John Dawson Acting Workshop

So I spent Saturday and Sunday in an Acting For Camera and Audition workshop with John Dawson and I thought I'd go through a little bit of what happened for anyone who is thinking of doing it.

www.facebook.com/DawsonDramaWorks
www.dawsondramaworks.com

We were asked to prepare a 2 min max monologue from a play, film or tv script, but that was not shakespearean. It had to be contemporary and suitable for camera. I know some casting directors disapprove of using anything from a play because they normally don't transition well.
   So before I even got to the workshop, i had my work cut out for me. Because all the auditions I have been to have been for film or tv, I was always given SIDES to work from and never had to prepare a monologue. So I was now faced with the job of finding one, and here are some of the monologues I came up with:

Vesper from Casino Royal, the scene where she meets Bond on the train and surmises his history by the clothing he is wearing. (this is on youtube)

Olive Pendergast from Easy A, has a monologue at the very beginning of the movie to camera.

Erica Albright from The Social Network, I'll post the link for the text here: http://www.monologuedb.com/dramatic-female-monologues/the-social-network-erica-albright/

and that was it really. It had to be a monologue suited for my age, and it had to be a role that I would love to play. So I was wrecking my head for ages trying to think what role I would love to play, and then finally on Friday (the day before the workshop) I realized, by simply looking at my desktop screen, there was a collage of photos of Rooney Mara as Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.... DUH!!!

So I chose to do a monologue from the original film script, in the revenge scene! Yay! So now I had a monologue for a part I would have killed to play!!!! (obviously I didn't do it as much justice as Rooney, but hey ho!)

So on Saturday morning, I arrived at his studio in the Stoneybatter Area, and we were all introduced to John and each other before we were all thrown right in at the deep-end to perform our monologues straight away. We would then end up performing them again, with some direction at the end of the course! And the improvement was remarkable! We were all given a DVD of all our work that occurred in front of the camera so that we could see our progress and practice!!!

Through the course of the weekend we would be learning how to perform a monologue from a subjective view (To Camera) and an objective view (looking off camera) We were also taught how to relax in front of the camera and just feel comfortable in the room. We also learned how to do an audition successfully and how to cold read.

I have learned so many valuable things over the course of the two days, and here are some of the most valuable tricks I learned:
1. Don't cut yourself- when you're performing a monologue or scene to camera for an audition, don't freeze at the end or cut yourself, keep acting beyond the words!
2. When going into an audition, ask what Frame you are in and how much can you move.
3. When Cold reading, hold the paper up at eye level and away from your face, so off to the right for example, so the camera can pick up your face even when you're looking for your next line.

I would highly recommend this workshop if anyone is looking for a small two day workshop in order to just gain that little bit more of an insight into what auditioning is really like. You will definitely pick up great tips along the way! And the workshop is really fun and you will definitely enjoy yourself!!!

Thanks for reading! If have any questions just post below! x


Peach Out!

Out of a job

So Cuckoo didn't get enough votes to make it into the next round on RTE... oh well. What can you do? We tried our best and we just didn't get the votes we needed.

I personally think they should have a panel of judges rather than using Facebook to vote but hey ho, thats the way it goes!

So now I'm out of the job and still hoping someone somewhere someday will hire me for something big! In the meantime I'm doing my best to juggle college assignments and get a showreel done! I have a few clips from Cuckoo but nothing too long to go on as they were only 6 min episodes each so a lot of the shots are just one liners or reaction shots. So I'm looking for monologues to film in my mate's college in their studio! Which I am so hoping will work out. There is a great little place in Pearse Street called 'shoot auditions' where they charge 50 euro per monologue... which I think is a bit ridiculous! they should charge 50 euro per hour in the studio! because think how many monologues you can do in an hour!! gosh.. so If i am really and truly stuck and my agent pushes me for any material whatsoever then I think I'll have no choice but to head in and do one or two monologue.

Perhaps I'll try film one today on my computer in my garden, considering that the weather has been so beautiful the last few days here in Ireland. but alas there are always going to be background noises, cars, people, gates and doors and windows opening and closing and with this lovely weather comes the sounds of summer; children playing and the nostalgic sound of lawn mowers!

Anyways, as soon as I have some interesting bits of monologues I will put them up here and post them on youtube to get to hear your views on whether or not they should go on my showreel.

Okey doke, I better get back to my assignments. In the next few days I will probably post some 'philosophical'-'lifestyle' type posts which would just really be my thoughts and ramblings. So please stay tuned!

Best of luck to all you actors out there! keep living the dream!

Pagan