Double - Children's Theatre (FMF) - Blog 5 - 23/10/15

This lesson we went over the things we all should've done for homework! I volunteered to write two scripts but as I wasn't involved in one of these scripts I didn't think I should be the one writing it as I would have less of an understanding of the way they were going to be portrayed in our version. However, the other scene I volunteered to write (Still Waiting), I had written up and brought to the lesson. However, we decided not to work on this scene today as it was very short and didn't need much rehearsing.

We started by splitting into our Farmer and Fox groups and went through our first scenes again. When rehearsing our farmer scene, we stopped and worked on our characterisation as we weren't sure how to portray our characters. We decided to stop as there was no point in continuing our run through if we weren't confident with how we performed our characters. We worked together to develop our movement and voices. Towards the end of this activity, I felt a lot more confident with my portrayal of Bean as I walk a lot more regally and my voice sounds a great deal more snobby.

After I had gone over my characterisation for a while, I aided Rhiannon and James in devising the, "A Surprise for Mrs. Fox," scene. We included interaction with the audience so as this would engage their attention a lot and a great deal of high energy movement in the fox cub's case as this character would have a lot of energy. After our initial devising, we continued to develop the scene in many ways in order to make our piece more entertaining and in depth. For example, when the fox cub enters, as opposed to our original idea of him entering normally, we have him enter from the audience. This gives James a chance to interact with the audience and further engage their attention.

Upon finalising this scene, Charlie, Rob, Lorna and I go to work devising the shooting scene. As we had already devised the scenes before and after this one, we decided to start from the ending of the scene before and work our way through the story until we reach the scene after. Our scene consisted of slapstick humour, repetition, interaction with the audience (involving hiding in the audience) and slow-motion. We went with slow-motion as we believed our target audience, primary school children, would find this very funny. Hiding amongst the audience would keep the audience engaged and entertain them!

We finished by assigning what everyone would do over the half term: I thought it would be a good idea if Rob, Lorna and I prepared what we would mime in the first scene (The Three Farmers; the introduction of the farmers). In this scene, Ollie narrates by reading, to the audience, the first chapter of the book, Fantastic Mr Fox. Whilst he reads each paragraph describing one of the farmers, the person playing that farmer, e.g. Me, would mime what Ollie is describing. For example, when Ollie says, "He drank gallons of strong cider," I would mime this. My mime plan for this scene is in the next blog post.

Single - Contemporary Theatre Unit (FSN) - Blog 16 - 23/10/15

Today we began to read the marking criteria for the **Rehearsals** Unit. We spent time reading through the requirements for each part and what we had to do for each grade: Pass, Merit and Distinction. Through this discussion, I've realised that my blog could be improved a great deal as a key difference between a Merit and a Distinction is an explanation. Whereas, I've done a lot of description and there's not much explanation as to why I did the things that I described. I will go back and change these my past blog posts in order to boost my grade!

For the rest of the lesson, we rehearsed the adult scene again but upon getting partway through we tried a new exercise to test our movement. We acted out the first half of the scene as we normally would, then after this we rehearsed it again but removing all dialogue from the scene so we're just left with movement. This was very helpful as we had gotten to terms with how we'd perform the dialogue but we were still confused on how our characters would move and what their movement depended on. After running through the scene twice we learnt what affects out character's movement is their initial status, their status after interaction or an event and their status with the character(s) they are interacting with.

Single - Contemporary Theatre Unit (FSN) - Blog 15 - 22/10/15

Today in single, we rehearsed Act 2 Scene 10, the adult scene. We tried a new technique today which helped us further our understanding our characters; "The Clapping game. We would start by acting out our scenes regularly, but when we felt that our character would think something, we would clap, everyone would stop, and we then say what our character would've thought. This involved a lot of insults towards other characters which most characters wouldn't have said to each other. This understanding of subtext aided us in our characterisation as we clearly displayed that the parents were holding back there comments, meanwhile the children generally don't think about or care what they say.

Double - Storytelling - Blog 7 (Greek Mythology) - 21/10/15

Today in Double, we started to devise how we would tell the Greek myth of Perseus and Medusa. In our group (Charlie, Lorna & I) looked at the research I had collected independently to see how many characters there were and who would be each character. We decided Charlie would be Perseus, Lorna would be Medusa, Perseus' mother, and the Greek goddess of wisdom and beauty, Athena and I would be Polydectes, the king.

After assigning parts, we made a quick outline of how the story went:

• The King steals Perseus' Mother
• Perseus has to kill Medusa
• Perseus receives gifts from Athena (Invisibility Helmet, Winged Sandals, Reflective Bronce Shield
• He kills Medusa
• Perseus turns the king to stone using Medusa's head
• He gives the head to Athena

We also collected ideas on how we would tell this story. Ideas we had were:

• Perform the narrative
• Projection
• Still Images
• Monologues and Duologues

We were, first, very hooked on the idea of monologues and duologues and we started planning out what our monologues would be describing but we decided that we would try something different. We decided that we would use still images, film them, then project them and narrate over the top of them. We then thought of an idea about using multiple still images to create a stop motion video. We would then narrate over the top of the videos. So far we've only got up to when Perseus receives his gifts so we will continue and perform this next lesson.

Triple - Devised Unit (LR) - Blog 15 - 19/10/15

Today in Triple, we worked a great deal on our transitions between scenes. We also finalised the order of our scenes so that everyone is very clear with this.

This is our order:
1) ill Manors Gorillas
2) Rhiannon and Tom Rioter Interview
3) Lewis and Ash Rioter Interview
4) Animation Turmoil Piece
5) Tom and Dan Police Interview
6) Toby and Lorna Police Interview 
7) "10 More Days" Still Image Piece
8) MP Speeches
9)  ill Manors Gorillas Reprise

This is how we transition from scene to scene:
1-2) Dan and Toby throw chairs/ Lewis and Rhi tip table/ everyone exits/ Tom and Rhi enter/ sit on chairs/ sort table while seated
2-3) Dan takes Rhi off/ Dan, Tom and Rhi go to first positions for scene 4/ Toby leads Ash to chair then he goes to first position for scene 4/ enter Lewis
3-4) Ash and Lewis remove table/ Lorna and Toby take off chairs/ start positions
4-5) Tom on floor/ Lewis and Toby sort table/ Dan and Rhi sort chairs
5-6) Dan and Tom go to first positions for scene 7/ Toby and Lorna enter
6-7) Toby and Lorna sort chairs/ Lewis and Ash sort table/ everyone goes to first position for scene 7
7-8) None needed
8-9) Everyone goes to first position for scene 9

Single - Contemporary Theatre Unit (FSN) - Blog 14 - 19/10/15

This lesson, we began to look at the adults section and acted it out! As Uncle Ted, I have very few lines in this scene but I focused a lot on my tone of voice and movement. As I start off confident about my job, I walk in very happy, bright and proud with a strong stature and loud voice. But while Mary's mum questions me, I get very anxious, I lose all sense of direction and I speak very cautiously incase I say something wrong. After going through the adult scene, we rehearsed from the very beginning of the play, Act 1 Scene 1

Double - Children's Theatre (FMF) - Blog 4 - 19/10/15

Today in double, we collected what we had worked on at home. While others did research for costume and set/props, I wrote a new script for another scene including Boggis, Bunce and Bean. I made sure that this script was suitable for the audience we were performing our piece to.

While Charlie, Rhi, James and Lorna worked on a newly written Fox Family scene, Rob and I staged our new scene BBB scene with the help of Ollie who stood in as Lorna as she is part of both sub groups. This time we worked on a lot of spacial awareness and movement.

To aid us in our movement, after this we were given a workshop on Laban, a Russian practitioner who always displayed a character through motion. He used 3 opposite pairs of movement styles: Light & Heavy, Direct & Indirect and Sudden & Sustained. We applied these styles of movements to our own characters by walking around the studio as our characters, keeping in mind our those 3 opposite pairs. As Bean I was very light as I'm described as "Lean", rather indirect as people with power don't need to be direct because of their status, and finally sustained as Bean is described as a drinker of cider. After this workshop, I ran through our new scene with Lorna and Rob. 

To end with, we assigned tasks for people to do for homework. I volunteered to write a new scene for BBB (Still Waiting) and also a scene for the Fox Family

Single - Contemporary Theatre Unit (FSN) - Research on the behaviour of children - 17/10/15

To help me prepare for my role as Star (Marcus) in our contemporary play, "The Flint Street Nativity," I performed some research activities to help me analyse the behaviour of children. My main focus on this activity is my little sister, Alyce, aged 7.I performed activities such as watching her reactions to children's programmes, asking her questions about bullying and friendships, and observing her behaviour in general.

I firstly watched a children's programme with Alyce this Saturday. Together, we watched one of her favourite programmes, "The Haunted Hathaways," a comedy about an ordinary family sharing a home with a ghost family. I noticed immediately that most physical gags within the show got a positive reaction from Alyce with lots of laughter and smiling. I could behave in the same way when talking  about when, "that boy in Maghulll fell off a climbing rope an' his leg came out through his bum," and Declan who was going to be Joseph throwing up in a sock. Evoking the same reaction provides an authentic and convincing child role.

Alyce asked me a few times what some words meant which were too long for her; I kept a mental note of her puzzled facial expression and uncertain body language. This says to me that children of 7 aren't too suited to longer words. When a longer word is spoken or something that Marcus wouldn't understand is said, I now know what sort of facial expressions I should use and how I should use my body language.

I next asked Alyce some questions!

Q) What would you do if you were scared of someone
A) I would, um, run away from them

Q) Is there someone you're scared of at school?
A) Yeah, Mrs Wright

Q) Why's that?
A) Because she's got weird teeth and she gets grumpy at me 

Q) What do you do when she talks to you?
A) I look away because her teeth are ugly and horrible!

Q) Who's your best friend?
A) Lily and Jess and Connor and Rhiannon

Q) What do you do with your friends?
A) We play games in the playground and we, um, sit next to each other at lunchtime!

Q) What do you do when you have an argument with someone?
A) What do you mean?

Q) Well, when you have an argument with someone and you think they're wrong what do you do?
A) I shout and them and I say, "YOU'RE WRONG!"

Q) Do you ever think that you might be wrong?
A) No because I'm always right!

I feel from this research I can definitely improve my performance in:

• the argument between Star and Wise Gold (Marcus and Jess)
• how Star reacts with Innkeeper (Bradely)
• how Star interacts with the children who actually like him (e.g. Narrator, Shepherd, Ass)

When observing her general behaviour, I noticed her being told off by our mum. At first she seemed argumentative, but when she remembers that mum has a higher status and a lot more power than her, she backs down, apologises, and takes her punishment. I can use the recognition of power and status when Marcus talks to Bradley and when Marcus gets told off by Mrs Horrocks. 

Triple - Devised Unit (LR) - Individual Work - 17/10/15

In our London Riots Unit, I have volunteered a few times for tasks which I would need to complete in my free time. Listed below is each task and how I completed them.

Emotional Turmoil Scene Animation for projection:

Image 1

For the emotional turmoil scene, we needed an animation to portray the destruction of London during the riots. This animation would be projected behind us as we performed this scene. I volunteered for this as I felt I had a knowledge with computers, despite that knowledge being basic. 

I started off  by creating an image of a London road with a small group of rioters standing outside a shop using Paint (Image 1)

Image 2

After this, I made minor changes to this image and then saved it as a different file which kept the original file. This meant I could use both of these in a video as frames. This would create a short cartoon style video; the length of the video depended on what I set the fps (Frames Per Second) to. I repeated making minor changes until I got to major changes such as removing parts of the buildings or adding in huge amounts of fire. To create the fire, I changed the brush shape from a paintbrush to a spray can.

Image 3

Once I had most of the buildings transformed into blazing infernos (Image 2), I switched into a view of above London (Image 3), which was made completely from scratch in paint and I had a small fire start in one area to signify where the riots started in London which then spread to the entire city which signifies how quickly the riots and chaos got out of hand (Image 4).

Image 4

After the image of the ruined capital, I had the words "Broken Britain" fade in over the River Thames. This is not only a popular phrase used to describe the London riots, but it's one of the final lyrics in the song, "Playing With Fire" By Plan B which is playing over the top of this animation. The frame of Image 4 with Broken Britain over the top remains for the rest of the scene until the song finishes.




ill Manors/Police Sirens Mix:
For the opening scene of our piece, the ill Manors Gorilla scene, we needed to have sirens fade into the song to cue our exits. Originally, Lorna was going to do this but as I offered to do this for her to save her time, she accepted.

I completed this task using Audacity by importing the song ill Manors by Plan B into Audacity and, separately, a sound effect for a police siren. I cut the siren audio file to a suitable length to give us enough time to all exit but not too much. I then placed it into the right point during the song (Halfway through the second chorus) and had the sound effect fade in. Once the siren was at max volume, I faded out the song until it was muted then faded out the sirens. This is when the next scene would start.

Playing With Fire/Police Sirens Mix:
After providing the audio file for the ill Manors Gorilla scene, Mr Webb asked me if I could do the same for the Playing With Fire track (Also by Plan B) as we need a cue to exit for this scene as well. I went through the same processes I did for the last mix. In this scene, it ends with Toby, Ash and I kicking Tom whilst he is on the floor. During this, the sirens would fade in, we run away, the song fades out, then the siren fades out. This is when the next scene would start.

Double - Children's Theatre (FMF) - Blog 3 - 16/10/15

Today in double, our Fantastic Mr Fox work really took off! We decided that the first thing we should do is create a scene outline. This meant we had to decide which chapters from the book would go in which scenes.

After this, we went through the scripts that each sub-group were asked to write up for homework. Charlie's group wrote a script for the digging scene where my group wrote a script for the scene where the three farmers planned to shoot Mr Fox. I volunteered to take on the responsibility of writing the script which will included in a separate blog post. As Lorna and Ollie were in both groups, we decided that they should work with the other group first while Rob and I go through and perform our group's script without them, then after a while we'd get Lorna and Ollie back so that we could work out their parts and see where tweaking was needed.

After dealing with many typos in the script (*hides from the world*), and acting on the direction given to us, this scene was finished and ready to be retyped. I took on this task for homework as I felt I should as I wrote the original script. Whilst we were finishing our scene, the other group had written a script for the introduction of the fox family!

After this, we got the whole group together and decided what everyone was going to do ready for the next lesson (Monday). I said that I would write another script involving the three farmers as I feel it would make sense if I do it as I'm playing one of the characters in it. I said I was going to write the scene in which the farmers decide that to camp outside of the crater they had created until Mr Fox comes out (This script will be included on the same blog post as the other script). 

Single - Contemporary Theatre Unit (FSN) - Blog 13 - 16/10/15

Today, we rehearsed from the beginning of Act 2 up to the part before where the parents come in to the play. We spent a lot of time on two scenes: Where everyone runs off the stage in slow motion in an attempt to run away from "Godzilla" (Peter Crouch the projected Stick Insect) and the scene where Star is taught about monkeys and testicles by the innkeeper whilst trying to crack a joke about testicles. 

Single - Contemporary Theatre Unit (FSN) - Blog 12 - 15/10/15

Today we devised a scene in set groups (Lorna, Rhiannon & Ollie M / Ollie K & Katya / James & Hope / Charlie & Cel / Rob & I). We were told to devise a scene where our characters pretended to be their parents. In our pair Rob and I spent a bit of time as children as we led on from Rob's character, Ryan's tendency to play the Question of Sport game to Marcus, my character, wanting to play a different game (Pretend).

Triple - Devised Unit (LR) - Blog 13 & 14 - 14/10/15 & 15/10/15

14/10/15
Today we decided to spend the lesson recapping on the ill Manors Gorillas Opening Scene! We decided to do this as last lesson we were very confused on what we had done to it as it had been a long time since we last ran through it. We spent the lesson remembering, editing and running this scene. For homework, I merged together the song ill Manors and a siren sound effect which was our cue to leave; I did this using Audacity.

15/10/15
Today we ran through every scene which we had devised and finalised. We spent a lot of time thinking about the orders of the scenes and the transitions between them.

On the Emotional Turmoil scene, Toby was still having trouble learning the jump-spin which I had trouble with before. Lorna and I took a bit of time explaining how he could make his angle of rotation bigger and how to recover if he couldn't make the full 360 degrees and still make it look good.

Double - Storytelling - Medusa Research - 17/11/15

In double, we were put into groups to perform tell the story of a Greek Myth. In my group there is Lorna, Charlie and I and we were given the myth of Perseus and Medusa! This being one of my favourite myths had me very excited for this performance. Below is my individual research I made on the characters and story: Source:(http://www.ancient.eu/Medusa/)


Medusa
She was originally blessed with beauty and was by far one of the most beautiful people Greece. She described "that her skin is as beautiful as fresh white snow," "her hair is brighter than the sun," "that her eyes are greener then the Aegean sea," and "that her lips are redder than the reddest rose in the world." 

Upon taking a trip to the Parthenon, a Greek temple containing statues of Greek gods and goddesses, with friends, she bragged how she was far more beautiful than all of the goddesses. At the time, the Greek goddess of wisdom and beauty, Athena, was at the Parthenon. 

After the rumour of Medusa claiming she is the most beautiful in all of Greece, Athena cursed Medusa. After uttering the words, "One day beauty will fade away. But I will make it fade away now and all your loveliness will be gone forever," Medusa's skin cracks and withers and her long silver silken hair turns to a rioting mass of thick, poisonous snakes. Any man or woman who makes eye contact with her is immediately turned to stone which isolates her from human society.

Athena banishes Medusa to the ends of the Earth with the blind monsters so she does not harm any innocent onlookers.

Perseus: 
The myth of Perseus and Medusa, according to Pindar and Apollodorus, started with a quest. Perseus was the son of Danae and Zeus, who came to Danae in the form of a golden spring. It was foretold to Danae's father, Acrisius the King of Argos, that Danae's son would kill him. So Acrisius locked his daughter away in a bronze chamber, but Zeus transformed into a shower of gold and impregnated her anyway. Acrisius, not wanting to provoke Zeus, hurled his daughter and grandson in a wooden chest into the sea. The mother and son were rescued by Dictys on the island of Seriphos. It was Dictys who raised Perseus to manhood, but it was Dictys' brother Polydectes, the king, who would send him on a life threatening quest.

The Story of Perseus and Medusa:
Polydectes fell in love with Perseus' mother and wished to marry her but Perseus was protective of his mother since he believed Polydectes to be dishonorable. Polydectes demanded horses as wedding gifts but Perseus did not have one. When Perseus confessed that he had no gift, he offered any gift the king would name. Polydectes seized his opportunity to disgrace and even get rid of Perseus and asked for the head of the only mortal Gorgon: Medusa.

Perseus, with the aid of divine gifts, found the Gorgons' cave and slayed Medusa by beheading her. Most authors assert that Perseus was able to behead Medusa with a reflective bronze shield that Athena gave to him while the Gorgon slept. At the beheading of Medusa, Pegasus and Chrysaor (Poseidon's and her children) sprang from her severed neck. Simultaneously with the birth of these children, Medusa's sisters Euryale and Sthenno pursued Perseus. However, the gift bestowed upon him by Hades, the helmet of darkness, granted him invisibility. It is unclear if Perseus took Pegasus with him on his following adventures or if he continued to utilize the winged sandals Hermes gave him. Pegasus' adventures with both the hero Perseus and Bellerophon are classic tales from Greek mythology.

Perseus returned home to his mother, safe from King Polydectes' advances, but Perseus was infuriated with Polydectes' trickery. Perseus avenged himself by turning Polydectes and his court to stone with Medusa's head. He, then, gave the kingdom to Dictys. After Perseus was finished with the Gorgon's head, he gave it to Athena, who adorned her shield and breastplate with it.

Double - Storytelling - Blog 6 (News Story Telling) - 14/10/15

Today, we continued to add more to our "I'm Not A Robot" storytelling performance. We worked out our lighting so that our piece would portray the modern day technology advancements; we had bright white lights throughout the entire piece.

We added a cannon after Rhiannon's small speech when poised with the question, "Do you think robots will take over the world?" After sh finished, the cannon starts with Lorna. She would repeat Rhiannon's speech from, "I'll be nice to you" up to the end; this involves three lines. When Lorna gets to her second line, I start my first one and when I get to my second one, James starts his first one. This is very effective as it reinforces the lines in the audiences minds. Here is a video of our performance: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJVv1EeTSDw)

After performing this piece we got into groups (Ollie & Rhiannon / Rob & James / Lorna, Charlie & I) for telling the story of a Greek myth; Our group was given Medusa. Research on this myth will be on a separate blog.

Single - Contemporary Theatre Unit (FSN) - Blog 11 - 13/10/15

Today in Single, we started with a devising activity! We put into groups with people our characters would usually interact with (Mary, Herod & Narrator / Ass, Frankensense, Shepherd / Gabriel, Angel, Wise Gold / Innkeeper, Star). In theses groups we were told to create a scene which isn't in the play. This could be something unrelated to the events in the play or something regarding events detailed.

James and I decided that we would do the scene where Innkeeper steals Star's tooth. This is an event only briefly mentioned in the play but we've elaborated on this and focused on the statuses of our characters at that point in time. For example, although that the Star is generally a weak character and is very submissive to the Innkeeper but as this scene follows the song, "Don't Grow Up Like Your Dad," a song about Star asserting dominance, we've made Star more assertive that usual as he's had a sudden boost of confidence.

The video of this performance is below:

Double - Children's Theatre (FMF) - Research - 11/10/15

Synopsis:                                                                                      

-intro to farmers                                                                               

-intro to foxes                                                                                   

-planning the shooting                                                                     

-the shooting                                                                                    

-tail repair                                                                                        

-digging commences                                                                       

-bulldozers required                                                                        

-"The Race"                                                                                     
-the decision to camp                                                                      

-starving foxes and surrounding plan                                              

-idea sparks                                                                                     
-Boggis' chicken house theft                                                            

-"A surprise for Mrs. Fox"                                                                 

-Badgers entrance

-Bunce's Storehouse

-"Badger has doubts"

-cider cellar ft. Rat

-"The Woman"

-"The great feast"

-"Still waiting"

Boggis, Bunce & Bean Research:

Double - Children's Theatre (FMF) - Blog 2 - 09/10/15

Today was the day we got casted for our roles in our chosen children's theatre unit performance, Fantastic Mr Fox.

Before we were casted, we were asked to list all the necessary characters in the book and ways we could interact with a child audience. Ways for interaction we came up with featured: Props, asking the audience questions and having a narrator. The best idea by far was having a narrator; this character would have so many opportunities to interact with the audience and talk to them it would be a great way to engage their attention. We thought with props, we could have something like rubber chickens and as Mr Fox is stealing some, he realises he can't carry them all so he has to hand some to the audience members.

After this activity, we were separated into two groups (Lorna, Rhiannon, James & Charlie/Rob, Ollie and I) and we were asked to devise a scene. Lorna's group were asked to devise a scene about when The Three Farmers, start digging into the Fox Family's home and my group were asked to write a scene about the The Three Farmers arguing about what they were to do about Mr Fox stealing their produce.
The first thing we did was conduct a small bit of research on the farmers to broaden our knowledge on our characters. This research will be included on another blog post with further FMF research! After this, I volunteered to take on the challenge of writing a script for this scene. This scene features an argument between Boggis and Bunce followed by the entrance of Bean, the superior farmer.

After presenting our devised piece, our roles had been decided:

Mr. Fox: Charlie
Mrs. Fox: Rhiannon
The Cubs: Lorna & James
Boggis: Rob
Bunce: Lorna
Bean: Lewis (Me)
Rat: Lorna
Badger: Ollie
Rabbit: Lewis (Me)
Weasel: Rob
Mole: James

Single - Contemporary Theatre Unit (FSN) - Blog 9 & 10 - 08/10/15 & 09/10/15

08/10/15

This lesson, we ran through the rest of Act 1 Scene 1 which we didn't get through last lesson. We decided that instead of having people performing in all areas of the stage, we decided that we'd have a single spotlight brighter than all of the other lights so that who ever is the centre of attention at the time, they'd be standing centre stage with the light beaming on them. For example, when Ass wants to play the, "The Question of Sport Game" with Herod, they would be centre stage.

09/10/15

This lesson we worked on the rest of Act 1 as Act 1 Scene 1 was sorted and it the rest of the act was relatively small. We also changed the blocking as well. Last lesson we thought the one single light for every to act in was very crowded and it looked rather odd two characters having to move to a light just to have a conversation so we decided to add in two more lights at Downstage Left and Downstage Right as well as the already existent Downstage Centre light. This meant whenever there was something going on in one light, whoever was involved with what came next can get ready quicker and not have to cram into the same light. For example, whilst Mary queries Narrator on whether he has learnt his lines, Star can be getting ready to run into another light with a spaceship and say his line (Voyager 10! This is NASA to Voyager 10!)

We also thought that the home corner (Innkeeper's Area) should have it's own light as a lot of interaction happens here, especially between Star and Innkeeper.

Triple - Devised Unit (LR) - Blog 12 - 08/10/15

Today, Mr Webb wasn't in so we were set cover work to continue work on our London Riots Unit. We decided that it would be best to run through the last two scenes which we worked on as a group (Emotional Turmoil Scene / Consequences Still Image Scene) in order to refresh our memories.

After this, we worked out the lighting for both scenes which enhanced them so much and gave the performance a whole new level of depth! On a separate blog is a recording of the Consequences Scene with lighting.

 

Double - Storytelling - Blog 5 (News Story Telling) - 07/10/15

Today, in double, we observed the stories we found for our homework. We got into to two groups, (Ollie, Charlie and Rob / Lorna, Rhiannon, James and I) and we read through our news stories together. After reading through them all we had to decide which was the best news article to tell as a story. We decided on Rhiannon's article about an extremely intelligent AI. We thought this would be the best as it contained a lot of events, it included some speech to work from and it was a very controversial topic.

We were given 5 techniques to include in our story telling: Narration, props, music/sfx, multimedia and movement.

After some thought, James and I had an idea regarding copying movement. There would be one person playing the robot (eg James) and one person playing their creator (eg Me.) Every time I move, James would clone my movements. So if I were to lift my right arm, then James would too. But we would then either have James disobeying to mirror my actions or he would complete an unordered action. This idea then got forgotten.

Rhiannon had a great idea for our use of prop;: a cage! During the article it states that the robot says, "I will keep you warm and safe in my people zoo." We believed that the cage would be an effective way to portray the, "people zoo," as we could place someone (eg Lorna) inside the cage to illustrate people locked in a zoo. Although, we felt that this would lose power to engage the audience as if we used the cage we'd have to have the performance in the hall and this create a lot of space between the audience and us. We felt that we could engage the audience a lot more if we were a lot closer to them. Power to engage the audience is very important in story telling.

The beginning of our piece starts with Narration by Lorna and James. They read out the first paragraph of the article, sentence by sentence, alternatively. This covers 1 of the 5 required techniques. They start from behind the seated robot (Rhiannon) and it's creator (Me) and by the time they've finished narrating, they are seated within the audience. Whilst they are narrating, I mime moving around Rhiannon's arms and head as if I'm preparing to turn her on for her reveal to the public. I finally turn her on with a thumb swipe to the back of her head. She then lifts her head up with a very creepy smile. I turn to her and wave and she reflects this movement. I hold out my hand for her to shake. She complies. I pat her on the shoulder to congratulate her. She then pats mine. This somewhat replicates the cloning idea that James and I came up with.

Following this, I ask Rhiannon a question which is a quote from the article, "Do you think that robots will take over the world?" This question is asked rather jokingly as the creator is confident that his creation will give him the answer he wants but she responds with, "Don't worry, even if I evolve into terminator I will still be nice to you, I will keep you warm and safe in my people zoo." After she says, "terminator," I stand behind her and Lorna and James stand to the side of her 1 step forward. On, "nice to you," us three point to our cheeks and smile with a great deal of emphasis. On, "keep you warm," we hold our arms our as if we were hugging someone in front of us in order to keep them warm, still smiling. On, "keep you safe," we hold our hearts which symbolises safety, still smiling. On, "People zoo," we have our arms put facing up from the elbow down as a representation of cage bars (rather having the actual cage) and we stop smiling and have a more struggled look on our faces. After this Lorna and James walk back to their seats in the audience and read the last paragraph, alternatively, excluding the last line which I read very solemnly; "This robot certainly doesn't calm those concerns"

For music/sfx we are using the song, "I'm Not A Robot" by Marina and the Diamonds. This is very effective as it illustrates the robots self-awareness. I also created my own sound effects to show me using a drill when preparing Rhiannon for my presentation.

Next lesson, we will work out how we will add multimedia and props to our performance.

Triple - Devised Unit (LR) - Blog 11 - 07/10/15

This lesson, we devised a new scene! This was our still image to represent the consequences of rioting.

This scene starts with a blackout. As the lights come up, we enter in on our own or in pairs (Lorna and Rhiannon/Toby/Dan/Ash/Tom and I) and we each portray a consequence of the riots. As the lights repeatedly fade on and off we all move into different still images. After each blackout we progress closer downstage and when once everyone is pretty much downstage, we stand in a line in a pose to portray our characters. After the following blackout, we hold our arms out as if they were in handcuffs. During the next blackout, we would travel upstage and make small changes to our attire and body language to portray MPs. The lights would fade back on and we'd all be standing upstage, ready to start the next scene (The, "MP Speeches" scene.)

Lorna and Rhiannon's characters are mourning as their house has been burnt down and they're now homeless. Toby's character is an alcoholic homeless man. Ash's character feels guilty as he burnt down a building during the riots and he's only just realised the amount of people he may have affected. Dan's character is stressed as his place at a university has now been denied as his involvement in the London Riots has been found out. Tom's character is being arrested by my character.

Single - Contemporary Theatre Unit (FSN) - Blog 8 - 06/10/15

Today we continued with the first scene of Act 1. We focused a lot on status of our characters and what we and our characters thought of our characters and each others characters. We stood in order of status for what we thought of our characters and what our characters thought. I rated my character, Star, nearer to the bottom as he tries to be heard but he's often ignored. Contrastingly, I felt that Star would rate himself rather high as he feels he is very smart and knows a lot more the regular 7 year old which he feels gives him more dominance in the class. 

After this exercise, we had to describe our character in two words in the role of our characters. The two words I felt that Star would choose for himself would be, "Smart" as he knows a lot about his Uncle's job and, "Cool" as Star feels that he should be looked up to as a core if knowledge.

The next exercise we did involved our characters judgement on their classmates. We all had a piece of paper with our characters name written on the top and we all went to every piece of paper and we wrote two words which our character would use to describe them. A selection of words Star reviewed were Geek, Weird and Odd. These exercises aided us in understanding our characters and their statuses.
(My original sheet used for this exercise is pictured to the right.)

For the rest of the lesson we went through the rest of scene one of Act 1.

Double - Children's Theatre (FMF) - Blog 1 - 05/10/15

Today, we started our Children's Theatre Unit! We looked over the specification of the unit in order to get a full overview of this unit.

We first began brainstorming ideas for which children's story we would do! To the right are our initial generic ideas. We, first, listed a few of our own favourites stories from our own childhood; we figured if we enjoyed them while we were young, then the children of today might! These ideas included Horrid Henry, Gruffalo, Winnie The Pooh, Flat Stanley and Keeper and Golden Key.

Next we took into account when we would be performing our production: Christmas! We all thought it would be great for children if we could supply them with a Christmas themed show when the big day is only right around the corner from the date of our production. Our ideas for a Christmas themed story were Rudolph, A Christmas Carol, The Grinch and Frozen (although it's not technically a Christmas movie, it is still associated with Christmas by children).

Following this we led onto the idea of superheroes; from us who had younger siblings, we confirmed that superheroes are very popular with young children so we decided to keep in mind Batman and Superman as they're the most well-known superheroes and also Spiderman as he is easily the most child friendly superhero.

Furthermore, we studied the idea of nursery rhymes as they are always popular with children of an infant school. The lighthearted nature and morals conducted are reasons why they're perfect for children's theatre. Our only speed bump with that idea is that nursery rhymes tend to be very short so we would have to perform a compilation of them. This would mean a lot of costume changing which could alter the entertainment value of the performance and we preferably didn't want to deal with.

We also focused on Pantomimes, once it was suggested, for quite a while. We were still keeping in mind the Christmas theme and how some families can't afford to pay to see a pantomime at their local theatre, so we thought it would help break the wealth barrier between children. To the right were our ideas for pantomimes with our favourites highlighted.

Additionally, we wanted to analyse two of the biggest names in children's stories, Roald Dahl and Dr Seuss. We wanted to perform a story which children would be familiar with and is iconic in the world of children's stories! To the right are our ideas on which stories we could do with our favourites highlighted.

After assessing all the areas of children's stories we wanted we decided to eliminate some options from our favourites. We wanted to be down to one pantomime, one Dr Seuss story and one Roald Dahl story.

For pantomimes, we decided that Peter Pan would be the best story to go with as it's well known story and there's plenty of techniques we can use including Round-By-Through and lifts to create the illusion of flying and stage combat and contact improvisation.

For Dr Seuss, we agreed on The Grinch as our favourite option. Not only is it very popular with children of an infant school age and a staple character in any childhood, but it's also coming up to Christmas and what with it being Christmas themed, it would be a great match.

For Roald Dahl, we were very unsure with which story to go for. With Matilda we could potentially include multiple songs to have the children sing along to, but with some of us lacking confidence in singing, this would restrict us on how we would perform the songs. With Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, we had the potential to dedicate ourselves to each child with the golden ticket and we can use lots of dancing and physical theatre with disappearance of each one, but we felt that this story was far too overdone so our audience would be not as captivated. With Fantastic Mr Fox, we have the potential to have a motif with all of the farm raids and although the story is familiar with children, they may not actually know everything about it which will give us the opportunity to introduce them to something new.

Upon analysing our choices, we made a shortlist of our top 3 favourites. This list consisted of The Grinch, Peter Pan and Fantastic Mr Fox. We decided to write a chart to analyse which would be the best choice and weigh out the pros and cons. To the right is the chart.

After analysing this chart we decided to go with Fantastic Mr Fox. Next lesson we will get down to business with Mr Fox and decide what we want to happen with it.

Triple - Devised Unit (LR) - Blog 10 - 05/10/15

Today, in Triple, we continued with our Emotional Turmoil scene. We devised Toby's section and now we have a nearly complete full scene breakdown:

-Lorna, Tom, Toby and I walk on and do a very short dance.
-We all walk off and Tom walks back on and sits down. 
-Ash Enters and conflicts with Tom shown by contact improv. 
-Rhiannon enters and manipulates Tom as her gender gives her dominance.
-I enter and help Tom up and perform a sequence of fist bumps.
-Dan enters and initiates Tom amongst the rioters then betrays him. 
-Lorna enters and dances with Tom as an aspect of hope.
-Toby enters and fights and torments Tom.
-As Tom starts to gain control again, Ash and I enter and hold him back as Toby repeatedly assaults him. 
-Tom goes down on his side with his back facing the audience, then Toby, Ash and I continuously kick him. 

This is all we have for this scene so far.

Today the main things we worked on were making sure everyone knew the steps for the initial ballet section and that everyone knew their individual parts of interaction with Tom. The main part I struggled with was the jumping spin at the end of the ballets section. Most of the time my actions leading up to the jump were far too rigid and my jump was too fast and too low. The main reason for this was because I was too focused on spinning the full 360° rather than spinning some of the way and as I land, I'd turn the rest of the way on my feet instead of in the air. With multiple practises, I've improved but further improvement is needed.

Double - Refugee Devised - Blog 7 - 02/10/15

Today, we finalised everything needed to finish for our devised refugee performance!

Firstly, we worked out how we were going to lift Rhiannon out from behind the curtain. We decided that having the black clothe lifted over The Three Amigos to give Rhiannon a chance to escape wouldn't work well and that it would be much simpler if us three were to all fall over and between us falling and getting up, Rhiannon steps behind the curtains to hide. After this, Ollie, James and I would look up I'm confusement and dramatically look for her. As James would turn around, Ollie and I would kneel down in front of the curtain, lift Rhiannon up by her knees with her arms grabbing our shoulders across our necks. As James faces us again, he falls over in fear and we then get back into our original line. 

We also worked out Charlie's lift too! After he finishes his monologue he says, "That's it! I'm finished!" the rest of us (standing, facing the back wall with our heads down) say, "So you think you're finished?" In response to this, Charlie shouts, "Yes! I'm finished!" We then turn over our right shoulder and say, "Okay then," then step behind him ready for the lift and say, "You're finished." He then falls ready for us to catch him and lift him. We place him down facing the audience horizontally and we all go off in separate directions and sit on our own looking depressed and hurt. James will walk in with the ringleader's stick to symbolise he was the one who killed Charlie. He then says, "Thanks for watching ladies and gentlemen! We'll be here next week!" Afterwards everyone says a fact to do with child trafficking. After each fact, James says, "and the next week..." to show that child trafficking will never end.

The next lesson we performed the piece but due to technical difficulties, there is no existent video of it.