Getting Into Character

When you're acting it's important to LEARN YOUR CHARACTER. Yes you need to make the character your own but you need to analyze the character so that you can do it correctly. Whenever I receive a role there are a few things I've learned you should always do to learn your character. First of all you need to know the time period. Obviously someone in the 1920's isn't going to have their hand on their hips or other quirks we have in our modern society. Time period is also important because people behaved different within families, schools and every day life. This brings me to my next tip that you need to learn character interaction. Look at the other people your character will be in contact and interact with. If you're doing a reenactment or a show previously done or if there is a movie use those past performances to see how your character should talk, behave and act towards the other characters. If this is an original work, ask the director or writer how they imagined your character acting towards the others and the kind of relationships they have. Finally ALWAYS learn your character's history. Learn their backstory, what they are driven to do, and who they are, as if doing a history report. If you don't know who they are, how can you pretend to be them? And also make sure to enjoy it. It should be fun getting to be in another person's shoes for the sake of entertainment.

Lions and tigers and animals movies OH MY!

Ahhh animal movies, we've all seen them. Beethoven, Shiloh, Shaggy Dog and so on. There are a lot of extra steps in making movies like these, the biggest being the animals. You need to get the animals, the trainers, pay for their special food and needs. Also unlike humans you need to be more patient with them during scenes because they don't function like human beings do. But what really drives people to make these movies? I mean sure some like the Air Bud series has TONS of movies and probably made the recurring actors a lot of money but how much could it really be making for the film maker. It seems to me that the cost of making these movies should highly outweigh the profits especially since they are geared to a younger audience who now in days want more mature content. Anyway thats just my thoughts on theses movies and hope this provoked some thought for you as well.

What Is Slow Motion?

Hello internet, this week we're talking about something most people have seen. SLOW MOTION! Everybody love's watching some good slow motion, but how is real slow motion done? Some would say that you just run slow and slur your voice. Others would say you just take your video and slow down the playback rate. Now people could even say you shoot something on the new iPhone. But real slow motion is much more than that. For real slow motion you shoot with specially designed cameras. One of the most common brand names for slow motion cameras is called the Phantom cameras. Cameras like these record slow motion by recording tens of thousands of frames per seconds (differing from each model). At normal playback of 30 frames per second you could have only a few seconds of video play back at a duration of a couple of minutes. However this isn't something just anyone can do. It costs a lot of money to purchase one of these cameras and special training to operate them. So creates a special career field for camera operators who'd like to invest in doing slow motion as their job. For a great example of slow motion in use for fun ways you can check out www.youtube.com/theslowmoguys. It's a channel where a professional slow motion camera operator uses his phantom to shoot really cool entertaining things in slow motion. Until next week I'll leave you with their newest video you wouldn't wanna miss.

Music Sways The Scene

Music is a big component in television in movies. A lot of things in television in movies can trigger emotions like acting, visuals, but nothing does it better than music. For some reason well composed music can trigger the proper emotions. Music power doesn’t just lie with itself. Music helps to aid whatever scene is currently playing on screen. It may not even support the current action but if the music does something like start to sound creepy it preludes to what’s about to happen next. Its all about timing though. Trying to push a love song in the middle of an argument won’t do anything but confuse the audience. You need to have the feel for when and where music belongs to properly execute it to its fullest use. This takes time and reviewing past uses of music. So this has just been a quick idea that been running through my mind recently. See you guys next week and take care.

Let's Backtrack

Continuing on with last week's theme of debatable decisions for TV and movies this week we'll be taking a look at a device used in many. It's that thing a lot of people hate, when they know the end from the beginning. Ever watch a show or movie and it starts with a lot of stuff going on and you have no idea what happening. Then suddenly it cuts to black says something like "12 hours earlier". The audience now knows what will be happening later or in the end of the episode.

But is this a good idea? For instance I've noticed that this has been done in a lot of crime or investigation shows. When I'm watching one of those I'd rather try to figure out what's going to happen myself, I don't want something like that spoiling my fun. The worst is when they have an opening like that who reveals who the antagonist is in the show or movie because when you're watching it and the character is acting like a good guy still (because obviously he isn't going to give himself away) it just annoys me and takes away what's generally a good reveal and plot point of the plot. So once again this is an open ended thought provoking post to see what you think about this type of thing that is done in TV and movies.

Is Change A Good Thing?

Hello everyone I have a question for you, have you ever sat down to watch a show and when it comes on you're really confused. That's how I felt watching this season's premiere of Parenthood which is our topic of today, changes. The season premiere obviously takes place a good month or two after the last season's finale so you'd expect changes to have occurred, however there were a ton of changes. Characters were doing different things completely, in different locations, with different people and I was so busy just trying to comprehend what was going on that I barely could stay focused on the show.

For instance a character who was leaving was abruptly back with no explanation as to why until halfway through the show. And a lot of other questions I have still haven't been answered even after watching it multiple times. So what I want to put out is what is the amount of changes a series should make between seasons. Is it worth the time viewers spend thinking about what has changed as apposed to whats happening then just to not make changes. Just a little food for thought for your minds readers.

Anime Vs. Cartoons, What Is The True Difference?

If any of you readers grew up as a teenager between the late 90's and early 2000's then you have to know what anime is. You were one of the many people in what is known as the Otaku generation. A generation of people who were exposed wholly to anime. Fast forward to now, anime is starting to get a little more back into the public spotlight after it was long forgotten and left the public eye. Now must of you who watch anime must have this situation happen all the time. You're sitting down watching anime on your computer (much as I do in my free time in school and sometimes when I shouldn't) and you hear that comment. "Why you watching some stupid cartoons?" Yes to the untrained eye they mite seem like some little kid's cartoons, but what is it that truly separates anime from just some cartoon. Today I'll be talking about the things that in my opinion stand out. 

Now first and most obvious, anime is originally made in Japan which is it's most distinct quality. But it isn't what makes anime, anime. For instance people confuse Avatar The Last Air Bender for being an anime all the time. This is because it shares the other qualities most commonly seen in anime. To start the art style of an anime is always very high quality. Because it has become such a big part of their culture all anime is put together with such high art talent that everything looks amazing. The bigger the production time and project the even better it will look. On the topic of art, anime always has its own great line up of music tracks. The compositions even lead a lot of us to pull them up on our computer to listen to as we do work. 

Some of the biggest qualities come in the story though. Most anime is made from manga. A manga is a Japanese graphic novel. This is important because it means most anime already have established stories lines that are well fleshed out, meaning is all about bringing those details out in the video form. Which brings up another good point that characterization is a huge part of all animes. Every character no matter how big or small is usually given some way to emotionally connect to the audience to wear you care about them. I've seen an entire episode dedicated to one character who showed up at the beginning gained and emotional connect to the plot and audience and then dies at the end of that episode. Animes also share great, broad genres. There are comedies, sports, slice of life, action, adventure, mystery, if its a genre then there is a hit anime to cover it. 

Now focusing more on the story you see a huge difference in types of stories shown in american animated programs (and even live action) and that of animes. This is because Japan does not share the same sort of censorship that we do. Meaning a lot of radical and new ideas can be created and made over there that couldn't be done here. Usually this translates to seeing more mature themed stories or more complicated story lines, but this is not always true. Also in most cases when an anime is made the idea is pitched to a board of investors from different animation companies, they then decide whether to pick it up or not and who will fund and take the roles of this anime. This group of collaborators is most commonly seen in credits as the project group for the anime. For instance for Sword Art Online (shortened to SAO) they are credited as SAO Project. This highly differs from the American way of creating cartoons especially in the sense that they pull in more resources and talent from different place. 

So this is just a brief description on the differences I see between cartoons and anime. I hope that you enjoyed this article and for those of you reading who may have had a different mind set about anime before or didn't watch it then I hope to have convinced you to give it a try.