TS3238 Journals: Imagination, Concentration and Attention
Those are my unedited journals written for the purpose of this class. It is meant strictly for reference only. I retain the full copyright to my work. It is illuminating and powerful to notice the growth that I experienced as an actor between the first and final weeks of this module, and I am happy to share this progress with you.
Acting can feel like being pushed off into the deep end of the pool, and so often I get a sense that I am simply struggling in the water, constantly feeling like a deer in the headlights, that I am never going to be good enough.
In the hours and days after our third lesson, I have been asking myself what exactly is missing in my acting, because I am sick and tired of going into a shoot or production and doing so much homework, only to walk out of set feeling like I know nothing about acting. I am done with feeling like an impostor who was just going through the motions on stage and trying to pretend that I fit in with everyone else. I kept reiterating in class that the playwright and director can offer us the given circumstances, but as actors we have to know how to empathize with those circumstances. We have to reflect on them, understand the gravity of the situation and the weight of the emotion, and then only then can we react. As I wrote this very line in my journal, I found myself tearing through the contents of my bag for my acting notebook - the one where I took notes from my time with Vignesh Singh, and there it was. Perception, reception, affectation and reaction was what I was taught, but those were mere words that sounded logical but made no sense back then. Now, and only now do I finally understand what it means.
It was about letting the imagination and the circumstances filter into the senses. The actor must be vulnerable, to allow those sensory inputs and what-ifs seep in and affect me as a defenseless soul, and only then can there possibly be a truthful reaction.
Truth be told, this epiphany began brewing from the moment after class when I discussed my first journal entry with you and you asked “What about your homework helped or did not help?”, and began connecting it with what I have read this week. Feeling restless and to quell the burning desire to do something about my acting with what I have learned. I went home and asked my sister if she could give me a few “what if” situations, much like the exercises we did in class, as I wanted to practice feeling and sensing from my imagination, to feel the same depth of detail as I did observing and watching [redacted]’s wallet. She ended up reading one of her dream sequences that she regularly writes in narrative prose, and I experienced what it felt like to grope in the dark, desperately searching for the strangers who had just been with me in a deadly maze-like escape room full of mirrors. I let the desperation and regret of not having acquainted myself with those people affect me, I felt the cold mirrors and let myself hear the unsettling sound of trickling liquid, and by the time my sister narrated how I had managed to haul myself up a rope from the ceiling to escape the rapidly flooding room, I could imagine the sensation of water up to my knees and the soreness of my arm muscles from climbing into the vent.
I was surprised to have felt that much with nothing but my sister narrating in her bedroom at 2AM, but it confirmed my nagging suspicions that I could not act without tapping on the full potential of my imagination, and I realized that while I needed my action verbs, tactics and objectives, those were merely the beginning of things. As Stanislavski expressed in our text, it is the actor who must fill out the playwright’s text and director’s vision with our imagination. It took me all this time to realize that the missing step in my acting has always been vulnerability. Acting may not be real, but I must be able to sense from my imagination in the moment and truthfully, honestly let the circumstances drive my actions. It was a psychophysical experience, and I had to let myself feel from the outside in as much as I prepared myself for the role from the inside out.
I think I am beginning to understand what you meant when you said that chapters build themselves upon each other. There can be no accepting the given circumstances without vulnerability, and the Magic If comes from the interaction between said circumstances and the actor. There can be no imagination without the Magic If to first lay the foundation, and only when there is a clearly defined character that has gone from conceptualization in the writer, and refinement by the director and actor, can there be a reason to concentrate and to pay attention within the world of that character. While my understanding of the latter two chapters are still rudimentary, I’m glad that I finally managed to pinpoint what I need to work on as an actor after all this time.
Acting can feel like being pushed off into the deep end of the pool, and so often I get a sense that I am simply struggling in the water, constantly feeling like a deer in the headlights, that I am never going to be good enough.
In the hours and days after our third lesson, I have been asking myself what exactly is missing in my acting, because I am sick and tired of going into a shoot or production and doing so much homework, only to walk out of set feeling like I know nothing about acting. I am done with feeling like an impostor who was just going through the motions on stage and trying to pretend that I fit in with everyone else. I kept reiterating in class that the playwright and director can offer us the given circumstances, but as actors we have to know how to empathize with those circumstances. We have to reflect on them, understand the gravity of the situation and the weight of the emotion, and then only then can we react. As I wrote this very line in my journal, I found myself tearing through the contents of my bag for my acting notebook - the one where I took notes from my time with Vignesh Singh, and there it was. Perception, reception, affectation and reaction was what I was taught, but those were mere words that sounded logical but made no sense back then. Now, and only now do I finally understand what it means.
It was about letting the imagination and the circumstances filter into the senses. The actor must be vulnerable, to allow those sensory inputs and what-ifs seep in and affect me as a defenseless soul, and only then can there possibly be a truthful reaction.
Truth be told, this epiphany began brewing from the moment after class when I discussed my first journal entry with you and you asked “What about your homework helped or did not help?”, and began connecting it with what I have read this week. Feeling restless and to quell the burning desire to do something about my acting with what I have learned. I went home and asked my sister if she could give me a few “what if” situations, much like the exercises we did in class, as I wanted to practice feeling and sensing from my imagination, to feel the same depth of detail as I did observing and watching [redacted]’s wallet. She ended up reading one of her dream sequences that she regularly writes in narrative prose, and I experienced what it felt like to grope in the dark, desperately searching for the strangers who had just been with me in a deadly maze-like escape room full of mirrors. I let the desperation and regret of not having acquainted myself with those people affect me, I felt the cold mirrors and let myself hear the unsettling sound of trickling liquid, and by the time my sister narrated how I had managed to haul myself up a rope from the ceiling to escape the rapidly flooding room, I could imagine the sensation of water up to my knees and the soreness of my arm muscles from climbing into the vent.
I was surprised to have felt that much with nothing but my sister narrating in her bedroom at 2AM, but it confirmed my nagging suspicions that I could not act without tapping on the full potential of my imagination, and I realized that while I needed my action verbs, tactics and objectives, those were merely the beginning of things. As Stanislavski expressed in our text, it is the actor who must fill out the playwright’s text and director’s vision with our imagination. It took me all this time to realize that the missing step in my acting has always been vulnerability. Acting may not be real, but I must be able to sense from my imagination in the moment and truthfully, honestly let the circumstances drive my actions. It was a psychophysical experience, and I had to let myself feel from the outside in as much as I prepared myself for the role from the inside out.
I think I am beginning to understand what you meant when you said that chapters build themselves upon each other. There can be no accepting the given circumstances without vulnerability, and the Magic If comes from the interaction between said circumstances and the actor. There can be no imagination without the Magic If to first lay the foundation, and only when there is a clearly defined character that has gone from conceptualization in the writer, and refinement by the director and actor, can there be a reason to concentrate and to pay attention within the world of that character. While my understanding of the latter two chapters are still rudimentary, I’m glad that I finally managed to pinpoint what I need to work on as an actor after all this time.
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