What is camera acting?
or
tips of acting for the camera
It’s the performance or the act that you deliver in the presence of a camera recording you. The performance is basically delivered to the camera which is recorded and then further projected on a screen.
1. Be friend with the Camera.
What does it mean to be a friend with a camera?
It’s basically having least fear facing the camera. Most of the times while acting for the camera what happens is initially we are not comfortable facing the camera.
It seems bizarre for many of us talking and acting in front of a black hollow camera lens.
And initially, this camera fear is very common in almost in everyone.
But over the time you have to overcome this fear of acting for the camera.
Because the camera catches it all once you are feared of it the same is going to reflect on the screen and it’s very much visible to the viewers.
There are a few techniques to subdue this camera facing fear. The fundamental rule might be cliche but you can’t skip this for sure.
- Practice practice practice!
You have to spend some time talking to the camera just like you do with any other person to get comfortable with.
- Record mini clips of yourself
Start by recording short clips of yourself. Try recording any monologue or just talk about anything you like or even you can try storytelling.
- Watch yourself.
Watch yourself in those clips initially it may look very strange to you but at the end, you have to make it a habit. This habit will help you to fix the problems and get better.
2. Acting for the camera is all about the details.
If you have ever paid enough attention to the screen you must have noticed that every single detail is captured by the camera let it be the movement of your eyelids or the lines on your forehead.
Nowadays the camera captures the minute details of the props, actors, location or whatever it shoots.
Before acting for the camera you must be well aware of this fact about the camera, that you can’t just neglect the small details and gestures while performing.
Let’s say you are acting a scene in front of a rolling camera but you are only focusing on the large gestures of your head and body but the thing that you are missing out that the camera never misses outs is the small gestures.
The gestures of your eye, you minute facial expressions. these details tend to appear more prominent when projected on the screen.
Even a simple spread of your lips in sarcasm can project a whole story in itself.These minute details always add up to a great performance.
If you are well aware of the functioning and attributes of the camera in front of which you are performing it’ll help you a lot in making it even better.
3. Never Miss out different camera angles.
This is something which every actor must be conscious of before getting on stage. There are various camera angles from which an actor or scene is shot, almost every set have multi-camera setup.
An Actor must be aware of the camera angles before the cameras start to roll. Being aware of the camera angels will not only make you knowledgeably rich but it will also provide you a sense of what goes behind the camera.
Consciously doing this will ensure you have the desired screen presence in the scene.
It’ll also make a director’s job effortless. There are lots of diffrent camera angels in which a scene is shooted.
Some of the cameras that can be commonly heard used are: wide angle, mid-shoot, close shot, POV, Over the shoulder, one shoot, etc Examining about these shoots will help you in understandings things from the director’s perspective as well after which you’ll have a clarity of what a director needs from you.
4. Keep yourself informed about what goes behind the camera.
This is one of the reasons behind almost every great actor’s acting skills. Most of the actors train themselves behind the camera either they learn just by observing from behind the camera or they work behind the camera.
There is a lot which an actor can learn just by remaining behind the giant piece of technology.It’s a totally different perspective it’s also a directors perspective.
You got to learn about the stage, lighting, camera work, sound, acting, and what’s not?Every single learning can be implemented while you are performing because it will help you understand the things from the other perspective as well. That will give an edge to your performance.
You might have also heard that most of the great actors of the past and present have worked as an assistant director or as some other crew member other than the actor. Being on backstage gives you a lot of opportunities to learn the depth of the film making and obviously, every learning for you can be applied in your acting.
5. Eye contact with the lens.
It is another very vital point to remember which most the budding actors miss out, By eye contact with lense” I mean to say you must be well aware of the point or level where you should make eye contact. Mostly such spots are pre-decided by the director and are mainly marked as “+” Plus sign.
Let us take an example of a simple scene to make you understand it better.There is a scene where you are talking to a friend of yours who is slightly shorter in height than you and the camera is rolling on you.
Then you have to make sure either by confirming it with your director or just by analyzing the scene that on which level you are going to stare at or make eye contact at. You can either look into the camera lens if it is placed at a lower angle or you can look slightly at the ground level.
Which will sync in with the scene according to the characteristics of the characters present in the scene.
6. Audio Recording.
There is also something other the camera and its angles which you can’t snub is Audio Recording. While shooting for a scene there can be multiple different varieties of devices that are present for audio recording.
Every recording equipment serves a different purpose, not all devices are for the same purpose and they are different from each other in technical terms as well.
So you must be well aware of these functions, uses, and applications. They have different recording intensities and are used at various different locations on the set according to the desired sound output.
I hope these basics helped you to understand the fundamentals of Acting for the camera better. Do leave a review if you find this post helpful or comment below if you are still left with any further doubt?
also read-how to prepare for acting audition
