Performance art
Jul. 14th, 2008 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephbgTomorrow I deliver my Tech Writer talk to the ACS. Like an exam this has been hovering on the calendar for quite some time, but unlike an exam I'm really looking forward to it. Most of my dumb things to say are scripted in advance, so I hope my energy levels will pick up enough to last me the rest of the night with some dignity. Then Wednesday to Bunbury and back for round II and I can relax a bit. Not that I'm stressed now, but after a while you just want even the nicest events to just be over.
My preparation for this talk has been slightly different than last time I addressed the ACS. Last year my preparation was based in part on my creaky experiences in comedy theatre, where the bright stage lights and dim house lights create a grey wall a couple of feet from your nose. I used to practice a couple of feet from a blank wall. You never saw past the first row of the audience, and if you didn't do your job you heard nothing.
Now I know that the lighting for this event is much more even, and so I'm better prepared for a sea of faces. I found this lighting difference had quite an impact on that night; I wasn't prepared for such a sharp change in depth of focus between glancing at my notes and at the audience. I think it's likely this is one of the reasons I looked at my notes for longer than I wanted to, as I literally had to wait for my slow focus to catch up with the change. This time I've prepared a couple of times at least by glancing across a large space and practicing that swift change of focus (not a bad eye exercise to do at any time). I've also made more of an effort to memorise my lines, or at least recognise lines from the first couple of words, so I can spend more time addressing the audience.
Sound was the other thing that caught me by surprise last year. I had anticipated some shuffling, coughing, chuckling here and there and perhaps the odd interjection. I found the pindrop silence of my last audience unexpected and unnerving. I was assured afterwards that everyone was paying close attention, which was good. This time around I feel I'm prepared for either the silent attention of last year, or the slightly more rowdy reception from the Ag department conference last month.
Still on the subject of audio, I've learned that there's a big difference between listening to yourself reading aloud, and listening to yourself speaking from memory, or off the cuff. Quite different bits of brain involved, which is obvious in hindsight, and explains the messy delivery in the transition period between committing something to memory (seeing the words on the page) and delivering the lines as your own (hearing the words in your head). The difference between reciting lines and acting them.
I presume these are the sorts of things an actor or trained public speaker learns when working with a script. I'd be interested to hear from any theatre types who know how it's actually done. I was never that kind of actor :-)
Of course normal people just stand up there and talk :-)
My preparation for this talk has been slightly different than last time I addressed the ACS. Last year my preparation was based in part on my creaky experiences in comedy theatre, where the bright stage lights and dim house lights create a grey wall a couple of feet from your nose. I used to practice a couple of feet from a blank wall. You never saw past the first row of the audience, and if you didn't do your job you heard nothing.
Now I know that the lighting for this event is much more even, and so I'm better prepared for a sea of faces. I found this lighting difference had quite an impact on that night; I wasn't prepared for such a sharp change in depth of focus between glancing at my notes and at the audience. I think it's likely this is one of the reasons I looked at my notes for longer than I wanted to, as I literally had to wait for my slow focus to catch up with the change. This time I've prepared a couple of times at least by glancing across a large space and practicing that swift change of focus (not a bad eye exercise to do at any time). I've also made more of an effort to memorise my lines, or at least recognise lines from the first couple of words, so I can spend more time addressing the audience.
Sound was the other thing that caught me by surprise last year. I had anticipated some shuffling, coughing, chuckling here and there and perhaps the odd interjection. I found the pindrop silence of my last audience unexpected and unnerving. I was assured afterwards that everyone was paying close attention, which was good. This time around I feel I'm prepared for either the silent attention of last year, or the slightly more rowdy reception from the Ag department conference last month.
Still on the subject of audio, I've learned that there's a big difference between listening to yourself reading aloud, and listening to yourself speaking from memory, or off the cuff. Quite different bits of brain involved, which is obvious in hindsight, and explains the messy delivery in the transition period between committing something to memory (seeing the words on the page) and delivering the lines as your own (hearing the words in your head). The difference between reciting lines and acting them.
I presume these are the sorts of things an actor or trained public speaker learns when working with a script. I'd be interested to hear from any theatre types who know how it's actually done. I was never that kind of actor :-)
Of course normal people just stand up there and talk :-)
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Date: 2008-07-14 03:57 pm (UTC)