JUST ACT NATURAL

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Natural acting is one of the most complex and brilliant forms of art that people engage in today. Having been an idea for roughly a century and being part of the acting mainstream for about half that time, natural acting has seen rapid evolution through the popularization of film and media.

This type of acting is much more nuanced than performative art, opting to sacrifice intentionally bold and attention-grabbing performances for more genuine and life-like portrayals. Dialogue is stripped back, intentional pauses are removed and actors frequently speak over each other during dialogue. Background music is greatly reduced or done away with entirely, in favor of the sounds coming from the scene’s backdrop. Natural films intend to share their message not through epic and powerful scenes and punchlines, but by giving audiences a glimpse into a real world put on film.

By no means am I an actor. I am simply a curious observer and consumer of naturalistic film. I love films with natural-sounding dialogue and realistic character mannerisms. Films in which characters sound as if they are actual people fascinate me, and I am always impressed with how real these actors seem on screen. 

Despite my enjoyment of naturalistic film, my passion has never materialized into anything more than just interest. This was the case all the way until I was assigned with the task of creating my own Capstone Project for school. Any topic I wanted in the medium of my choosing. This was the spark that ignited my interest, and propelled me to put some actual research into the topic that I had become so intrigued by. 

I decided to research the fundamentals of natural film: line delivery, cinematography, and physicality being some of the most important. My research gave me a limited but satisfying amount of knowledge about the art of natural acting, and increased my appreciation for the artform. In response to this, I decided that I could help others who are interested but also relatively uninformed about the topic just scratch the surface of the field. 

The choice to create a video essay for my project came from this idea of being accessible. Writing a 30-page paper on acting was not going to give an audience the visual context needed to understand the techniques being described. If I wanted to help other people take the first step into learning about natural acting, I couldn’t just tell them about it. I’d have to show them. A visual medium allowed me to create the most digestible, informative piece for uninformed but interested people like me. Not only did I teach myself a lot over the course of my research, I also devised a way to teach others as well.

This video is intended to break down the simplest criteria for what I consider to be natural acting, as well as various points on the spectrum of realness in film. My hope is that through my analyses and explanations of various scenes, viewers can gather an understanding of what separates scenes from one another, and how different movies can have such different atmospheres associated with them.

Here is my project. I hope you enjoy the video, and that you learn something along the way.