Chris Broodryk

The importance of a green screen acting course within the South African film acting curriculum

South Africa’s film and television industry is an important economic institution and it is crucial to invest in the skill development of the individuals involved in the industry. This investment includes the skills of the South African film actor who, due to the advent of digital visual effects, has to deal with a green screen environment in order to successfully portray a character in the diegetic reality of a film. The green screen limits the actor’s stimuli, impedes his belief in the diegetic circumstances, and requires the actor to imagine and be congruent to elements not present while filming. This article offers possible approaches to a green screen acting strategy which should be incorporated in existing film acting courses. Based on existing acting strategies and cognitive neuroscience principles, we hypothesize that acting explorations can be developed into a green screen acting method. This will assist the South African actor in successfully traversing the green screen environment, and lead to an integrated cinematic experience.

From the distributed self to the expanded self: gay identity and shifting subject–object positions in online and offline performance

This study investigates identity construction in online (virtual) and offline (visceral) spaces. Throughout the emphasis is on gay male identity construction. Specifically, the article explores how performance theory can be used to read persona construction in online webcam environments. The mediatory role of online technologies is considered in this regard. In turn, Rian Terblanches installation-performance owners MANual to conSEXtualisation is used to discuss how a performance located in a designated physical space demonstrates how such online persona constructions are indicative of constantly shifting subject–object positions, often culminating in what this study refers to as the pornstarification of the persona. This investigation is primarily informed by the work of Turkle and Benedetti, and establishes a link between Turkles notion of the distributed self and Benedettis notion of the expanded self as one way to allow online and offline spaces to conceptually speak to one another around gay male identity.