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.
Performance:
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.
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.
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.
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