Miming and Clowning

Mime: silent art of communication using gestures, movement and facial expressions. Mime creates illusions for audience

Clown: communication using one's own physicality and facial expressions to create a comic situation

Elements of action in physical comedy include: surprise, timing, repetition, role reversals, mistaken identities, opposites, disguises, hiding, sincerity/seriousness

Mime Terms include: isolation, focus, preparation, release, neutral, snap or click, substitution, identification, hand shapes, weight

Techniques to help with mime include: wall, ball throw, rope pull, weight lift, emotional masks, character size, making objects real in space, slow motion, leaning/climbing and opening and closing

Mime/Clown Routine

Our teacher gave us as assignment, in groups of 3 we had to make a the main idea of being trapped and then escape. My group learned that to make the presentation the best we had to really act like were trapped or else it wouldnt be good, the focal point was how well we could act and be able to stay in charcter throughout the whole play. Our last assignment we got was a renactment routine, our teacher gave each group a story and we had to mine and clown it to our best ability. This assigment to me was the hardest one yet because we had to interpret the story my teacher gave us and make our own judgements of the charcters and objects used in the story, plus use all the elements of miming and clowning we learned. Both the plays our class put on were really fun to watch and observe, mime and clowning to me is really funny, but sometimes needs teamwork when in groups. This idea of acting is used a lot in Mr.bean ,The 3 Stooges also by Charlie Chaplin many more.

Some elements that mimes do to make their performances entertaining are:

• Surprise: Doing the exact opposite of what is expected in the situation.

• Timing: Ensuring that everything is done at the right time, and that nothing is rushed.

• Repetition: The magic three - the first is the set up, the second represents the building pattern, and the third is a variation of the repeated action.

• Opposites: Constrasting mimes to add humour in a scene

• The most commom used is mimicing pulling a rope and being stuck in a box