Acting in Film and Television requires a special set of acting skills.
However, these skills are necessary to be prepared for different genres of film and television affect how you act out your role.
Acting in Front of the Camera
In film and television acting, you do not have the ability to gain feedback from a live audience of any kind. Instead of a theater full of people, your audience is just a camera, the camera operator, the director, and any sound, light, and make up techs helping you out for the day.
This means you need to use your creativity and imagination and pretend the supporting cast of technicians are actually part of the scene. When you play to the camera, you have to project emotions to the unwavering eye of the camera.
Here are a few quick tips to help you “play to the camera”.
- Know where the camera is at all times. If you are able to understand where the camera is, then you will be able to give the best performance of your life. It will be very pointless for you to give an amazing performance without the camera capturing your face.
- Know what the camera is trying to film. If you the camera is capturing a close up on your face, then it is not important for you to move your arms and legs since the camera will not capture it. Instead focus on what the camera is filming. For close ups focus on your facial movements and emotions. However, for long shots, focus on larger body movements to illustrate your character’s feelings.
- Know where the other actors and props are located in relation to the camera. If you step to close in one direction, you may take the other actor’s eye-line, lighting, or another sort of important elements. Understand where your “mark” (where you should be located) is and focus on staying on that position.
Quick Tip
Watch a television show or movie on video with the sound off. Without any dialogue to guide you, can you guess what the actors are trying to say to each other? Body and facial gestures can convey more information to an audience than you may think. By studying movies and television shows with the sound off, you can study how gestures can help an actor’s on-camera performance.
Overall
- Focus on where the camera is
- Concentrate what the camera is trying to capture,
- Understand how can you express your emotions without talking depending on the shot.
If you can keep these three elements in mind, you will definitely see a difference your acting performance.
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