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Golden Age Essays II
Azioni libro
Inizia a leggereLunghezza: 153 pagine2 ore
- Editore:
- Edward E. Rochon
- Pubblicato:
- Jan 16, 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781311926555
- Formato:
- Libro
Descrizione
Nine essays cover a broad area of topics. The essays follow the order of greatest popularity as determined by sample downloads, with the most popular first. Forewords have been added to a number of the essays to make their purpose more distinct. My first essay covers acting techniques. The second essay jumps to the matter of the Trinity. The third essay discusses sexual ethics and behavior. Essay four deals with the ethics, tactics and strategies of war. Five discusses minimum wage and touches on the subject of economics. Six proposes some stopgap solutions to pollution. Essay seven discusses God, Christianity and the existence of evil in the world. Eight offers a new type of ramjet engine that might work both in space and the atmosphere. My last and least popular essay discusses traffic lights and their inconvenience.
Informazioni sul libro
Golden Age Essays II
Lunghezza: 153 pagine2 ore
Descrizione
Nine essays cover a broad area of topics. The essays follow the order of greatest popularity as determined by sample downloads, with the most popular first. Forewords have been added to a number of the essays to make their purpose more distinct. My first essay covers acting techniques. The second essay jumps to the matter of the Trinity. The third essay discusses sexual ethics and behavior. Essay four deals with the ethics, tactics and strategies of war. Five discusses minimum wage and touches on the subject of economics. Six proposes some stopgap solutions to pollution. Essay seven discusses God, Christianity and the existence of evil in the world. Eight offers a new type of ramjet engine that might work both in space and the atmosphere. My last and least popular essay discusses traffic lights and their inconvenience.
- Editore:
- Edward E. Rochon
- Pubblicato:
- Jan 16, 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781311926555
- Formato:
- Libro
Informazioni sull'autore
The organization of your own thoughts investigating those things necessary is the great consolation of the writer and what makes it worthwhile. The pursuit of knowledge is the essential ingredient and the bedrock of life. This is the biography that matters and necessary. Want what you need and need what you want. I do not use Facebook, Twitter, etc. If compelled to do so, email me at tigerbehemoth-trouble@yahoo.com (no attachments or links please, just inline info on the message for security reasons)
Correlati a Golden Age Essays II
Anteprima del libro
Golden Age Essays II - Edward E. Rochon
GOLDEN AGE ESSAYS II
By
Edward E. Rochon
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Edward E. Rochon on Smashwords
Golden Age Essays II
Copyright © 2014 by Edward E. Rochon
Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, unless prior permission is given by the author.
Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.
This book is a work of non-fiction and refers to no specific living persons, or current places, or current locales unless specifically mentioned. There are two short works of fiction embedded in one essay. The historic personages mentioned are described from historical information that may or may not be accurate, but whose description seems likely or at least possible to the author.
Reading Material
*****
NOTE TO READER: This is a compilation of essays where the original hyperlinks for each essay were left in but modified for the compilation. It is hoped that this will help and not hinder the reader. Do not expect to return to the main table of contents unless you specifically choose that hyperlink. There is no central listing of hyperlinks as this would tend to be cumbersome and more confusing. These essays are closely linked around certain themes and it is useful for the reader to be reminded of this. The essays do not appear in the order that they were published but ordered according to the apparent interest of readers based upon browsing, with some modification for subject continuity. Some further editing has been done since the first separate publication of the essays. Forewords have been added where appropriate that are not in the original essay publications.
Table of Contents: Essays
Title Page
MECHANICAL ACTING: AN ESSAY
TRINITY & MANDALA: AN ESSAY
SEX, PAIN AND ETHICS: AN ESSAY
WAR & WARFARE: AN ESSAY
MINIMUM WAGE & ECONOMICS: AN ESSAY
POLLUTION SOLUTION: AN ESSAY
CHRIST AS ANTI-CHRIST: AN ESSAY
SPACE PLANE: AN ESSAY
BAN TRAFFIC LIGHTS: AN ESSAY
About the Author
MECHANICAL ACTING: AN ESSAY
Table of Contents
Title Page
Preface
Chapter 1: How to Deliver Lines
Chapter 2: Song, Dance and Instruments
Chapter 3: Learn through Impersonations
Chapter 4: Improvisation
Chapter 5: Useful Tips
Foreword
The acting profession is victimized by high unemployment (90% is commonly heard) that leads to a ruthless dog eat dog environment. It is a terrible thing, the effects of unemployment. It breaks down family life, promotes domestic violence, knee-jerk lying, theft, sabotage and betrayal. Add to this that so many actors come from broken, dysfunctional families and who are also victimized by ruthless agents, producers and other functionaries of the trade, the consequences are not hard to envision. The functionaries are under the same pressure as the actors in many cases, high unemployment. You can blame the individuals involved but honesty can be bought. Loyalty can never be bought but honesty can. If you do not think so, consider the hungry man with hungry children to feed. He sees the pie on the window sill. He does not want to steal but the pangs of hunger and resentment towards a world that will drive him to his state prod him on. The pie owner sees this. He wants his yard raked and offers the pie to the man in exchange for 30 minutes of raking. Now he paid the man for a job he could have done himself, but has he not also bought the man's honesty? Who can despise the hungry man for thinking of stealing? Every man has his price. When the price is reached he will not steal. The Godfather can offer all the money in the world, but he will not take it. Besides, who would be stupid enough to believe the Godfather would pay up even if he accepted the bribe at that price?
I have a vision of the future where acting will have a 90% employment rate. I am convinced that acting can do a better job of educating our citizens than the public school system. Industrial films should be greatly expanded. Actors, musicians and production staff should be encouraged to use their art to promote the general welfare with something other than gratuitous sex and violence. Acting is an excellent treatment for mental illness, especially when the patients participate. Many actors could just as well be candidates for asylums as it is and should feel quite at home as therapists. From personal experience I know that art is a more effective treatment for mental illness than medications that also destroy the health of those who take them. Many actors could be employed in the mental health industry.
Broadway is still on its long slide into oblivion. Hollywood productions are becoming prohibitively expensive. The stage is live but movies have the close-up eye contact lacking in live theater. Movies have more realistic settings due to on sight filming or the tricks of photography. Modern advances in electronics now make possible a type of televised production far superior to the playhouse television of the Fifties. I call this stagevision. You have both live runs and televised versions for distribution. The audience sees the script above the proscenium. They see HDTV close-ups of the actors' faces at the same time as the actors are on stage. Miniature cameras and microphones hidden on stage give movie like images of the actors. The script is ran on the back wall and in the wings. The actors have less concern about memorizing lines and are able to speed up production. Upstage screen projections give more and cheaper background assistance to the drama. We have greatly improved over the state of the art current back in the Thirties and Forties. This type of drama will employ more actors at affordable prices and offset costs against television showings. How many times have you heard: I have 500 cable channels to watch and there is nothing on that I want to see.
More industrial films and increased variety of drama through stagevision is the answer, or part of the answer to the complaint. My essay is just a small attempt to improve the basic techniques of acting for at least some people. Doing stagevision productions is not feasible for me due to finances, technical knowledge inadequacies and opportunity.
Preface
The purpose of this essay is to offer a pattern for the quickest development of acting techniques. This is a rational approach devoid of mystery and vagueness. Hence the technique is called mechanical acting. I am confident that any novice that diligently followed the techniques laid out here could perform effectively, the degree of effectiveness varying only with the time in applying the techniques. I do not claim that picking up the techniques would necessarily be easy, but understanding the methodology is easy.
The steps are as follows:
1. How to deliver lines by analyzing the script.
2. Learn all dramatic roles by singing the script, dancing the blocking and emoting with a musical instrument.
3. Learn to act by doing impersonations.
4. In improvisation always play to the player. Back to Table of Contents
Chapter 1: How to Deliver Lines
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently, for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Hamlet: Act 3, Scene 2
Trippingly generally means to speak your lines quickly. It can also mean to speak them pleasantly and musically. To saw the air means to use excessive and exaggerated gestures. A common way to think of delivering lines on the stage is to spit the words out in a regular pattern as a machine gun spits out bullets. In effect, speak quickly and get it over with. Tell that to the casts of American soap operas where players can have lifetime roles in series that last a lifetime. Why do soap operas have such success if Hamlet's advice is apt? You may have noticed that the dialog is almost always delivered more quickly in movies and prime time series than in soap operas. Soaps run daily and keeping up with the dialog is a bit of a chore. The actors are encouraged to deliver their lines slowly. Bored housewives doing household chores probably like this as it gives them time to scutter about without missing too much of the dialog. They also have a good background knowledge of the characters and basic milieu of the program. Also bear in mind the Elizabethan plays tended to have a long runtime, excruciatingly long if the lines were delivered slowly. As for exaggerated gestures, Hamlet's advice is the same as the less is better
advice that you often hear in theater.
However, a bad actor is well advised to get it over with quickly and deliver his lines trippingly. Obviously delivering your lines at the monotonous pace of a machine gun can get tedious for both the actor and audience. This is where script analysis comes into play.
There are three basic things an actor can do with his delivery: change speed, volume, or pitch of his voice. These are the reasons for doing one or three of these changes. During the exposition parts of the dialog, deliver your lines in the rat-a-tat-tat method of a machine gun with a fairly steady speed, volume and pitch to your voice. Exposition is where the playwright lays out the background information that the audience needs to understand the scene, act and play. Much of the exposition is pee-pee dialog. Pee-pee dialog and blocking is what goes on when you find an opportune moment to go to the restroom during a movie. When the intensity of the music, the volume of the sound system changes, you know that you must hurry back so as not to miss something important. The termination of the pee-pee musical interlude is especially indicative of this in the movies. The composer saves his most stirring music for the climactic moments of the script.
Some exposition is more important than other background information. You must make an effort to point this out to the audience by changing speed, volume and/or pitch of your voice. Some dialog is also more difficult for an audience to take in. You must slow your delivery when speaking these difficult passages. Save stage movement, stage business to punctuate important points and turning points in the dialog. Do not thrust out your finger at a throwaway line, but to draw the audience's attention to a critical phrase that will help them follow the storyline and your character's attitude toward the turn of events.
Paul Muni said that he always looked for telltale words in a play that would be useful. Good playwrights often use certain words or phrases to link one part of the play with another in such a way that is not immediately evident to the intellect of the audience but makes an emotional impact, because the memory links the scenes connected (hypo-linked [invisible hyperlink]) by the writer without verbalizing it in the mind. Find these important words and change delivery when speaking them in the various scenes. Unfortunately, actors have a habit of jumping scenes and acts when repetitive dialog is used. My good friend, John..
used in Act I and Act III may result in a hyperlink to Act III while Act I is still in progress, very confusing to the audience. This is when improvisation is required to get back to Act I.
So this is how you end the tedious machine gun delivery without slowing your delivery in an aimless and even more tedious manner. Study the script and the script will tell you when to change your delivery and give opportune times for stage business and blocking not specified in the script.
A final word about long monologs, soliloquys, etc. These are speeches, so deliver them as speeches. Opt out of the usual ping-pong back and forth mode of acting. Study the monolog as a speech and deliver its basic themes as a lecture piece. If it is a soliloquy, you can scratch your crotch without fear of reproach and do other cool things like that. Do not feel intimidated. Playwrights often use plays as vehicles for
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