Mike Alfreds/Private Moment

In our acting technique lesson, we worked on Mike Alfred's approach of improvisation. I decided to do my improvisation in character as Radleigh. We began by creating an every day scenario which we would act out and focusing on a point of concentration, After this, we would repeat the exercise, but focusing on an objective as well as your point of concentration. This was observed my a partner who would give us feedback based on how clear our choices were to show our objective/point of concentration. They'd also tell us how believable they thought the improvisation was or whether it was over exaggerated in order to make it clearer. I decided to create a basic, mundane exercise of marking exam papers. My point of concentration was having a bad headache. This would effect my character as it would make his work slower, frustrate him and genuinely make the scene less pleasant. My objective was to fail the girls papers as I didn't believe in what they were fighting for and wanted to prove them wrong. This made the stakes of the scene higher and made me more determined in the scene, therefore adding more energy and making it more interesting/ intriguing. It also adds depth to a character and allows us to develop their back story and motivation. Acting on impulse makes performances more truthful and less repetitive. This always adds something fresh to a performance and makes it more interesting. Moreover, it adds detail to the actors work and gives them more freedom in order to expand their character and experiment with what works well. I think that this exercise was very useful as it made me think quickly and in character, it gave me acting impulses and new ideas which I hadn't thought of including previously. I will use this exercise more frequently as it challenges me to explore my characterisation by putting them in different situations to the text.