Dramatic Scene Evaluation and Thoughts

The process of finding a dramatic scene was a long and strenuous one. You would be surprised how hard it is to find a good scene with three women in it that had about the same number of lines! I had originally picked out a scene from Mean Girls with Alexis while Abby was away but during the read through to the class, they did not think the scene would be a right fit for us. We were disappointed because we are both HUGE Mean Girls fans, but I am actually happy that we did not go through with the Mean Girls scene. I do not think it would challenge us as actors. I feel that we would not have designed our own acting but rather copied how it was acted in the movie. We continued to look for scenes, but all we found were missing something that we wanted in our dramatic scene.

Finally, we found a scene that worked for us. Abby had copied and printed it out for us and at first, I was not sure that it would work for us because it seemed like a somewhat poetic scene. However, I quickly discovered that this was a perfect scene that would really require us to channel deep emotion. Also, we all had an equal amount of lines so one actress was not more pronounced than another. The dramatic scene is a collection of accounts from survivors about a plane crash that killed 71 people. However, it is almost like a flashback in the way that we tell the story of the day that a devastating tragedy occurred. The scene is not a pleasant one- it goes into detail about the loss of human lives and how the dead faces haunt them in the present.

We all did many acting exercises to help us get into our character and the dark story in acting class. Abby had a lot of useful strategies to help memorize lines and how to deliver lines. We each had a unique element we added to the scene and while it was hard to figure out how we wanted to block it at first, we worked together and created the scene's blocking and emotion. One of my favorite parts of the scene is the ending in which we each turn out our lanterns and the scene ends in darkness. I liked that we shot the scene in the dark with only a small light on our faces. It made the scene very dramatic and eerie. When we finally performed our scene, we were so happy with the outcome! Our classmates really liked it too and it felt great that after all the struggles, we performed a great scene. I feel that this scene challenged me the most as an actor because of how tragic and depressing the scene is. It was not something I have ever performed before and I feel happy with my final performance.

Unfortunately, I did not get to see the other groups' final cuts of their scenes. I really enjoyed Duncan and Lisa's scene in classes. It reminded me of a scene straight out of an action movie. I think all of us were challenged in our dramatic scenes and it helped us become better actors.