Photoplayer Hater

With all the stage to screen adaptations many of the best plays have been turned into movies. In acting class you will likely find yourself doing lots of scenes from stage plays. In some cases a piece might have also been turned into a movie. Many see this as a great reason to see the movie, but don't act so fact.

PROS

There are good reasons to watch the film version of a play you are doing and they may outweigh the cons in your case.

• Business, Staging Ideas

Watching your scenes being done by another actor can give you great ideas about what you should be doing in the scenes. You may not do it precisely as in the film, but it might help you modify the way you are doing it. What should you be doing with your hands? Are there any physical movements that should accompany you words?

• Line Meanings

Some scripts are just not very obvious. Good scripts shouldn't be obvious, but that doesn't help you understand any faster. When you watch a performance of your lines it can help you see what some of the more mysterious lines mean. Not only can they help you understand what the lines mean, but also their relationship to each other. It's not always obvious in the text, but a performance can show you a way of interpreting the material that helps you find your way.

• Inflection Ideas

In the text there might be italics or even all caps used to denote emphasis for certain words, but there is no clear demarcation of how exactly lines should be delivered. It's easy to get into the habit of a flat way of reciting dialogue and seeing the filmed performance can help you come up with ideas of how you can vary dialogue delivery to better convey character actions.

CONS

Watching actors do something that you are going to do can inspire and enlighten but can also become a hindrance.

• Mimicry Tendency

I am guilty of this and it's the reason I watch filmed scenes only after my performance. Once you see it done it's very easy to just copy what they do. You can use their performance as a stepping stone to creating your own but you can also use it as a shortcut. Instead of watching it and doing your own thing, you might find your character is the movie actor playing that character instead of an original creation.

• Hard To Forget

Films are meant to be powerful. Good films are the find of thing that can stick with you for life. So if you see a film with the intention of forgetting what you saw and doing your own thing afterward, prepare for the worst. You might think you are coming up with a unique portrayal but you may unconsciously be recreating what you saw on film. If you don't accidentally copy then you may become discouraged with the filmed performance always in your head and unable to get clarity on your performance and its value.

• They May Not Know Better

It's easy to think that the film is the definitive version. They spent lots of money, stars are in it, and it made lots of money, so they must know the right way to do the scene. The truth is that scenes can be "correctly" interpreted any number of ways and the filmed production may not have been one of them. The way they did it may not be that great.

When working on scenes in class you can use all the help you can find, I respect that. Watching or not watching the filmed version of your play is a personal choice. Only you can say whether it helps or hurts. Just be aware that it may not be right for you. There is no single way and we each need to find the best methods for ourselves.