Double - Storytelling - Blog 25 (Snow Queen) (Evaluation) - 23/03/16

Story 1 ( Lorna's Story):
+ The recorded narration was very clear and well read and the music which accompanied helped set the mood of the scene.
+ The timing throughout the piece was accurate and we all were familiar with which movements were at which points.
+ Instead of actually wearing masks, we mimed wearing them as this removed the need for props.
- When placing the masks on some of us reached down to pick up these masks whereas others just put the masks on as if they were already holding them. This was due to poorly discussed last minute change.

Story 2 (James' Story):
+ Setting up the sheet for the silhouette was fluent and quick.
+ The beginning dance section was very well performed with good use of cannon, fluent movements and successful lifts.
+ Through our placement as silhouettes, the entrance of the Snow Queen was very effective at portraying her elegance and power.
+ The sledge silhouette was well performed due to our positioning and gestures.
+ Our use of gestures, facial expressions and 
- Our sheet we used for silhouettes could have been larger to hide any of us who were stood at the back waiting for our next part.
- The music should've been louder as the introduction is rather quiet so Lorna and I were unsure on when to start the dance.
- Having three lights to create the silhouettes was a bad choice as it created 3 different overlapping silhouettes rather than one bold silhouette.

Story 3 (Lewis' Story):
+ Our gestures, facial expressions, levels and stances helped portray our emotions very effectively.
+ Our placards featured large, bold text so it was easy for the audience to read from a distance.
- Members of the group were unsure on the movement at times so they had to look around for reassurance.
- People in the river stopped moving at some point when they're supposed to keep moving throughout the entire scene.

Story 4 (Rob's Story):
+ Our facial expressions and gestures helped add a level of depth to the story.
- There were major technical difficulties where the audio for this story was ill prepared.

Story 5 (Rhiannon's Story):
+ Our movement throughout the piece was very representative of the narration and helped the audience understand the story.
- At times a few of us were forgetting the movement and had to rely on copying the person beside us which caused a slight delay.

Story 6 (Charlie's Story):
+ The recorded narration was very clear and fluent
- None of us spoke our given words over the recording as we were unsure on what our words were and when they came in. This wasn't too much of an issue as none of us did it as opposed to some of us.

Story 7 (Ollie's Story):
+ Ollie engaged the audience at all times with gestures, varying tone of voice and interaction.
+ The slide show projection of images which Rob created was very effective at setting the mood.
- There was a technical issue where the slide show went to the laptop background at the end but this wasn't something we could help.

Single - Devised Unit (CP) - Blog 22 (Evaluation) - 22/03/16

Today was the day we performed our piece and I feel it went rather well! There were no major issues and the scene's seemed to transition really smoothly. 

A major change we made before performing was changing our lighting to just regular shadowy white lights. This was because we ran out of time leading up to the performance to look at the correct codes and settings of the lights. If we were to perform our piece again, I would use our original lighting plan and work out how to use the lights much sooner. However, this last minute lighting change was effective as the lights were on automatic settings so that whenever there were any fast, large movements, the lights would change to a different shade of white (cold, warm, neutral). This became very effective in You Don't Own Me, Elastic Heart and Charlie's Breakdown as the lights were changing colour and caught the audience of guard.

Below is my full evaluation of the unit:

Response to stimuli:
Our initial reaction when hearing the stimulus was to mind-map our initial thoughts which would allow us to develop ideas and possibly construct scenes.

• From the song, we drew the theme of helplessness; this led to the theme of depression. From depression we knew that drug abuse was a main cause so we wanted to include drug abuse in our piece.
• From the music video and Adele's thoughts on the song, we drew the theme of a car crash relationship. From this, we wanted to include some sort of break-up. This links to all of the tension of the love triangle between Charlie, Ben and Kourteney.
• From the song title, we drew the theme of persistence. We wanted to have a character in our piece be very persistent to match this theme; this is the living example of Ben. Ben is persistent at keeping in contact with Charlie which then leads on to him falling deeply in love with Charlie wanting his attention even more. This idea led to the development of Ben's break-up scene.

Upon noting down our ideas and linking them to what we could do with them, we analysed opportunities for different techniques to be used such as voiceover and mime; we also made a list of which techniques we wanted too.

Development of Ideas:

From the very beginning, we were experimenting with our different ideas. We had our initial three ideas and developed them enough to create a scene for each. We then chose an idea to take further and develop in order to perhaps find our final idea and we were successful. When we had our final idea of the love triangle we developed it in many ways:

• We initially thought of Ben to be immediately in love with Charlie, however we later changed this as we wanted to show key character development so we had Ben start of as a close friend.
• We were originally going to have Ben be the one to introduce Charlie to Kourteney so Ben can have a sudden realisation of his mistake (introducing Charlie to Kourteney) later on in his monologue. However we felt that this made one of the flashback scenes far too long so we cut it down and we had Kourteney mention that her and Charlie met in their media class.

Collaboration as a group:

As a group we split the workload evenly for all tasks such as research, script writing and sourcing media. Hope conducted a lot of research especially towards the beginning of the task and looking into the stimulus, Charlie worked on a lot of devising and script writing for scenes such as the phone call from work and I worked on lot of technical parts of our piece such as lighting, merging audio tracks and creating the tracks which were needed for voiceovers. 

Developing performance through rehearsal:
Through rehearsals, we have changed and developed our piece so that it makes more sense and derives similar meanings from. We originally had more flashbacks than interrogation scenes in our piece as we wanted to display to the audience the development of each character throughout their lives but this removed the effect of the mystery about who killed Charlie.

Performance:

Scene 1: Dead body intro

+ The BBC News intro music was very effective at providing an official atmosphere to the voiceovers.

- The voiceover was very quiet as it was exported at a lower volume.

- I feel it would've been better if we supplied the voices for the voiceover ourselves rather than asking members of other groups to help.

Scene 2: Ben's Interrogation (1)

+ Charlie did well to characterise his character of DI Sanderson as his character of Charlie has very similar dialect to himself.

- I feel I was very static in this scene and it could've been improved if I used more hand gestures.

- My tone of voice was rather constant throughout so ranging this will provide a more entertaining performance.

- I feel my reaction to learning about Charlie's death was very weak considering my character's level of commitment and obsession towards him.

+ The transition into the school scene was very smooth and provided me with a good follow through to start my introduction to the scene.

Scene 3: First Day

- When explaining how Charlie and my character met, I should've spoken to the audience, not to the empty seat which was previously DI Sanderson's.

- When talking to Charlie, I was very repetitive in what I said.

+ When explaining my shock of Charlie punching Kyle, I did well to look at the audience and tell the audience how I felt.

Scene 4: Kourteney's Interrogation (2) + Dating

+ Hope did very well to respond to DI Sanderson revealing Charlie's death.

- The pairs transition into the next scene was very slow and felt quite forced and awkward. 

+ Hope's narration during the text message placard section was very good as it was a good length for me to hold the placards for their scene

- I felt that although we had narration, the placard scene was very awkward and seemed too silent. I think next time we should have some music in the background to give the scene a more romantic atmosphere.

Scene 5: You Don't Own Me

+ The pair did very well to keep focus and move in time with the music.

+ The lighting was very effective due to the movement detection.

+ The movement was very effective at portraying the relationship between Kourteney and Charlie and matched the lyrics to the song.

+ I did well to transition ready for the next scene whilst the pair are still dancing.

- I feel we shouldn't of include puppetry gestures in this scene as Charlie's breakdown scene was the main focus of those actions; luckily this error wasn't too major.

Scene 6: Ben's Interrogation (2)

+ I felt that this interrogation was very conclusive and moved the plot forward.

+ Charlie and I were effective with our pauses and gestures in this interrogation as opposed to the first.

- There were a few moments where we ran out of things to say which prolonged some of the pauses.

Scene 7: Confession of Love (The Bar Scene)

- I feel my speech when drunk didn't sound genuinely intoxicated.

+ Our movement was very unbalanced during this scene which added to the illusion of us being drunk.

+ The timing of the lights cutting out was perfect thanks to Hope and an audience member

+ Our transition to the next scene was very smooth and almost seamless.

Scene 8: Kourteney's Interrogation

+ This scene represented Hope's change from sarcastic and arrogant to emotionally distraught and angry.

+ Charlie keeping silent throughout the scene is very effective at showing his infatuation with Ben while texting.

- Charlie mimed some actions away from the table but this was out of the cameras field of view so wasn't seen at all and wasted.

Scene 9: Ben's Break-Up

+ Our movement was well timed with the lyrics.

+ We had many well timed pauses for us to share facial expressions. This provides the audience with an in-look on our characters emotions.

- Mine and Hope's movements were slightly out of time which loses the effect of our characters being similar and going through the same experience.

+ When performing my monologue, I kept my attention to the audience but didn't look at them the whole time. I spoke to myself for most of it but then to the audience towards the end in my grief.

Scene 10: Joint Interrogation

- When exiting the last scene, I place the chair back on the stage right side of the table but I exit when I'm meant to sit back on the seat. This looked rather silly when I entered 5 seconds later than Hope.

- There was a long pause once I was seated as Hope had forgotten that she started the scene. This resulted in me starting the scene instead.

+ Our choral voice was very effective at confirming Charlie's demise.

- When Charlie says we can go, he made the same mistake he made in rehearsals by saying we could both go. The idea of the scene was that we were in different places but shown together as an abstract way to show our similarities. But Charlie saying we could both go would make the audience think that we were in the same room.

Scene 11: Charlie's Breakdown

- When on the phone to Charlie's boss, Charlie's responses didn't make sense when matched with the speech on the other end of the call. (E.g. "Oh hey! You alright?" "What's up? Maybe the fact...")

- When performing the hand puppetry there were a few moments where Charlie's movement was out of time to the puppetry string movement. This was my fault due to me not warning him soon enough.

+ We all remembered our movement and our facial expressions displayed to the audience the rush of emotions overwhelming us.

+ Our actions were mostly in time with the music making it very smooth.

+ When laying the final blow on Charlie, he did very well to fall backwards in slow motion as this is very demanding on the abs.

- When exiting, I turned over my left shoulder. This turned my back to the audience which doesn't allow them to see my facial expressions.

Double - Commedia Dell'arte - Blog 19 - 21/03/16

Today in Double, we ran through every scene which we had and devised a new scene to open the production. We also came up with ideas for other scenes too.

The scene we devised was a new opening for the piece as we hadn't actually made one prior. We originally thought of having Brighella start off shouting at Harlequin but we decided to go with a scene between Pantalone and Doctor as they are the restaurant owners. This is how our scene goes:

• D and P share some social banter between each other and argue over whom is the better manager.
• P mentions how much of a state the restaurant is in but brushes it off as there critics are due next week. D corrects him and says that they're coming in that night. D and P argue over this until P panics and runs off to the kitchen to sort out the mess.

With this we'd transition into the prawn soup scene. We then continued to run every scene we had and then make a list of what needs to be done:

• Devise a scene between Zanni, Brighella and Pantalone to be before Taking Orders (Columbina taking Pantalone and Doctors orders) and after Prawn Soup.
• Create a props list and source the props.
• Review Lorna's costume list and source costume.

Triple - The Healthy Performer - Blog 6 - 21/03/16

Today we performed two different circuit training exercises.

We began the lesson by learning what circuit training is and why it is done:

Circuit training is a form of body conditioning or resistance training using high-intensity aerobics. It targets strength building and muscular endurance. An exercise "circuit" is one completion of all prescribed exercises in the program. Circuit training can be targeted at a specific area of the body (e.g. core, legs, upper body) or it can be broad and have each exercise work on a different part of the body.

We began with our first circuit! This circuit consisted of a lot of leg work and was very stamina based. From previous experience in padwork (Two year of martial arts and boxing training), I was prepared for how tiring it would be. The skipping was very vigorous as if we were to stop at any time to rest there would be a 30 push-up penalty. Below is the circuit we did:

The second circuit was much more intensive on our abs than the rest of our body as it featured sit-ups, leg raises and ab twists. Below is the circuit we did:

Single - Devised Unit (CP) - Blog 21 - 18/03/16

Today we performed a full performance runthrough in front of the class in order to find ways to improve our piece and what bits needed working on before our final performance next week.

We had 10 minutes to confer before performing our pieces to the class in order to collect some constructive criticism. Charlie, Hope and I quickly ran through the interrogations between each other by just listing what we say and what scene we go into next. We then performed the piece to the class and below are all of the notes we collated from the audience and ourselves:

• When using my phone for music, my message tone kept going off as my phone wasn't on airplane mode. In the real performance, my phone will be on airplane mode and "Do not disturb."
• Charlie and I got very lost on what to say during our interrogations so a lot of the content we pre-decided wasn't included.
• Charlie and I forgot our movement when it came to Ben's Break-up which resulted in us skipping parts so the timing for me and Hope was very off and this scene was much shorter than before.
• During the bar scene, Hope forgot to turn the lights off so we when Charlie and I pretended to kiss, the black out effect was lost.

We agreed to go over our piece over the weekend to be sure we knew what we were doing for the entire performance ready for next lesson.

Double - Commedia Dell'arte - Blog 18 - 18/03/16

Today in Double, we got to work devising Zanni's entertainment scene and I showed the rest of the class my staging for our performance.

I began the lesson walking everyone through how I felt we should stage our piece! I wanted the performance to be in the hall so that we can take advantage of the stage! I thought it would be cool to have the stage and the floor be separate areas for the kitchen and the actual restaurant floor. This adds a whole new dimension to the performance and keeps the audience looking around at all times. I also thought that we should have the audience seated in cabaret so that there are tables of groups. This brings the atmosphere of the restaurant to life and allows us to interact with the audience as they would be customers of our restaurant. Below is my plan:

After discussing this, we began to stage Zanni's entertainment scene. We agreed that this would be our finale as this scene would bring a lot of comedy and involve all of us. We initially were going to have Zanni sing, "And I Will Always Love You," by Whitney Houston but this idea changed drastically. We decided to change the song as James was not confident in this choice, so we went with something else which is very well known and James was confident with, "Bohemian Rhapsody," by Queen. 

As we rehearsed James miming the lyrics, we all sort of got involved by generally mucking around and jumping into the scene. Upon deliberation we thought it would be really cool if we all got involved with the finale by joining in. This would bring a whole new level of unity and bring the piece to a cute end.

Below is our final outline of the piece (characters initials are used):

• D,B and P attempt to push Z on the performance space. Someone announces that Z is performing and the lights turn off, the music starts and the spotlights aim at the quartet who are stood in the signature Bohemian Rhapsody formation.
• On, "look up to the skies and see," we look down followed by looking, "up to the skies." After this line, we push Z forward to continue miming and we exit to the sides. B, Cp and C are on the left side and H,D and P are on the other.
• On, "Mama, just killed a man," we walk on from our respected sides to form a line behind Z whilst holding candles. H splits off and interacts with Z.
• On, " Mama, ooh," we raise our candles and sway them side to side. On, "nothing really matters," we lower our candles.
• At the beginning of the next verse, Cp and C dance together and B, D and P dance with our plants in the audience. On, "gotta leave you all behind," we leave our partners and send the plants back to their seats.
• For the next verse, Cp and P lean back to back and play air guitars. Leading up to, "I see a little silhouetto..." we walk towards Z and H and form a semi circle around the pair. On the line, we start bopping our shoulders until, "Scaramouche, Scaramouche!"
• On, "thunderbolts and lightning," we gesture our arms as if they were, "thunderbolts and lightning."
• On the "Galileo, Galileo" part, we bop up and sing the lines. On the high notes, Cp, D and P bop down and sing it; whereas on the low notes, C and B bop down sing it.
• On, "he's just a poor boy," we point at Z as he is rushing around scared and embarrassed.
• On all of the, "We will not let you go,"'s, we push Z around in a bully circle style. On each of the, "No,"'s, Z is in the centre of our semi circle and we each lift our left arm up to signal Z to stop on each "No." There are seven nos; we lift our left arm up in cannon on each no and then on the seventh (at this point, we've all got our left arm up) we lift our right arm up.
• On, "For me! For me!" we step backwards slowly to form a line. During the guitar solo, we all interact with each other by dancing and messing around. D lifts P's leg up and uses it as a guitar while P "makes it rain" (throws paper money) at C. C dances in the money shower, picks up a pile of cash and runs away. P chases her, darting in-between the other characters. P gets face to face with C but she kisses him on the forehead and he falls.
• Leading up to, "Nothing really matters," we all form the same line behind Z and H as before and on, "Nothing really matters,"  we wave our candles in again. We lower these candles and all exit to the sides while Z and H finish the scene holding each others hands singing the last few lines together.

Single - Devised Unit (CP) - Blog 20 - 17/03/16

Today in Single, we went to the gallery theatre and rehearsed Charlie's breakdown scene.

We begun the lesson by moving over to the gallery theatre as there was more space and we would have use of a set of speakers. I walked the pair through the movement for the scene, explaining who did what movement, at what point in the music we did them, and why we did those movements. I did this to confirm with the pair that my movements made sense and linked well with the characters involved. We rehearsed the scene multiple times and go it running smoothly before adding on something to the end.

Our extra addition changes the way we end our piece but not the meaning. We decided to replicate the puppetry completely from our scene we devised when first looking at initial ideas for our piece. This involved the controlling entity of the puppetry forcing Charlie to take drugs which represents their indirect involvement with his demise. We devised the short extra section within a few minutes and below is the outline:

• Ben uses puppetry to force Charlie into smoking.
• Kourteney uses puppetry to force Charlie into drinking.
• Ben and Kourteney use puppetry together to force Charlie to snort cocaine.
• Ben and Kourteney use puppetry together to force Charlie to inject heroine.
• Ben and Kourteney use puppetry together to push Charlie backwards in slow-motion and he falls backwards in slow-motion. He's left lying on the table as a corpse.

I feel this ending is a great deal nicer than the last ending and is much smoother as Charlie needs to end the scene on the table somehow as the "epilogue" to our piece requires Charlie to be dead on the table.

We then went back to our classroom and discussed lighting. We were planning on setting the rest of our lighting on our lights but they were unavailable as they were being used for something already. Instead we wrote down what lighting we wanted and we will link up the codes to the lights at some point. To the right is our lighting plan:

Triple - The Healthy Performer - Blog 5 - 17/03/16

Today, we watched an educational video on the skeletal and muscular systems in the body. We did this in order to gain a better understanding of how our bodies work which helps us target which areas of our bodies we want to improve.

Below is a collaboration of the research I've made including outside of class:

Respiratory System

• The respiratory system is the set of organs that allows a person to breathe and exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide throughout the body.
• Before blood can find its way into the bloodstream, oxygen has to get into the lungs; plus, the carbon dioxide has to find its way out. You accomplish these tasks by breathing air in and out via the respiratory system. 
• This system is divided into two parts: the upper respiratory tract and the lower respiratory tract.

Parts of the upper respiratory tract:

• Nose/Mouth: The nose draws in air through the nostrils and into the nasal cavity. The mouth also draws in air, especially during times of physical exertion or when the nose is “stuffy.”
• Laryngopharynx: Air passes through the nasopharynx and oropharynx toward the laryngopharynx, which is the opening to the larynx (or voice box).

Parts of the lower respiratory tract:

• Trachea: The trachea (or windpipe) continues from the larynx.
• Bronchi: The trachea splits into two bronchi that each lead to a lung.
• Lungs: Each lung is divided into lobes. The right lung has three lobes and the left lung has two.
• Alveoli: The bronchi branch into smaller bronchioles that lead to the alveoli, which are small air sacs surrounded by capillaries (very small blood vessels). Gas exchange between the air and blood occurs across the alveolar and capillary walls.

As air is breathed in through the lungs, it travels down the Trachea through the Larynx, into the lungs. It travels through the Bronchi into the Alveoli. The O2 molecules diffuses through the cell membrane of the capillaries seamlessly, which allows the oxygen to enter the bloodstream. The remaining elements inside the lungs is breathed out. Carbon dioxide is also released from the body where we break down glucose and oxygen into water and carbon dioxide. Water is released through sweat, while carbon dioxide diffuses through the cell membrane of the capillaries.

Circulatory System

• The job of the circulatory system is to transport food and oxygen to the cells of the body and collect waste products of the body.
• The heart is the size of an adult's fist and beats, on average, 100,000 times per day. This would mean the heart pumps approximately 5 gallons of blood a day.
• If we joined all of our blood vessels together end to end it would reach a distance of over 60,000 miles; over two times the circumference of the earth.
• There are three types of blood vessels:
• Arteries: Carries de-oxygenated blood to the lungs.
• Veins: Carries oxygenated blood to the heart and then to the rest of the body.
• Capillaries: Allow water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other nutrient and waste substances to exchange between blood and surrounding tissues.
• Beats of the heart are regulated by the pacemaker which is located at the top of the right atrium.
• The cardiac muscle is exclusive to the heart and never gets fatigued. The heart is protected by the ribcage.
• Mitral valves make sure the blood flows through the heart only one way.
• Heart is separated (by the septum) into two sides to not allow the oxygenated blood and de-oxygenated blood to mix.

The process of blood circulation

• De-oxygenated blood returns to the heart after flowing through the body.
• The blood enters the right side of the heart through the right atrium, through the tricuspid valves, through the right ventricle and pumped out to the lungs by the pulmonary arteries.
• The lungs refresh the blood with a supply of oxygen which turns the blood red.
• The oxygenated blood enters the left side of the heart through the left atrium, through the mitral valves, through the left ventricle and pumped out to the rest of the body by the aorta.
• Systole is when the heart is contracted and is when the blood from the ventricles are pumped out of the heart. The right ventricle contracts a bit sooner than the left ventricle.
• Diastole is when the heart is relaxed and the blood from the atria are pumped to the ventricles.

Single - Devised Unit (CP) - Blog 19 - 15/03/16

Today, Charlie and I rehearsed all of our scenes which involved only us two.

We stuck to the plan I made on my last blog post and only rehearsed all of the scenes which involve only Charlie and I as Hope was away.

We recapped the interrogation scenes quickly as we had already done them recently then got to work on recapping the bar scene and our break up.

We ran from the interrogation prior into the bar scene which we hadn't done in a long time. We were rather rusty to begin with but we remembered our outline and ran the scene a few times.

We then ran our breakup scene which involves a lot of physical movements to remember. I had to runthrough and remind Charlie at times but in the end we had the scene working like clockwork!

Next lesson we will refer to my lesson plan and completely run through all physical theatre/dance scenes.

Triple - The Healthy Performer - Research - 13/03/16

Last lesson, I set my target for the end of our 3 week training program: I want to improve my upper body strength and balance in order to perform lifts better. In order to achieve this, I will need to work on my abdominals, pectorals, biceps/triceps, lats and quads. In order to gain muscle in these areas, I need to be aware of which exercises will help me do so. Below is a list of exercises I found online which will aid me in my program:

• Abdominals - plank, sit-ups/crunches, knee/leg raise, flutter kick, squat, woodchop, Russian twist, mountain climber.
• Pectorals - bench press, chest press, dumbbell press, chest dip, cable fly.
• Biceps/triceps - tricep dips, rope tricep pulldowns, overhead dumbbell extensions, bicep curls, reverse cable curls
• Lats - barbell pullover, chin up, lat pulldown, pulley row
• Quads - squat, lunge, step up, bear crawl sled drag, backward drag, bench jump

With this newly acquired knowledge on how to tone and build these muscles. I can now effectively train and make a difference to my body. 

Single - Devised Unit (CP) - Blog 18 - 11/03/16

Today we rerecorded the phone call audio and made executive decisions to do with the state of our piece. We also made plans for our few remaining lessons.

We began by recording the audio for the phone call. We did this as in the last recording, we used Charlie's old character name, "Hunter Andrews."

After rerecording this, we looked at the checklist I made in my last blog and made some decisions. Hope and I discussed whether we'd keep in the part with our text placards and decided we could remodel the scene to leave them in. Below is the outline which we came up with for the whole dating section of our piece including some lighting:

• Kourteney's interrogation (leading onto asking what their friendship had turned into)
• K and C sit on separate sides of the table as if it were each of their bedrooms. K is narrating as this happens.
• C and K exchange texts between each other which lead to a date being arranged. This is where we'd use our placards; we'd use less placards than our original plan as this small scene will be too long. (Pink lighting)
• They transition into still images of the pair dating. C ends facing the wall and says, as DI Sanderson, "So where did it go wrong?"
• C turns and "You Don't Own Me," starts playing. The lights turn to red to show the sinister side of the relationship. The movement piece then begins

After this Hope and I made plan of what we're going to each of our remaining lessons leading up to our performance date:

• Tuesday - As Hope won't be in due to a business trip, Charlie and I will rehearse all of our scenes where it's just us two including the bar scene and Ben's breakup scene
• Thursday - We will runthrough Charlie's breakdown and work out the lighting
• Friday - We will perform a full runthrough of our entire piece with lighting

Triple - The Healthy Performer - Blog 4 - 10/03/16

Today we performed a flexibility workout which was led by Lorna. She had us doing lots of stretches which will make our muscles a great deal more flexible. Improving our flexibility decreases our risk of injury, helps our joints move through their full range of motion and improves blood flow through muscles, therefore improving our workout experience.

We were asked to come up with a goal for us to achieve so that we can monitor our progress throughout our program. My goal for this unit is to increase my upper body strength so that I am abler when performing lifts. In order to achieve this goal, I need to increase the size of my biceps, triceps, abdominals, lats, quads and pectorals. The type of exercises which will need to practise to achieve this are squats, deadlift, sit-ups, press-ups, bench press and bicep/tricep curls. Achieving this goal will give me a more masculine physique which, as an actor, will allow me to have a better chance at getting a masculine role in an audition.

Single - Devised Unit (CP) - Blog 17 - 10/03/16

Today in Single, we finally finished all of our interrogations and also rerecorded our voice recording for Charlie getting fired.

We began with running through the first interrogation so that it stays fresh in our minds and then moved onto devising the others.

While Charlie and Hope were working on Kourteney's interrogations, I went through each of our scenes and made a checklist of which one's need some work and in what way they needed work. Below is the list:

• Dating scene - We need to create more still images and decided whether we'd keep in the part where we use the text placards
• Confession of love - We need to possibly make this scene longer
• Break up with Ben - We need to runthrough this scene as it involves a lot of movement and we haven't done it in quite a while
• Charlie's Breakdown - We need to rerecord the audio for when Charlie get's fired as it uses Charlie's old character name, "Hunter Andrews." Also, we need to finalise the movement and link each action to the track; this'll make it easier to remember the movement.

After we had finally completed our interrogations, we got onto rerecording the audio for Charlie's boss for when he gets fired.

Next lesson, we will fully complete Charlie's breakdown and possibly do some work on the dating scene.

Triple - The Healthy Performer - Blog 3 - 09/03/16

Today we focused on a healthy balanced diet including what to avoid eating when losing weight, what nutrients to avoid and which nutrients are helpful for a healthy lifestyle.

We first discussed how long a performer will be awake for and how long their days are, especially during show weeks. We all knew that the main nutrient they'd need for energy is carbohydrates. However, slow release carbohydrates, commonly found in brown rice, brown pasta (basically anything wholemeal), are much better for performers as they release the energy over a longer period of time compared to regular carbohydrates. We also found that grazing is very useful in a performers life. Grazing is the process of eating smaller meals but at more frequent intervals. As opposed to eating a big breakfast, lunch and dinner, performers would typically make these three meals smaller and add in snacks in between. This spreads out the release of carbohydrates and other nutrients in the body.

We also discussed different nutrients which you shouldn't eat too much of or any at all:

• Saturated Fats - our bodies struggle to break down this type of fat so it's best not to consume this at all. Alternatives to Sat Fats are Mono-unsaturated and Poly-unsaturated Fats. These can be found in Walnuts, Avocados and Salmon.
• Salt - maintains the correct balance of certain fluids which bathe the cells in our bodies. Research shows that too much salt can lead to increased blood pressure, osteoporosis - a bone-thinning disease, asthma, stomach cancer and weight gain. Foods high in salt include Bacon, Cheese and Pickles. Healthier alternatives include Tofu, Soya and Pulses.
• Calories - a measure of the amount of energy in foods. On average, men need 2500 calories per day whilst woman only need 2000 calories per day and children only need 1800 per day! This is because men have more muscle mass which means they burn 20% more calories than women just by doing nothing.

We discussed how we can take into account these issues yet still make a tasty meal. We even discussed a meal that was designed on the spot for us on how beneficial for our health it is:

Wholemeal Pasta, Tuna, Tomato Sauce (Tomatoes, Basil, Pepper, Salt), Veg

Next lesson, we will have a flexibility work out session ran by Lorna.

Double - Storytelling - Blog 24 (Snow Queen) - 09/03/16

Today in Snow Queen, we began working with the actual silhouette and improved Rob's scene.

We began by setting up the backdrop for James' silhouette scene. We set up the light correctly so that the silhouettes aren't too big and that we can portray the imagery correctly with the actors behind it. After we set the silhouette up, we did a runthrough of James' scene and these are the improvements we made following:

• Instead of having Rhiannon enter as Snow Queen by having Ollie and Charlie lift up the curtain, we'd have her walk in from over the light and just stay as a silhouette. We'd then have Charlie and Ollie use their shadows to perform the same hand gestures as Lorna and I on the floor. This adds an element of  mystery about the character of the Snow Queen and makes things a lot more simple for us. This also saves the audience being blinded by the light used for the silhouettes.
• Lorna and I practised our third lift we perform in our short dance sequence at the beginning. Lorna felt uncomfortable doing it as I didn't lift her high enough and she ended up landing quite heavily as I place her down. We rehearsed this lift a couple of times to decide whether to leave it in or not. After rectifying the mistakes, we kept the lift in as we felt it looked impressive.

After this, we discussed how we would set up and take down the sheet we’d be using during the performance. We at first thought to just start the piece with it up and at the end of James’ scene, we take it down. However, we completely forgot that we had Lorna’s scene before which requires a lot of space. Lorna then suggested that we leave the silhouette up during her scene but with the bottom corners pulled back and tied to a hook or window handle. We’d then cut/untie it from the hook/handle for James’ scene and then take it down prior to my scene.

We then worked on Rob’s scene; we ran through the scene once but felt that the narration was very muffled and was difficult to hear. Rob will rerecord his narration ready for next lesson. We also felt that me representing the lamp seemed to get in the way a lot and restricted Rob and Lorna’s movement. Instead, I’m now a crow along with Ollie and James. 

We also changed how we perform the line of men wanting to be her husband. We thought our original idea was very fast paced and it didn’t explain the story very well. Whilst the narration talked of men being confident when waiting but bottling it when they get to the queen, our movement just represented the sheer amount of men wanting the Snow Queen’s hand. Instead we change our movement to this:

• Lorna, Rob, Charlie and I are in a line to the right of the Snow Queen (Rhiannon)
• Whilst we are waiting we mime talking to each other and gesture confidently.
• However, as we walk in, one-by-one we all crack when going to talk to the Snow Queen. We all go to talk but shallow back and reserve ourselves.
• We get sent off by the Snow Queen and we circle back round to the back of the queue.

Next time, we will try to perform an entire runthrough of our piece and be ready for performing it to an audience the following week.

Double - Commedia Dell'arte - Blog 17 - 07/03/16

Today we evaluated where we are at the moment with our piece and we devised a couple of new scenes!

We began by writing down which scenes we had already done and which scenes we knew we wanted. This pictured to the right. We started planning out how we wanted to perform Zanni's entertainment as we knew this was a scene that James couldn't wait to perform and we didn't have much of a priority to which scene we had to. We decided that we wanted Zanni to sing (attempt to sing) Whitney Houston's, "And I Will Always Love You." This is a very well known and song and Zanni making a mess of it will be very comical to watch. 

For this scene we focused more on the lead up to Zanni's entertainment as opposed to her actually entertaining. This is the outline we have come up with (character are shown by their initials):

• B informs D and P that the entertainment hasn't shown up. P and D are furious and go to the kitchen to come up with a plan.
• D and P ask the kitchen staff what they can do. D volunteers himself after no reply. Everyone looks at the audience in disappointment and H splutters and laughs.
• D asks if anyone else would do it. Cp volunteers himself as an Elvis tribute act. D denies Cp and its back to square 1.
• P and D ask themselves who else could handle the entertainment. B pushes Z into the centre, coughing loudly to draw attention to him. D has an epiphany and claims B's obvious idea as his own. Z is now the entertainment for the night.

After devising this scene, we completely devised our idea for a closet scene between Doctor and Captain. The basic outline of this scene is Captain is writing a note to Columbina and asks Harlequin to give it to her; the note is asking her to meet him in the dry stock cupboard. Harlequin gives this note to Doctor and says its from Columbina and he gets excited and flees to the cupboard to meet her. Doctor enters the cupboard in the dark where he meets Captain whom thinks Doctor is Columbina. Things get a tad heated in the cupboard with noises and one of the pair say Columbina's name. The lights come up and the pair look at each other and run away. They are baffled as to why the other is there and say that they were there to meet Columbina. Captain references the poem he wrote and Harlequin enters to laugh at the mess he's made. The pair chase after Harlequin offstage.

For next lesson I will have a set design drawn up and annotated with references as to where I can get any of the set from. Lorna is in charge of designing costume and James is in charge of props.

Next lesson, we will share our ideas in terms of costume, set and props and get to work devising some more of the scenes. Perhaps the Cooking Oil Cocktail with Harlequin and Brighella.

Triple - The Healthy Performer - Blog 2 - 07/03/16

Today, we watched an educational video on the skeletal and muscular systems in the body. We did this in order to gain a better understanding of how our bodies work which helps us target which areas of our bodies we want to improve.

Below is the research I collated from the video:

Skeletal System

• skeleton is a support structure and the framework of the body.
• Humans have endoskeletons (skeletons in their body), while crustaceans have exoskeletons (skeletons outside their body)
• Skull protects the brain, pelvis cradles internal organs, ribs protect lungs and stomach
• Bones are a reservoir of minerals
• There are 206 bones in the body and there are four types - long, short, flat, irregular (those who don't fit the other categories e.g. pelvis)
• Skull, ribs and spine are the parts of the Axial Skeleton
• Pelvis, arms, hands, legs, feet and shoulders are part of the Appendicular Skeleton
• Types of joints include:
• Fiberous - fibres join the bones
• Cartlilaginous - cartilage joins bones
• Bony - bones merge with age
• Syvonial - lubed up joints
• Pivot, ball and socket joints can move in all directions (Shoulders)
• Hinge joints can only move in one direction (Elbow)
• Saddle joint can only move in two directions (thumbs)
• Types of bone:
• Osteocytes - communicate changes in the bone
• Osteoblasts - produces hard callus
• Osteoclasts - removes any excess bone and callus
• Osteogenic - differentiate and develop into other bone cells (the stem cells of bones)
• Hematoma - blood leaked in bones when broke
• Joints are held together by muscles, tendons and ligaments
• Tendons connect muscle to bone and ligaments connect bone to bone

Muscular System

• Muscles generate heat and support balance (Abs and back support balance)
• Voluntary muscles are muscles you can control for everyday functions such as walking and moving arms
• Involuntary muscles are muscles you can't control such as the beating of your heart and digestion
• There are five types of muscle:
• Fusiform - spindle, starts thin at the ends and gets thicker towards the centre (e.g. biceps)
• Parallel - equally wide through the entire muscle (e.g. thigh)
• Convergent - fan shaped (e.g. pectorials)
• Pennate - feather shaped
• Uni - all attached from 1 side (e.g. palmar interosseous)
• Bi - all attached from 2 sides (e.g. rectus femoris)
• Multi - all attached from multiple sides (e.g. deltoids)
• Circular - around openings (e.g. mouth, eyes)
• Larynx supports speech
• Muscles work together not individually
• Agonist and Antagonist - example: Biceps curl – the biceps is the agonist muscle causing the movement and the triceps are the antagonist muscle working in opposition to the biceps.
• Flexors and extendors support head movement.

We were asked to conduct some additional research into different nutrients, vitamins and minerals and how they contribute to making our body healthier. This will help us target different areas of our fitness.

Carbohydrates: Carbohydrates are the main energy source for the brain. Without carbohydrates, the body could not function properly. Sources include fruits, breads and grains, starchy vegetables and sugars.

Fats: Fat is an energy source that when consumed, increases the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins including vitamins A, D, E and K. Twenty to 35 percent of your daily intake should come from fat. Sources include omega-3-rich foods like fish, walnuts and vegetable-based oils.

Protein: Protein is the major structural component of cells and is responsible for the building and repair of body tissues. Protein is broken down into amino acids, which are building blocks of protein. Sources include meat, beans and egg.

Vitamins:

• Vitamin C - important in immune system (e.g. oranges/strawberries)
• Vitamin A - important for healthy skin (e.g. broccoli/carrots)
• Vitamin B1 - important for energy metabolism (e.g. whole grains/kidney)
• Vitamin B2 - important for vision (e.g. poultry/fish)
• Vitamin B6 - important for cell growth (e.g. liver/nuts)
• Vitamin B12 - important for red blood cells (e.g. yoghurt/clams)

Minerals:

• Sulphur - found in protein molecules (e.g. meats/egg)
• Magnesium - important for making protein (e.g. nuts/seeds)
• Phosphorus - important for healthy bones (e.g. meat/fish)
• Chloride - needed for stomach acid (e.g. table salt/soy sauce)
• Sodium - important for fluid balance (e.g. bread/milk)
• Potassium - needed for muscle contraction (e.g. whole grains/legumes)
• Calcium - important for healthy bones (e.g. milk/canned fish)
• Iron - needed for red blood cells (e.g. red meats/shellfish)
• Zinc - needed for making protein (e.g. whole grains/vegetables)
• Manganese - part of many enzymes (e.g. widespread in foods)