Emotional Flocking

We did an exercise in the first lesson called "Emotional Flocking." It is called this because of the very simple reason that we are exploring lots of different emotions and we are doing it in unison, like a flock of birds. We started exploring our emotions by copying what Will was doing.

We started by hysterically laughing, which then moved on to crying and many other different emotions that flowed into each other. With this exercise all the emotion felt very forced and it was just like we were doing it for the sake of Will doing it. It felt very superficial - like the emotions we felt weren't true.

However we then did the exercise again, but called this Level 2. In this exercise we were allowed to change the emotion at any point and we had to get the whole class to change into different emotions. The second exercise felt a lot more powerful - like we were actually truthfully responding to what was happening around us, which led to the other emotions flowing nicely. This exercise made more sense and seemed more realistic as we had to listen to other people and respond accordingly.

What does it take to do the exercise well?

Real focus, maturity, a lot of concentration and energy - basically everything it takes to be an actor. If you don't give 100% - it just doesn't look good and you end up taking away emotion from the group. You have to want to get really involved. It also takes awareness and responsiveness to allow you to react the right way to the people around you. You must get involved to feel part of the emotion and make it believable. You need to be able to find a point to experience neutral emotion, therefore making your other emotions, not just feel more realistic, but actually make them more realistic as they come from deep inside.

As an actor, how do you benefit from this exercise?

You learn to harness your emotion and allows you to start really feeling those emotions. If you put your emotion towards something you can trick your mind into thinking it's true. For example, you need to find a realistic emotional hook. You could trick your mind into thinking that the little flick of her hair makes you absolutely despise her. Or, you can tell yourself that the pair of shoes in the room is going to make you sick. You can take it so far that after a while you generally start to feel really sick. It allows you to keep the emotions for future reference for when you are on stage or about to go on, you can use this exercise as a form of emotional recall. You benefit from this emotional hook, as it allows you to find a wayto feel your emotions, not to fake them. It also helps you to learn what triggers emotions and what allows them to be real.