Monday, June 28, 2010

Camera Presence

Awhile back I took a workshop from a CD on auditioning/cold reading. At the time he was casting a sitcom which is no longer airing. The first part was choosing - from a list of about six distinct supporting characters meeting at a support group the show's main character belonged to- the one we would cast ourselves as. He then went over which character he would cast each of us as. Don't remember what type (Yes, types was the point of this particular exercise.) he saw me or which I saw myself as.

I do remember a comment he made. He said he would be concerned about casting me because he felt I would draw focus from the regulars. He was referring to my camera presence. Great! Need to work on strong character choices? Doable. Need to work on line delivery? Doable. Camera presence draws focus from the regulars? How do you deal with that?

My approach: Dumb down my camera presence. Not! Wouldn't know how if I wanted to. Actually, I am doing what I would be doing had he not expressed his concerns. After all, it was just one person's opinion and it isn't something I can control. My focus is on things I can control such as developing my skills such as improv, script analysis, networking...

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