Essay for Toronto Film School Application

Influences to Pursue a Professional Acting Career

The private school I was emplaced in for the two final grades of elementary school had a strong emphasis on theatre in comparison to the previous institution, in the form of several two-hour productions. In these two years I successfully auditioned to be a lead role in four musicals and gained ample experience memorizing lines and performing in front of a sizeable, proportionately large audience. There were also a capella parts, and generally the experience has left my persona requiring more opportunities to entertain and be noticed and gave an educational introduction to the preeminent edifices of entertainment that feature length movies embody in contemporary Western culture. Since the juncture of these performances I have explored a vision to act at a more serious and professional level which has abided to the present. During this process I have worked to define strict parameters concerning the rationale for why I appreciate professional actors and what contribution theatrics and animated storytelling have to my personal wellbeing. Realistically it is the psychological insight by which actors convey rich, varying emotional expression and imagination across vastly different characters that captures my admiration. Distinguished movies coerce the audience to cognitively engage with a film’s narrative and falsely believe the events in a praiseworthy way. In this manner, theatre demands integrity and emotional awareness of the audience and is therefore perhaps the most uncorrupted popular art form. The wealth of art forms present such as visuals, sound, and language among others is undeniable (Fiorelli & Weisberg, 2016). Furthermore my literature interests vastly include English Renaissance and Elizebethan Theatre because moral issues and of the time are captured beautifully onstage, exemplifying that drama captures societal human sentiments with eloquence surpassing all other recognized art forms. Complex acting is also definitively unobtrusive; the required naturalism camouflages the challenging aspects better than for other art forms so it is less pretentious and less impetuous.

I also respect the attribute of actors embodying their characters to such considerable extents that they develop a comprehensive understanding of their past distressing or traumatic experiences, unresolved personal conflicts, and nature of their interpersonal relationships. A fascination I intend to investigate relates the interpretation of method acting as rehearsal techniques to engender sincere and emotive performances that emanate the essence of the characters’ intentions, and I am passionate also to spend time functionally analyzing characters and their progression through a picture and fitting into more variegated and diversified parts. Differing roles with abundant contrast are appealing, from action and adventure characters to comedy and from on-screen to live stage because there is well established, entrenched potential for diverse achievement. Notwithstanding, serious dramatic actor on screen would be incomparably fulfilling and unrivaled. Although movies are certainly fictionalized, historical pieces are typically extensively researched and didactic (Metzger, 2018). Specifically, to facilitate in period and historically-centered motion pictures would be optimal, because I admire how history is told through theatre. In summation, acting has already substantiated as the most prominent and illustrious of my creative outlets and studying film would satisfy a prolonged and continuing vocation.

References

Fiorelli, L., & Weisberg, M. (2016). What Movies Show: Realism, Perception, and Truth in Film. Retrieved March 7, 2020, from https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3501&context=edissertations

Metzger, S. A. (2018, September 17). Are movies a good way to learn history? Retrieved March 7, 2020, from http://theconversation.com/are-movies-a-good-way-to-learn-history-75976

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