When you start working on a performance, you can never quite know how it is going to turn out when you actually perform your piece for the first time to an audience. You get a song from the 80's presented in front of you and you end up putting jhhon a show about an abusive man born in the nineteenth century. This all happened trough hours of planning and throwing ideas back and forward. What ever happened, I have to say that I am pleased with what we came up with, but now that the work has been done and the rush of performing is fading, it is time to look back on our piece and see, what worked and what didn't? And more importantly, how did we end up with these decisions?
Our show told the story of the Master of Hillway Manor. We start of with three servants welcoming the audience to the show and the manor, only to be interrupted by the dreaded Master. After this we dive into the life of the Master, first showing his abusive present self, but then quickly giving more insight about his childhood, showing his parents arguing with violent outcomes, and then going into the Masters young adulthood with him being confronted by his Fiancée about him changing into a man like his abusive father. Then we go back to present, and in the end we leave the audience to think, was it his fault to become like this, or was it the world and the Masters surroundings that moulded him?
Obviously there was quite a lot of story going on in a short amount of time, but I feel we as a group were able to portray the emotions and characters an a clear way, being able to not confuse the audience. The story worked because of these clear characters. One of our biggest strengths was definitely the fact that we were all juggling more than one character and change from character to another with simply changing how we held ourselves. Going through the scenes and practising these changes over and over again really helped with the transitions, but I feel that one of the exercises done in class especially gave us assistance with this. In the exercise you start waling in neutral and, like putting on clothes, piece by piece you start adding more character in your way of holding yourself and how you move. With me, playing the characters of a new Ditsy Servant and the dominative Father, I was able to differentiate my characters from each other by doing this exercise, and so know what each character of mine would do with their bodies.
Originally, our piece was going to include a lot more about the characters surrounding the Master, like the stories of the three maids. So, we as group, had a lot of discussions about our characters, creating them back stories and detailed personalities, that the audience didn't end up seeing. This still helped us to relate to each character and really bring them alive on stage. Even though we didn't get to include the back stories of other characters than the Master, this process really gave us the chance to develop strong emotions amongst the story, which was also a part our group got some good feedback about. There was a variation of emotions, main theme being some kind of desperation, anger and denial. We were able to balance out these strong aggressive emotions with some moments of silence during the show. Especially with the ending with the Master been left alone on stage, lights slowly fading to darkness.
But as in any performance, everything did not go perfectly and there were things that might not have worked. Many of the things that did not work in our scene were to do with our bad time management. We started working on our scene with talking a lot and writing things down. We had so many ideas about what we wanted the show to be about, feminism, discrimination, conformity, equality, and the list goes on. It took us too long to actually realize that perhaps we should pick one idea and stick with it. This enabled us to come up with clear theme in the end, but since it took us so log to get to it, we didn't have the time to start developing any of the other characters around the Master enough to show more than one side of them. Rather they stayed as charicatures like the Ditsy Maid, Mother,Father, Obedient Servant and the Fiancee. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing, since it does bring more attention to the main character, but I personally think we could have developed the story even further by showing the Masters relationship with his mother, for example. There could have been so much more in the story even bringing up a new, more loving side of the Master. We would have even had the room to show more, but we ran out of time to start creating new scenes within the piece. We would have rather put on a simple yet clear show with a strong message, than tried to make it more complex, with losing the clarity and maybe even drifting away from what we wanted to say with our performance.
Another thing that didn't work out troughfully with our piece was the blocking, and mainly the positioning of the characters troughout the performance. A lot of our scenes consisted us being in a line or otherwise just not using the stage to its full potential. We found ourselves drifting downstage in way too many parts, when there could have been more creative ways to use the space. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but this probably was also because of the fact that we did not use our time efficiently enough during our rehearsals. When we should have been up on our feet trying out different ideas and doing more improvising with the scene, what we did was focusing on the characters and their emotions.
If I could go back and change something about the show, I would like to add more dialogue between the characters. It would had been interesting to see more of how the Master actually becomes the man he is, showing his struggle trying not to become his father. It would have also been nice to see more of his relationships with the other characters. Re-thinking the blocking, having more fun with it and giving some interesting layers to the story, I would have on the top of my list as well. Still, I feel good about the show over all, since I can see all the hard work we put into it, despite some things that might not have worked.
Thursday, 17 October 2013
Friday, 11 October 2013
Today, we were divided into groups, different from the ones we had been working with on our scenes, and we were all given a devising form to fill in. Our job was to ask the other members in our new groups(all from different scenes) what worked and didn't work and then think about these comments on ourselves.
What worked and why?
The comments that I got for what worked in our scene was our clear voices and projection, good emotions and portrayal of different characters. All of us in the scene were easily heard and clear with what we said, even though for example I had difficulties with my accent. Still, by working on the clarity and annunciation really made up for what I lacked with accent. We were also able to switch quickly between different characters, like when me and Sophie switch from servants to the mother and father of Max's character, which we did on stage without going on and off stage.
What happened in devising/rehearsals to make this happen?
I feel that one of the main reasons why we were able to create such strong and believable emotions, was because we talked a lot about the characters and their back stories before we started to devise the actually scenes. Even though we should have done more improvisation right from the start, and just get on our feet and start doing, we spent an amazingly long time just planning things and talking about the characters. This way, when we did start to properly devise our scenes, even if the main idea had changed some bit, we still had those characters and their stories in our minds, helping us to create those emotions, even if we only had a brief time to express them. What made the scenes clearer and our lines better to understand, was simply going trough the scene over and over again, until we knew all the lines by heart and how we were supposed to say them.
What didn't work and why?
One major feedback that I got, was that people wanted to see more dialogue and know the characters better. This is very true, since our scene ended up to be quite short, we weren't able to develop many of the characters further, and even our main character could have had more sides to himself.
What could you have done in devising/rehearsals to improve this?
We should have stated a clear main point we wanted to make with our scene. Sure, going trough tens of ideas is good, but since we didn't really even have the core of the show, the message we wanted to tell to the audience, we wasted a lot of time on throwing out ideas back and forward, without knowing what to do with them. And in the end, when we finally decided what to do with our scene, we felt that we had too little time to go into too much depth with the characters, since we were afraid that the storm of ideas would start all over again.
What changes could you make to improve the show?
I would have rehearsed more and really looked at the details more closely. We had some little problems during the show, like in the beginning when us girls are supposed to be on a straight even line, the line needed up being everything else but even. I would have wanted to pay more attention in those kind of things to really make an impression with our piece. I would have also loved to further develop Max's character a bit more, maybe added another section about his relationship with his mother or something to show that he isn't all bad.
What worked and why?
The comments that I got for what worked in our scene was our clear voices and projection, good emotions and portrayal of different characters. All of us in the scene were easily heard and clear with what we said, even though for example I had difficulties with my accent. Still, by working on the clarity and annunciation really made up for what I lacked with accent. We were also able to switch quickly between different characters, like when me and Sophie switch from servants to the mother and father of Max's character, which we did on stage without going on and off stage.
What happened in devising/rehearsals to make this happen?
I feel that one of the main reasons why we were able to create such strong and believable emotions, was because we talked a lot about the characters and their back stories before we started to devise the actually scenes. Even though we should have done more improvisation right from the start, and just get on our feet and start doing, we spent an amazingly long time just planning things and talking about the characters. This way, when we did start to properly devise our scenes, even if the main idea had changed some bit, we still had those characters and their stories in our minds, helping us to create those emotions, even if we only had a brief time to express them. What made the scenes clearer and our lines better to understand, was simply going trough the scene over and over again, until we knew all the lines by heart and how we were supposed to say them.
What didn't work and why?
One major feedback that I got, was that people wanted to see more dialogue and know the characters better. This is very true, since our scene ended up to be quite short, we weren't able to develop many of the characters further, and even our main character could have had more sides to himself.
What could you have done in devising/rehearsals to improve this?
We should have stated a clear main point we wanted to make with our scene. Sure, going trough tens of ideas is good, but since we didn't really even have the core of the show, the message we wanted to tell to the audience, we wasted a lot of time on throwing out ideas back and forward, without knowing what to do with them. And in the end, when we finally decided what to do with our scene, we felt that we had too little time to go into too much depth with the characters, since we were afraid that the storm of ideas would start all over again.
What changes could you make to improve the show?
I would have rehearsed more and really looked at the details more closely. We had some little problems during the show, like in the beginning when us girls are supposed to be on a straight even line, the line needed up being everything else but even. I would have wanted to pay more attention in those kind of things to really make an impression with our piece. I would have also loved to further develop Max's character a bit more, maybe added another section about his relationship with his mother or something to show that he isn't all bad.
Tuesday, 8 October 2013
Reflect what it means to be professional - in tech rehearsals.
In Finnish culture, discipline and respect are very important factor at work and school, and we are thought that ever since we are little. This is also how I see being professional, having the self-control to forget about your life outside of work and respect for others to do your work properly without distracting others, or yourself for that matter. I have found this to be very important especially in technical rehearsals, since it is very much just getting trough the scenes and getting the cues just right for the upcoming show. It is very important not to fool around, since it isn't about you or the other actors during these rehearsals, but the tech crew who are there to manage one of the biggest and most important part of the show. Especially in a show like ours, where there are seven separate plays with their separate cues. That can get quite complicated and annoying for the tech crew, if someone is not doing their job with respect.
In Finnish culture, discipline and respect are very important factor at work and school, and we are thought that ever since we are little. This is also how I see being professional, having the self-control to forget about your life outside of work and respect for others to do your work properly without distracting others, or yourself for that matter. I have found this to be very important especially in technical rehearsals, since it is very much just getting trough the scenes and getting the cues just right for the upcoming show. It is very important not to fool around, since it isn't about you or the other actors during these rehearsals, but the tech crew who are there to manage one of the biggest and most important part of the show. Especially in a show like ours, where there are seven separate plays with their separate cues. That can get quite complicated and annoying for the tech crew, if someone is not doing their job with respect.
Monday, 7 October 2013
RESEARCH
When we started with our research, our original idea was to do something surrounding the industrial revolution, women's suffrage and women's rights. So, I went on and researched these things and these were my notes:
Industrial Revolution
- Economic necessity, growing economy
- need for more money
- women, single or married, and children to work
- families dependent
- mostly domestic service, textile factories, coal mines and piece workshops
- Women majority of factory labour force
- Provided independent wages, mobility and better standard of living, but mostly a life of hardship
- Working conditions unsanitary and dangerous
- Education suffered
- Women had the double burden of factory work followed by home chores and childcare.
- Men had supervisory roles and higher wages
Historians disagree if industrial revolution was beneficial for women.
Women's Suffrage
- National movement that began in 1872
- Outbreak of the WW1 led to halting
- 1918 the Representation of the People Act was passed
- Women over 30 could vote
- Women had the franchise in local government school boards and health authorities from the late 19th century
- Womens rights became increasingly prominent in the 1850's
- women wanted to own property
Referred to as a sex war between men and women.
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Sources I used and more interesting links!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGEMscZE5dY&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtMwmepBjTSG593eG7ObzO7s&index=33 (more about USA's suffrage, but I still found it very interesting)
What did you do today?
We started the day of by going trough the feedback we had been given last Friday. We decided that we needed the rehearse the hitting(a.k.a. repeated) scene, and really think about what our blocking will be. The problem before was that me and Max were behind Jenny, when the most important part of that scene happens, Max hitting me. So, we first went ahead and tried out doing it so that when Sophie enters the stage, after Jenny and Max getting to their positions, and goes to Jenny across the stage. We first thought that Sophie might have staid there for the whole scene, but then realized that that way, the whole stage is unbalanced and Sophie getting to her mother character on the other side of the stage, would have been an awkward transition. So then we tried out Sophie first going to Jenny, but then getting to her old position on the stage left. Still, Sophie running around stage without better purpose seemed distracting, and so we changed it again. We finally agreed on a positioning, where Sophie and Jenny are on either side of the stage and mine and Max's actions are more centred, and so more visible to the audience. Once this was sorted, our group continued to run trough the play. Jenny also suggested that in the very first scene, the introduction, we should stand by these three lines going across the floor, to even out our distances from each other. This was a very good idea, since now we had certain spot to stand on. After all this was sorted we ran trough the play over and over.
We started the day of by going trough the feedback we had been given last Friday. We decided that we needed the rehearse the hitting(a.k.a. repeated) scene, and really think about what our blocking will be. The problem before was that me and Max were behind Jenny, when the most important part of that scene happens, Max hitting me. So, we first went ahead and tried out doing it so that when Sophie enters the stage, after Jenny and Max getting to their positions, and goes to Jenny across the stage. We first thought that Sophie might have staid there for the whole scene, but then realized that that way, the whole stage is unbalanced and Sophie getting to her mother character on the other side of the stage, would have been an awkward transition. So then we tried out Sophie first going to Jenny, but then getting to her old position on the stage left. Still, Sophie running around stage without better purpose seemed distracting, and so we changed it again. We finally agreed on a positioning, where Sophie and Jenny are on either side of the stage and mine and Max's actions are more centred, and so more visible to the audience. Once this was sorted, our group continued to run trough the play. Jenny also suggested that in the very first scene, the introduction, we should stand by these three lines going across the floor, to even out our distances from each other. This was a very good idea, since now we had certain spot to stand on. After all this was sorted we ran trough the play over and over.
Friday, 4 October 2013
1. What was your group's feedback?
Over all the feedback we received was quite positive, and most of things people said were things that we had either thought about ourselves or little things, that still will make a big difference in the show.
- We had a lot of shouting in our performance, and one of the things we were told was to think about if it was necessary in all of the parts. Also, annunciation whilst shouting is something we need to focus more on.
- In the scene where Max's character hits the servant, we need to make the actually hit more centred, since now it was hidden behind Sophie and Jenny, who are secondary in that particular part.
- Right at the beginning where me, Sophie and Jenny have our little introduction, we need to be standing in equal distances from each other and be more centred, since now Sophie was too close to me.
- We had good characters, which were easy to tell apart from each other, even though there is no props or costumes to separate each character from each other. Simply changing the way you stand and hold yourself helped us to present different characters more clearly.
Over all the feedback we received was quite positive, and most of things people said were things that we had either thought about ourselves or little things, that still will make a big difference in the show.
- We had a lot of shouting in our performance, and one of the things we were told was to think about if it was necessary in all of the parts. Also, annunciation whilst shouting is something we need to focus more on.
- In the scene where Max's character hits the servant, we need to make the actually hit more centred, since now it was hidden behind Sophie and Jenny, who are secondary in that particular part.
- Right at the beginning where me, Sophie and Jenny have our little introduction, we need to be standing in equal distances from each other and be more centred, since now Sophie was too close to me.
- We had good characters, which were easy to tell apart from each other, even though there is no props or costumes to separate each character from each other. Simply changing the way you stand and hold yourself helped us to present different characters more clearly.
2. What do you want to work on on Monday?
We need to sort out the positioning in a lot of our scenes, especially the repeated scene, by going trough the scene together and really discussing, how can the main thing in the scene be seen and still look good to the audience. In the repeated scene, Sophie and Jenny could be on the sides, right from the beginning, and all what happens between my and Max's characters could so be more centred and the so the action more visible to the audience.
Wednesday, 2 October 2013
1. What was the group discussion with Siou?
During our class, we looked at the different acting techniques we have gone over so far, like ensemble, Le Jeu, complicity, relationship with the audience, tableu, slow motion, building a character and vocal techniques. We also discussed what we as actors and as a group need further develop these techniques and our skills. Some of these things were focus, not giggling all the time, respect towards others,
2. How does this affect your group work on your scenes?
Trough these acting techniques, we have been able to develop many of our scenes from and use them in different ways. For example, one of our main scene where we see our main character hit a servant, started of as a tableu and we decided to leave like that because it created tension fro the audience. I feel that using Le Jeu, the game/play, has helped us as a group to be more united and work together bouncing ideas more naturally.
3. What progress did you make today?
The biggest thing we accomplished today, was working first separately in pairs on our scenes, me and Sophie on our fight between the parents and Jenny and Max on their lovers scene. Then we showed our progress to each other, giving each other feedback and making the two scene more fluent and clear. After that we were able to start running trough the whole play, making small changes to things that didn't work and just getting the pacing and entrances right. One thing we changed was when I, as a servant, run into Max when my character is late. Before we only had me coming late to work, but we thought that maing my character to actually bumb into Max gives Max's character more of a trigger to hit me.
During our class, we looked at the different acting techniques we have gone over so far, like ensemble, Le Jeu, complicity, relationship with the audience, tableu, slow motion, building a character and vocal techniques. We also discussed what we as actors and as a group need further develop these techniques and our skills. Some of these things were focus, not giggling all the time, respect towards others,
2. How does this affect your group work on your scenes?
Trough these acting techniques, we have been able to develop many of our scenes from and use them in different ways. For example, one of our main scene where we see our main character hit a servant, started of as a tableu and we decided to leave like that because it created tension fro the audience. I feel that using Le Jeu, the game/play, has helped us as a group to be more united and work together bouncing ideas more naturally.
3. What progress did you make today?
The biggest thing we accomplished today, was working first separately in pairs on our scenes, me and Sophie on our fight between the parents and Jenny and Max on their lovers scene. Then we showed our progress to each other, giving each other feedback and making the two scene more fluent and clear. After that we were able to start running trough the whole play, making small changes to things that didn't work and just getting the pacing and entrances right. One thing we changed was when I, as a servant, run into Max when my character is late. Before we only had me coming late to work, but we thought that maing my character to actually bumb into Max gives Max's character more of a trigger to hit me.
Monday, 30 September 2013
2 Major outcomes from rehearsals
I feel that today my group got a lot done. Compared to us last Friday, day when we decided to start everything all over because of explosion of ideas and confusion over what we actually wanted say with our piece, I feel that now we have really established a clear message with clear plot and defined characters. Most of what we did was just developing further our basic ideas we discussed on Friday and pulling everything together to make a fluent and interesting story. We were able to tell our opinions about what we wanted to do and so we worked together better and actually got on our feet and went trough scenes to each other, rather than just sitting around talking about what we wanted to do. I feel especially strong about one of our scene, a scene we didn't plan to have before but then added to create a new level for Max's character. It is a scene between Max's character and his supposed girlfriend(Jenny), where they start to realize how Max's character is starting to become abusive, just like his father.
How did you come to those outcomes?
We wanted our piece to be about how we become who we are, or rather, how do abusive people become like that. The character we are focusing on has a abusive childhood himself, but still we raise a question whether it was really his actions that ended up making him like it. I feel like that the scene between Max's and Jenny's characters is very important to establish the main idea of our mini play. In scene, the two supposed lovers have had a fight ending up Max hitting Jenny. The scene starts with Max trying to apologize from Jenny, but she is not having it. She opens her mind about the situation, telling Max's character, that he has become like his father. This obviously hits hard, but also helps Max's character to realize how he has changed. The scene ends with the two splitting up and Max denying him becoming his father. This followed by an abusive scene brings our message to the audience loud and clear.
How are you using...
1. Song Lyric?
As I said in my last post, our group wandered of from our song(Grace Jones - Slave To The Rhythm) some time ago, but I do realize now, that it did help us to create our servants and bring us to our time period(1800's) by directing us towards women's rights and oppression.
2. Research?
Our research about the industrial revolution and women's rights helped us with our characterization and the dynamics between our characters. It also lead us to the topic of abuse, since it was accepted for men to put their wives and children to their rightful places by abuse.
3. Acting techniques?
We use clocking the audience quite many times, to create a connection with the audience and bring a modern twist to such historical setting. E.g. When two of our characters are arguing with each other, rather than facing each other both of the character face the audience and direct their emotion to them to create a stronger and even more intimidating feeling.
I feel that today my group got a lot done. Compared to us last Friday, day when we decided to start everything all over because of explosion of ideas and confusion over what we actually wanted say with our piece, I feel that now we have really established a clear message with clear plot and defined characters. Most of what we did was just developing further our basic ideas we discussed on Friday and pulling everything together to make a fluent and interesting story. We were able to tell our opinions about what we wanted to do and so we worked together better and actually got on our feet and went trough scenes to each other, rather than just sitting around talking about what we wanted to do. I feel especially strong about one of our scene, a scene we didn't plan to have before but then added to create a new level for Max's character. It is a scene between Max's character and his supposed girlfriend(Jenny), where they start to realize how Max's character is starting to become abusive, just like his father.
How did you come to those outcomes?
We wanted our piece to be about how we become who we are, or rather, how do abusive people become like that. The character we are focusing on has a abusive childhood himself, but still we raise a question whether it was really his actions that ended up making him like it. I feel like that the scene between Max's and Jenny's characters is very important to establish the main idea of our mini play. In scene, the two supposed lovers have had a fight ending up Max hitting Jenny. The scene starts with Max trying to apologize from Jenny, but she is not having it. She opens her mind about the situation, telling Max's character, that he has become like his father. This obviously hits hard, but also helps Max's character to realize how he has changed. The scene ends with the two splitting up and Max denying him becoming his father. This followed by an abusive scene brings our message to the audience loud and clear.
How are you using...
1. Song Lyric?
As I said in my last post, our group wandered of from our song(Grace Jones - Slave To The Rhythm) some time ago, but I do realize now, that it did help us to create our servants and bring us to our time period(1800's) by directing us towards women's rights and oppression.
2. Research?
Our research about the industrial revolution and women's rights helped us with our characterization and the dynamics between our characters. It also lead us to the topic of abuse, since it was accepted for men to put their wives and children to their rightful places by abuse.
3. Acting techniques?
We use clocking the audience quite many times, to create a connection with the audience and bring a modern twist to such historical setting. E.g. When two of our characters are arguing with each other, rather than facing each other both of the character face the audience and direct their emotion to them to create a stronger and even more intimidating feeling.
Friday, 27 September 2013
2 Major outcomes from rehearsals
Today, our group was having some trouble with our ideas and how to get them connected with each other. After some discussion and 'little' help from our tutor, it was established that our group had too many ideas and story lines to put into a 10 minute scene. So, obviously one of the major outcomes was the change of direction with our scene and discover what is our specific plot and what we want to tell to the audience. We ended up focusing on the life of a man who involuntarily becomes like his abusive father, raising the question in the end, whether we're the result of our environment or of our own actions.
How did you come to those outcomes?
Our original idea for our scene was to tell two stories, the story of an abusive man and a servant who becomes the target of his abuse. we had worked on a lot of scene about the man's past, just to realize that our characters were not defined enough and that our whole 10 minute play would be too confusing to tell two different stories. At some point, we were even planning to bring in two additional stories about the two other servants, but because of our time constriction those plots we're ditched in quite an early stage. Once, we had a talk with our tutor about our scene, it was clear that we had to change our play and make it to focus on one story, so that all of the characters could be more specified and our message to the audience clearer. Since we had worked on the scene with the man's past the most, we decided to focus on that story, rather than creating a new plot to the servant. All we need to do now, is to add more to the character and the story to develop a all round story line.
How are you using...
1. Song Lyric?
By now, I feel like we have ditched the song we had(Grace Jones - Slave to the Rhythm). What we originally pulled from the song, were things about women's rights, work and equality. At first we were trying to work with something with women's rights, which is what we researched the most, by having an abusive man and women who have fallen as victims, because of their lower position. But since our change of direction in our play, I can see only one of our original main feelings still sticking around. Power.
2. Research?
A lot of the research we did was on women's rights and the industrial revolution. As I said before, since the change in direction, we pretty much dropped all the things concerning women's rights and also most of the researched done about industrial revolution we ended up not using. Still, the main idea of women joining the work force we used somehow, since we include female servants in the play, even though it is not clearly connected to industrial revolution.
3. Acting techniques?
In one of our scene, that we have so far planned, we use freeze frame to create tension and anticipation on what is to happen next.
Today, our group was having some trouble with our ideas and how to get them connected with each other. After some discussion and 'little' help from our tutor, it was established that our group had too many ideas and story lines to put into a 10 minute scene. So, obviously one of the major outcomes was the change of direction with our scene and discover what is our specific plot and what we want to tell to the audience. We ended up focusing on the life of a man who involuntarily becomes like his abusive father, raising the question in the end, whether we're the result of our environment or of our own actions.
How did you come to those outcomes?
Our original idea for our scene was to tell two stories, the story of an abusive man and a servant who becomes the target of his abuse. we had worked on a lot of scene about the man's past, just to realize that our characters were not defined enough and that our whole 10 minute play would be too confusing to tell two different stories. At some point, we were even planning to bring in two additional stories about the two other servants, but because of our time constriction those plots we're ditched in quite an early stage. Once, we had a talk with our tutor about our scene, it was clear that we had to change our play and make it to focus on one story, so that all of the characters could be more specified and our message to the audience clearer. Since we had worked on the scene with the man's past the most, we decided to focus on that story, rather than creating a new plot to the servant. All we need to do now, is to add more to the character and the story to develop a all round story line.
How are you using...
1. Song Lyric?
By now, I feel like we have ditched the song we had(Grace Jones - Slave to the Rhythm). What we originally pulled from the song, were things about women's rights, work and equality. At first we were trying to work with something with women's rights, which is what we researched the most, by having an abusive man and women who have fallen as victims, because of their lower position. But since our change of direction in our play, I can see only one of our original main feelings still sticking around. Power.
2. Research?
A lot of the research we did was on women's rights and the industrial revolution. As I said before, since the change in direction, we pretty much dropped all the things concerning women's rights and also most of the researched done about industrial revolution we ended up not using. Still, the main idea of women joining the work force we used somehow, since we include female servants in the play, even though it is not clearly connected to industrial revolution.
3. Acting techniques?
In one of our scene, that we have so far planned, we use freeze frame to create tension and anticipation on what is to happen next.
Tuesday, 24 September 2013
Questions
I felt today's class was somehow different from the classes we've had before. We did play games, like we have before, and we discussed about a topic(this time honesty), as before, and we tried to tie it together with terms we already have learned(Le Jeu, complicity, creativity etc.), as we have done before. But especially after a certain game, the mood of the class somehow changed. I cannot quite describe it here right now, since I am not sure what the change exactly was, but I am sure something happened.
Describe the exercise: Just Be. Give your reaction.
We played a game, later named as Just Be. It is a game hard to be explained, as I realized later on the day when trying tell about my to my roommate. The game itself seems very simple played by one person at a time. They pick a spot on the floor and drawn by the spot they move to that place and then face the audience as themselves, but they can't do anything. Just stand in one place, relax and open themselves up to the audiences gaze. As simple as the game sounds, the game itself is not easy for everyone. I could see people tense up or put on a 'show'. You could see that people were not complitely comfortable standing on the spot, and as more and more people went up to the spot and came down with an embarrased laugh, I started to tread my turn. But as I stood up, focused on a spot and faced fifteen pairs of eyes, my mind suddenly fell blank. No panic, no joy, nothing. I am not sure if that was the point of the game, but just standing in one place, not supposing to do anything was almost like meditating, but rather than trying to shut down the outside world, I felt like my mind and my thoughts were wide open for everyone to see.
How can you apply any of today's exercises to your scene?
If you'd know me, you would know that I am all about taking a breath and letting the audience's brains to tick for awhile during a scene. I really feel that we could use the Just Be- exercise to let the audience to really see a character and what really is in their mind. As a group we have also planned out a scene in our little play where we can use the 'Focus' game to our advantage. In the scene we introduce a servant who is having her first day at work, while the other more experoenced servant shows her around. She is quite clumsy and a bit ditsy, she goes around knocking a vase of its place, while the other servant follows her and cleans the mess the new girl has made. It could have the new girl changing her focus and going back and forwards the stage, while the other servant focuses on the new girl.
By the way, I played the 'Don't bumb into each other' game in town today. Unfortunately I lost, but as the only player, I guess I also won.
Monday, 23 September 2013
During class our group did not get the chance to perform our piece to the rest of the students. It would have been helpful to get a new set of eyes to view our piece and have some feedback on what we did well and what we should further work on. But since we didn't, I will just have to evaluate our progress with our play based on my own observations.
I was away the last time we were supposed to be working on our group projects, so a good part of our time went into clearing up everyone's ideas and thoughts and getting to the same level with the piece. The other group members helped me by telling what they had worked on last time and after that, we finally got into working with the actually scenes. And now we come to the questions that were presented in class about the scenes/parts we put more effort on.
What worked? Why?
We started with the beginning of the play, or what is going to be the beginning so far. What we did was that we changed the entrance of all the characters and decided to start with introducing the situation our characters are in, a funeral. The servants greet the guests(the audience) and the master of the house welcomes everyone tot he funeral, giving a small speech about his deceased father. Then we quickly change into a scene where an aggressive relationship between a servant and the master is revealed, showing the true colours of the previously polite and cheerful master. While defending himself for his actions, the scene changes to a flashback of a couple arguing and the master turning into a frightened child.
So far, we do not have nearly the whole play figured out, but I feel that this a good start. We are able to capture the audiences focus on multiple occasion, even thought the beginning does move in a quite fast pace. So far, we have been able to show multiple layers on one(or two) of the characters, making him a round character with a past and reasons for his actions. By showing the flashback, we show the audience where the master gets his aggression.
What do you want to work on more?
So far, we have mainly focused on the master of the house and how he got to this place in his life. I would love to work more on the servants backgrounds and their dynamics between each other. But, of course, we haven't really even been focusing on those so far. If I would have to say something to work on, on the parts we have done so far, I would probably say the beginning and transitions. So far they have been pretty basic, come on stage, do your thing, exit stage. What I would like to see is more creative ways we could use transitions to show more about the characters and keep it interesting for the audience. Perhaps we could use cross cutting to bring levels to our performance and smooth the transitions between scenes? This could also bring up a problem, since a lot of our characterization is based on dialogue or two people interacting with each other, cross cutting could also confuse the viewer on who is who and what is happening. But of course, these are all problems we can work out with a little thinking and team work.
I was away the last time we were supposed to be working on our group projects, so a good part of our time went into clearing up everyone's ideas and thoughts and getting to the same level with the piece. The other group members helped me by telling what they had worked on last time and after that, we finally got into working with the actually scenes. And now we come to the questions that were presented in class about the scenes/parts we put more effort on.
What worked? Why?
We started with the beginning of the play, or what is going to be the beginning so far. What we did was that we changed the entrance of all the characters and decided to start with introducing the situation our characters are in, a funeral. The servants greet the guests(the audience) and the master of the house welcomes everyone tot he funeral, giving a small speech about his deceased father. Then we quickly change into a scene where an aggressive relationship between a servant and the master is revealed, showing the true colours of the previously polite and cheerful master. While defending himself for his actions, the scene changes to a flashback of a couple arguing and the master turning into a frightened child.
So far, we do not have nearly the whole play figured out, but I feel that this a good start. We are able to capture the audiences focus on multiple occasion, even thought the beginning does move in a quite fast pace. So far, we have been able to show multiple layers on one(or two) of the characters, making him a round character with a past and reasons for his actions. By showing the flashback, we show the audience where the master gets his aggression.
What do you want to work on more?
So far, we have mainly focused on the master of the house and how he got to this place in his life. I would love to work more on the servants backgrounds and their dynamics between each other. But, of course, we haven't really even been focusing on those so far. If I would have to say something to work on, on the parts we have done so far, I would probably say the beginning and transitions. So far they have been pretty basic, come on stage, do your thing, exit stage. What I would like to see is more creative ways we could use transitions to show more about the characters and keep it interesting for the audience. Perhaps we could use cross cutting to bring levels to our performance and smooth the transitions between scenes? This could also bring up a problem, since a lot of our characterization is based on dialogue or two people interacting with each other, cross cutting could also confuse the viewer on who is who and what is happening. But of course, these are all problems we can work out with a little thinking and team work.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
1. How can we improve what we have done in class?
There is still a long way to go from the scene we created in class. The dynamics between characters could and should be improved to make the message of the scene more clearer. Also the characters themselves should be further developed to rounder and more versatile beings, rather than just characters that don't have a meaning. Also, the storyline needs more work to it so that it will have a clearer course and actually an idea that moves the story forward and gives dimension to the over all appearance.
2. What more research do we need?
Our group definitely needs more research about the 1800 and early 1900's, where the scene is most likely to be set, and how the society worked back then. The dynamics between servants and the master of the house could also be a useful research point, especially looking into how female servants were treated and how servants themselves treated one another. Also questions like, what was the difference between a female and a male servant and how their tasks differed, could be useful to answer.
3. How can we use what we learned from today's exercises?
In class we studied how distance between two people affected the appearance of their relationship, no matter what they were talking about. A simple discussion about seeing someone you know and going to a grocery store, turned into a stalker having their first encounter with their victim. This method could be used to tell a back story to two characters, whether if knew each other before or not and what their relation to each other is now.
There is still a long way to go from the scene we created in class. The dynamics between characters could and should be improved to make the message of the scene more clearer. Also the characters themselves should be further developed to rounder and more versatile beings, rather than just characters that don't have a meaning. Also, the storyline needs more work to it so that it will have a clearer course and actually an idea that moves the story forward and gives dimension to the over all appearance.
2. What more research do we need?
Our group definitely needs more research about the 1800 and early 1900's, where the scene is most likely to be set, and how the society worked back then. The dynamics between servants and the master of the house could also be a useful research point, especially looking into how female servants were treated and how servants themselves treated one another. Also questions like, what was the difference between a female and a male servant and how their tasks differed, could be useful to answer.
3. How can we use what we learned from today's exercises?
In class we studied how distance between two people affected the appearance of their relationship, no matter what they were talking about. A simple discussion about seeing someone you know and going to a grocery store, turned into a stalker having their first encounter with their victim. This method could be used to tell a back story to two characters, whether if knew each other before or not and what their relation to each other is now.
Monday, 16 September 2013
1. What are the main feelings you tried to express?
Our group wanted to further express the feelings of equality, power and oppression, which, in my opinion, we succeeded quite well at doing. We got inspired by our song lyrics in a very feminist way, starting to discuss more and more about women's rights and how they have developed over the course of time, focusing on the industrial revolution and the suffrage. So, equality was probably the strongest of feelings or ideas we had from our song lyrics. It also dominated how we viewed the song and our ideas from that, since a lot of the point we had on our mind map had something to do with equality, getting to equality or breaking somehow from the common.
Our groups other emotions strongly contrasted our original feeling of equality. Equal is a state of peace and calmness when our other main feelings were power and oppression, two very aggressive and forward emotions. Oppression is something that comes from not having total equality, but power is more complicate subject than the other two feelings. Power can be used in both equality and oppression, but it is used differently in both. In oppression there is someone or something with power and someone powerless on the counter side, where as equality in itself is power.
2. One idea for what you would like to do next in the scene.
I would like to study more about the difference of equality and oppression and get into both of the subject more deeply. We could think about how power is used in both what kind of good and bad sides either side has. Is equality always good? And on the other hand, is oppression always bad? Can equality be achieved? These things have come up over and over again in our groups discussions and it would interested me to get more insight what my fellow group members think about these matters and do they think they are important and relevant today.
Our group wanted to further express the feelings of equality, power and oppression, which, in my opinion, we succeeded quite well at doing. We got inspired by our song lyrics in a very feminist way, starting to discuss more and more about women's rights and how they have developed over the course of time, focusing on the industrial revolution and the suffrage. So, equality was probably the strongest of feelings or ideas we had from our song lyrics. It also dominated how we viewed the song and our ideas from that, since a lot of the point we had on our mind map had something to do with equality, getting to equality or breaking somehow from the common.
Our groups other emotions strongly contrasted our original feeling of equality. Equal is a state of peace and calmness when our other main feelings were power and oppression, two very aggressive and forward emotions. Oppression is something that comes from not having total equality, but power is more complicate subject than the other two feelings. Power can be used in both equality and oppression, but it is used differently in both. In oppression there is someone or something with power and someone powerless on the counter side, where as equality in itself is power.
2. One idea for what you would like to do next in the scene.
I would like to study more about the difference of equality and oppression and get into both of the subject more deeply. We could think about how power is used in both what kind of good and bad sides either side has. Is equality always good? And on the other hand, is oppression always bad? Can equality be achieved? These things have come up over and over again in our groups discussions and it would interested me to get more insight what my fellow group members think about these matters and do they think they are important and relevant today.
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