 Welcome back, it is Thursday and that means ActiAnalysis is finally made or is in. So today I'm going to take a look at the HBO show Succession. I sound like a broken record but every time I talk about a show I say, it's awesome, it's great, you should watch it. But it is great and it's awesome and you should watch it. But why waste time? Let's get straight into episode one of season one. First up is this moment here where Kendall here gets a phone call and it's the dismissive hand wave right there as it takes to call people are waiting. And this to me was interesting because this could be the beginning of your shot. This could be where we see him talk or we can see he can start with this, whatever you want to do in terms of start. But I like the idea of the shot starts with him taking the phone call and doing this. Because that kind of sets the tone of how he feels throughout the shot. So this could be a I'm very excited, you know, maybe thinking from the map, be quiet, be quiet, I have something important to say. Or this kind of like leave me alone, you know, you're not important to me right now, I have a more important phone call. But it kind of sets the stage in terms of how this character feels. So this could be kind of like a setup so that the audience knows exactly how your character feels. So that you have that's the beginning and right away it's communicated. This is how my character feels. And then you have somewhere to go if it's a gear change, and you want to change your character's emotions or whatever you want to do. But I think it's a cool, interesting setup that doesn't take 10 seconds. That doesn't take an audio piece. It's just the thing of that or like phone call, whatever it is. It's a short little thing to set up the character. The second clip I want to talk about is this, where you have all different kinds of hugs. So this seems like a fairly warm embrace. You've got the hugging here, you've got contact, you've got even the chin on here. So that's one way of, even though they don't see eye to eye in the show, it's kind of like, yeah, I'm happy to see you. Compared to when you have Tom, the husband, and it's this not quite hugging you, not quite holding you, she does it. I mean, she has all the power here, she's okay. He doesn't quite know. That's something to think about as you do something like this. Do you want to show their relationship by something like this or the contrast of this? He is not okay, but she's okay. And then compared to this one, where it's kind of like, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's this. It's kind of the fake tapping, but if you look at his eyes and his facial expressions, it's kind of like, okay, yeah, yeah, uh-huh, yeah, uh-huh. And even that here, it's almost like at the end, it's, is it a friendly tap or is it a tap that almost means get away from me? Because you have that little push off at the end. You see this here, how the hand pushes off. So even with something that's more innocent, like a hug, or just kind of like a welcome thing, you can, just like with the dismissive hand wave, you can set up your relationship between two characters just through that hug. Is it a warm embrace? Is it something awkward? And that can set the stage again for your shot, where it's a pantomime or a lip-sync, but it's something that is very clear and communicates their relationship very fast. That's what I like about it, is that you can do something very quickly at the beginning of the shot, even as the audience kind of gets an overview of this is what the shot is, in terms of geography and the characters. But within that beginning, you can already, like I said, set the stage, but you know the characters in your shot. This one is more about posing, and it's almost like I want to go towards the end and then show you the beginning. So as they talk, you can see this here, where she is sitting like this, they're kind of similar, after they're kind of similar, but you can see a bit more relaxed, maybe a bit more stable in that triangular pose, if you will, and she's a bit, you know, closer to him. But then you have him, and that's going to go back to the beginning, is where they kind of show off how they sit, and it reveals this. And it tells you something about this character, where everybody is somewhat standing in a normal way, and he has this very quirky way of sitting, and that's really his type of character, he's fairly strange in the show, but it gives you also an opportunity for contrast. So now that something important happens, he changes. He goes from that crazy pose to, okay, hold on, this is important now, no time to play around, let me sit down and actually pay attention. So you can do a setup with the character, and you can do contrasting things, where you can show, well, this is how I'm standing, this is how I'm sitting, it gives you contrast between characters, but you can use this as a setup for weight, because I used to be all relaxed, and now I'm changing into this, it's important, and the audience is more aware of, okay, there's a change happening, we should pay attention. And continuing this with this sequence here, where it's kind of a contrast of how they sit, that's not standing, it's more sitting, but it's interesting, as you play this, once you have multiple characters, you really have to think about contrast and how you present your characters in different ways. So you have her sitting, and it's a wider shot, so I can show you this. Spoiler, something happened to the father, and you have her sitting like this, he's sitting like this, and of course, him being the quirky one, he is walking on top of this, Mammy can go back, and he's not at this point, but even through here, you just get a glimpse of the different poses, where arms crossed like this, that's a bit lower there, you can see that, how he's hunched over. So think about, if you have multiple characters, how do you present them, how do you distinguish them, what is the contrast that you can put in, is it important that she is the closest to the actual room where the patient is, does that mean that she cares more? Him kind of standing and doing this, lending support, so there are all kinds of things you can communicate, you might not have that much room in your scene to do all this, but think about that, think about, does my character have to stand, is it better if there's a standing in their sitting, is this important, does that show the division between the characters, and here is the only group that is somewhat supportive of each other. And then this is kind of the theme of, seems to be this actor analysis, it's just quick communication of character relationships, their state of mind, and something that the audience can pick up very quickly without you doing a lot of exposition or all kinds of dialogue or just like a long pantomime to show it, oh, this is how my character feels, boom. Episode two is much more intricate, they're more subtle things, this show overall has so many different type of characters, then you have broad actions, you have crazy pantomime, you have very subtle scheming things, this show has it all, so if you can watch this somewhere, I highly recommend that you do. Now, if you thought that this was interesting, as I always say, if you feel like this is cool and you want to put those ideas into your shot, I do have workshops available, you can sign up at any time, we can work together to make your shots even more awesome than they already are. And of course, if you watched this till the very end, as always, thank you so much for your patience in watching this, if you don't want to miss any of the things that are uploaded, you can subscribe and hit that bell button, look at all the notifications, you know the drill on YouTube. And that's it from me, thank you for watching, and I will see you in my next clip.