The Use of Film [microform] : Television Techniques in Teaching the Craft of Acting in the Community College / Will Bellais.
The theatre curriculum at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland teaches acting techniques used in film and television in order to take students into the world of performance via the media they appreciate first. While a large number of students do not attend the theatre and have learned little ab...
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| Format: | Microfilm Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[S.l.] :
Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse,
1989.
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| Summary: | The theatre curriculum at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland teaches acting techniques used in film and television in order to take students into the world of performance via the media they appreciate first. While a large number of students do not attend the theatre and have learned little about the cultural heritage of the theatre in their elementary-secondary education, most spend some of their leisure time watching television. Since 1976, the college has offered a class entitled "Acting for Film and Television." The Department of Speech, Dance, and Theatre, and the Department of Visual Communication Technologies have included the course in their respective curricula. The course attempts to develop students' sense of craft, teaching them to free the acting instrument and liberate the imagination; develop skills in listening; learn how to deal with the script; and not worry about having to be good. Good acting begins with the skill of listening, not only to the words being spoken but to the subtext. For film actors, listening is even more critical than speaking, because the camera will search out the listener in order to explicate the story the actor is involved in with his/her partner. Film differs from the stage in that it relies less on long periods of rehearsal and more on spontaneity. Once a scene is committed to film, it will never be repeated again, while in the theatre, scenes are repeated nightly for several days or weeks. Film scripts provide far less information than plays, requiring the actor to bring to them all of his/her imagination. Students must learn to sense the qualities of the scene, and develop the ability to be intuitive analysts of the human condition. (AYC) |
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| Item Description: | ERIC Note: Paper presented at the National Conference of the Community College Humanities Association (Washington, DC, November 9-11, 1989). ERIC Document Number: ED312014. |
| Physical Description: | 17 p. |
| Reproduction Note: | Microfiche. |
| Action Note: | committed to retain |