JULY 11 SECOND CLUB

Julys competition was a toughie. Very subdued dialogue and not much scope for gags....







PROCESS:
First thing I did was write down the dialogue and pick out important points. "What have I got Harry?" is rhetorical. She's making a point, which is "I've got nothing". I wanted her acting to reflect that, rather than the fact she's asking a question. "I do them" seemed quite resentful to me, like she hates the fact she does them. I had her angry on this line for my first few passes.

Then I thumb nailed kinda what I wanted to get, and composition. Then I got the all important video reference. I filmed myself doing the line over and over. I think i did this in 2 sessions over 2 days (I'll post that too if anyone cares). I found that indicating toward anything for "bed" and dishes" seemed very unnatural to me. I didn't point anywhere at all. Many entires that I saw on the forum indicated all over the place. I wanted my character to be doing something rather than just talking to herself, so she's trying to feed her fish. Uta Hagen gives awesome acting lessons, and in one of them she demonstrates how a character can be in the middle of something but then the dialogue can become more important than the action and they stop doing it. That's what I was going for when she gives up on opening the tub. She's kinda forgotten what she was doing because her mind has wandered to distant memories of long gone friends.
I then thumbnailed again, this time from my reference. Picking out key points and exaggerating key poses, and ensuring silhouette clarity.
Next, it was time for maya.
Getting her to hold the tub with one hand then the other was quite messy, but I think it worked out well.
All along I got as much critique as I could.

Overall I finished 70th. I was disappointed, but it was a VERY busy month (the busiest I'd ever seen!), and I got some good critique too. I finished in the top 30% which I think is pretty good.