Objectives and Actioning

Objectives and Actioning 

My first term of training at ALRA on the BA course has consisted of shit loads of weird and strange thing... imagine taking a magic mushroom and times it by 5 and I reckon your close to how I felt at first. Having said that, it is awesome!

One thing I have learnt about is objectives, something we touched on in A levels. (so if your doing this at college at the minute... listen to yo' teacher!)

Objectives are basically what your character needs or wants in the scene. 

A writer has purposely written your characters lines for a reason, they didn't just put them in there to fill up some time, otherwise it would be boring and as an audience we'd want grab our face and rub it against a cheese grater.

We generally all personally live our lives playing objectives without really knowing it, our behaviours change depending on our objectives.

For example: Its a Saturday night I'm having a sick night out and in the drunk state I am in, my mates convince me to buy a bottle of Grey Goose and some Champagne. (yes for this example you're one of the w*ankers who sit in the corner of a club with a bottle of grey goose, sorry). You wake up the next day with the bank balance of £0.02 (We've all been there once) and your dream girl/boy that you met last night has text you saying she/he will go on the date you agreed on last night, but it has to be tonight. You have no money because you spent it all last night, so you're going to have to ask your best mate for £50 (she's a pricey bird) but at the same time you don't want your mate to know your going on a date. 

My objective is to get £50 off my mate without him knowing why. As humans we can the judge what the other character (the friends) objectives will be. If a friend is asking you for £50 and won't tell you why, your (or definitely my) reaction would be 

'why do you need it so bad?' 

Objectives are met by tactics, tactics are what I think really make a scene interesting. Theres so many ways I could go about getting my mate to give me £50.

• I could lie and say I had forgotten to get my mum a present for her birthday which is tomorrow and I'd really appreciate it if you could lend me £50 until pay day. 
• I could literally just beg my friend 
• I could use some reverse psychology (always a killer)

Aslong as your actions and tactics are helping you achieve your objective then do them! 

Be careful though I could have said something like:

• Confront your friend about the amount of times you've leant them money and they haven't payed you back. Now you feel they should pay some back (that way you'll get some money to go on the date) This will definitely 'spice' up a scene a little more but be careful. Is your objective still being played? Am I really trying to get that money? or is my primary objective now to create a confrontation about the money my mate owes me? 

Actioning

Actioning is basically when an actor puts a doing word (Transitive verb) before a line. This technique was created by the practitioner Max Stafford Clark incase any of you want to research it. Actioning gives each line a purpose and a meaning but also brings a lot of light and shade to a scene/monologue, thus making it a lot more interesting to watch. This may seem very tedious but after watching lots of scenes in college and drama school I have really seen the difference actioning makes, even if it is the simplest scene ever like the one below. You can find a list of transitive verbs if you type in on google images 'transitive verbs'.

Example of actioning

Admire  A: HI

Ignore   B: HEY

Flatten  A: YOU LOOK NICE

Resist   B: THANKS 

(yeah what a b*tch character B comes across and what an absolute wet lettuce character A becomes)

But this can all be changed and flipped around by just changing the transitive verbs. So get looking at your monologues. Rip them to bits and find out what your objectives are and what transitive verbs make your monologue interesting.

TIP (This note is in my East 15 audition process but just incase you don't want to read that one here it is)

Hold up...

Something I realised throughout my auditions. Everyone goes into every audition with the attitude that everyone else is competition and they must shine above the rest and everyone striving to 'think outside the box'. I saw this so much throughout my auditions and honestly... I was probably one of those people towards the beginning of auditions. However looking back now and having had my first term at drama school I really am confused why we all think this? We all love acting (I presume so, seen as though your applying for a 3 year course), you all want to do the best you can, you all want to shine? Ok so, I think first thing you need to do is leave the whole 'These guys are competition' and 'That guy over there looks really unique he will probably get a place and I won't' shit at the door. 

Look at it in a different way, your all young talent people who want to share their work, your time will come. (I met a student at my Lamda audition who had auditioned 5 years in a row who finally got a place at Lamda). Also trying to hard to be seen and to think outside the box normally isn't the best idea (one reason being the fact that your idea that is so 'outside the box' has probably already been done 10 times already) but also the teachers can spot it from a mile off. One main thing I have learnt from my first term at alra is... being present, just be in the room, enjoy the activities and games your doing, enjoy watching other people perform (I mean we are paying for these auditions right?)... don't pretend... just be you.

Update and East 15 audition!

East 15 audition(contains a paragraph in which I preach):

Firstly this audition was a lot bigger than any I have been to before, almost 200-300 people?! We all arrived and were seated in the canteen in which you got to meet everybody else.

I have to be completely honest, I arrived at the school I didn't get the feeling I had at other schools. One teacher walked past a table, someone had obviously left some crisp packets etc on a table and the teacher made a comment that 'We must have a group of animals auditioning today' which I have to say when your already nervous about an audition...doesn't really help.

We where then called into the main theatre in which we where all split up into groups of around 15/20. We where taken over to one of the classrooms on site and got into a circle, both the teacher and one current student from East 15 settled us in by playing some games and some general warm up stuff (Warm up games usual always consisted of something to do with hand to eye co-ordination and I have to admit, mine is the worst. So if your the same do not sweat it at all!)

The warm up made me feel really comfortable with both the teacher who i knew would be assessing me and also everyone else in my auditions. 

Hold up...

This brings me onto something I had realised throughout my auditions. Everyone goes into every audition with the attitude that everyone else is competition and they must shine above the rest and everyone striving to 'think outside the box'. I saw this so much throughout my auditions and honestly... I was probably one of those people towards the beginning of auditions. However looking back now and having had my first term at drama school I really am confused why we all think this?We all love acting (I presume seen as though your applying for a 3 year course), you all want to do the best you can, you all want to shine? Ok so, I think first thing you need to do is leave the whole 'These guys are competition' and 'That guy over there looks really unique he will probably get a place and i won't' attitude at the door.

Look at it in a different way, your all young talent people who want to share their work, your time will come. (I met a student at my Lamda audition who had auditioned 5 years in a row who finally got a place at Lamda). Also trying to hard to be seen and to think outside the box normally isn't the best idea (one reason being the fact that your idea that is so 'outside the box' has probably already been done 10 times already) but also I bet the teachers can spot it from a mile off. One main thing i have learnt from my first term at alra is... being present, just be in the room, enjoy the activities and games your doing, enjoy watching other people perform (I mean we are paying for these auditions right?)... don't pretend... just be you.

Ok and back to the audition. We then one by one entered into the horse shoe shape (which was created by how the students where sat) and performed our modern monologues. Each person was then given a direction to follow by the teacher which i had not previously had in any other auditions so i was excited and nervous.

The teacher asked me after my monologue what my objective was...

OBJECTIVES! FIND OUT WHAT YOUR CHARACTERS OBJECTIVE IS ! 

(I will talk more about this later in the blog)

My objective was to get my dad to listen to me, his son, and stop believing everyone else in the village and to just make him think for himself.

The teacher agreed that she thought this was my objective and then asked another member of the class to stand up and be my dad. She asked him to walk around the room and ignore me until he felt that i had met my objective in order for him to listen. I have to say this seemed easy but the student I was put with wasn't being as realistic to the situation as i think you would if you didn't have the (seeing everyone auditioning as competition) attitude. But that was fine because he made me work even harder to get my objective so i pushed and pushed so hard and i finally got it. ( If i was watching my performance i would have probably thought i was pushing to much? i was scared it could be seen as 'over acting') However the teacher nodded and said... ' there you go'. 

We then went to another classroom to perform our Shakespeare. The guy that we had auditioning us was absolutely F*cking brilliant. He directed everyones Shakespeare monologues so well! literally we all walked in with our monologues being about a 4/10 and came out after his direction and scrutani with monologues twice as good.

I got up for my Shakespeare and all the way through everyone else's I kept running my lines (something i now regret) Like i said earlier, be present in the audition room don't be selfish because it will bite you back.

When running my lines in my head I kept stumbling on a line and forgetting the words (How this is possibly i have now idea because i knew my monologues and characters INSIDE OUT). Anyway i got up on stage and all was going well and then... I dried. The only person I had seen dry in an audition was me!  The teacher however picked me back up and told me to go for it, but in my head i knew 20 other students where sat in their chairs thinking what a nob head (and possibly even the teacher to be honest)... because I definitely was.

The teacher did advise me on changing my Shakespeare as he wasn't keen on it, his points on changing it where valid, he said i made it to modern and updated. Although it seems arrogant, I took this advice on board but stuck with my monologue as I felt there was a lot more I could personal attach to in the one i had chosen.

We where then made to wait back in the theatre in which our names would be read out. I was abit hesistant to go back in as I felt I'd already dug a hole and jumped in. However, I did go in and I with another 50/60 students where took into a classroom with a new teacher and the head teacher, it had become clear to me that it was the shortlist for the Foundation course. We performed our modern monologue to the panel and everyone else once again and sat down. 

Result

I got my results back and East 15 had kindly offered me a place on their Foundation course! I was really pleased seen as though I'd forgotten my lines etc (that goes to show if you F*ck up, don't think thats it). Unfortunately, I did feel that East 15 wasn't the school for me so I declined my offer.