Thesis Writing Class

Australian guest lecturer Dr. Angie Black (her faves Miranda July & Celine Sciamma)

  • Working from conflict vs desire (i.e. how Sciamma does)

  • Legitimacy of Performance and how the fear of director can influence it

  • realism/naturalism = truth/authencity?

  • What does it mean in a drama? Realism = portrayal of everyday life

  • Authenticity is about whether the viewer can believe it


Developing story through character

  • Mike Leigh, writer /director, UK theatre/film (character devised improvisation)

    • starting without written script improvisation, collaboratively with his cast in a long complex rehearsal process eventually distils the finished piece

  • Robert Marchand: character-based improvisation aka CBI process

    • For directors: improving communication between actor and director

    • Rather than tell the actor what the character is, ask the actor

    • Working out the motivations for the character together has more potential to be better

    • Providing a new approach to script development

    • Finessing Performance

    • Demonstrating how improvisation can create drama (e.g. give actors opposite goals, to play around with and get them to have a play, maybe then hang onto parts from here)

    • Adding detail to scripted material

    • Exploring the unexpected

  • Process: Base Characters

    • 3 prototype characters - male or female - no friends or family

    • 1st NAME:

    • Age Range:

    • Current Job or Profession:

    • Personality:

    • 5 adjective character traits:

    • Appearance:

    • Physicality:

— example of a character that was intersex, tradie, plumber

— actor went to the same pubs as tradies to see if he could pass as a proper plumber

— he came back in character

  • Character Questions

    • Name (1st name only)

    • Age

    • Exact address

    • Current occupation

    • Birthday

    • Place of Birth

    • Family composition

    • Allergies

    • Favourite book, music, film, tv show

    • Lives alone or other?

    • Medical conditions

    • Highest qualifications or training?

    • Preferred pronoun

    • Sexuality

    • Religion

    — if you struggle here, return to base characteristics

  • List of Challenging Character Traits

    • Actor to choose 5 adjectives that best describes their character

    • As the writer, is there any conflict

    • e.g. is there an opportunity conflict

  • e.g. Marlena

    • Strenghts: observant, analytical, helpful, reliable, precise

    • Weakness’: Sceptical, fussy, inflexible etc

  • Character Exercise

    • The Quiz Club (Mike Leigh)

  • Character Based Improvisation Rules (Robert Marchand)

    • The actor is asked to not discuss the character with other actors

    • The actor is asked to always talk about the character in the third person

    • The actor is asked not to invent anything in an improvisation

    • The actor is asked not to mime in an improvisation

    • The actor is asked to not come out of character until the director says so (within reason)

    • The actor is asked to follow the character’s instincts and not think dramatically

    • The actor is asked not to make decisions on behalf of other characters

    • The actor is asked not to make phone calls to imaginary people!

    • The actor is asked to use real time

  • Opposite of method acting, clearly separating the characters.

  • “acting is falling, and the director is catching”

  • Creating memories as the character, e.g. example of an actor being in character through a boxing class, or characters meet during improvisation (arranged an interview for people who want to move into a share house, everyone is in character, the main character chooses their best pick out of a terrible bunch, giving her some agency AND the memory of them meeting in character even though this will never be seen by an audience)

  • Distilled improvisation into scenes (hours of improvisation of scenes, you get to pick the juicy parts. You get to know the character, and how they would say things beforehand)

    • Interesting to let actors do their research and get to build: phrases, nuances, vernacular, the works

  • Improv(e) Project:

    • International co-directorial feature film developed between VCA, UoM + Michael Keerdo-Dawson Tallinn Uni, Estonia

  • Ethical concerns working with improvisation

    • Surprise elements and how they might play out

    • example: Director thought the scene would play out totally differently, she introduced a new character that wasnt told about beforehand. something completely unpredictable happened and she had to write the whole thing again

    • e.g. Michael was working in two teams; one in Australia, one in Viljandi. Viljandi actors didnt know about the other team, and had to all of a sudden act with an actor from AUS over zoom