Unit 1

Devising James Jarrett

When first starting this project we focused on our story. When making our last devised piece we struggled in making the performance believable. As our stimulus was up to us, we decided on “loss”. We had previously looked at a play the week before (Into The Woods) where there was a kid narrating with dolls making the play come to life and thought we could embed it into our performance. Other ideas consisted on drug overdose, gangs and losing somebody close. We finally decided on a similar story to “its a wonderful life” It is about a man who thinks his life is terrible then he goes into this parallel universe where he sees what the world would be like without him. He realizes his life isn’t so bad then wakes up loving his life and family.

We decided that our story needed a reason that he thinks his life was bad. We had ideas such as: lost close parent, lost girl friend, however we settled on the idea of a failed musician. This then led on to ideas in the dream that if he made it as a musician that his girlfriend would be with his best mate. This then continued in that he could not interfere with the dream and that he was invisible almost like “A Christmas Carol”. We also made an idea that the father wouldn’t be supporting his dream however his mother would; we thought this gives the main character a choice to stay in contact with his family or leave them all behind also making the audience think if this was a good thing to do; adding sprinkles of Brektian techniques throughout the performance. The idea of not having a supportive dad came from “The Judge” where the farther wanted the best for his son.

The idea was practically that the musician gets hit by a car as he thinks his life is so bad. He then goes into a comer. While in the comer he sees his life playing out if he would of made it. He realizes that hes girlfriend has moved on to his best friend, his mum past away and that his life is worse that he thought if he made it. He then gets hit by a car again and wakes up with his family giving him the money to peruse his dream

When performing the first scenes we quickly decided that we wanted to change the career path of the main character as it was more relatable to the audience we was performing it to. We also tweaked the scenes: corner shot to coffee shop as we wanted to show that his life isn’t bad; he is believes it is. As well as that we decide to scrap the idea of the girlfriend moving on;instead they have a kid but Zac (the main character) takes the roll and leaves them both.

THE CHARACTERS:

Main character: Zac – played by Jay

Supporting: Jason- played by Sean

Supporting: Stacy – played be Elena

Supporting: Mum – played by Issy

Supporting: Dad – Played by Sean

Supporting: Agent – Played by Issy

+insert newstory bored +

Following week i was ill and missed out performing in our performance. However i returned later that week. I was told that we was making a script that we don’t necessarily follow however we do need to take key features from it so the story will stay the say. Also i had been working on my voice at home for the dad. i focused on the grittyness of the voice and speaking from my chest. Also focused on body language and having a slightly shaky hand to represent his vulnerability.

Voice- Matt

In Lesson we was introduced into Lecoq acting techniques.

Over all i found these techniques easy to work with as it aloud me to move around the space focusing on the movements of my body. We was then asked to put a voice to the feeling of tension in the body. This chanced my voice to drunk to very well spoken to curious.

In the next lesson we was given a task was to present a story only using sounds. This made the task hard to be serious. I found it hard to show the morel of the story over all. However, when working on it we was aloud an narrator. We used it as when the narrator would describe the character the feature would appear on the character. ( red hood girl *puts hood up* we then focused on what type of sounds we could make. We ended up doing stereotypical sounds, for example when you are in trouble you will scream.

When developing we was looking for a morel that would be clearly shown. We decided on the idea of treating family with respect. It was really hard to develop as we tried to keep it entertaining.

When performing I didn’t feel well and had to run off. Also evaluating it the performance was too comedy and didn’t get our point across. Next time I would like to plan a story bored as I think our performance didn’t go like how we wanted, was largely due

improvisation- James Jarrett

In this weeks lesson we was asked to stand in a line and say one word when going down the line. However, our task was to inform everyone about this new invention. I found this task fun and comedic; this was due to the randomness that comes out of the person before. This helped me improve my quick thinking as there are hundreds of possibility’s it can end up as; this makes a set plan useless in your head.

As well as that we did the stand up sit down game. This game was harder as a lot of people wanted to be loud in order to be funny and i could see in others there wasn’t much energy or quick thinking happening. I fell that there needed to be higher and lower status people as nobody was getting each other into trouble. As well comedy didn’t needed to be over reacted, For example in Black Adder a character goes “walk into my fit” due to the fact he couldn’t be bothered to punch him: showing this status difference.

In next weeks lesson i will improve on establishing my status before my scene.

In our lesson our class was exploring about saying yes when improvising.James grabbed me and a peer; then told us to improvise a scene on whatever we liked. My first idea was to go for a break up scene. Jame’s point, after we finished the scene was, that most people would go into an augment scene and doing so the performance drags and doesn’t go anywhere. He then set us another task and that was for me to make an offer and my peer to just reply with yes. I found this challenging as i didn’t really grasp what was meant to happen. My feedback was to stop that mental barrier and trying to offer to go places to make the piece exiting.

At the end of the lesson i got the grasp and understood that improvisation is about saying “yes, and…” because it made me realise in regular life you would typically say no.

On Tuesday the 22nd of October, we was given a task to be higher and lower status characters. I was chosen to be the lower status and from my knowledge of “saying yes” to the higher persons offers. All it seemed to be was getting the lower status into trouble with ridiculous tasks making improvisation very fun and comedic.

With our final performance we played improvisation games. We was selected individually and in groups.

The individual practice consisted of us picking a historical figure and a quote. I believe i did well in this task compared to others as it seemed that they was saying no when there was a barrier in their way (they didn’t know how the historical figure would speak) However, i accepted the challenge and used quick thinking to improvise this character. Overall i thought i did well in saying yes.

In groups we was given a task to say a random made up story while the others act out behind you. I was the one telling the story. I focused on a silly topic which could easily get people into trouble when saying yes and that was nudity. Its a funny topic too as also i was focusing on giving the audience a laugh. However, i seemed like i stayed on the same topic for too long losing the comedy and my subconscious brain was telling me no when i needed to say yes to all these potability’s. I will try and improve next time by saying yes to ridicules ideas. Over all i though i did well by not losing the energy of the story.

Film and Tv- James Jarrett

Over the past few weeks I have been leaning a new type of acting in this lesson.

During the first week, we was shown how cameras work on set; two of my classmates was talking having a conversation and our teacher would move the camera around and show us the different camera angles. The most common “over the shoulder” look was explained that they would do the scene over and over so they wouldn’t have the opposite camera in the scene. We was also introduced to lighting and where it bounces off the face to give an effect on the character.

In the next lesson we was told to have a conversation on camera without looking into it. In this lesson James introduced the class to the chemistry and energy on set. Before we stood in-front of the camera we was told to get into pairs and copy what the other person is doing and vice versa. We then was told that nobody was the leader and we just had to feel the energy that we both was moving slowly at the same time. James told us that there is a flow of energy and if you understood each other it could happen randomly in a scene without forcing it.

We then was told to pick a partner to the opposite sex to perform a romantic scene together from the play “fault in our stars”. This scene was where the two main characters meet and “Gus” is flirting. This was hard to do as what you want to do is be all romantic however, we was told to do less on screen and just make the scene a normal conversation. We was asked to perform the week after without a script on camera and it worked much better.

That same week, I and another student was asked to perform the scene in front of reception to see if they noticed that we was acting or was having a general conversation. This worked very well as they didn’t even notice we was performing a scene even though we was a couple of meters away from them.

On Fridays lesson we was asked to perform in front of the camera. I found this quite comfortable compared to other times.

How effectively did you:

FOCUS ON YOUR PARTNER IN THE SCENE: I believed that i made good eye contact with my partner as she did the same for me.

PLAY THE ACTION OR THE OBJECTIVE: I believed i played a convincing performance of a flirty character. My partner responded well to my performance and made it easier for me to say my next line.

DISREGARD THE CAMERA AND HOLD YOUR CONCENTRATION: Both our performances was good as we blocked out our surroundings so we felt captivated in the scene.

WORK ON THE CHARACTER: For homework we agreed to watch the fault in our stars to get a better understanding of the characters and where this scene was in the play.

BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR PARTNER: we did trust fall exercises and just started a conversation so it didn’t seem forced. We both had good chemistry that helped when

DEVELOP YOUR UNDERSTANDING IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA: we was given a tour around the studio. Lighting: we was told they can be bright and we might need a break from them as it can get too hot. Camera position: we knew that the cameras was going to be over our shoulders so we was told not to move too much as it can block the camera . Standing: we had pieces of paper on the floor so we knew where to stand and not to move past the lines.

When working of Film and tv we was given an un-contextualized scene and we had to create different scenarios.

We came up with three different ideas which where dying grandpa, high business worker, broken hearted friends. We stuck to some common scenarios as we believed that it would look more realistic with the script given. After doing the performance i would of liked to improve my energy in the performance as i lost the emotional connection i had with the characters. This could be improved over time as i think im a nervous when the cameras are rolling due to the fact its the first time ive been on camera. Overall i believe i produced a solid performance however, i used mechanical acting to my advantage.

Other people evaluation- Matt Stevens

Voice- I evaluated two people when they performed there monologue. Izzy, was overall clear and produced a solid performance. However, there where times that i could tell there was more mechanical acting used. She could improve this by looking more in depth of Laban. Overall i liked the performance and i could tell that she knew the given circumstances.

I also evaluated Kayleigh, she had good articulation and it was clear she used Laban in her performance. However, her energy would drop randomly. I believe she could improve this by practicing more Laban efforts and eliminate softer Efforts, such as float, to give a more controlled performance. Also she could ease into her next Effort as the emotion seemed to be dropped intently into her next like. Overall, her performance was sold and it showed that she has used the Laban efforts.

Theater playground- I evaluated two performers and my facilitators.

Elena had this performance which consisted of being scared and like she was discovering things for the fist time. This worked really well with and without facilitation. She didn’t really interact much with other performers creating this new born feeling. On the other hand, Jay contrasted Elena as he was discovering this world too but he interacted with others. This brought this feeling of his ID that a new born has and i could see that through the performance. Also it was well thought out how his character would move in this advanced world. Over all both performances was solid and it shows contrasting parts can work in theater playground really well.

Skills Audit-

acting-skills-audit

Theater Playground- Matt Stevens

Today’s session consisted of theater playground and adding the 5 step point. To simplify the 5 step point , its basically breaking down what you could do while performing.

In this session the facilitators would work as a group to create this dynamic scene. When facilitating we chose types of music that fitted our intentions. My favorite scene is when we made a dance scene around Tom while he was performing his monologue; as his piece was very gentle it worked extremely well. We would like to improve on getting people to work together dynamically and put their full effort into performing.

In previous lessons we had discussed the 5 step point witch was “gesture of the theme, observe someone,dance inspired by music, use an object in the space, a statue that represents you and repeat” The point of this was a basis that the performers could use during theater playground. This could then get interrupted by facilitators giving a suggestion. This also helped me to remeber what i was doing, as most of the time i was wondering what to do next.

I had looked into “Theatre playground ” on YouTube to get some ideas however, it is very limited.

This also has helped me release tension in my mind and how you can be put into a random world and feel the music. As well as that its more freeing to relax your body before being asked to do something as, for me, is easier to say yes. I had previously learnt to say yes in improvisation( this also played a big part in understanding confidence) .

This term i was introduced into a new type of acting called Theater playground. At the start of the year i was nervous going into it as i had never worked on a project like this. This term consisted of stepping back and watching other people do it while applying your inspirations to the performance.

When first introduced we was asked to create statues of things such as “yourself, objects, emotions”. We then would be asked to move indirectly around the room to the music that would be playing. This was a nice starting point as it was understanding the basics of this new genre of acting.

Other things we did was add headphones to our performance so that the performers would hear their piece of facilitation through headphones which was a different consent that brought a different view on how we could go about things.

I had a few ideas that i wanted to do that i put forward in my next lesson, they consisted of everyone performing and one facilitator, when facilitation use status to determine the characters on stage; hoping that this would divide the characters and build this microcosm around them.

I believe my final performance was good however i would need to work on being creative when being a performer. My ideas as a performer are very basic and i couldn’t stick to the genre as i would run out of ideas. To improve i will watch more videos and get inspiration of others to make me feel more comfortable when making decisions. However, i improved from when i first started as i could develop my character throughout my performances giving my character a story. yet, some facilitation can divert me from creating my character and is less useful.

I review my facilitation as effective as i would focus on what peoples ideas and try not to change them much. Also my group would try and stick to the theme. One moment in particular that was memorable is when we got the class to have this fight with cups almost like discovering them for the first time insinuating they were robots. However, we felt like we needed to ask people to stop as the energy got lost when it was constantly repeated.

My final piece was somewhat expected, I believe i have more than a basic view on theater playground, However to note that i had never done this type of work before, i believe i was able to develop my characterization skills as well as my spacial awareness.

A moment that stood out was the time when we was given a topic of Witches, This was interesting to watch as, we all worked together as a group to create this medieval atmosphere, which was useful as we was studding the crucible at that time. Even when performing i was memorized by the performance as i felt like i was in the action. I believe Theater playground helps with capturing the mood of the scene due to its music in the background.

I never got to see my performance again so i can only base my evaluation off how well i thought i did and other peoples comments. I believe i did well, I could clearly adapt to the music with my posture and movements. However, they may of been over exaggerated as i wanted the audience to see clearly what i was doing. Our group was given a topic of Technology which made me instantly think a YouTube vlogger, I thought this may be something the audience to relate to. I wanting to make my performance entertaining so i took full advantages with the props. I had a direction to tell me that the floor was lava (which is a typically know game for YouTubers and i though it was a good direction) I used the cups in front of the audience by stepping on them making big movements; entertaining the audience. Over all i proud of my performance as it was my first term.

watching other peoples final performance i could see clearly a basic understanding of the class, Elena had this performance which consisted of being scared and like she was discovering things for the fist time. This worked really well with and without facilitation. She didn’t really interact much with other performers creating this new born feeling. On the other hand, Jay contrasted Elena as he was discovering this world too but he interacted with others. This brought this feeling of his ID that a new born has and i could see that through the performance. Also it was well thought out how his character would move in this advanced world. Over all both performances was solid and it shows contrasting parts can work in theater playground really well.

Voice- Matthew Morgan Stevens

In Monday’s voice lesson, we was practicing “Zoowoeshawgomafahabadepeykiri”. The point of this lesson was to adapt this technique into our chosen monologue (The Dead Eye Boy). “Zoowoeshawgomafahabadepeykiri” is broken down to show what part of the body the sounds come from (head, pelvis, chest).

For homework, our class was sent away to try and use this technique in our monologues, which we chose from the library. When first looking at it, my monologue could be wrote as all one tone (“zoo”-pelvis). I found the task quite challenging as the play I had chosen had a serious tone to it. This eliminated the higher options like “RI” as it would ruin the energy of the piece. So, I labelled my monologue as best as I could and tried to find where I feel like the tone changes and what type of voice could work well.

When coming in Monday’s lesson, a select few of us was to perform our homework to the class. Another student put his hand up first and while observing the piece I could tell that he had done the same type of style as I must keep it serious. After the teacher broke down his performance and made slight changes by adding higher tones. Unexpectedly it worked very well, and I could see what this technique adds to your voice. After seeing that, I would like to see how my piece could have been dissected. My feedback I received was to slow down a little more, pitch my voice a little higher and he then added a “ba” tone to one of my lines. This sustained the energy while also keeping the audience engaged.

This lesson showed me how I can keep the audience captivated; by not remaining at one tone, by using the voice technique “Zoowoeshawgomafahabadepeykiri”

Sheet provided for homework: file:///C:/drama%20school/Pelvis%20Chest%20and%20Head%20Voice.pdf

At the start of the lesson we was asked to stretch and move our body in anyway we like to loosen up. we then went on to say “huh” to release the tension in our voices. We then persisted to add a humming while chewing to get the facial muscles working

Most of the lesson consisted of exploring different pitches in our voice. This would be displayed when we would hold a note we would go up and down releasing tension and later when we would be able to use it in our monologues.

Also, we would say our monologue to our partner and every time we finished it we would move further away. Due to this we had to project our voice further to the person making us loud enough for the other person to hear us without losing the energy of acting.

On Monday, i was introduced to Laban’s eight efforts. It is a new way of acting introduced in the 1980s. The technique consists of four components:

Direction: Direct or Indirect

Speed: quick or sustained

Weight: Heavy or Light

Flow: Bound or Free

The Eights efforts and how i found them where:

PUNCH: (DIRECT, QUICK, HEAVY, BOUND) I felt like it was passionate talking about something. However when it was THRUST it seemed violently strong.

SLASH: (INDIRECT, QUICK, HEAVY ,FREE) Felt very restrictive and hard to get words out. Only worked when my character started to get stressed.

DAB (DIRECT, QUICK, LIGHT, BOUND) in-vision wack-a-mole. It was like you was looking for something but wasn’t stressed about it.

FLICK (INDIRECT, QUICK, LIGHT, FREE) It is like trying to flicking fly’s away. Lost in a maze. high energy. didn’t suit my text.

PRESS (DIRECT, SUSTAINED, HEAVY, BOUND) was like saying something important but not having the words to say it. The text felt slow like the words had weights.

WRING (Indirect, sustained, heavy, Bound) like wringing a cloth. Felt like stage fright.

GLIDE (Direct, Sustained, heavy, bound) aeroplane game. You walk like an important person; very formal when speaking too.

FLOAT( Indirect, sustained, light, free) Your voice had to be higher and softer.

Throughout doing these techniques i realised that some of Laban’s Effort,s worked really well. E.G GLIDE, SLASH, THRUST. I will be adding these into my performance as there was moments when saying my monologue that had this energy opening mine and the characters emotions that i never thought existed. This has improved my monologue as its broadened my knowledge on the characters feelings. However, i will need to practices Laban more as when performing some of the Eight Efforts i couldn’t feel its impact in my voice.

In this weeks lesson we added different tones to our monologues. We started of the lesson by walking around and asked to act heavy, light ext. We then was asked to stop moving but keep a hold of the tension in our bodies. We got asked to perform our monologues and to my surprise i actually liked how i said my lines in a strong manor and others didn’t suit my performance. I am defiantly adding “THRUST” to my performance.

Monologue evaluation

In class we have been working on voice for a couple of months. We have worked on techniques such as “Zoowoeshawgomafahabadepeykiri”, articulation, Laban and projection.

At the beginning, i struggled at voice due to braces forcing me to pronounce things wrong. However some techniques have made me improve my voice and made me more confident in voice.

Articulation is where we repeat a sound like “la” so we can pronounce our words much more clearly. I set a Smart target on my “fa” sound and it did improve slightly overtime. However, as i have braces its also hard to pronounce other words such as “ba” or “tu”. I will continue to use articulation warm ups as it makes my performance more comprehensible; and as i would like to be in front of a camera it would be good to apply to tones of voice (I.E a whisper ) as its harder for me to pronounce my words. equally this helped me develop my monologue on the “fu” sounds. On the other hand, i believe my performance went well due to my projection. I believe i was loud enough so the camera could hear me. I practiced my projection for a technique i was taught in class, this is where we would walk further away from each-other but display the same energy to the monologue. This really helped me as i sometimes wonder if my voice is hitting the back of the room so the audience can hear me. However, i felt confident after the performance due to the technique taught in class.

SMARTER TARGETS- everyone

smart

The Crucible Performance

At the start of last weeks lesson we was given a script that we broke up into units. We focused on the stage directions when John Procter comes in from a long day planting a field. We had to mime and find the emotion that we thought he would be feeling at that time. I chose a drained and lifeless embodiment of the character.

This weeks lesson we was told to perform the first page that we broke down into four units. The teacher told us to go away and use a technique called “i want to”. This technique was to add what you wanted to do to the other character, for example “soother her”. This was to make it easier to understand why you would feel that emotion.

This worked particularly well as when me and Leah performed our choices was more clear to the audience compared to the performances last week. There was areas to improve for example the tone of the piece. When we looked at other performances many perceived the extract differently to us but still worked very well. However, when you stick with a tone you don’t want to change it much as it could ruin the energy of the performance.

Today we was set a task that was to make a creepy performance for the first scene. We had a set idea and we stuck with it all the way through. Firstly, we decided who was going to be the real John Procter and the Fake John. The Fake john was meant to represent Elizabeth’s thoughts and how she is so skeptical of John after he cheated on her.

Our performance consisted of two people reading their lines (the first section of the scene) and two others being the thoughts and saying things like “hi i’m John proctor, want to go to dinner?” almost like its anxiety for Elizabeth. When thew two people reading the scene reached the end they would repeat the first two sentences louder and louder.

The music choice was “the joker meeting Bruce” with a heartbeat in the background to give this slow depressed feeling to the play.

We tried something different with the staging and decided to make people wait outside so we could lead them in. We then took them by the arm and told them to close their eyes so the would performance would be dark. Also, we spaced them out so me and my peer could walk through them freely while whispering Elizabeth thoughts.

if we was to improve i would touched the faces of the audience to feel that scene of insecurity and isolation.

In Fridays lesson Ben went over all the context of where the characters where. This included where they lived, Why John carried a gun, how big was the fields and many more. This developed are character in a Stanislavsky technique by getting into the mindset of the character and how we could relate to them.

In the lesson we was told to go into a space in the room and walk through the first scene. This helped me develop my understanding of his physical pain. Knowing this i added a limp. i know want to add this method to the whole scene.

When first going through the scene we separated it into units, this made it easier for us to understand what was going on. We then decided to find an emotion that best fitted in the unit to help us understand what the characters are saying to each other. We then went through given circumstances whilst analyzing the script to enhance my detail in the character for example, i kept in mind that John has cheated and he wants to be accepted by Elizabeth like nothing ever happened; this had a big effect on our performance as it adds tension to the house. This also links to the super objective which was to show the tension; we did this by having long pauses. We also analysed the stakes and how the scene would change if he would of failed, we came to the conclusion that if John didn’t achieve this high level of anger it shows that his feelings towards Elizabeth had been lost when having the apparent affair with Abigail. My character had to overcome a lot of things, for example he had just been planting all day and i imagined his body was quite tired and sore; also, he has to overcome the fact that Elizabeth thinks he has been cheating when, in fact he has been working for the family to “please” Elizabeth. My character has to prove to Elizabeth that he still loves his family dearly and he made a terrible mistake, however he doesn’t like to be judged hence why he get so angry when hes accused for something he didn’t do, when all he was trying to do was please her. This justify why my character gets so angry as i believed he was stressed from his wife’s accusations but, we decided to change my tone later on in the scene as it would then also display all the tension building up from start to end. There was hidden messages in the subtext, one defined moment was “its winter in here yet” This quote, with a basic view, saying how cold the house physically looks without any flowers in the home and lacking warm colors yet, if we look deeper into the subtext we get the an overall emotion of the scene; this is linking how Elizabeth is acting towards John in a frosty manor. This helped us develop the coldness in the scene gave us the insight to add longer pauses.

Knowing the context was vital when developing our piece so I decided to do some research out of lessons to understand the context surrounding the play explain the characters actions. The year it was set in was 1692, day was a Wednesday, season spring, time late. All of this played a major impact in our scene as we had basic context of the 17th century when the puritans invaded America stealing land of the native Americans. This explained why John had to be carrying a gun while farming; hence why i added in this shoulder drop when putting the gun on the table showing this relief form this burden to protect his family as if his land get invaded there will be no food and his family would starve. This also links into why he gets angry when Elizabeth assumes he has been cheating. Knowing its late spring also tells us it was hot and he was working hard in the heat for his family but, not only that its a complete contrast to the house and i assumed john was at ease while working so when i had to walk in my emotion would be drained as on the other side of the door was my wife that doesn’t seem to love me.

In my performance I would like to improve the physical aspect of my character. I believe my characters mind and movements where too different for example, when I would go angry i would move an unnecessary amount which made me look like i was showing a story; not being the part of the story. I felt like i could improve on liking the mind and body together as this would make a solid john proctor in my opinion. If i could do this next time i would practice being exhausted so my body language would match; i could also do some exercise before i performed to physically feel tired. Overall i believe it was a solid performance that lacked in key areas such as body language

Breathing- Emma

At the start of the lesson we walked around the room; we was set a task to stop and when a number was called out that number of people had to walk. This was used to feel the energy in the room and work together as a group.

We then was asked to lay on the floor and close our eyes in a semi-supine position. we was asked to breath into our bellies and not our chests. This was already something i needed to improve on as i found this difficult. After that, we was asked to breath in on the count of 4 and then breath out on the count of 4. This then Gradually got harder as then it was a ratio of 4:4, 4:6 4:8. We then was asked to breath out as much as we can on an endless count. I made it to 10 as that was the maximum i could do.

I found it most comfortable breathing through my nose. I found it easy controlling my breath when breathing in and out on counts. \I think this could be important for me before i go on stage as i still get little bits of stage fright if its a big crowd. After this lesson i felt relaxed and more focused on the lesson

Physical theater- Morgan Stevens

Today’s session consisted of theater playground and adding the 5 step point. To simplify the 5 step point , its basically breaking down what you could do while performing.

This has helped me release tension in my mind and how you can be put into a random world and feel the music. As well as that its more freeing to relax your body before being asked to do something as, for me, is easier to say yes.

Communism short film

Our class was set a task to create a short movie or performance about communism in the year 1952. We knew that film makers would get most the blame for spreading communism during the cold war so we wanted it to display a dark tone to the performance.

When we split into groups our initial idea was to have a person standing there and make quick flash backs of what could of been his life. We then liked the idea of not able to pay bills which we couldn’t display in our initial idea. Our group made a new plan and made a story board for the basis of our short movie.

After we decided to book the TV studio but we had a change of mind as we wanted to create depth in our film so we then agreed to come around my house as it was old and we needed that poverty aspect. Shooting the film was fun and easy as we all got along well and had good chemistry. We shot the scenes many times over and over at different angles so it edited easier when overlapping audio as some shots had fuzzy audio.

If there was a next time i would like to film more as one of the good shots had drilling over it and every time she would say her lines it was at a different tempo so i couldn’t dub audio over the clip.

Devised piece- James Jarrett

On Wednesday lesson we was given a task to devise a piece of a inspirational figure.

We was introduced to this idea when given an unedited photo of Usain bolt running; with a lighting bolt in the background. We made many scenarios for example, Lighting BOLT and the BOLT in Usain’s name, lighting is quick and so was he, he juxtaposes the struggling wold class athletes in the background and many others.

Then everyone was set a task to make a two minute scene of someone inspirational. we found it had to choose as we didn’t have a lot of context to make the character believable. we then was set founded on the idea of Michael Jackson as there is fair amount of controversy surrounding him today even-though he inspired millions.

Our initial instinct was to have a moment when he was on top of his career then flash back to his child hood. When we came to perform the story telling was very messy and didn’t really convey why he was so inspirational to many. The feedback from thew class was that there wasn’t enough energy in the play however they like the concept of him starting at his peak.

The week after, the class was instructed to make the performance fifteen minutes long, however this time we was given a basic plan, which followed our idea anyways, and we was given a technique called “show not tell” which is a simple but effective way to perform without words. Our group took this advice and adapted it to our performance. We developed it by adding a montage of Michael’s most successful moments (i.e winning Grammy’s) We also added Thriller in the background of the montage as the song was deemed the “peak of his career”.

After doing all of this, we performed again in-front of the class and our feedback was more positive due to the changes as it added more energy. We still need to develop our piece but, the strong opening allows the performance to develop; all thanks to “show not tell”. Our next step wound be researching about his childhood to; find out why he became the person he was.

Week three of the performance: we was told to make a new scene in the play following the story board. We sat down and discussed and we decided we wanted to explore his father and how he was abused by him as he was different. We thought we could then lead on to the making of Jackson 5. The scene would show a slow beating of Jackson to show suffering.

When we was asked to perform again we received a lot of negative feedback due to the fact Michael is a hard character to play. To resolve this situation i want to see how Jackson speaks, walks, dances, ext. The play just seemed to be a joke at the end of the performance as its far out my comfort zone and I didn’t really want to play the lead.

This Wednesday lesson we was asked to add another scene to the performance.

In my own time i decided to take it into my own hands to watch some documentaries on Michael Jackson life. I found out how much violence he was exposed to as well as his overall mindset. The main quote that stuck in my head was “i never think my performances are good enough and i try and do better each time”. Which is very contradicting in his fans eyes as they thought it was “gripping”. I also tried finding his walk and voice as that’s what builds the character. As well as that, i would spend time on the bus listening to his music and finding the energy in his voice.

The scene we added was a news station with a split sage of Sr Jackson getting handed a deal to set Michael’s solo success off. The “deal scene was set just in-front of the news readers in a freeze frame; when the two people walk off either side the news scene becomes unfrozen talking about the success of Jackson 5. We also decided to add another news scene back to back covering the lack of sleep Michael was getting showing that it was not all positive for him. We again used split stage is in the corner trying to prefect his dance moves when he is clearly getting no sleep. The news scene gets cut off to his mum running to him after he collapses persuading him to get some sleep.

The feedback we got was positive and a huge improvement from last week as it was more impacting and less comedic. However we seem to have some comedy in it as it hard to play a person so contradicting to society.

Credits- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbRlqyOL-H8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z34BKlCr9o

Voice accents- Emma

In Friday’s lesson we discussed if we could recognize someones voices of people without seeing them.

We was set a test to see if we could do just that. The test consisted of 5 celebrates voices and our job was to see if we recognized the voice but also to find out if it was someone doing an impression. (our group got the best score)

After we discussed how celebrates, like Taylor Swift, had a very nasally voice and sounded like the typical American accent. However we had people with less generic voices, like Simon Cowell, that has a very distinct voice.

We then moved to another exercise which was a person blindfolded would stand in front of the class and try and guess who’s speaking but we tried tricking them by doing different accents. Subsequently, we talked about the longer we are around people the more distinct there voices get as our class was getting people right when they herd their peers voice.

The Crucible Trailer- James Jarrett

For the past week our class have been studying a play called “The Crucible”. This play was wrote by Arthur Miller in 1953 and it’s about witchcraft in the 17th century. During the week we was given a brief synopsis and a scene for context. This was just to help us develop our character as many, like me, didnt know what the Crucible was about.

Knowing that, we was set a task to make a twenty second trailer about “The Crucible”. My main intention for the piece, when first hearing this, was to leave people wanting to watch the full show (much the same as how cinemas draw attention to the trailers before a film)

Our class was split up in small groups . Our first intentions was to use dialogue from the scrip that we was given and applying that to our performance. This was so we could use actual dialogue instead of making it up (as we thought it would lose the energy of the performance). As well as that, we wanted the audience to feel isolated and we wanted to deliver this by making physical contact with the audience, by touching their legs. Over time we added music to create a eerie atmosphere.

Over the week we decided to change minor details, like how we move, to give of more a creepy effect and also, we changed the layout of our stage from the audience being in-front of us to being around us (In the round). We did this to try and enhance the isolation feeling as that seemed like our weakness in our performance.

After performing to the class, our feedback on the performance had very mixed reactions, some found the performance engaging whereas, some found that we could executed our ideas differently to increase that feeling of isolation.

After reviving our feedback, we decided to take on board the feedback to develop our performance and characters. We decided to use an idea that was suggested by the class, which was to add a heart beat over our music to portray that feeling of adrenaline. We also decided to make the class wait outside, so one by one we could take their arm and sit them into this dark room; this was to give the feeling of mystery. Also, we took another idea and embedded it into our performance and that was to grab the audience; slowly moving around the outside of them; whispering into their ear while a scene was going on in the middle. This really immersed the audience and captured our intentions well in the second performance.

when reviving our second lot of feedback it was a lot more positive with small touch up ideas. This introduced me to a phrase that the teacher said “that a start”; this made me realise how creative and open I can be with my performance’s/characters and will help me in the future when I’m trying develop my character further.

Credits – https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/crucible/

Introduction- James Jarrett

For our first couple of weeks we played various games and exercises to firstly comfort us and secondly, see how other class-mates act. This was to try and figure out similarity in acting but, also chemistry and who you worked well with. It also pushed that mental barrier of thinking you look stupid in front of the class and saying yes!

We did various games such as: Jump out, jump in(for concentration), G’day Bruce, creating freeze frames of films and improvisation exercises. These activity’s successfully showed off our working collaboratively skills.

We also played games like “zip”, “splat”, “send a clap” which would test our reaction speed to see if we was concentrating. Activity’s like these are very useful as concentrating in acting is crucial. For example, if you missed your part it could possibly ruin the whole performance and that’s unfair for the peers who work around you.

Other games as “character and action” was highly useful in enhancing the creativity that you produce from a piece of paper that says a well know name and a action. This again pushed that comfort zone and actally saying yes. For my target will be to say yes in situations where i want to express my creativity.