Aesthetics for Life

1. Aesthetics for Life

2. “We must love the art in ourselves, not ourselves in the art.” Introduction to Basic Acting Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavsky—1863-1938

3. QuestionHow could actors stimulate their imagination and therefore their ‘creative will?’ And how did actors ‘get inside’ the directors ideas?”

4. The Creative State of Mind The oldest features of the building blocks for the actor’s working on him/herself include: • 1. Relaxation • 2. Concentration • 3. Naivete

5. Relaxation • One of the first discoveries was that muscular tension limits the actor’s capacity to feel as well as move. • Free from tension is essential for stage creativity.

6. Concentration • The development of the actor’s ability to focus or concentrate on a single sensation or object is the first step necessary in producing the CREATIVE STATE OF MIND. By concentrating on an object, the actor learns to make himself interested in it. This in turn takes his/her attention away from the audience, leading him/her directly and unerringly into the on-stage reality.

7. Naivete 1. The state or quality of being inexperienced or unsophisticated, especially in being artless, credulous, or uncritical. 2. To enter into a play’s imaginary circumstances, the actor must relearn and develop his childlike powers to completely believe in invisible stimuli.

8. Naivete

9. Affective Memory Also known as ‘emotion memory’ or ‘sense memory’. The term describes the process of recalling situations from your own experience (including events that you’ve read about, heard about, or seen, as well as directly experienced) that are analogous to the character’s situation…

10. Affective Memory Cont… It involves the collaborative work of the imagination and all your senses (taste, touch, sight, smell and sound) in recalling incidents. Finding an appropriate affective memory is a means of empathizing with the contents of the play so that you can invest them with something from your personal landscape…

11. Communication • Acting is a special form of communication. To go beyond the playwright’s words, an actor must learn to deliver a deeper, living message to the audience…the actor communicates or radiates a subtext of thoughts and feelings to his partners, which then, in turn, affects the audience.”

12. Acting Exercise: What time is it? Communicate to your group the following thoughts without talking: • There are 5 rounds • Each round, 2 people will come up • The groups must guess what they are acting • Fastest group wins!

13. Acting Exercise: What time is it? Communicate to your group the following thoughts without talking: • Am I late? • Why are you late? • Why don’t you leave? • I need the toilet!

14. Rhythm • All human activity follows some rhythmic pattern. Each actor must find the proper rhythm for his/her character and all his/her stage activities.

15. Given Circumstances • All the pieces of information needed by actors to make the appropriate decisions when interpreting their characters. They include the story of the play, its facts, events, epoch, time and place of action, conditions of life, the actors’ and interpretation, the mise-en-scène, the production, the sets, costumes, properties, lighting and sound effects.

16. Pauses • A pause is full of inner action and emotional intensity. It is the silent, inner continuation of one action and the preparation for a new action.

17. Two types of Pauses • The logic pause comes at the end of a line and a stanza, giving literary sense and intelligibility to a text. • The psychological pause can appear anywhere, as long as it is necessary and breathes life into the text.

18. Objective • An objective (task) is the main desire motivating a character’s behavior in a scene or in a particular bit, and is directed towards the on-stage partner.

19. Action • Every moment that the actor is on stage and every line of text consists of an action. It is directed towards the other characters in the scene, and is usually expressed as a transitive verb (‘I persuade you’, I threaten you’, ‘I enchant you’, etc.).

20. “Whoever empathizes with someone, and does so completely, relinquishes criticism both of the object of their empathy and of themselves. Instead of awakening, they sleepwalk. Instead of doing something, they let something be done with them.”Brecht

21. Inputs in Film Aesthetics Mise-en-scène review. Staging, Production Direction, Framing. Composition and design. The Art of Motion. Movement and Genre, Movement as Metaphor, Moving Camera, Long Takes.

22. Mise en Scene Mise-en-scène Review Mise en scène: How the visual materials are photographed, staged, and framed (as a captured moment in time). Mise-en-scène -- originally a French theatrical term, meaning “placing on stage.” In movies, mise-en-scene is a blend of the visual conventions of live theatre and converted into a two-dimensional image of the real thing. Even though film is a temporal medium and the visuals are constantly in flux, we will be analysing single-frame composition as mise en scene. The “visual” text.

23. Systematic Mise en Scene Analysis 15 pt. Systematic Mise-en-Scène Analysis Dominant. What is our eye attracted to? Lighting Key: High-key, low-key, combo? Shot and Camera Proxemics: What type of shot? How far away? Shot Angles. High, low, neutral. Colour values. What is dominent colour? Colour symbolism? Lens/filter/stock. How do these distort or comment on photography? Subsidiary contrasts. What are the eye-stops after the dominant? Density. How much visual information is packed into the image? Is texture stark, moderate, or highly detailed? Continued next screen “Photographic considerations”

24. Continued … Systematic Mise en Scene Analysis 15 pt. Systematic Mise-en-scène Analysis 9. Composition. How is the 2-D space segmented and organized? What is the underlying design? 10. Form. Open or closed? Does the image suggest a window that arbitrarily isolates a fragment of the scene? Or is it self contained? 11. Framing. Tight or loose? How much room do the characters have to move around? 12. Depth. On how many planes is the image composed? Does the background and foreground comment on the midground? 13. Character placement. What parts of the framed space are occupied? 14. Staging positions. Which way to they look vis-à-vis the camera 15.Character proxemics. How much space between characters?

25. Mise en Scene The Frame and Aspect Ratio “The frame” functions as the basis of composition in a movie image. 4:3 (1.33:1) is the standard TV aspect ratio we have been used to for the past 50 odd years. 4 is the horizontal and 3 the vertical, of course. The problem with 4:3 is that it doesn't reflect our natural vision. Humans have better lateral vision than vertical. In effect, our vision is widescreen, therefore widescreen TV and film seems naturally more appealing to us.

26. Considerations of Mise en Scene The Frame and Aspect Ratio Widescreen refers to any aspect ratio wider than 4:3 (1.33:1). 1.85:1 - The original widescreen film format developed in the 1950s to help cinema compete with TV. This is still a popular format. 2.35:1 - (also known as ... Anamorphic Scope, Cinemascope, Panavision) is not as old as 1.85:1. This aspect ratio involves filming with a special anamorphic lens fitted to the camera to squeeze the image horizontally onto the film. A similar lens fitted to a cinema projector un-squeezes them during projection to the 2.35:1 ratio. Widescreen TVs typically have a screen aspect ration of 16:9 (1.78:1) which is narrower than both cinematic widescreen standards (1.85:1, 2.35:1).

27. The Setting, a systematic analysis Exterior or interior? If an exterior, how does nature play a role? Style? Realistic and lifelike? Or stylized and distorted? Studio or Location? If location, what does it say about the characters? Period? What era does the set represent. Class. What is apparent income level? Size? Rich people lots of space. Poor people cramped. Set decoration. Oddities of taste? Status symbols? Symbolic Functions. What kind of overall image does the set and its furnishings project?

28. Film Aesthetics Movement -- Kinetics Movement -- Kinetics “Motion Picture” suggests the central importance of motion in the art of film. In kinetic arts -- pantomime ballet, modern dance -- we find a wide variety of movements ranging from realistic to abstract (formalistic). Eg Clint Eastwood vs Gene Kelly. Kinetic symbolism is a filmmaker’s way to exploit meanings in certain types of movement. Eg. Ecstacy and joy often expressed by expansive movements, eroticism with undulating motions.

29. Film Aesthetics Movement – The Moving Camera In the 1920s German filmmakers moved the camera within the shot for psychological and thematic reasons. There are Seven Basic Moving Camera Shots: Panning shots (swish pans)- A shot in which a stationary camera turns horizontally, revealing new areas. Tilts- A shot taken by angling a stationary camera up (tilt-up) or down (tilt-down).Dolly Shots- A moving shot taken from a dolly. A Dolly-In moves the camera toward the subject, while a Dolly-Out moves the camera away from the subject. A dolly shot creates a sense of movement through space by capturing changes in perspective. Watch for kinetics and moving camera shots in Moulin Rouge.

30. Film Aesthetics Movement -- Kinetics Movement – The Moving Camera High-Angle Shots -A shot taken from above a subject, creating a sense of "looking down" upon whatever is photographed. Crane Shots- A shot taken from a boom that can move both horizontally and vertically. Zoom Shots- A shot accomplished with a lens capable of smoothly and continuously changing focal lengths from wide-angle to telephoto (zoom in) or telephoto to wide-angle (zoom out). Process Shot -A shot coordinated with another image created by Rear Projection, making the resulting picture look like a single simultaneous shot.

31. Best Example: Moulin Rouge (Diamond Dogs Scene) Movement -- Kinetics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msFLf9x7s6M

32. Duration of the Image -- Sequence Shot Sequence Shots contain no editing. Early cinema relied entirely on “long-take” shot. “Long Take” is not the same as “long shot.” A “take” is one run of the camera that records a single shot. Usually filmmakers use the long take selectively. One scene will rely heavily on editing, another will be a long take. This permits the director to associate certain aspects of narrative form with different stylistic options. Examples: Marilyn Monroe. Nicole Kidman, Béyonce

33. Moulin Rouge!(Baz Luhrmann, 2001) Writing creditsBazLuhrmann, Craig Pearce Genre:Drama / Musical / Romance Tagline: No Laws. No Limits. One Rule. Never Fall In Love. Plot Outline: A poet falls for a beautiful courtesan whom a jealous duke covets in this stylish musical, with music drawn from familiar 20th century sources. Cast overview: Nicole Kidman .... Satine Ewan McGregor .... Christian John Leguizamo .... Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Jim Broadbent .... Harold Zidler www.clubmoulinrouge.com From imdb