1st lesson:
In our first lesson last week we were given the simple task of maintaining eye contact with one other person from the group, without fidgeting or doing anything. Although the task was simple enough, I did actually find it quite hard. I found it much easier to do it with some people than with others. I think I found it hard because it was just so unusual and slightly awkward.

We then built on this idea and were told that we had to run around the room while maintaining eye contact with the other person. I found this much easier than the first task. I think this was because we were moving around and I had something else to concentrate on and not just starting into the other persons eyes. The game was meant to show that sometimes doing nothing on stage is good. It also showed me how uncomfortable constant eye contact was, this could fit into our Artaud style piece really well.

For the last task one pair was told to maintain eye contact while the other pair had to try and split them up. I found it very hard to split up the pair and wasn't very creative, now looking back on it I probably could have been more creative with my ideas for splitting them up. I found the staring at each other much easier than the splitting up.

In the second half of the lesson we worked on our third nightmare which was Emmas. We decided to do this nightmare in a Frantic Assembly style. We picked out the key words in the piece and started working on them in pairs. We started by doing the squeeze exercise and then adding in lifts. I contributed the idea of putting in the twist lift to match with the word 'flying'. I also contributed the idea of breaking apart from each other at the end. We fitted our pieces to music, which went really well with our idea and then decided to add words. The words were "mum and brother" as they went with the main theme of the nightmare. At the end we all say "who are you" to the audience with eye contact. The idea is to make them feel uncomfortable, just as we had when we did the eye contact game, We also introduced the idea of making the piece faster as the music got faster.

Lesson 2:
In this lesson we reflected on the piece so far. We also talked through how a real exam piece would be marked and thought about it in terms of our piece now. We were given the task of privately creating a pie chart to show of how much each person in the group we thought had done, including ourselves. This made me feel slightly awkward. After completing our diagram we talked about ways we could make each persons contributions equal. We decided to give out different roles to everyone in the group, so everyone was in charge of separate things.
Emma: Sound
Harry: Lighting/Projection
Me: Costume
Chloe: Puppetry

These jobs tied in with the notes we had made when planning our piece, and we went back to them to get ideas.






On Friday outside of our usual lesson we had a chance to teach the year 10's some of the thins we learnt when working with Frantic assembly. I actually really enjoyed doing this however I did find it hard to explain some of the movements. 


In our lesson on Friday we spent a long time talking about how we could use our separate elements to improve our current piece. Some things that come out of this were: 
  • Masks in the first nightmare (Chloe) - show that we have no specific identity, makes it stranger/scarier for the audience. More contrast between on the train and in the nightmare. Full masks make sound come out muffled which is perfect for the nightmare.  
  • Costume ideas (me) - Use of normal clothing when on the train, but changes when in the nightmare. White clothes in the first nightmare to show that we aren't individuals, no specific identity. Can have things projected on it. 
  • Lights - Flickering on and off when going into the nightmare. Having the nightmares slightly dimmer than the scenes on the train. Changes in lighting intensity, depending on what is happening on stage.  
  • Use of strobe lights in the frantic assembly bit, not so repetitive. 
After sharing ideas we worked on the final nightmare, Chloe's. We decided to use a large blue round sheet for the pool and have the audience sitting around it. We would then give the audience sunglasses, straw hats and sun cream to set the scene. I had the idea of shining a light onto the blue sheet to create the effect of shimmery water, this could change during the nightmare as things get more creepy. I would say change the colour to a red light but I don't know how that would work. I also had the idea of introducing some kind of red into the pool as the dead bodies start coming out but I don't know how that would work either. There were also Ideas of having movement under the sheet. 



25/11/14

Today we started the lesson with an activity based on eye contact. It was fairly straightforward, all you had to do was look at someone else straight in the eyes with your face and body in neutral. However we found this quite hard as we felt awkward, threatened, vulnerable, etc. 
This activity shows how actors feel more confident on stage when they are moving about doing something and they feel less comfortable when they have to stand still. As an actor we feel powerful when moving about and less powerful when not doing anything.

We developed the idea of the importance of eye contact with a game where two people had to keep eye contact at all times and another person would have to break the eye contact. At the start we didn't show perseverance with a tactic and we would hesitate to try our best to achieve our mission however by the end of the activity we were very physical and were determined to achieve our objective in the game. This taught us how we have to put our all into drama.

We then went on to develop out Artaud based piece. This time we were working on Emmas nightmare. We decided to split into pairs and create a piece based on what we learnt from Frantic Assembly on the TAPS trip to London. We used lifts, rolls and jumps. This piece is very different from the other nightmare based pieces we created as this one is very physical theatre, however we do incorporate aspects of immersive theatre in by breaking the 4th wall and creating strong eye contact with members of the audience to make them feel uncomfortable and vulnerable.

 26/11//14

 Today we decided to have a very reflective lesson on all the work we did so far. We each had to privately make a pie chart which contained who had contributed the most/least in the group. I felt very mean while doing this as when you're growing up you're told not to undermine peoples abilities and what they do. I also felt very awkward in case someone looked over and saw what I'd given them. 
We then decided that we should all have equal roles in the group. We decided to split roles to help develop our piece.

  • Me; Puppets, Masks and Props
  • Emma; Sound
  • Harry; Projections
  • Meera; Costume 
By doing this it will also allow us to practice for our directors notebook that we will have to create in Year 2. 
I now have the task of exploring how Artaud uses masks, props and puppetry. 




the photos above are what we initially brainstormed but can help people achieve their different roles.

 28/11/13

Today we helped teach a year 10 class about lifts we learnt from Frantic Assembly.






















I found this quite challenging as some people would understand the lifts better than others and trying to teach lifts that could end in injury (example; me and harry) was risky.
However it was a fun experience teaching the year 10s and they seemed to enjoy it.

 In class we spoke more about how we could develop out pieces.
I contributed;

  • We could put paper over the windows to create blackout then give each audience member a torch. When it was the train scene we would have the lights on and when it was the nightmare scene the lights would turn off and the audience would have to put on their torches.
  • We could each wear a mask in the first nightmare (meeras nightmare). The mask should be long and cover our mouths so our speech sounds muffled. I have asked some students from art to help me create these masks and we are currently in the process.
We then went on to work on the final nightmare (my nightmare). We decided that we should have a blue sheet in the middle representing a pool and we should sit the audience members around the pool.
  • I contributed that we should sit next to the audience members and speak directly to them. 
  • I also contributed that we could have puppets on a trolley with distorted faces and later on in the nightmare we surround the audience members with these trolleys.
We are then going to apply suncream and sunglasses/hats on them. 
Next lesson we are going to develop the nightmare further.

In the lesson I made a prop list that we need for all 4 nightmares;
  • X4 suncream
  • X4 sunglasses
  • X4 hats
  • Lilo
  • Beach Ball
  • torches X4
  • water pistols X8
  • Masks X4
  • towels
  • flip flops
  • pool sheet
  • puppets
  • sugar paper
  • whistles
If people could look at this list and bring in any of the props they have that would be appreciated:-)
What a week! We finished off the week before by creating Acid Tests, where you record your scorch moments from a performance. We did ours to Curious Incident:
  • The circle in the middle is the face that Christopher draws at the beginning of the play. Siobhan, bottom right saying right left for when he was panicking in the train station, teaches him how to read peoples emotions using these drawings.
  • The two people at the top represent the scene when he is on the train. A memorable quote is "is this train going to London?"
  • The square on the right depicts the stage and how when he walked, red lights on the stage would light up where he walked. 
  • I wrote a bunch of prime numbers as Christopher loved them and knows them all up to 7507, he counts them in his head to calm himself. 
  • I used metallic colours to show the technology used in this production and representing the music which was very 'techy' this link will take you to one of the songs.

This is an image that really stands out for me. This symbol of touching palms shows TRUST, FORGIVENESS and LOVE. Christopher does not like being touched, so to show affection he simply touches his fathers palm. Even when I read the book when I was 12, it stood out. I find it so beautiful and touching, such a small gesture really creates a huge emotional response. 
I used this clothes line to show characters costumes. I remember Christopher wearing a green hoodie, Christopher's mother blue spotted dress and the police hi-vis jacket are some that I remember vividly. The old lady behind is a friendly neighbour or Christopher's, the houses behind represent the community Christopher lives in. 

Surrealism:

I was given this imagine (The Persistence of Memory- Salvador Dali) and told to write the first few things that came into my head:
  • Time
  • Bending time 
  • heat/melting
  • baron- no people
This painting is oneric meaning it is dream like perception of surrealism. Surrealism believed dreams reveal work of the unconscious. In class, we discussed what SURREALISM meant:
  • Words should be used differently 
  • Sound quality can be used to create different atmospheres
  • Not just saying the obvious 
  • Not seeing things for what they are 
  • Words should be super charged- having different meanings. 
Brekt's political theatre is a good example of surrealism as it provoked thought. 

We started work on out devised piece: 

Here are some brainstorm ideas we had a couple weeks ago about things we wanted to involve in our piece: 
 
 

We are using our nightmares to stimulate this piece, we are using 4 totally different styles because nightmares are not structure and usually dont have much sense or meaning. 

Meeras Nightmare: running away from something down a long dark corridor, doors are opening and closing and then suddenly falling.

Harrys Nightmare:Flying lesson at night, he sees the city lights below fail, and then suddenly the plane is falling out of the sky.

My Nightmare: Flying in a big airplane with my family and friends when the plane crashes into the sea, black. I am swimming towards a pillar where my brother and mum are stood, I go to hug my mum she does not know who i am. 

Chloes Nightmare: Her and some friends are in a swimming pool when suddenly a bunch of ambulances arrive and are rolling dead bodies out on these trays. 

Tuesday 25 November 2014

We played an eye contact game where all we had to do was look into each others eyes and hold the eye contact. Sounds easy right? It was very difficult, I found it awkward, strange, I felt vulnerable and exposed. I found trying to keep a straight face hard because staring into your friends eyes feeling really awkward, it just made us all giggle. Something our teacher mentioned was that i tend to fidget. No surprises really! I always move wether it be tapping my feet or moving my fingers, I cannot stop moving. I dont even feel myself moving I just do it naturally. We all found out that we felt a lot more comfortable moving around than standing still and keeping a moment paused. We then played another game were 2 people had to keep eye contact and another person had to try everything to get them to break eye contact. We learnt that us, as a group, did not take enough risk and we didnt really leave our comfort zone.

Thursday 27 November 2014  

We spoke about who contributed ideas to the group, we all found it difficult to say anything. Throughout our lives, we are taught to not say people arent doing anything in the group and we are taught that saying you have come up with the most ideas is wrong and rude so our teacher made us individually draw a pie chart with how much we thoughts each person had contributed. We were then each set a role in the group to do, I choose sound as I do have an interest in it.

Sound for the scenes-

Meeras:
  • doors opening and closing 
  • drips 
  • uneven breathing  

 Harrys:
  • Plane taking off 
  • Cabin sounds 
  • Crashing, a lot of sound, crunching metal, very loud, messy sounding
Mine:
  • dream like, frantic music
Chloes:
  • new pop song
  • heart beat on a machine sound in the background 
  • song begins to distort 
  • beeping gets louder more uneven 
  • flat line.


Acid Test Response To Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

 An acid tests show scorched moments of a performance. I decided to have my acid test in the shape of a circle to represent the face which was always projected onto the back of the stage to show how Christopher was feeling.
  • Train track- I decided to draw a traintrack with a train going round as this was key in the performance. Christopher was continuously trying to build the traintrack which then represented him travelling to London to find his mum.
  • Paddington sign- this makes me remember the scene where Christopher overcame his anxiety in the train station and overcame his fear. It also reminds me of when the wall moved forward to show how Christopher felt he was going to fall into the tracks.
  • Animals- the use of live animals on stage created a happy emotion. Christopher felt like his rat Toby was his only friend and took him everywhere. At the end he is given a puppy which he finds an attachment to too.
  • Letters- this shows the turning point in the performance when he finds the letters from his mum and realises she is not dead. To show the amount of letters he found they fell onto him and other actors held letters all around him.
  • Hand signal- this shows something very precious to Christopher. This hand signal made him feel at ease and showed his trust. It is also his his parents told him everything was going to be okay.
I was given this painting produced by Magritte and I had to write down absolutely everything that popped into my head no matter how stupid it sounded. The things I thought of were;
  • calm before the storm
  • nature
  • mysterious
  • endless thinking 
  • sweet but sour
This painting is a clear example of Surrealism. There are two types of Surrealism;
  1. Automatism/Free Association 
  1. Oneiric/Dream Like
We allowed our new found knowledge of surrealism to develop our Artaud inspired work.
  • words should be used in different ways due to their sound qualities
  • you shouldn't just see things for how it is"ceci n'est pas une pipe"
  • words can be supercharged and exaggurated to have more than just one meaning
  • we physically trap the audience in cloth to show they're trapped in their dreams when they're asleep
  • doors opening and closing relate to the many choices we can make in life
  • the significance of the blindfold is related to the fact people are blind to their future
We then went on to talk about Brecht;
  • his pieces were not for entertainment but to provoke political change through thought
  • he tried to make the familiar unfamiliar by seeing past the obvious 

Working With Dreams to Develop Our Work Everyone in the group had a task of telling their nightmare to another person while that other person scribed down everything they said. We then got back together and shared everyone's nightmares.
  1. Meera; Being chased down a long corridor with lots of doors and then finally falling down a black hole.
  1. Mine; With lots of friends watching a football match and then deciding to go into the pool. Suddenly everything goes black and you can only see the red colour of paramedics going into a house. Everything falls silent and then lots of dead bodies are wheeled out.
  1. Harry; Having a flying lesson when suddenly the lights of the city go off and then the plane fails. There are then flashes of the ground getting closer and closer. 
  1. Emma; In an aeroplane with her family when it crashes. She swims to shore and sees her brother and mum but her mum doesn't remember her.
We decided that we would create a train and bring an audience member onto the train with us to experience each persons nightmare when they fall asleep on the train. We created a train using soundscape.

Meeras Nightmare;We blindfold the audience member to rob them of a sense which makes them feel vulnerable. We then surround them while whispering uncomfortable words into their ear. This whispering gradually builds up into a shout of the word "run". This makes the audience member disorientated and scared. We then fall into a silence which will make the audience member confused and onedge. The actors then wrap up the audience member in a big cloth to give them a sense of being trapped in this dream. I then run up to the audience member and push them back while the other three actors catch them. This shows the falling in the nightmare. We then remove the blindfold and allow the audience member to return to the audience.

Harrys Nightmare;The audience members will sit together in rows of two like in an airplane. The actors then create a sense of the plane taking off by live soundscape. Recordings of the pilot speaking to the control centre then come on while the actors build a plane around the audience with sugar paper and fairy lights.









What is Surrealism? 
a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images.

 The fist thing we were given to do was look at a picture/painting and write down anything that came into our mind while looking at it. My picture was of a metronome with an eye on the ticking part, some of the words that I came up with were: 

  1. Music 
  2. Ticking 
  3. Beats 
  4. regular pattern

Afterwards we found out that the pictures/paintings were examples of surrealism. I learnt that there are two different types of surrealism. Dream like and automatism. Automatism is free association (revealing the unconscious minds of others). We learnt that surrealism really linked with our own piece of work. This was because Artaud, the practitioner we are basing our piece off, was greatly influenced by surrealism. Examples of how they link include: 
  1. Words should have more of a sound quality- sound which is charged with a subtext. 
  2. Artaud was interested in provoking free-association with his pieces. Wanted to make his audience think about the play after it was over. Giving everyday objects a different meaning.  
Surrealism also links with Brecht, who we have not studied yet, his idea of the 'Alienation effect' links with surrealism as he wanted people to see things differently. 

Surrealism in our work: 
  1. Being trapped - the idea of being wrapped up in the sheet gives the feeling of claustrophobia, this could link with the idea of being trapped inside our own thoughts, or being restricted by society. 
  2. Voices in the head - This could link with over thinking things or again being trapped inside ourselves. 
  3. The sounds of doors opening and closing - The choices in life. Confusing. 
  4. Blindfolded - Blind to what happens in your future, do you really get to chose which door you go through? 

Working on our piece: 

In the first lesson we were told to think of our nightmare and then say it out loud to another member in our group who would write it down. The nightmares were: 
  1. Running through a long corridor with lots of doors along the edges. the feeling of being chased. falling down a hole. 
  2. Swimming pool. At a party. Coming up for air and seeing all the police lights flashing on and off noticing that dead bodies are being carted away. 
  3. Flying lesson. The lights of the city fail then the plane fails. View of the ground getting closer. 
  4. In an aeroplane which crashes. On the beach with her family. Mother doesn't remember her. Crying. 
We started by creating our train setting, which would be the link between each separate dream. The idea is that the audience members would experience the dreams going on inside the head of a passenger who has fallen asleep. We sparked ideas for the train by creating a train sound scape. we each had to create a sound that we thought a train would make, we then put all the sounds together to create our train sound. 

The first scene: 

1st nightmare: We invite the audience member onto the train and to stand in the middle of the stage. We blindfold them. The idea is to make them feel uncomfortable and trapped like in the first nightmare. We then surround the audience member and start whispering words like "run" and "they're right behind you" this whispering starts to get louder and louder until right at the end when we all stop together and scream "run." The idea here is to make the audience member feel disorientated and claustrophobic, it also gives the illusion that there could be someone/something chasing them. After this there is a pause and all the actors back away. The audience member should be confused. In this time there will be sounds of opening and closing doors and dripping. This sets the corridor with lots of doors scene and the dripping gives it that creepy atmosphere. Then we all take a large white sheet (so we could have projections) and wrap it around the audience member. This will enforce the feeling of claustrophobia. 1 actor noisily runs towards the audience member and pushes them back, the other three catches them. This gives the feeling of falling that is described in the nightmare. The blindfold is quickly taken off the audience member and they are lead back to their seat. 

The second scene: 

3rd nightmare: We discussed many ideas for how to do this nightmare but we finally settled on having the audience members inside the aircraft which would slowly be put together during the performance. The audience members would sit together while all the acting would be done around them. The scene starts with the plane taking off this will be done by using a sound scape. We decided to rattle chairs and create a humming noise. After this we would use recordings of us to imitate talking to the radio tower. While the recordings are being played we will make the aircraft using sugar paper and red flashing lights. We will show the city lights below using fairy lights. We have not yet decided on how we will do the plane crash. 

Creating a response to The woman in black using acid tests: 

The stage curtains: This is because the play is set like a performance within a performance. (The characters are actors running through the performance)

The glasses: The moment when the older man puts on the glasses, he transforms into an amazing actor. 

The door: The door is seen several times during the performance and is the door to the nursery. It is locked up until the middle of the performance when there is a really tense part. 

The candle: All the scary moments are done in the dark with only the small light of the characters candle. 

The outline of the building: There is a projection of the house whenever the character is outside, the projection always had fog. 

AAAAAAAaaaAAAa: The two moments where there were high-pitched screams. 

The lines on the curtains: Lines or parts of lines that I remembered from the performance. ex. "So who is she then?"  

   
This week we used 3 different types of techniques to write up and respond to a piece of theatre:

  •  using TEAM to write on post it notes.
  • using MOVEMENT to express an emotion.
  • using a DIAGRAM to link up director, playwright and actor.
TEAM:
TEAM stands for:
  • Tension
  • Emotion
  • Atmosphere 
  • Meaning
We used 4 different coloured post it notes to represent different aspects of TEAM. We used this technique to lay out all our ideas for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I found writing about Emotion the easiest because Charlie is a very emotional play, not as in sadness, but as in the director made it so that emotions like happiness were amplified for the younger children. For example, happy, sing-a-long songs with lots of lights, colours and crazy dancing. So these emotional moments really stuck in my head. I found the hardest thing to write about what Meaning, (i feel emotion, tension and atmosphere tie in together) I find meaning hard because, being an English Lit student, everything has a much deeper meaning. So I found it hard to see a play for young children having a deeper meaning, after explaining this to my teacher, he taught me that meaning does not have to be profound, but can be- director choose this bright fun colour, he is trying to convey joy. 
I liked this way because i found the different colours and grid and easy and visual way of organising my thoughts. 

MOVEMENT:
We then were asked to find a part of the body to drive the rest of the body like the feet, arms, shoulders, much like Comedia. We had to focus all our energy into this part of the body, i choose the palm of my hand,  we then had to convey an emotion from on of the plays and use that energy to create a movement that was lead by the palm of my hand. I used a mix of SHOCK and FEAR to create a movement.
We then had to add a noise to go along with this emotion. Funnily, our group is quite a loud group, we never stop talking and singing and being told to shut up! But as soon as we are asked to make noises, we all get very conscious. I think this is because the room is not sound proof and noises in drama could be screams, manic laughter, howling-everyone in the classrooms can hear! We then had to amplify and amplify these movements (the next day i was in pain!) and sounds. We watched each others and then preformed them in a row. We were then asked to make them link like a machine. We used a technique we learnt with Frantic by finding a spot on the next person and grabbing that and making it into a sequence. It looked, and sounded like, and Artaud piece. This could be a starter! 

DIAGRAM:
The last technique was a Venn Diagram. We had to watch this interview:

We then had to take quotes from the director, playwright and actor and see which ones link together.
The things that all leaked together were:
  • Everyone had an input in this play.
  • Everyone had to be every open minded. 
  • There was a lot of imagination from everyone.
  • And a lot of creativity.

We had the task of watching an interview between the playwright, director and main actor of Curious Incident. It was very interesting to watch and learn about how everything came together as we watched this production in London.

 After watching the interview I created a venn diagram to show how all the creative processes linked together in order to achieve the final product and how each of the people found the task.
















Key Quotes & Ideas
Playwright
  • He thought turning the book into a play was a crazy idea at first which could only be achieved by such a skilled director
  • "I wanted Frantic Assembly to do the movement" (can i just say one more time that I've worked with them in TAPS?! Omg it's so crazy!)
  • "I wanted the director to have democracy and interventionism...I always allow the director to decide"
Director
  • "I had no ides how I would do it but I put all of my worries to one side"
  • "It took weeks and weeks and weeks to come up with ideas"
  • "Actors are not puppets and when you meet them half way it is like jiving"
Actor
  •  He does new movements every single show which is down to his free interpretation
  • Its physically tough - "It's about focus"
  • He found himself becoming the character in rehearsals and after shows
  • He did research and spoke to autistic people- he went to an autistic school, he read through autobiographies by people on the autistic scale
  • "It's such an emotional journey...You have to let go of a certain amount of control that you have as an actor to go emotionally where he goes"


This weeks we worked of the three different ways used to produce a response to the three different theatre performances we had seen while on TAPS/in London. Charlie and the Chocolate factory, Electra and (for me) The woman in Black.

Using TEAM: 

 Team is Tension, Emotion, Atmosphere and Meaning. Basically what we had to do is take a large piece of paper and split it into four different sections labelling them with the words above. We them took different coloured sticky notes for the words and wrote down moments in the performance that fitted with the words. For me I found that emotion and tension were the easiest ones to write moments for. This is because I mostly just used my scorch moments. For example for Emotion I used the moment in which Charlie found a golden ticket which was a happy moment. For tension I used the moment that Charlie begins unwrapping the Wonka bar he has received for his birthday. I would say that the tension moment at this moment would be a level 6 this was done by making sure that all the focus was on Charlie (spotlight on Charlie and no music). I found Atmosphere more complicated as I kept getting it mixed up with tension and emotion. In the end one example I found was when the children all entered into the main room at the chocolate factory. There was a joyful/magical atmosphere, this was achieved through the intricate set design and the upbeat signing and dancing. Meaning was the hardest of the four to do. This was because I didn't really know whether to do the overall meaning or pick out small details. I put that the meaning of the performance was that family matters more than anything. After having a chance to look at what others put I added on that the character Willy Wonka gave the meaning of never growing up. He did this by behaving in a sort of childish way eg. walking like the children and only staying interested in things for a short amount of time.

Using movement: 

In this lesson we were told to chose one specific area of the body and create a movement with this area leading. This movement had to convey an emotion we felt at a specific moment while watching a performance. It was important that this movement was not a gesture, as gestures are usually very limited. I chose to base my movement off a moment in the woman in black when the main character goes to open the door. My emotion was fear. My leading body part was my forearm, we created two movements and were then told to choose the one that we liked the best. We then had to add a sound to our movement, I was much more careful and reserved with doing this. My sound was a scream. After watching everyone's we were told to stand in a line and do our pieces at the same time. Finally we were told to put out movements together to create something. It was interesting the way we decided to put each of our movements together and use the sounds. In the end it looked as though we were some sort of machine. I thought this response to a performance worked really well as by the end it wasn't even possible to tell that it was in fact a response to a performance. Our end product could've even been a starting point for another performance.

Acid tests: 

 Creating an acid test is this weeks homework. What we have to do is create a sort of mood board on a performance we have seen. We can do this in many ways, using colour, textures, smells, pictures and words/phrases.

The dog in the night time interview:

Although I haven't actually seen the dog in the night time, I still found the interview quite interesting. It was interesting to see how the actor, director and play write, took their separate ideas to the final performance, and how everything came together. The interview also showed me how all the different roles linked together. For example all three of them use a great deal of imagination, focus and creativeness.

"(I knew I could) combine the forensics of real drama with the liveliness of a gig." Play write
"(I thought) I have no idea how I'm going to do it, but I've got to do it!" Director 
"(because it's) such an emotional journey!" Actor 


 

This week in drama we learnt all about directing and directors notebooks. On Friday a director called Helen Leblique came into school to talk to us about what being a director means and her steps on how to successfully direct. I really found her visit interesting and learnt a lot from it. I think it will help me a lot when I come to do my own directors notebook, I will definitely be looking back at what she said and using her steps.

The steps: 

 Read the play in a quiet place and all in one go: 

  • Focuses your mind on the play without distractions to get the most out of it. 
  • Uses your imagination fully
Make notes on first impressions: 
  • Be honest about what questions you have 
  • What stood out to you? 
  • What is promising about the play? 
  • Create a problems list
  • Design challenges and what works
  • Gut instincts
Research the play: 
  • Sparks ideas
  • Links to other plays and stories 
  • To understand parts of the play 
  • Research the title 
  • Question your research 
  • Research particular characters 
  • Context what time was the play written at/in. (helping the actors connect to their roles)
  • Themes 
  • Author 
  • Other productions eof the same play (no copying)
Think about design:
  • Strong images that stick in your mind
  • Can it be visualized? 
  • Use ideas from the research 
  • It is day time/night time?
  • What kind of play is it? (romantic?)
  • Artists Colours/shapes/objects
  • What stage space?
  • What effect on the audience do you want and how does it benefit the play?
  • How will it work?
Writing a blurb for the play:
  • Focusing your mind on the important parts
  • Tempting your audience 
  • Sense of what it's all about
  • Cliffhanger/interacting with the audience
  • Helping everything become clear to yourself
Scene by scene summary of the play: 
  • Leads to more questions 
  • Give each scene a title 
  • Summarising each scene with one sentence 
  • Helps find your way 
List of scene settings: 
  • Specifics 
  • Timings between each scene 
  • Use a timeline (back story)
  • Current cultural references 
  • Scene by scene 
  • Diagrams of set (lighting and furniture?)
  • If not given
After rehearsals - scene changes: 
  • Ideas for rehearsals 
  • Improv with different characters 
  • Use of objects for improv 
Character Plots: 
  • What character is in what scene
  • Right actor for each character 
  • Clear on characters 
  • Character wants 
  • Facts about character 
  • Super objective 
  • What characters say about other characters
  • impressions 
  • Helps for auditions
"Questioning is a key part of being a director"
"A director is like a detective"
"A director has lots of extra material" 
Pitching a play:
Why produce this play now?
Why am I the best person to produce this play?
Why is the environment the right place?
Who is the audience?

Lighting:

  • Aspects of the set 
  • Night/day 
  • Seasons 
  • Specific characters 
  • Time of day 
  • Indoor/outdoors
  • Specific moments 
A director has to be curious about everything:
  • Lighting
  • Sound 
  • Set 
  • Broaden your mind 
  • Dance 
  • Space 
  • Music 
Directors and theatre practices (for exercises and games): 
  • Told by an idiot 
  • Complicity 
  • Comedia del Arte 
  • Boal 
  • Michael Boyd 
  • Nancy Meckler 
  • Anthony Neilson 
  • Polly Tiel 
We ended the session by playing a game where each person was given a role in the script 'The outside' and as they read their lines they had to pick someone and touch their shoulder and say their line directly to that person. It made me realise that it's very important to know who you're talking to and what each line actually means. By getting it wrong it made me understand who I was meant to say it to. 



 
 
Remember Helen Leblique from the Royal Shakespeare Company that I said I worked with in TAPS? She came to our school to talk us through how she approaches the directors notebook as she is a trained professional director. We got to learn some amazing tips and look at actual directing notebooks that she has worked from in the past so we got an idea of what we should include in our directors notebook when we get to it.

1. Read the play through in a quiet place away from distractions
When reading through the play you should make notes on your first impressions. You should always questions things too such as 
  • why has the author written the play?
  • what's the purpose?
  • why does a character do and say certain things
  • what is promising about the play
  • what is dangerous about the play
2. Research 
Research is key as it is where ideas will start flowing. The things you should research are;
  • parts of the play you don't understand
  • other productions of the same play which have been produced - never steal ideas though, the whole point of researching is that you create your own ideas
  • the title - why was it chosen? what does it mean? 
  • the author - their past experiences, their humour
  • locations in the play - do they have any cultural references?
  • characters - what their names mean, their history before the play
  • the context of the play - time it was written, time of period in which it is set
  • images relating to any aspect of the script
3. The Design
Your design will be based around many aspects of the script.
  • what type of play is it? - a comedy, romantic, thriller 
  • is it day or night?
  • do any artists or paintings relate to parts of the script? - objects, colours, symbols
  • are there any specific moments in the play which will need to be emphasised? how will you do this? - lighting?
You need to think about how you are going to stage your play also.
  • pros arch
  • thrust
  • in the round
  • traverse 
  • Site specific 
Your choice of stage is crucial. In the thrust, in the round and traverse stages, people in the audience can see other members of the audience and their reactions which gives a more intimate feeling and sense of community which means the audience feel more engaged. 
4. You will be left with so many ideas so you need to narrow them down and pick out your favourite ideas. Don't chuck away the other research and ideas you had though as you may need them if you come to direct another performance. You may also want to come back to some ideas.

5. Think about your pitch
  • why do you want to produce this play now?
  • why am i the best person to direct this play?
  • what do i want the audience to take away from the performance?
  • who is the audience?
  • why is the environment a good place to stage the play?
6. Think about the blurb
The blurb is used for marketing and also allows you to think of how to tie everything together and see if the storyline makes sense. The blurb does many other things;
  • gives a sense of what the performance is about in around two sentences.
  • makes your performance seem tempting
  • helps you have clarity
  • ending the blurb on a question/cliffhanger will allow you to leave the reader thinking about what will happen in the performance. It will persuade them to watch it.
7. Write a scene by scene summary of the play
By writing out a scene summary it will raise questions which will ultimately lead to further research. 
  • give each scene a title
  • make a list of the scene settings
  • know the timings (morning, night). a timeline will help with this
  • scene sketch of set with lighting and furniture
8. Work on the scene changes
  • lighting
  • will any furniture move?
  • will there be sound?
  • what will the entrances and exits be like?
9. Create a character plot to know which characters on which scene

10. Think about character information
  • facts
  • what other characters say about them
  • impressions
  • what they want overall in each scene and in the overall play
11. Create ideas for rehearsals 
  • what are the back stories of each character? has that influenced what their motives are in the performance? 
  • have any events happened off-stage? does this effect a characters mood or appearance when they re-enter? 
These are the types of things you can play around with in rehearsals.

12. Analyse if you believe your characters doing certain things or being in certain places. Is it believable? If not why? Change it! If you're stuck look up theatre practitioners and go back to theory.


We then did a game with Helen in which we read a script but the person reading had to go to another character, touch them on the shoulder and speak directly to them. This activity helped understand who a character should be speaking to. 
Fourni par Blogger.