Sunday, November 29, 2009

Ultimate Acting Challenge - 11/09

This one actually took place a couple of weekends back (Saturday eve/Sunday all day), but between the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend and me trying to get my thoughts together, some time has certainly passed.

Fact it, this was also one of the more difficult classes to write about. Mind you, that's a good thing, actually. Just makes it more of a challenge to describe in a meaningful way.

The thing about this class is that the specifics vary significantly with each person in it. It's a bit like that thread in The Matrix about visiting the Oracle. You end up hearing exactly what you needed to hear, and it's different for everyone.

For me, the class created several instances of, for the lack of a better word, consideration. - those times when you have a moment of clarity, you see how things fit, interact and influence one another. Things seem possible. Tenuous threads of confidence seem more tangible.

Those moments didn't necessarily happen during the class. Most have come afterward. Maybe it's just the way I'm wired - that I end up pondering things abstractly before diving back into the technically specific. And voice acting is a doing craft, of course.

Which more or less brings me back to talking about the class. This was my second one with Dean, who had traveled up from LA. It started by a one-on-one meeting with him wherein we told him what we felt we needed to work on. After meeting with everyone in this manner, he talked about some of the common themes we had all mentioned, adding a tremendous amount of perspective to such topics as acting choices, self-directing of auditions, sound quality and more.

Of course, we worked lots of scripts and got stellar feedback. When a student had a specific need, Dean was not hesitant to jump into the booth for private directions. By midday Sunday, everyone was sounding pretty amazing. One of the great things was that the better we sounded, the more excited Dean seemed to get. He really throws himself into the direction and feedback loop, with pretty stellar input.

To wrap things up, he met with everyone individually again, and while I certainly am unable to talk about those interactions, I came away feeling more of a core confidence that's been forged. As always, lots of work to do and things to keep mindful of, but this was really a class that helped to keep the momentum and optimism rolling.

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