Acting Secrets

Acting Scenes

If there is perhaps the most important role or function that could be assigned to an actor, it would be that of entertainment. Am actor aims and strives to entertain his audience, and this is perhaps the most important challenge before an actor.

Sometimes, however, it is not possible for the actor, with his talent alone, to be able to entertain his audience. He must be backed up by a strong character and the scenes in which that character is to play a part. An actor's talent would prove futile in face of a scene that has no point to make, or nothing concrete to tell the audience.

The concept of "entertainment" poses a major problem before actors, directors, etc. it is always very difficult to understand what truly 'entertains' an audience. Though there are no set formulas and there is always scope for improvement and innovation, there are a few things the people who conceptualize a scene should keep in mind.

For starters, an attempt must be made to blend entertaining elements such as chases sequences, action, drama, dance, music, etc, with realism. It is very difficult to strike a perfect balance between the two, but this is exactly what actors and directors must strive to do.

A mere portrayal of reality as it is can make a scene extremely dull and boring, while just including out of the ordinary events and actions which are not rooted in reality of some sort can make the whole sequence extremely unbelievable.

The following can be taken as a good example of making a scene very dramatic and entertaining as well as keeping it rooted in reality:

A cop is interrogating a suspect who is not cooperating. His nature urges him to take a chair and throw it at him but his duty and the code of conducts he is to follow as an officer of the state, forbids him from doing so. If the scene shows him to be actually attacking the suspect, it would be a highly unrealistic thing for a cop to do.

However, eliminating the deepest desire of the cop to do so would take much away form the mood of the scene. Hence, the actor, through his expression can portray his urge and his effort to restrain from giving into those urges.

Movies belonging to the science fiction or fantasy fiction genre also have a deep relation with reality. Nothing that they contain may correspond to the actions, portrayal and behavior of the natural world, but they operate on a plane parallel to the real world, making it easy and interesting to drive home the point to the audience.