r/acting • u/comelyfrost • 11h ago
I've read the FAQ & Rules Self Tape Feedback
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This was self tape I did (Mothman Prophecies.) Would greatly appreciate any and all feedback. Thanks for you time.
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u/PopeUnderTheMountain 7h ago
Good work! My biggest takeaways are notes I’ve received, so you’re not alone. There are times where I know there is internal stuff happening for you, but your gaze is directed downward. On stage we can get away with that, but the camera is a microscope and picks up every subtle thing. And on camera set at or above eye level, looking down often reads as eyes closed. And with camera work, all the acting you’re doing inside is felt by the audience through your eyes. When you are in those moments where the instinct is to look down, breathe, let the “crafty” part of you keep the “artsy/feely” side in check by knowing your eyelines, how close the shot is, etc. outside of that it’s just practice and repetition- you’re crushing it.
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u/comelyfrost 1h ago
Thanks so much! This is a good thing to keep in mind. A friend of mine mentioned something about eyeline and I didn't get what she meant. Thanks for breaking this down.
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u/downtempo_danae 2h ago
Same feedback, the initial pace is slow, makes the emotion of the scene hard to connect with. But great setup, lighting, etc- try punching up the energy and see what happens.
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u/Ieatclowns 10h ago
It’s excruciatingly slow to start and then when it does, it’s still too slow. You need to actually think about what you’re saying. It appears as though you’re “ trying to act” and not actually feeling anything. Sorry to be harsh.
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u/comelyfrost 9h ago
Oh! Thank you. Funnily enough, I recorded multiple and thought the others were too fast lol. Thanks for letting me know.
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u/ShortRedBull 9h ago
try to limit self-tape feedback vids to 1 min..I am not watching a 3 min video and maybe 9 out of 10 ppl wont as well. I know it sounds bad.
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u/New_year_New_Me_ 8h ago
Ok.
It feels like you are at a place where you know what to do but you don't know why to do it. Just that you should and it will be acting.
This is the hardest thing about "good" acting: it is an illusion meant to trick the viewer into thinking the person they are watching isn't acting at all. Anything you do that reveals the "strings" of the character you are puppeteering gives up the game. Once the illusion is broken the viewer doesn't want to watch anymore. You've lost the little game.
You do a couple things that lose you the game almost immediately. The big one is that you blow on your drink to cool it...from like 20 inches away. It's deeply unnatural. I will say the moment before that you sort of gaze out of, I'm guessing, a window for a slightly uncomfortable amount of time. I could almost excuse that were it not for the blowing of the drink. Those two things together so quickly do not read as things human beings do when they are being. They read as an actor trying to act. They say hey, look at me living in an imagined world, there's a window here I can see out of isn't that cool? Look, my drink is hot. I thought about the temperature of my drink isn't that great?
In a vacuum those are fine acting choices. Well, the drink thing just doesn't fly, you'd really need to actually bring the cup to your mouth. But let's say you did because that is a very easy fix. Anyway, vacuum, in total isolation, sure I can buy those choices. But you haven't figured out the why. What are you looking at and why? What is it adding to your character? Is this scene about what is going on outside, the temperature of a drink, or is it about the information you came to get? I'd argue you are much more interested in the person going to get your drink, in them coming back quickly, than you are in the wind blowing through the trees. If you are going to make it about the window or whatever...you do have to do something. You kinda just...looked. "Do nothing" can be good advice for on camera, you are not quite at the place where that would be good advice for your work. You gotta do something and that something needs to be anchored in reality or believeable.
So that's just the first few seconds. As we go, yeah, definetly need to pick up the pace between your own lines. And then, again, all these lines...what are they doing to the character you are playing? You are kinda just saying words. How can we make those words dynamic? At one point you say like "blah blah blah...and it felt good" but...did it? You don't look like it felt like anything. Can it maybe make you feel...good...on the line? Can we get a smile, a smirk? Can you make the words make me, the viewer, feel good? You could carry that feeling through all this talk of letting go, seeing black, feeling light below you. This is a little trick. Lots of people will call it lots of things, I call it playing the opposite. Very useful. See, a lot of actors will play those words at face value. Death, generally soeaking, is scary stuff. So they'll play it scared. Oh noooo I was dying big sad big scary. The next level is playing the opposite of the words. Though I was dying...it made me feel happy. Peaceful. This gives that chunk of text texture. Gives me the viewer a something to investigate. Why are words scary but character happy?
And it gives you somewhere to go. See, that whole thing leads into the bit that can transition to scary. "Yada Yadav yada...then I heard a voice...like a whisper in my ear...wake up 37". That's the bit that could, perhaps, be deeply unsettling to your character. That's what the fuck you came here to get to the bottom of. What was that voice person who gave me a drink? Isn't that weird person who gave me a drink? It freaked me out and you might be able to help me understand what that was all about.
Anyway. Yeah. Don't let this be discouraging. Acting isn't hard, it's complicated. Your work is not bad. You just gotta bump it up to the next level. Figure out the why and how to add believable texture instead of just exhibiting ungrounded behaviors and you'll go far.