Acting Research

Through many of our group discussions and meetings to do with the acting side of our film and researching existing film openings, we decided to cast Keeley as the main role of Ariadne. This was because we thought that Keeley could understand and empathise with her charter with could really help getting into her role, and we thought that she would portray our main role accurately with skill.

One of the best ways that helps actors portray their charter is 'Method acting'  which is where the actor uses various acting techniques called practice's such as 'role on the wall', 'forum theatre' and 'hot seating' which will allow her to become more comfortable of her character and understand its roles,way of living and in a way, make Keeley become the charter instead of acting the character.

An example from film -  The Iron Lady (2011)

In preparation for her role as Britain's first woman prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the actress Meryl Streep Carried a bag similar to the bag Thatcher wore with her before filming started. In this bag she placed items that she would have believed her character Margaret would have carried. By doing this practice, Streep effectively created a link between herself and her character she was portraying, trying to understand her thought processes whilst learning about her character.

Costume and prop design worked really well together to improve the verisimilitude of the on screen charter to the charter on page/script. Although it was not essential in her filming, we filled a bag with all the things we thought that Ariadene would carry around with her to help get Keeley into character. This included things such as: water bottle, some snacks, various different maps of London, Th hand written map an lots of scrap paper covered in writing to show her thoughts escaping onto paper, as they cannot escape her lips.

The key to our film is the voice over, (also voiced by Keeley) so that it would convey to the audience that our main charter does not speak, and these are simply her thoughts that she cannot say aloud. This is meant that the body language and facial expressions were very important as it would the give the first impression to the audience of what our character is like. She had long looks to show the frustration that she works hard to suppress,  a sense of hopelessness at some points as well. This should defiantly be evident in the closeups as we have her fiddling with her hands to show nervousness and pushing back her hair when things appear to be too much. At times we had her tense up in fear, to show that she is lost, or contrastingly looking around frantically to show her paranoia of being in new surroundings even though she goes unnoticed by passers by. The constant switching of all these emotions need to be clear to the audience to make a clear understanding of our interpretation of the character, and to match the voice over affectively.