Last week of term and our piece: 
So the last week of term came around really fast, and on the last lesson on the Friday we prepared to perform our piece to 4 random audience members.
Mr. Fearnehough did explain to our audience that this was a work in progress and it still had a lot of work doing to it before it would be completely ready for perform. So I thought that our piece was a success in total. Our Frantic Assembly scene was by far our best scene because we had spent the most time working on it because it required lifts and other moves that could be dangerous if not done properly.
I feel that if we used more of our time to focus on scene transitions and how we were going to incorporate the effects into our piece then it may have run smoother than the final product did.
For my personal section of this task, that being the lighting and projection. I feel this part was partly successful, but also did not accomplish what I originally intended it to do.
My use of the follow spot light I feel went well, we were able to use it well in our Frantic Assembly piece. The blue light added to the overall effect that this created and I thought it was successful from both a design and directorial point of view.

Some audience comments about how the piece went:

I believe the piece was intended to shock the audience and possibly scare or even alienate them.

The group did manage to convey this successfully by changes in sound and tension state. It thought it worked but could have been more exaggerated

The costume was black, so there wasn't much of an impact (which I thought of as a good thing as it allowed me to focus on the acting more) The masks made me feel uncomfortable and added to the general atmosphere of nightmares

If the piece was supposed to be about nightmares, including me really made me feel part of the nightmare. It felt more real being included.

As you can see from these audience comments, our piece did set out to do some of the things that we had intended for it to do. The fact that the piece was intended to shock the audience was portrayed well, and it even came across as though it was to alienate the audience which was good feedback to hear.
Also as explained above they say that including them in the nightmare made it feel more real. This was a major part of what we were trying to achieve so I am glad that we managed to do that.

A servant and two masters - Directors Notebook.

A brief summary on what the play is about would go along the lines of it being about a servant who deceives his TWO masters into thinking that he is being loyal to only one of them.

My initial thoughts on reading this play was that it took me quite a while to get the plot. I had finally figured out everything that was going on by about the start of Act 2. One thing that took me a while to figure out were the different characters. One character that I didn't seem to like was Truffaldino, he seemed to be a tricky and quite devious character that almost made it seem like they wanted you to hate him.

Main characters that are involved in the play:

• Smeraldina
• Beatrice
• Brighella
• Silvio
• Truffaldino
• Clarice 
• Florindo 
• Dr Lombardi 
• Pantaloon

• Silvio
• Dr Lombardi 
• Pantaloon

Our performance: 

We finally had a chance to perform our performance to an audience. Despite not having practiced for a long time, I think it went surprisingly okay. We did miss certain key lines and parts such as, the closing and opening of doors on the train, the falling asleep on the train and saying "who am I?" In Emmas nightmare, however for a first draft I didn't think we did all that badly. After asking the audience what they thought about the piece they said that they enjoyed the piece however they didn't really get the storyline. I think this was the case because we missed out the falling asleep part. We also needed to work on cues a lot more because in lots of parts there were just awkward silences where we didn't know what to say. However I think the Frantic assembly part went well and the building of the plane in the second nightmare. A few of the audience members said that the plane nightmare was their favourite part. I thought actually performing to an audience was extremely different to just practising without an audience as a lot of our piece has audience involvement. By actually performing the piece we now have a better idea of what we need to improve/work on.



Initial reactions to the play:

I found the play really interesting to read as it wasn't predictable like lots of plays. When I first started reading it I had no idea that Beatrice and Florindo were 'innamorati' so it was interesting to see how their relationship developed as the play continued. I really didn't like Truffaldino as a character as I felt that there was no story behind wanting to mess with Beatrice and Florindo. I get that he was based off the Comedia Dell Arte stock character Arlecchino who is the servant who likes tricking people, but in this play I really didn't like his character, and didn't find him all that funny. However although I didn't like Truffaldino, I did quite like the story with him and Brighella and how that caused him to have to tell his masters the truth.

Analysis: 

A Servent to two masters is the story of a man who decieves his masters into thinking that he is only serving one of them, he uses this power to meddle in their lives and cause trouble not only for them but for another couple as well. In the end he is found out, however it is unclear what exactly happens to him.

A servant to two masters is about deception and how it can effect the lives of others and your own.

The characters: 

• Clarice 
• Florindo 
• Dr Lombardi 
• Pantaloon
• Smeraldina
• Beatrice
• Brighella
• Silvio
• Truffaldino

The locations: 

• Pantaloons house
• Brighellas Inn 
• Outside Brighellas inn

This week we started off by going through the mark schemes for our upcoming research presentations. This was really useful because I was able to see places where my presentation needed to be improved, this included adding more emphasis on reflection and the context of the tradition itself.
Below are the 4 mark schemes we looked at:

• She said she likes to start with a visual image to help her creative process. 
• She tries to arrange things on stage that she thinks look pleasing to her

Tuesday:

On Tuesday we spent some time going through the mark scheme for our presentations and we realised that we hadn't put in lots of things that we should have. I'm really glad that we took the time to go through the markscheme as it helped me to understand what things I needed to add to my presentation in order to get a better mark. It will also help me in the future when I come to do my real assessed presentation.

In the lesson we were also told to create a pie chart to show how much time we thought we had spent on each part of the presentation. I thought I had spent the most time on the research part and the least time on the actual practical part. Although I had researched a lot on the practical I hadn't actually spent that much time practising doing it. Mostly because I didn't really know how to as my convention was pretty normal.

For my presentation I chose to do English pantomime however now I wish I had chosen a different theatre practice because I feel that the convention I chose is not easy to analyse as there isn't much to it. It's too late now to change it but at least I know for the future to always do some research before settling on my final decision. The convention I chose was the lead male character who is usually a female actress. It was almost impossible to find examples as now a days this convention doesn't really happen as much.

Thursday:

On Thursday we spent the lesson starting to think about directors notebooks and thinking back on what Helen had taught us about being a director. We watched two youtube videos one by Elizabeth Le Compte the director of the Wooster group and one by Peter Brook. While watching these videos we had to answer the questions How do people approach the role of director? & What processes do directors go through?
Elizabeth Le Compte: 

• Arranges space and listens to the way in which people speak within these different spaces
• Starts with a visual image (this can be one in her head or on paper) to help her create
• She is always thinking about her other productions. Her previous productions influence and inspire her current productions. 

Peter Brook: 

• Is inspired by his travels and by different cultures and people. 
• He believes that props are not needed, just the skill of the actor 
• Usually has his actors playing instruments and singing, they can do many things. 
• He takes real life stories 
• He believes that he is always first a traveller and second a director 
• opposite of commercial theatre
• He was largely influenced by Shakespeare, by using simplicity and just the skill of the actor.    

Friday:

On Friday we continued to look at Directors notebooks. We were given a sheet of paper which had the 9 most important ways to become a director on it. We were asked to chose the one we thought was most important and why. I chose to 'work as an assistant', I think this would be most important to me as I learn the most from doing. Also I would learn a lot from being totally immersed in the job. I might also be inspired by the director I would be working with. We were also asked to come up with our own most important director ways, my one was to write down all ideas, no matter how stupid or bad they may seem.

 

My new drama blog w/ presentation http://myibdramaexperience.blogspot.fr/2014/12/research-presentation.html

Trust me to go straight for the most colourful and dance like theatre! I was immediately drawn to Khon as I've seen it hundreds of times in 'The King and I' one of my favourite musicals of all time! I've found it so beautiful but never known what it is. So I have decided to use this as my research presentation.

For the past couple of days I've been looking at the history of this dance drama and watching videos on YouTube.

History:

Conventions:

A short history: 


Pantomime was first performed in England as short acts between Opera pieces. These were later turned into full performances as they were so successful, they were considered as a form of opera. It is believed that The Lincoln's Inn Field Theatre and the Drury Lane Theatre were the first to stage something like real pantomimes. The first ever real pantomime was performed in the Drury Lane Theatre and was called 'Harlequin Doctor Faustus'

What is pantomime? 

Pantomime is a musical comedy production performed on stage. It was desiged for family entertainment. Modern pantomime includes songs, slapstick comedy and dancing, employs gender-crossing actors, and combines topical humour with a story loosely based on a well-known fairy tale. Pantomime includes a lot of audience involvement, including shouting out 'boo', 'hiss' and 'he's behind you!' Sing alongs are also frequent. It took inspiration from the theatre convention Comedia dell arte.

Conventions: 

The principal boy The male juvenile lead - for example Aladdin or Cinderella's Prince Charming. He's always played by a young woman (lately, usually a television celebrity) in a tight costume.

The Panto Dame Almost always played by a man in drag, the panto dame is a comic, and camp, female character. She's usually an older woman but in Cinderella, not only the step mother but also the Ugly Sisters are panto dames. In Aladdin (at more than 200 years old, one of Britain's oldest panto stories) it's Aladdin's mother, a poor laundress known as The Widow Twankey. Popular comedians and occasional famous leading actors with a sense of fun often do a winter turn as a panto dame.

A side kick or "chorus" figure: There is always a secondary character on stage who speaks to the audience, encouraging them to shout and clap or comically commenting on the action. In Cinderella that character is Buttons, her father's (Baron Hardup) servant and her friend. In Aladdin it is Wishee Washee, the hero's brother.

A comedy animal: Most pantos feature a comic animal played by two actors in one costume. In Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack's cow is a Panto cow. If the plot of a story doesn't have a place for an animal, you can be sure that the panto writers will shoehorn one in.

Lots of audience participation: When you go to a panto in Britain, you can't help but be drawn in to the traditional shouting and carrying on. Villains are hissed, misfortunes are bemoaned and several key lines - "Oh yes it is!" - "Oh no it isn't!" and "He's behind you!" are shouted out by one and all at the appropriate moments.

Contemporary references and bawdy jokes: Pantos are family shows but there is usually enough innuendo of the nudge-nudge wink-wink variety to keep the grownups happy.

A transformation scene: Most pantos have a moment when the set designers bring out their most magical special effects - twinkly lights, disappearing characters, clouds of smoke. Every story has its traditional transformation scene - Cinderella's emergence in her ball gown with her coach and footmen, Aladdin's discovery of the genii in the cave of jewels.

During this activity we had to take the IB learner profile words and rank them in a diamond. The most used and important in drama at the top and the least important and least used at the bottom. The one I decided to put at the top was Communicators because I feel that drama is about working with others, sharing and contributing ideas. At the very bottom I put Balanced, I do believe that that being balanced is important however I don't think that It's too important in drama. However Being balanced with time is important in drama. Making sure that you have enough time to finish a project.

The Final week: 

In the final week we spent most of the time finalising our piece and putting up black paper to black out the hall. We also spent time organising costume, makeup, sound and lighting. We spent a lot of time working on how we were going to do lighting. We got all the lights set up in the hall, dry ice machines and the strobe lighting. In the end we decided not to use the dry ice machine as it didn't really fit in with our piece.

In our last lesson we talked about the holiday homework, which was to research one type of unfamiliar theatrical tradition and present it to the class. This is in preparation for next year when we will be examined on another presentation.

Imitate - to make a copy of, or to reproduce closely.
Influence - Something that produces effects on actions, behaviour and opinions. From something/someone on something/someone else.
Inspire -  To produce a thought or feeling about something.

In class we talked about how each of these words would be used in drama. We spent a long time talking about what the differences are between influence and inspire in the end we came up with the idea that if  the two were on a scale Influence would be near the end whereas inspire would be near the middle.

Reflecting on the whole term: 

I can't believe that a whole year has gone by and that I'm already half way through my first year of IB. So far I have really enjoyed IB drama although some parts have been a challenge I feel like I have really come far from when I first started at the beginning of this term. I feel like I have definitely stepped out of my comfort zone more this term and become more confident in my acting.

Going to London to do TAPS was challenging at first because I knew I would be expected to act in front of people I had never met before, however the whole experience was amazing and definitely made me more confident acting and speaking in front of people. If I had the chance I would definitely do it all again.  

The piece that we have currently been working on has given me a better understanding of many things such as soundscapes, total theatre and different theatre conventions. Our piece has been influenced by punch drunk and Frantic Assembly we also took inspiration from the practitioner Antonin Artaud.

Over the past term I think I have made the most progress with confidence. I have also learnt a lot more about different theatre practices and practitioners that I previously didn't know about. This term has also taught me about the many different aspects of theatre and how it isn't all just about acting, it has especially taught me about taking on the role of director (mainly from the director Helen Leblique who came in to talk to us about directors notebooks).

This week we all worked on blacking out the drama studio in preparation for our newest drama piece. Then me and Emma worked on getting the sounds sorted for my nightmare (the flying lesson one) We worked on getting the dialogue sorted and recorded with all the right vocabulary and so on. 
Whilst we were getting on with this, Chloe and Meera worked on getting the cardboard plane made, here is their semi-finished plane: 

Tuesday 8th December 2014

In this double lesson, Harry and I recorded some sounds and voice recordings for manly Harrys piece. This, as technical stuff usually does, took around 25mins to just get the microphone to work properly! Everything took a lot longer than I thought. I then went to mix all the recordings together but the files were not working with the program. I decided to try at home, and again- nothings working, I am looking for different sound mixing website e.g audacity and mixxx but nothing is working together for example our school laptops are Microsoft (windows 8) and I have a mac at home so the two softwares don't compute with each other. This is extremely frustrating and Im getting pretty nervous as we are doing a full rehearsal soon and I just can't get it too work.      

Chloe and Meera created the 3D plane for Harrys piece:


We also started blacking out the room.

Thursday 11th December 2014:

This hour we spent figuring out the lights, how they worked and what they could do. We then incorporated these different settings into which piece it would fit with most, we tried out our Frantic piece with a blue background:


I would have liked it better if it wasn't a circle but these are the only lights we have available. The strobe lights worked much better with this piece as it looked very fragmented and broken, much like nightmares are like.

Friday 12th December 2014:

Meera brought in her face paint and we tried out things like scratches, bullet wounds (?chloe?) and blood stains that we are going to paint on our audience faces:

9th December 2014
Today me and Meera worked on the set design (creating a plane) while Harry and Emma worked on the sound.
Me and Meera decided to create a plane out of cardboard and to give it a 3D effect so it will surround the audience and make them feel enclosed when they're sitting on the floor and the actors assemble the plane during the performance.
Creating the plane was tricky as the cardboard was hard to shape and stay upright. However, we decided that it didn't have to be perfect as the whole idea of Artauds performances were to reveal what wasn't perfect.




This photo shows the plane when we'd just began making it. The audience will be placed in the middle.









11th December 2014
Today we worked with the lighting and colours. We decided for our Frantic piece we should have blue lighting to symbolise the water that the plane falls into. By having the lighting as a circle it allows us only to appear in the light at certain moments. This could symbolise the flashes that people would see as the plane is crashing. Below is a video demonstrating what we did.

In our double lesson me and Chloe used the time to create a plane made out of cardboard for Harry's nightmare while Emma and Harry worked on getting the sound recorded. We had already decided that we wanted the plane to be something that enclosed the audience to make them feel slightly claustrophobic, it also needed to be easy to move around. We started by using big pieces of cardboard to create wings and a tail. However the cardboard was hard to use as it was too heavy and didn't do the things we wanted it to. In the end we managed to make it work. We also decided to change the wings from being 2D to being 3D as we felt that it would be more enclosed that way. In the end we decided that it didn't need to be perfect as the idea of it not being perfect fitted more with Artauds style.

On Thursday we all worked on lighting and blacking out the windows so that the room would be darker. We played around with coloured lighting and talked about making certain parts in the piece different colours to create different atmospheres, eg. Having the red light flash on and off when the plane is going down in Harry's nightmare and having a blue light in Chloe's change to red to reflect the change in atmosphere. We also ran through out Frantic assembly with the blue light on, however in the real piece I think we're using strobe lights.

On Friday we continued blacking out the hall and working on our separate jobs. I brought in some face paint to practice doing the face paint in Chloe's dream. It was harder than I expected, however with some practice I think It will be okay. It was good to actually try it out in person.

This week we started by some of the group leading a drama warm up exercise, the ones we did were: 

1. Messages (very relaxing) 
2. Emma's really tiring dance thing ("hip, shoulder, air, clap, shoulder, hip, thigh, clap") having to do this on the spot as well as jumping back and forth. 
3. Pushing back to back with out partner, then going up and down so both of us sat on the floor and then back up again. 

I have chosen the role of sound design in my group and over this past week I have been putting sounds together.
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/video/designing-sound-for-theatre
this

Meeras Dark Corridor  

We started the lesson by doing some warm ups that were taught by other people in our class. We started by the massage warm up which we had done previously. We also did:

• Pushing backwards together and moving up and down without falling (I taught this) - I thought this warm up game made me focus and also acted as a trust exercise. 
• "hip, shoulder, air, clap, shoulder, hip, thigh, clap" game, we had to jump up and down while doing these actions. It was really complicated and definitely needed a lot of focus.

We then went on to develop the final nightmare (Chloe's nightmare), we settled on the idea of having everyone take an audience member and sit around the pool separately with their audience member. We then decided that to involve the audience member we would talk to them, but not expect a reply, we came up with 4 different types of conversation and spent the rest of the lesson practising them. They were: 

1. General conversation 
2. Anger 
3. Seduction 
4. Confession (I suggested this) 

I found doing the Anger and seduction ones the hardest as I just couldn't think of anything to say, I also found it hard to not get distracted by the others who were talking. I found this much easier to do when there was no one in front of me, although I will probably have to work on this because in the real performance there will be someone there. I found the easiest to do was the babbling on general conversation because it didn't involve any thought and I could just say anything and it would be fine.  

At the very end of the lesson we decided to make the audience members into the corpses by using makeup and maybe costume. We also decided to lie them down on the blue sheet and wrap them up in it, this also created the musky smell as the blue sheet smelt musky. By including the musky smell we are also working on our piece as being total theatre.    

On Thursday and Friday we took the time to work on our separate elements of the piece, mine is costume and make-up. I started looking up ideas for the corpses makeup in chloes scene. Some ideas I came up with were: 



Obviously we would only focus on the actual wound areas and not anything else. We would also need to make them slightly more simple, but I like the fact that they are all slightly different. For costume I decided that I wanted a clear difference between being in the train (naturalistic) and being in the dream. I decided to have 4 clear different characters on the train. These were: 

• The schoolgirl/boy listening to music - headphones  and phone/ipod 
• The housewife - lots of shopping bags 
• The businessman - briefcase and tie
• Sports person - sweatband and tennis racket

I wanted to have costumes that were easily changeable, but really fitted with each separate character. After discussing this with the group we also decided that when moving from the train to the dream we would give the costume/props to the audience, this would enforce the idea of specactor and give them the idea that these nightmares could happen to anybody. 

For the actual dreams I wanted to keep the costume plain and simple. White T-shirts and black leggings/trousers. This would also fit really well with the idea that in a nightmare you usually don't know who you are with or that no one is actually real. Wearing white also means that it's possible to have projections on us.    

We started todays sessions with three warm ups;

This week we started to develop our Artaud piece. We started by using nightmares that we had each experienced and then transferring them into a piece of theatre. 

The four nightmares we had were: 

1. Emma's - She is in a plane with her family when the plane drops and all the windows freeze and the plane crashes into the sea, then she swims to an island where her mother can't remember who she is. 
2. Meera's - she is in a long narrow corridor with an endless amount of doors, she senses there is someone chasing her but is not quite sure who it is and then she falls down a black hole and then wakes up. 
3. Chloe's - she is with her friends watching a football match then ends up near a swimming pool where everything goes black and then she only sees the colour red of ambulances and paramedics. Then it goes silent and bodies are carted out of a house. 
4. Mine - Having a flying lesson at night, you can see the lights of the city. Suddenly the plane fails and all the city lights go out, then you see flashes of light and the ground gets ever closer. Then wake up. 

• Imbalance 
• Stress
• Socialized Self 
• No emotions 
• Family life being overpowering 
• Fantasies 
• Things becoming to too much to handle 
• Things piling up on top of you 
• Above Reality 
• City life 
• Misery 
• Raising a child 

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.

• 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. 

25/11/14