Course Syllabus
Course: THEA 2233
Division: Fine Arts, Comm, and New Media
Department: Theater Arts
Title: Acting for the Camera
Semester Approved: Spring 2021
Five-Year Review Semester: Fall 2025
End Semester: Fall 2026
Catalog Description: Curious how film actors take your breath away, make your hair stand on end, or make your heart melt? In this course you can begin to learn the adjustments and practices most effective for acting in front of the camera, from hitting your mark to the foundational acting techniques, screenwriting structure, production process, internal work, and relationship to the camera.
This course is intended to introduce students to the fundamental techniques, tools, and terminology for screen acting. Expanding upon the fundamentals learned in previous acting classes, Acting for the Camera applies performance work for 'on camera.'
Semesters Offered: Fall, Spring
Credit/Time Requirement: Credit: 3; Lecture: 3; Lab: 1
Repeatable: Yes.
Prerequisites: THEA 1033
Justification: This course responds to the unique need of the Theatre Department to develop competent and qualified performers in acting for the camera. A similar course is taught at many other institutions in the State.
Student Learning Outcomes:
Increase appreciation of the art of acting before a camera. Students will demonstrate this through written critiques of film, class discussions, and self-evaluations of scene and monologue work. The topics of these written investigations/critique may include research into an actor's approach/training, interviews and unused takes, and/or how the roles of PR, awards, and various elements unrelated to acting shape the perception of a performance.
Expand ability to both relax and focus the body and voice. Students will demonstrate a deeper understanding of an actor's relationship to the camera, ownership and connection to a role, and attitude through class exercises, warm-ups, and reflective work following screen performances.
Introduce fundamental vocabulary and terminology to film, television, and the screen. Students will demonstrate this through a possible variety of assessments such as quizzes (in-class or take home), journal entries, and exams.
Identify and develop fundamental acting skills and techniques for screen acting, building upon foundational acting work of the stage. Students will demonstrate their development through projects focused on work such as: living moment-to-moment, showing versus telling, and the second circle work, each of which may culminate with open or scripted scene performances.
Develop better listening, reacting, and immediacy skills. Students will demonstrate this through impulse exercises, instructor-guide/self-guided relaxation work, activities for owning the space in front of the lens.
Increase self-knowledge and self-instincts in performance. Students will demonstrate this through instructor-lead discussions and critiques of recorded and rewatched performances, reflective self-assessment, and possibly semester-long journal assignments encouraging students to articulate places of growth, comparisons to stage work, and set goals for future work. Audition and screen tests.
Increase understanding, knowledge, and experience working within the production process. Student will demonstrate their understanding through group projects where they assume roles both in front of and behind the camera. Topics for these projects might include: framing, shot analysis/selection, rehearsing and blocking, hitting marks, and familiarizing the duties and responsibilities of members of a film production crew.
Content:
This course is designed to familiarize the student with screen acting and how it differs in process and practice from the work of the stage. It concentrates on the student's understanding and implementation of skills associated with acting for the camera such as internal life, relaxation, listening, concentration and spontaneity as well as a foundational understanding of film terminology, the behind-the-camera environment, screenplay analysis, shot structure and lists, production process, blocking, business, auditions, rehearsal, and reactions through scene and monologue work.
Diversity and Inclusion:
This course advocates for choices which open discourse and affect positive change, while supporting rigorous cultural specificity to remove generalizations, harmful appropriation, and divisive depictions. When approaching scene work (whether assigned or student-chosen) this class advocates for color-conscious casting, and a sensitivity toward portrayals of all individuals. When possible it will give a voice to artists, cultures, and perspectives not traditionally dominant in the classroom and in the film industry.
Key Performance Indicators:
On camera performances 30 to 40%
Acting exercises and explorations 10 to 15%
Performance journal 0 to 20%
Production projects 10 to 20%
Film performance critiques, research essays 20 to 30%
Quizzes and exams 5 to 15%
Representative Text and/or Supplies:
Acting for the Camera: Revised Edition, Tony Barr. (current edition)
Acting for Film, Cathy Hasse. (current edition)
Secrets of Screen Acting, Patrick Tucker. (current edition)
Pedagogy Statement:
Course will include lectures, readings, demonstrations, studio work, group activities, camera shoots, discussions, rehearsal and performance techniques. Topics covered will include: relaxation, listening, concentration, script and character development, auditions, the shoot, machinery of film, production scheduling, and observing your own work.
Diversity and Inclusion:
As the state of the entertainment industry is a pathway to positive steps of inclusion, representation, and equity, this class invites all to interrogate themselves, institutions, and systems in order to disrupt the structural inequalities and systemic barriers that exclude culturally underrepresented communities from participation through honest discourse. Instruction of this course will nurture talent and skill all areas of theatre based solely upon merit and achievement, and ensure everyone has access to resources for their growth, success, and expression, while working to remove impediments to that access.
Instructional Mediums:
Lecture/Lab
Maximum Class Size: 20
Optimum Class Size: 15
