Monkey Videos

Check out the character of Ned in these two clips from Groundhog Day:

Didn't consider that Artie might be autistic..still not convinced, but this video describes to a tea how I imagine he functions at work:

Artie's techincally an adult, but this little kid really shows off his playful (and relentless) side:

Wally Cox on What's My Line?; a calm and collected Artie:

Meerkat People/Characters

I like the mangy qualities of this character. Messy hair. Dark eyes. Fabulous.

This character has the regal and very alert qualities of the Meerkat.

Teen pregnancy

Here are two scenes from For Keeps with Molly Ringwald

Her voice isn't always sustained but a lot of her motions are...

(in this first video she gives birth for the second half - ignore that it doesn't apply)

good example of sustained ---> reactive (but this is actually pretty funny)

In these next two these are just the slow, sustained, vulnerable nature of a pregnant teen and a teen mother.

40 Weeks Pregnant Belly - Awesome video clips here

Notes from Class

Hi there

Some thoughts from yesterday:

Denver :
- Ducks can also be mischievous… maybe explore those moments more
- I wish you had explored his infidelity more.
- Explore his solo/private voice vs. his public voice


Grey :
- take time to explore how he would grab something
- Where can your eyes go when you speak?
- Careful of foot tapping and leg pumping – not really gorilla-like
- Your hand/arm tempo is faster than the rest of him. Try and ground your gestures
- Perhaps explore a lower vocal tone

Lilli :
- play with how her hair could mimic a meercat
- keep exploring the height of the character and how a human spine an be like a meercat’s spine
- How does this animal sit on a chair? What happens to the lower body?
- Voice could be explored further

Trevor :
- try using a hand and arm as the trunk of the elephant
- you can slow down even more
- how useful can the non-trunk hand be, given that elephant’s don’t have digits?
- Where is the smile?
- Where in the body would this character keep the secret? How can he access it?

Miranda :
- how could her hair get more ‘gorilla-like’?
- keep playing with the mouth
- could she be dirty from the garage?
- Use her hands like the gorilla
- Red show laces seem odd for a character based on a gorilla

Alex :
- Keep the whole body alive as this mole rat – particularly the spine
- Ho alive can the feet be, especially while sitting?
- Eyes go where when he talks?
- Hands are stil marking you as Alex, rather than mole rat
- LOVELY vulnerability
- How does the hat help? How about some false teeth to mimic the rats?

Christian :
- you need a much stronger ‘lift’ through your body to achieve this animal’s pride
- how would this character laugh, especially given the bird’s sounds?
- Keep using undulations and fight against collapsing physically

Jessie :
- Keep all the tentacles alive. They could be arms and elbows, knees and ankles.
- Maybe she is always being moved by an ‘undulating ocean’?
- Could she have deadlocks? Or tentacle-like hair?
- The goggles confuse me a bit – any glasses that might make them a bit less obvious?
- Where in body is fear? Where in body is hunger to hunt?

Marquis :
- I don’t get the cape… is this an age thing?
- Activities really seem to help you – like those towels you were ripping up
- All the dialogue went up into your brow – keep him grounded
- What’s his breathing like?
- In the booth you were physically demonstrating what you were explaining in your story. And I think that’s a bit dangerous. Say it and support it in your body, rather than illustrate that

Noah :
- how does the hat work?
- Why aren’t the clothes black with white like the animal? It might add something…
- Eyes go where when he speaks?
- Careful of how much you use your right arm/hand to speak. Is it like the animal or like Noah?
- I wanted the character to BELIEVE more that someone was going to take a brain. Invest in your own imaginative stories and so will we…

Ava :
- there is a lovely pervasive sadness in her now
- find a lower voice – avoid making her sweet and ‘cute’
- her walk still needs some attention
- Keep exploring the specificity of her fingers and hand shape

Amy :
- Where in the body does the impulse to move come from?
- How can her feet stay as flippers? I really like the foot tapping you used in the booth
- Keep her horizon high, and keep her spine LONG and supported
- Keep exploring her voice
- Keep exploring how her hands can be like flippers

Amanda :
- I think she might benefit from a long-sleeved sweatshirt. That way her arms can hold more weight
- Keep exploring how much time/effort it takes to move this amount of weight
- Voice is GREAT
- How do eyes ‘search’ the space while speaking?
- What is her breath like?
- Careful of overworking your fingers – especially given her animals have flippers
- Did she LIKE swimming naked, maybe? Could THAT have been the confession?

Josh :
- you must keep lifting up out of your hips and work with greater support through your spine.
- You could emphasize the undulations more, especially in his spine
- How can the legs move like the animal?
- Your hands and wrists did most of the work in your booth – which doesn’t really reflect the animal. How can the BODY tell the story

Adam :
- explore the undulation in the spine, and the ‘loping’ from side to side a large cat can have
- keep his whiskers alive
- impulse to do something comes from WHERE in his body (Im thinking about the moment in the booth when you fetched the coin from your pocket)
- voice could be explored more
- where could “displeasure” live in his body?

Annie :
- Could her voice go lower and find broader resonance?
- Where in the body do these moves originate? From spine? The navel? The sacrum?
- Keep the movement that sustained and focused.

Peacock People

So far....

Tiger Vidz

Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho

Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part 2

And for good measure and fun (and for all the tweens reading this),
Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen in a personal favorite, the film adaptation of Twilight

A combination of the three, really.
Sometimes strong, sometimes light, direct, sustained, except when hunting, then remarkably sudden.