Workshop: Action

Lights, camera, action!  Those words were practiced so many times before the students actually started filming their short film.  They had many workshops in which they learned how to create a scene, capture a moment in time, and show-off their many talents.

In the first “action” workshop the students turned their scripts into photo slideshows.  The students were separated into groups and they were only able to use digital cameras, their script, the schoolyard, and their imaginations.  To compensate for few resources, they persuaded some of us to showcase our acting talents.  All was fun but with each photo the students were mastering the dynamics of constructing a short film.

The following “action” workshop was divided into two parts.  In the first half the students were able to grasp the basics and fundamentals of how to operate a digital video camera.  During the second half the students used their new knowledge to recreate their photo story, into a silent, digital, short film.  The results were hilarious, and as the students watched their work, you could feel the room fill with energy.

During the small breaks of the workshops, the students picked up some moves, yoga moves that is.  Jeremiah, our yoga guru, taught a couple of basic poses to the students to get those creative juices flowing.  The students loved the poses so much, that a couple would come over to our house in between our lunch break and the start of the workshop to “get flexible with it!”

By the final workshops the students had hammered out which jobs they preferred and were interested in.  One group decided to focus on the fine details of the script, costumes, camera, editing, with the other group zeroed in on acting and expressing characters and personalities.  In this workshop the students had to shake-off their own personalities and disguise themselves with the prompts that were thrown at them.  The first prompt had one student as a waiter and the other as the patron.  The waiter had to convince the patron to purchase a dish that was on special.  This was a warm-up exercise, but nevertheless the students surprised us and ran with it.  Next, the students had to walk in a circle with a couple of us, but they had to be a certain character.  A couple of us choose animals, but the students evolved into old people, drunks, and pirates.  After a slew of embarrassed grins, laughs and awkward movements, the students were able to really “embrace the character.”  The finals exercises had the students say the same dialog under different restrictions.  For example they had to pretend that one was a lover leaving to another country, while one was the lover staying behind.  The “macho men” had to loose their cool and beg their lovers; this caused an uproar of laughter!  The last exercise turned one half of the students into mirrors and the other half the person looking into the mirror, whoa the things people do when they look at themselves in the mirror.

On the first day of filming before the sweat started running, Joel taught us all a little something about our bodies, minds, and acting.  We all participated in a group-acting course, which was nothing short of body shaking, cooking with a tennis racket, and just embracing our semi-acting ability.