Welcome back to the blog. This week the exercise was on Mise-en-Scѐne (putting in the scene), one of the most important things in movies. Even this week we had some conditions for both story and filming. The story should be based on someone that takes unfair advantage of temporary absence (in our case the man hypnotized) and abuses the trust of another. What is more, it should have included an unexpected return of a former lover, friend, business partner, or in our case, the professionality between patient and hypnotist. In addition, someone had to turn out to be someone else (the hypnotist turns out to be an impostor). As a result, the development of the characters and their relationship had to be precise. What’s about filming conditions, we had to film in a single location using the essential kit (camera, tripod and microphone), video duration of two minutes without using music.
When I read the script that Juliette wrote, I asked to have the role of the hypnotizer; I always had a desire to learn this science/ability. I started watching videos of mentalist and hypnotists on YouTube trying to understand the way they talk and the movements they do; obviously, I didn’t find the way to hypnotize Aaron (The patient) or someone else. This was for me the first time as an actor, I tried to memorize the lines (I kind of failed) and make them mine.
On the filming day, the first thing we did was to prepare the set. Inspired by Freud’s studio, we decided to give our studio a similar look. Once we finished decorating the studio, we (me and Aaron) tried our lines and the movements with the director (Juliette).
What I learnt from this week, being on the other side of the camera, is that it’s really important for the director to have a clear idea of what he/she is going to do, as an actor, it was essential for me and for my performance to understand her idea. I also understood that I’m not a good actor as I thought, I have to improve my speaking skills, and that my memory is really bad.
Diet Coke Productions 