use of emotional memory, as often when people spoke about their past it would evoke genuine emotional reactions. This can valuable in scenes to allow for such genuine reactions. However, it was also clearly put to us that emotional memory can be dangerous when dealing with more challenging topics and should was suggested that it is used in memories, we are comfortable resurfacing.

As well as learning about Stan techniques we were also introduced to other practitioners such as Uta Hargen. One of the key principles of her methodology was the use of substitution. This is were an actor will take the desired feeling that their character may be having and using one of your own experiences where you may have felt this emotion. Another key idea of hers was the through line of action. This is the idea that a scene does not happen in isolation, in turn the character should be carrying the weight of what was happening to them previously whether it be on stage or not.

We were given the chance to apply our learnt techniques on the text ruffian on the stair, in preparation for our assessment.
My first instinct was to read the whole text and write down key given circumstances of Wilson (the character I was playing).This was to first give me an idea of the character I was playing allowing me to discover what the super objective of the character could be and objectives of certain units and the scene I was preforming. It was also useful in allowing me to make choices on how I would characterise him. After this, I gave units to parts of the text and gave them actions that directly related to my given circumstances and how I wanted to portray Wilson.

We also took part in a screen acting module. In this module, we looked at some of the differences in etiquette and performance in a screen acting environment. Some of the things we explored is the importance of believability and connection between characters. We did this by being filmed in general conversation and then with a script. This helped highlight the difference in how things are said in both, our reactions and the connection though eye contact. This highlighted for me a tendency to be more performative with my reactions in comparison to how I would act normally, though I generally do tend to be a more expressive person in comparison to my pears and was considered. While working on this, we explored each week trying a performing a script in our own words and then using the actual script the next week. This helped me understand the genuine feel of how lines could feel genuine as I myself we imagine me saying in a manor I would speak while saying it with the Characters dialog giving a more genuine feel. A problem I did face during time was the quick turnover of being able to learn lines, this gave me high amounts of anxiety in some lessons, of which led to me not always being able to take part in the lesson to its full extent. I takled this by working on my lines (alongside character work) in the spare time during other days and, while this did help, I did sometimes still struggle with the lines in lessons particularly with ones where we had to learn them on the day.

We also looked at some elements of Larben technique. This suggest using different elements of movement through internalising what is called ‘efforts. These are what are to be internalised to help convey the emotion of the character in a physical manner. An example of the is the ‘ring’ of which creates a twisting feeling inside of the performer and can be used to show more intense emotional pain. I found this technique in being able to convey a sense of feeling in a character without actively emoting in an ingenuine way.  

Later in the module we worked on developing techniques of using a script during a performance. This was also an area I struggled in as due to me being dyslexic I struggled to follow along the lines and remember enough to say in a sentence. However, I was able to combat this effectively by using methods we had learnt in our sight-reading lessons. This was following along our lines with one of our fingers. I also use other techniques learnt in sight reading during these lessons such as holding up the script and waiting until I have my eyes of the page when delivering my lines. These I found to be effective as it allowed me to have a stronger connection with my scene partner and not present so clearly that I was reading lines. Some of these skills described are present in the footage linked below ,however, this does also show some struggling with line comprehension, this something I believe I will be able to get better at with more practice of the techniques mentioned Over the course of these lessons we learnt about different shots and how they effected how the scene presented ( eg a closer up hot creating a more intimate feel with the character). I found these skills valuable as it gave me understanding how to create scenes myself though film. I plan in the future to be able to apply this Knowledge by making my own short film where I can experiment with this. I would have liked to have done this by the end of my second year.  https://leedsconservatoire.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=eab54afa-37d3-46a9-b3af-b2eb00db68de.


Overall, when applying Stanislavsky techniques, I tended to feel greater understanding of who my character was and what choices I wanted to make. This was an improvement on where I had been at the start of the year where I had had feedback that I was often playing my characters too close to myself. However, a problem I am often facing is how to make my actions more adaptable to the responses of my scene partner. I often found myself unable to respond to my scene partner in the moment which made the scenes feel more disconnected. I also struggled with the use of emotional memory during the piece as I couldn’t find many ways in which I could relate to the character.

In my acting assessment, were we had to portray what happening before or after the scene we had performed, of which I had chosen the former to display. Some of the feedback I was given was that it had some of the key foundations in the application of the given circumstances and use of the magic if, however, I needed to further push these techniques to give a more dynamic and complex performances as well as raising the stakes. I was this feedback as accurate the performance that was given, as I did not manage my time well enough to be able to show a build-up in the characters emotions into a bold choice. Instead, I focus too much on the build-up that I did not give myself the time to fully display what I had learned within my lessons. This also lent into the feedback that I had not done a significant amount of preparation for the piece. This is likely why I had struggled to stay within the time constraints. In the future, to combat these issues I planned to do a larger amount of preparation to be ready for pieces that I am going to perform. This would also help with my performance anxiety that I often get to a significant degree when preforming and this would allow me to push the skills I have learnt to a higher level, giving better offers and bolder choices as I would not be worried about what I am going to do. This feedback did however achieve my goal at the start of the year to display a character that wasn’t close to myself. This is an improvement on earlier in the year when we were making our own characters as I was described by Tom as playing a character that was too close to myself. In the future, I would also like to use more skills learnt in research for performance lessons as I think this would help me in pieces were more detail into the background of the piece is needed. This would also include using this information to greater inform my choices and the actions of the characters that I preform.  

Voice

Upon starting at Leeds, I hadn’t done much work on voice technique and had no experience in sung voice. Areas I had struggles with in voice was using my chest rather than engaging my other muscles when breathing, in turn leaving my voice unsupported contributing to my voice becoming strained and burnt our quicker. Over the course of the module my goals were to be able to understand voice technique and how to correctly embody them across my classes. Also, I wanted to build the confidence to sing in front of my class as well an understanding of how to improve as a singer.

In our section of classes with Joe, we first looked at being able to build a warm-up to adequately prepare us for working with our voice. In this section of work, we looked ad techniques like connecting with our breath, this is where we would use the full capacity of our breath without forcing air out or straining. This was done by lying on the floor in semi- supine position and practicing a method of breathing called box breathing. This is where we would breathe in for a given number of seconds hold our breath for another amount and release for another time (ex. 8 second breathe in 4 second hold 8 second out and repeat) we then added a touch of sound such as a ‘cah’ sound as this would allow us to engage the abdominal and intercostal muscles in releasing air.  This was particularly useful in helping me tackle me using my voice unsupported.

We also looked at ‘breathing into the belly’ this is a method that allows us to produce sound by supporting the voice with all available muscles. In turn, this allows for the sound to come out clearer and puts less strain on the voice and this allows us to maintain or voice for a longer period of time. This is useful for when needing your voice for a long-time weather it be a long time rehearsing or a long run of shows. It also protects the voice from damage.

Later in this module, we worked on Shakespeare sonnets, what We focused on pronunciation of our consents so we could be properly understood, this was a good area for me to work on as I often struggle with some articulation of words such as the ‘ar’ sounds at the end of words and using the ‘f’ sound instead of a ‘th’. In this we looked at tongue twisters that made us have to work hard to properly articulate the words.

In our other voice classes with Chris Penny we looked at poetry, specifically their rhythms. This were we looked at Shakespeare’s sonnets that used the iambic pentameter in the ones we were allowed to choose. Typically, they would have 8 syllables per line and 14 lines (though in some cases lines could be shorter) with an AbAb rhyming scheme. The structure of the pentameter gave us a set rhythm to speak in and a break in the rhythm suggesting a change in clarity or intention. We Also, highlighted key words on each of the lines that could add extra emphasis as well as pronouns and points that are focused on due to the rhythm of the iambic pentameter. Later in the module we looked at developing character voices. This was done by exploring different parts of our voice. This would include changing our voices at different paces, pitches and different areas. This could be adding more nasal qualities, more chest voice or accent etc. This would be based on the characters we had to preform and how they could be perceived in the text.

For our assessment, we had to preform one Shakespeare sonnet and one narrative text with 3 characters including the narrator. I chose Sonnet 138 and a snippet of Charlie and the chocolate factory. In the build up to our assessment I worked on trying to create unique voices for each character to display my range of voice and understanding of techniques learnt in classes. I did this by reading the lines in a various range of voices until I found qualities that I thought fitted the characteristics of the characters. I also used a sheet to work out the given circumstances of the characters and how this may affect the way they speak. For the Sonnet I had struggled in lesson with preforming my piece too staccato, due to too much focus on the rhythm. To combat this, I explored exercises in lesson that could make it feel more natural I did this by using an exercise in lesson where we remove the vowels of the words to portray the real feeling of the words rather than just the meaning. This allowed me to really focus on how I was supposed to feel rather than having a ‘perfect structure’.

In my feedback, I was told that I had good range of character voices and displayed a good level of technique in breathing. This shows that I had managed to achieve my goal of developing my understanding of voice techniques and having a solid base to progress into the future. Some of my feedback I also received is that I help lots of my breath in my chest, meaning that I had struggled to progress in this area that I had set out to. This did however help me identify the reasoning behind why this is the case. Often when I am tense or anxious I hold lots of this in my chest and struggle to release. A suggestion by joe that I plan to use is about preparation time, suggesting that having more time before a performance to help elevate such problems. This would also concede with my plan to work more outside of lesson.

Movement

At the start of the year, going into movement lessons, I had a distinct lack of confidence in my movement ability. Giving me a mindset of that I am not an actor who uses movement. Some of my goals for this set of modules was to build a sense of my movement abilities in order to know where to build my on my skill set, have a better understanding of the uses of movement in the wider context of theatre, rather than in only physical theatre and to have the confidence to put myself forward in performance spaces.

At the start of our year in Elon Morris’ lessons we first began by exploring between each other. One of the exercises we used was were one we would have a partner and one would move while the other would stay still. Each turn the other person would put a body part in empty space around the other person (eg. A leg underneath an extended arm.) I saw this as a way to explore making spaces more dynamic. Another technique we had used at the start, as well as consistently throughout the year, ‘Martins not quite yoga’. These are a set of movement patterns that we did as an ensemble, without and physical or verbal communication. The goal I saw of this was to develop our rhythmic timing as a group/ not relying on watching a ‘leader’ of the exercise. At the start of the year, I found myself getting distracted when doing this exercise, often interaction with my peers instead of working with the ensemble. I noticed this habit at the mid put in the year and to tackle this issue I identified people who I tended to interact with and made an effort to move away from them, in order to allow myself to maintain focus. I saw success in doing this as by the end of the year I had greater focus when doing this during the start of the lessons. Another persistent exercise we used throughout the year in this module was exploring a stage space as an enable. Initially, we did this by learning to balance the space as an ensemble. This is were we explored the space while not clumping into certain sections creating a moving even space. We were then introduced to Topography of the space, which is were Shapes, tempo and levels and they can be used to create a more dynamic feel in a space. The final building of this exercise was the ideas of impulses, this is the idea of action on a trigger by another thing (this could be anything person or internal) and responding without thought).

The ideas explored in these exercises didn’t initially resonate with me, despite this, I tried to focus in the hope that I would see their application. I first understood the Methodology behind in a Sight-reading lesson. When I was watching a piece, I saw how other actors were exploring the space which made it more engaging for me as an audience member. As well as this, the ideas of impulse present created a naturalistic use of movement and helped break a sense of forced movement, this is something I wanted to take into my skill set. I also saw the connection between the methodologies in sight reading of status of characters though using levels and movement and, when applied with their use we had learnt in movement could create a dynamic performance while maintain a strong naturalistic feel. This line of though was also key in helping me achieve my goal of having a greater understanding of the wider application of movement techniques.

In our animal studies lessons, we looked at embodying an animal of our choice, of which I chose an Ant Eater. In doing this we had to look in depth of the structure and the living of our animal. This would include the anatomical structure of the creature as well as their rhythms of life and motivations. Based on our research, we would go into improvisation sessions and explore how we could portray aspects of the character and what blocks/hurdles we are facing. After doing this and coming to our final performance of our animal we attempted to humify our characters. This is were we would use our aspects leant of our animal and display them as if they have turned into a human. In this we experienced the animal limbs being replaced with those of a human and how they would adapt. After this, we used the characteristics of our animal and created them into a real person and took part in activities.

Thought this was one of our shorter modules we did, I gain lots of techniques I found useful. The ideas of basing a character of an animal I found a unique way to build a character and is something I plan to take into my future possess to create characters father away from me as a person, particularly in the earlier stages of building one. This also contributed to achieving my goal of putting myself forward in a movement setting as, when presented I didn’t shy away for committing to my animal. I also managed to maintain focus within lessons despite the wacky nature that can be perceived by the module.

We also did a more dance-based module with Donald. In this module we looked at various dance techniques, one of these being Jazz based movements, which we would be doing for our assessment. In these lessons we learnt how to do dance moves like the Charleston and ‘falling off the log’ amongst others. Initially, due to my lack of experience and confidence in this area, I found it very difficult to contribute my full amount to the lessons as I would feel very stressed and overwhelmed with the intensity of the class and the perceived complexity of the dance moves. This led to me stop dancing when I had got something wrong. Despite this, I tried persevering through the classes and began to get more of a hang of the dancing to the point where I was able to commit more in the lessons. In the performance, I did not put myself forward enough that would contribute to my goal to do so as I stayed near the back of the performance and didn’t put myself forward to any solo work.

As part of our assessment was to look at how we warm up for a piece, throughout the year we looked at specific stretches and movement that helped get us warm for a day of movement. We did this as an ensemble and would be to the rhythm of the music playing. As this would further allow us develop our focus as an ensemble and develop a sense of performative rhythm. The movement focused on developing cardiovascular endurance and core strength. To develop this further, I began to regularly go to the gym to build such strength. We also looked at static stretches to remove stiffness in joints and muscles in the short term and a long-term goal of creating a greater range of movement.

We also worked on some other dances later in the year and because I had worked on being able to commit more in lesson I was easier pick up. These techniques learnt were also more physical dependent which I felt more comfortable with. I found these techniques useful in showing conflict between two people without having to use stage combat. This due to the intensity of the and the pace of the moves. In the piece linked I would have liked to give more characterisation to create more interests in the piece and give more purpose to the movements. I have taken these skills learnt into my ensemble work due to limitations on viewership (children cannot watch depicted violence in a realistic manner) and I have found it as a strong part of our piece as it maintains our heightened performance and keeps the strong intensity of representing a joust.

In my feedback for the movement, it said that I had I good warm up for the piece but I needed to make it more personalised. This shows that the focus I had paid in lessons had contributed to a basic understanding of the movement techniques taught across the year. To achieve a more personal plan, I plan to explore different movements that I struggle with and look at stretches that are helpful in this area and use them before doing work as well as my spare time. It also said that my character choices seemed general and did not break from my habitual movements. This was likely the case as I spent my time focusing on the dancing and did not give enough time to develop a distinct character. It also said about to show more belief in my movement capacity, this is something that I have been developing over the year and, although it is not as good as it could be, I plan to keep persistent with across the next year.

Overall for the year, A key theme amongst my feedback was that I can tend to be very anxious when preforming which can negatively affect my techniques that I have learnt, such as breathing high in my chest leaving my voice unsupported, and being afraid to make stronger choices and bolder choices in a performance space. This will be an integral point that I plan to work on. I plan on doing this by giving greater preparation for a performance which can help me be more confident in what I’m doing, in turn, alleviating some performance anxiety. Ways I plan to do this are by having a more disciplined structure of doing work, such as eliminating distractions like having my phone in my room or having a noisy learning environment. Therefore, allowing me to put more time and focus into my work. I would also like to develop my induvial practice more as I have had feedback that my performance can tend to not show improvement between rehearsals. I plan to do develop this by looking over the techniques that I have learnt over different classes and make decisions on what has be useful for me and what hasn’t until I have my own prosses ready to apply to our first set of work for when we are back in September. Other issues that I have face throughout the year is an unwillingness to open up to people. This sometimes less to some of my choices not being as bold as they could be and character that are the same. This also has not helped me when teachers are trying to give me support on days I have not been fully present which limits my ability to contribute in lesson. I plan to work on this by getting therapy sessions where I can be more open about my feelings which I can translate into my lessons. Also, I have struggled with physical touch throughout the year and it has impacted my work by creating a sense of self-conscious during lessons taking me out mentally. This also limited me in lots of movement lesson as they often involve working with a partner where you have to physically touch each other. I plan on working on this issue in the same way I do with openness. By the start of next academic year, I want to be able to articulate my emotions in A way that allows me greater support in lessons and progress on this throughout the year as I understand that it is not soothing that will be a short-term fix.

References

Actors Toolkit