One of the questions I asked, referred to skills required as an actor and my friend replied 'Being able to enjoy working through the process rather than focused on the results' This (it hit me) was totally what I was doing wrong!!! Being a massive control freak I'm not able to let go of the whole not really knowing what happens next part of the process. Its funny because in my work I really enjoy creating character etc but I feel completely out of my depth with this kind of academic, open ended questioning and I guess that partnered with the whole distance learning thing is hard. Theirs not a director on set with you constantly to give you guidance, its 90% independent work. On further reflection I also feel I hadn't given the first task, of coming up with the questions the time it needed. Starting back after such a long time off was always going to be difficult, but maybe the ups and mainly downs of today will get me back on track.
After a read of Alan's blog and I felt like I was slowly coming out of the dark. This research project has got to be something that really motivates me so it needs to be something I want to know the answer to!
So with that on board I have reworked my questions, pulled some books off the shelf and intend to move on to task 5 with a quote from Adesola's blog in mind 'Your question is stewing on the back burner and you are feeding the fire under it by starting to read literature about the area you are interested in.'
Who knows what will happen in the process.......
Questions:
What do actors say about the qualities of good acting?
What do directors say about the qualities of good acting?
What do directors say about the qualities of good acting?
Do actors find emotional recall an effective
way of reaching moments of extreme emotion?
Do you think contemporary British theatre is a
good reflection of the world we live in currently?
Katie - just had a quick look at how your are getting on - some very good starting questions. The first two are quite broad but useful - you might need to define 'qualities of good acting' the recall is one that is important - one other BAPP Arts project (the older version of the inquiry) http://donnamwilkinson.blogspot.co.uk. the quesiton about British Theatre is quite deep and incredibly interesting - how would you begin to explore that? I was taught that the arts job was to identify and talk about current society - is this going on in British theatre - I would expect so but how? And finally a teaching centre question - we had some folks from last year think about creative subjects in schools because they were under fire. Are they still under fire?
ReplyDeleteHi Katie,
ReplyDeleteOk, much better. Virtually all can be answered. Now you could think in terms of being a bit more specific ... e.g. 'What do actors say about the qualities of good acting?' ... but in what context? If you leave it as 'all acting contexts, I imagine you'll get lots of different things said. You'll not be able to say which comments relate to all the different contexts. If it was focused on contemporary works, or classics, or film, or commercials or ... etc etc. you'll get a more specific take on the question.
In what ways are creative subjects promoted within the baccalaureate scheme? ... this is probably the strongest question for you because it focuses you on finding out something. The 'what is the best way' or 'good way' types of questions are more likely to encourage you to make assertions about what works (even if based on what other say) and my advice is for you to stick to a balanced, non-leading question like this one.
My main advice is to look at posts from others, especially ones discussing the formation of good questions .. there is already some excellent content in Blogs that can help you keep the momentum going.
Well done, keep going ...