Unit 10 : Self Reflective Blog 4 (Acting)

Exercise : Voice Projection

In this session we focused on our classical monologues. Our first task was to direct and project our monologues very closely to anything near us, for example I directed my voice to the curtains, we were instructed to say our monologues one word after the other in a slow pace. For me I didn't really find this exercise worked for me as I didn't understand the reason for doing it. Next we had to find a partner and direct our monologue to them getting closer each time we said it. When we were arms width away from each other and we had to hold and remain direct eye contact I found that I found this uncomfortable because I struggle to keep eye contact in general anyways. I now know the reason we practise holding eye contact, is so we get used to the idea of looking past the eyes and just focusing on delivering our monologues. So when we are in auditions we look past the judges and all the nerves that may consume us and just focus on performing our monologues to the best of our abilities.

In partners we sat back to back on the floor, I was partnered with Matas, the aim of the exercise was to listen to your partner read there monologue and give feed back.The key things we had to look out for was authenticity, clarity , projection and if the words resonated with us. I began saying my monologue first, when I had finished, Matas advised I control my breathing more and increase my volume. In my next attempt I said my monologue again implementing his direction into my monologue. I found this sounded much better and much more clearer.

Again sitting down back to back with my partner, our final task was to add context to our monologue, our given scenario was being a prisoner trying to escape however there are guards nearby. I really enjoyed this part of the exercise, I used urgency in my tone and strenuously whispered. My feedback was that this had been the clearest my monologue had ever been performed. I feel that this is because I really emphasised and pronounced my words by really opening my mouth. In future this may be a context I perform my monologue in as it proved to resonate with the class.