Blog 23 - Senior Project Reflection

Positive Statement

• What are you most proud of in your block presentation and/or your senior project?
• I'm extremely proud of the examples I used throughout my presentation. My subject wasn't the easiest to grasp but the examples really helped enhance my presentations understandability. However, I am also overall proud of how my entire presentation and project went as a whole because it was almost flawless in a sense that I enjoyed doing it, I did all the work I was required to do well, and it all tied together with an amazing presentation.

Questions to Consider

• What assessment would you give yourself on your block presentation?
• AE
• What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project?
• P+/AE

What Worked

• What worked for you in your senior project?
• I think my independent components really helped me test out my different answers. They let me explore theatre acting first-hand. The other thing that worked for me was my second mentorship. My mentor Chip Healy allowed me to direct an act of their play which was an amazing opportunity. This mentorship let me implement my knowledge I've gathered throughout the year into the act I was directing. These two things helped me gain experience within my topic and helped me justify my answers.

What Didn't Work

• If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your senior project if you could go back in time?
• I would've been more impulsive to find another mentor after I lost contact with my first one. Not having a mentor for a while greatly affected my ability to get answers and more information on my topic. If I would've found another mentor right away, this would've been avoided.

Finding Value

• How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?
• My senior project topic specifically allowed me to learn a lot about the profession I intend to go into. Although researching the character building methods that my EQ was based on, I also learned a lot about the business of theatre which is extremely important to know. The book "Acting is Believing" by Charles McGaw helped me learn about the theatre business and why it is so important. Besides my research giving me more knowledge on my topic, my second mentor, Chip Healy, was a huge help for getting me to get more experience within theatre. Even if the time I spent with him was short, he provided me with opportunities and encouragement that have driven me even more to pursue my career within theatre.

Blog 22 - Mentorship

Literal

• My mentorship hours log can be found by clicking here, or clicking on the link that says "Senior Project Hours Log" on the right had side of my blog.
• Mentorship Information
• Julian White
• CalPoly Pomona
• Chip Healy
• South El Monte High School

Interpretive

• What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?
• I believed that the most important thing I gained from this experience was the overall knowledge on my topic. This is because my mentors provided me with information I may have never found out about on my own. Since my mentors were very experienced, they not only taught me about the meaning and importance of character building (which is what my entire senior project is based on), but they also taught me that acting is a business, not just entertainment. They taught me that actors must be able to be skilled in many things within theatre, dance, music, and especially business and economics. This knowledge that they have provided me will be able to help me in the future when I am trying to pursue my career in acting, which is incredibly valuable to me.
• Here are some pictures from my first mentorship with Julian White:

• Here is the only picture I was able to take in my mentorship with Chip Healy:

Applied

• How has what you've done helped you to answer your EQ? Explain.
• No matter what I was watching or directing within both of my mentorships, the ideas of character were always there. My mentors stressed to me the importance that a performance is nothing without the realistic characters. While doing things such as directing act 2 of La Casa de Bernarda Alba, I was able to work with the cast in order to perfect their character. With Julius Caesar, I was able to watch professional actors in person to see how they do their character building process. Everywhere I went, character was there. However, having to pick a specific character building method was difficult, until I noticed that within both mentorships, the cast would always begin with the psychology of a character. This showed me that the most important part of character building is the psychology, making the Stanislavski Method my best answer for its in-depth work on the inside of a character.