[HPFGU-Movie] upstage-downstage

[Morgan D.]

Morgan D:
> > My graduation in college was Movies, not Theatre, and English is
> > (obviously) not my first language. But we did use the term
> upstage.
> > Moving up meant (in that environment) moving towards the
> public (or
> > camera).
> > 
> My drama education was in theater, not movies (daggone it!!! but they
> didn't 
> offer that at my college back then).  Downstage was toward the
> audience.  
> Upstage was toward the backdrop.  Moving upstage put you at the back
> of the 
> stage, where the audience could see you and the other actors had to
> turn 
> their backs to the audience to address you directly, hence the term 
> "upstaging" -- wonder if it's only a theater term?  Or if terminology
> has 
> changed in the 30+ years since I was in college??

Technical terminologies change faster than I can keep track of them,
really. Especially when it comes to terms shared by "similar" forms of
art (theatre, cinema, television, radio, etc.) I really don't know
about theatre, but I had the opportunity to work with people that had
studied television, and communication could be chaotic. We found out we
used the same terms meaning different things, and different terms
meaning the same thing... A real mess. 

The very few times I worked as a film director, I wasn't working with
professional actors, so I never had to deal with theatre terminology at
all. 

What you learned probably still goes. It's more likely that these terms
"mutated" somehow while crossing to different environments and other
countries (as it is my case). Sorry if my two knuts on the matter only
served to make things more confusing. 

Morgan D.
Hogwarts Letter - http://www.hogwartsletters.hpg.com.br

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more
http://taxes.yahoo.com/