What is Screen yorkshire?
Screen Yorkshire is a company established in 2002 that helps produce and film films.
What do they do?
According to there website they work to build a versatile and diverse screen workforce. They provide industry training and development for programs of TV and film.
This is relevant to our project as we are doing screen acting and screen yorkshire has helped make many productions of TV and film such as the Crown, Ackley Bridge and happy valley, as well as peaky blinders and gentleman Jack which are the tv shows we are doing.
Working in screen yorkshire means that there is a variety of jobs you can get, like a location’s manager/assistant, camera crew and casting agent and much more.
Screen acting
Actors can manipulate there emotions to portray a character by using different techniques such as method acting and emotional recall.
Method acting – The dictionary definition of method acting is ‘a technique of acting in which an actor aspires to complete emotional identification with a part’ . This means that the actors will remain in character most of the time by doing simple day to day activities how they think that there characters would. This helps them show more realism. This method was first introduced by Stanislavaski, a Russian theatre practitioner.
Emotional recall- This is when the actor can recall a real past experience where they felt a particular emotion such as sadness, scared or anger, that there character would feel. This allows an actor to give an effective performance by reliving and feeling emotion.
Screen acting vs stage acting
Sreen and stage acting have some similarities, like actors being required to memorise a script and to get in to character, method acting and emotional memory can be used to portray a character.
However they also share some differences in stage acting , you perform in front of an audience so you will naturally have to project your voice so they will be able to hear you, when in screen acting you don’t have to do that because there is microphones to hear you.On stage the actor will typically use exaggerated facial expressions and body language again so the audience can see if the character is happy or sad. When in screen acting the use of the cameras limits this as normally the actor would want to create realism to their character. Unless you were filming a comedy exaggerated facial expressions and body language may be used. Finally in stage acting ,you only get one shot to get it right because your performing live infront of an audience and if you did get it wrong you could improvise where as you wouldn’t be able to do that if you were filming a TV show of movie but you could go back from the beginning of a scene and film it again.
Much like the emotional memory and method acting techniques there are others that actors use yo help portray emotion in there characters.
The Meisner technique- This technique was created by Stanford Meisner. His method was that actors focused on the external sources for inspiration, like looking at your surroundings, improvisation and repetition. This is a successful method as it has been used by actors such as Tom Cruise, Naomi Watts and Chadwick Boseman.
Classical acting- This method Is similar to method acting but instead of becoming your character from the inside, you become your character from the out side. By thinking how would there character act and sound, amd they use there vocal delivery to portray certain emotions.
How does an actor prepare for an audition.
Firstly an actor will read and memorise there script, then go through it and analyse the script and break it down in to beats to see what they need to do to devoid there character.
Peaky Blinders
Peaky blinders is a crime drama tv show that follows the shelby family amd the gang peaky blinders several months after the first world war. The show explores many themes such as loyalty, revenge, violence, ptsd and family, and much more.
The tv show Peaky Blinders follows the crimes of the gang peaky blinders after the first world war. The show is set in Birmingham, England in the early 1900’s because during 1810-1910 Birmingham was known to have extremely violent and organised gangs known as the peaky blinders who would commit a variety of crimes. Such as robbery, violence, gambling and illegal book making. The gang consisted of men from the ages of 12 to 30 years old. This is shown in the show and is said to be an accurate representation of Birmingham during the time. They got there name peaky blinders from their caps at the time being big and having a peak, that’s were the name ‘peaky’came from, and blinders because it was sa popular slang word in Birmingham
The show explores the different social classes during the time period. With Tohmas Shelby being a part of the lower class and Freddie Thorne being part of the working class. Thomas and Freddie were friends during world war 1 when freddi saved his life but became enemies when he became a communist agitator.
The peaky blinders usually wore tailored suits, pants and button jackets. They also wore caps with razor blades attached to them so that they could use them as weapons against people. Much like the real life gang.
Thomas Gilbert / Kevin Mooney- Thomas Shelby is the lead of the show and a major role in the gang peaky blinders, but there have been many speculation as to who tommy is based of off. One of the men he is believe to be based of off is Thomas Gilbert also known as Kevin Mooney. Thomas was one of the most powerful members of peaky blinders, who often changed his name to hide from authorities. He like shelby was considered to be the leader of the gang. Mooney was later arrested and sentenced to two separate stintsin prison for robbery and deception.
How accurate is Peaky blinders?- The show represents the women as the traditional domesticated women, who work at home cleaning and nurturing family members. Which was an accurate representation of how women lived during the 1900’s. The show is known for being explicit to its viewers, and contains a numerous of violent acts like shootings torture, stabbings and others. In the nighteenth century thr peaky blinders commit violent crimes such as brutal assaults and in some cases they would stab and strangle their victims. In the show many of the characters show symptoms of ptsd, like aggressive outbursts, night terrors, depression , panic attacks ect.. Like in the show young boys and men suffered from post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) also known as shellshock during the time, after the ww1.