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Post-workshop, Freeman (centre) shared a snapshot with budding film and television actors (from left) Brian-Ray Moore, Deanne Allgrove, Camille Davis, and Orrin Scott-Stewart.

WEARING fictional characters on their sleeves, a small group of Jamaica’s aspiring film and television thespians attended a JAMPRO-initiated acting workshop hosted by Hollywood actress Cassandra Freeeman in the studios of Creative Production and Training Centre (CPTC) last week.

Freeman, who has had roles in the films Inside Man and I Think I Love My Wife and is a cast member of the VH1 dramedy Single Ladies, led the four-day acting workshop, which forms part of the lead-up activities to the Jamaica Film Festival, slated to take place in July.

The workshop proved particularly enlightening for the local stage practitioners in attendance, who heaped praises on Freeman’s insighftul nature and for exposing them to useful techniques in conveying character emotion and motivation.

“We learned about the internal monologue, which itself is telling a story,” actor Brian-Ray Moore shared with the Jamaica Observer at the close of the workshop last Thursday afternoon. While Moore has only a singular theatre production under his belt, playwright Aston Cooke’s 2013 show Internet Affair, he has hopes of expanding his acting career.

“I have a definite interest in television, and am trying to take the next step and move forward,” he added. “So this workshop with Cassandra was very good, and I learnt so much about body language on camera, the tone of voice, and psychological gestures.”

Veteran stage actress Camille Davis was equally effusive about her acting-for-film workshop experience. “I really want to go into film, and know there is so much more to film than stage. This workshop taught me so much about pulling back a performance as on stage, expressions are allowed to be bigger,” Davis, a long-time acting principal with Jambiz International said.

“I realise that every single blink, every swallow, shows on camera, and you can’t get away with it as you would on the stage. I’m so excited to show what I have learnt, and it’s definitely something I am so grateful for,” she added.

For Freeman, specially invited by JAMPRO to assist the local trade and investment company’s shortlisted film-makers and actors with their entries in the upcoming film festival, a sufficient impression was made. “My observation of the class is that there is a great hunger, desire and respect to learn the skill of acting for camera,” she shared.

Asked if there were workshop participants she believed would be ready for a film or TV set in Hollywood, Freeman answered in the affirmative. “Yes, there are people in the class who are a beautiful type, I would say I would want them in a movie, and then there are two or three people who right now could have a career of this — the good thing about Hollywood is that you learn as you go.”

Source: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifestyle/And—-ACTION-_18400589

Published Date: February 15th, 2015