{"id":1227,"date":"2015-03-16T19:49:19","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T19:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tedb-wp.byu.edu\/?page_id=1227"},"modified":"2015-05-15T19:25:44","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T19:25:44","slug":"objectives-the-strong-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tedb-old.byu.edu\/?p=1227","title":{"rendered":"Objectives: The Strong Want"},"content":{"rendered":"

Objective<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The students will demonstrate their understanding of character objectives by breaking down a scene into action units.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Materials Needed<\/strong><\/h4>\n
    \n
  • List of character aspects<\/li>\n
  • Towel<\/li>\n
  • Film clips<\/li>\n
  • Sample script<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
      \n
    • Character Aspects:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

       <\/p>\n

      his loves<\/p>\n

      his fears<\/p>\n

      his frustrations<\/p>\n

      his emotions<\/p>\n

      his thoughts<\/p>\n

      his habits<\/p>\n

      his memories<\/p>\n

      his mannerisms<\/p>\n

      his needs his hopes<\/p>\n

      his self-esteem<\/p>\n

      his hobbies<\/p>\n

      his profession<\/p>\n

      his politics<\/p>\n

      his use of language<\/p>\n

      his uncertainty<\/p>\n

      his wants<\/p>\n

      his ethics<\/p>\n

      his pride<\/p>\n

      his eccentricities<\/p>\n

      his uniqueness<\/p>\n

      his strengths<\/p>\n

      his weaknesses<\/p>\n

      his energy<\/p>\n

      his expressions<\/p>\n

      his habits<\/p>\n

      his mystery<\/p>\n

      his pleasures<\/p>\n

      his worries<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Lesson Directions<\/strong><\/h4>\n

      When the students enter the classroom, they will find about twenty-five phrases listed on the board and an empty chair sitting in front of that board. The phrases will include, \u201chis hobbies,\u201d \u201chis dreams,\u201d \u201chis language,\u201d \u201chis wants,\u201d etc.<\/p>\n

      -The teacher tells the students that the character they are going to portray is sitting in the chair and the aspects that fascinate us about that character are written on the board. Conduct a debate among the students as to which aspect on the list is most important in portraying this actor. The answer that is most exciting for an audience to watch, of course, is \u201chis wants.\u201d<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Step 1: Transition. Discuss with the class why a character\u2019s wants are the key to portraying him. Make sure you discuss that a person\u2019s wants are what drive the actions of a character and are most interesting for the audience to watch.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Step 2: Ask the students for recent examples in their own life when they wanted something from someone. (These examples will be used later.)<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Step 3: Instruction. Inform them that in acting \u201cwants\u201d is synonymous with \u201cobjectives.\u201d A good working definition of objectives is \u201cwhat a character wants.\u201d<\/p>\n

      -Discuss effective ways to state a character\u2019s objective. It should be similar to this:<\/p>\n

      I want __receiver<\/em>__ to __verb\/action<\/em>__.<\/p>\n

      Such as, I want to persuade Ann to kiss me, I want to win Kristin\u2019s admiration, I want to reduce my lover to tears, or I want to ignite the crowd to riot, etc.<\/p>\n

      -The verb must be actable, the receiver is necessary so that your objective has a direction and focus.<\/p>\n

      -Discuss what makes an objective particularly strong and which verbs are stronger than others. An actable verb is active and you can pursue it for several minutes. \u201cIt is a verb that you can get your shoulder behind and push.\u201d<\/p>\n

      -Allow the students to put the wants that they mentioned before into correct objective statements.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Step 4: Practice. Show the scene in Dead Poet’s Society<\/em> where Neil’s father is telling him he cannot be on the yearbook staff. Ask the students what it was each character in that scene wanted\u2014these are their objectives. Then ask them who won. Have them write down their answers.<\/p>\n

      -Repeat this activity with other film clips.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Step 5: Modeling.\u00a0 Call up two students to come in front of the class and cold-read a cutting from a play.\u00a0 After the reading, model for the class how to discover the objectives for each of the characters.\u00a0 What clues does the script give to help us get to what each person wants?<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Step 6: Practice\/Performance. Put the students into partnerships.\u00a0 Give them a different short scene cutting from a play.\u00a0 Have them read through the scene and then come up with what their character wants in the scene (their objective).<\/p>\n

      -Have the students act out their scenes with each holding to one end of a towel (ala tug-of-war). This activity helps the students to add urgency to their scenes and gives them an understanding of what it means to \u201cfight for an objective\u201d because they will be able to physically influence the other character.<\/p>\n

      -Allow the students to paraphrase their lines because the objective is more important than memorization.<\/p>\n

      -More than one pair may perform at a time with small audiences observing each pair.<\/p>\n

      -If the class is particularly aggressive, this activity may be modified. Have the students stand near a table and stack their hands one on top of the other. Whenever their lines indicate that they are winning their objective, that student can take his hand from the bottom of the stack and place it on top.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Step 7: Discussion.\u00a0 Discuss the results with the class\u2026how were the objectives played?\u00a0 What could make an objective more clear?\u00a0 How can the actors use their voice and bodies to convey their wants?\u00a0 Why it is important for an actor to know whether or not their character achieved their objective?<\/p>\n

      \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

      Assessment<\/strong><\/h4>\n

      Students will discuss their objectives with their scene partners. Have them turn in a paper stating their objective and a few sentences defending their objective \u2013 WHY their character wants this thing right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The students will demonstrate their understanding of character objectives by breaking down a scene into action units.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedb-old.byu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedb-old.byu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedb-old.byu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedb-old.byu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedb-old.byu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1227"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/tedb-old.byu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3450,"href":"https:\/\/tedb-old.byu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions\/3450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedb-old.byu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedb-old.byu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedb-old.byu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}