acting... poorly
Acting. With dialogue. I thought it would be easier. Of course, I wanted to give myself a challenge, and in that I've succeeded.
We'll see how the shot turns out! So as you can gather, I'm smack dab in the middle of my first acting-with-dialogue shot, and it has been anything but easy. For the planning stage, we were to choose three lines of dialogue that made us excited to animate, and then pitch thumbnails and ideas to our mentor. Though I did choose one line from an episode of Frasier that had the potential to give way to broad acting, my mentor and I both ended up preferring a quieter, more subtle line from an episode of House.
The line: "If we're going to work together, I need to know. [Pause] Do you hate me? Or do you love me? [Pause] Either way, I think we've got a problem."
My pitch: a nervous and vulnerable guy who has finally gotten up the urge to ask this burning question. Afraid of the answer but hoping it's that the other character loves him, he realizes that they're going to have a hard time working together either way it goes. I pictured this guy maybe in the doorframe of the other character's office, or standing at a bar contemplating the bottom of a glass.
My mentor's idea: this is a guy who has reached a boiling point with the other character and wants to clear the air once and for all. He's uncomfortable asking the question, but it has to be done. When he finally gets the question out, he becomes nonchalant, telling the other character they're in trouble either way.
I got positive feedback for both pitches, which made it really hard to figure out what to do with the shot. So two weeks in, I'm still stumbling around with blocking, trying to nail down the basic shape of the movement and the rough timing.
Shoulda gone cartoony and broad... but hey, why not push yourself?
No post of the progress yet... it's ugly - no breakdowns, linear curves, etc. But if you need a picture, here's the other half of our assignments of late: hand poses!
