Technical Theatre 7

Today in technical theatre we continued to work on our songs. 

The fourth member of our group was here this week so we added her song too, which was Maps by Maroon 5. 

We decided that the chorus of that song, which is about thirty seconds long, should play at the end of all the other songs. We put it there and made sure it sounded right, and then we learned how to edit the volume of the different tracks. 

To do this, you have to click on the automation button in Logic Pro, Then you have the option to edit the volume on each track. We made sure all of the songs were the right volume, and then we did some research to find out how to make the songs fade into one another. 

We discovered that you can use the crossfade function to do this, and we spent some time making all of the clips fade into one another. 

Then there was a moment of panic when we realised we had made a huge mistake, Becca said we weren't supposed to have the songs overlapping and playing at the same time. 

We panicked a bit because we only had about ten minutes left, but as a team we managed to rectify our mistake in time. We moved every clip along so that none of them would be playing at the same time, and fortunately it turned out to still sound good that way.
We edited the crossfades to make sure they still worked and then we saved our project. 

Close one, but you learn from your mistakes, and at least we sorted it out!

Technical Vocab

• Fresnel: Fresnels are very commonly used lanterns. They provide a short edged beam of light, which you can adjust by moving the lamp.
• Profile: Profiles provide a very direct beam of light. You control the light in a profile by moving the lens. You can further control the light with gobos and iris's.
• Spotlight: A spot light is a lantern which focuses its beam of light on one thing, and is usually used to highlight a particular person on the stage.
• Flood: A flood is a long light which can cover quite a big area of space, which when used with other floods can provide a basic cover.
• Moving lights: These are lights which you can personalize with gels and gobos and control using pan and tilt. You can have profiles and fresnels as moving lights.
• Iris: An accessory which can alter the size of a beam of light.
• Gobos: Gobos are accessories which can be added to a light to project a particular pattern or shape.
• Barn Doors: These are an attachment added to the front of a Fresnel light.
• Scrollers: A scroller changes the colour gels on a light.
• Gels: A gel is a sheet of colour which is put in a lantern to change the colour of the beam.
• DMX: DMX is what connects the light to the lighting board, and allows them to communicate with each other. Some lights need to be able to talk more using DMX than others do.
• Congo Board: The Congo Board is the panel you use to control the lighting in a theatre.
• Safety Chain: A safety chain is an accessory on a lantern, which is attached to the g-clamp, used to secure it on a lighting bar.
• G clamp: This is a small clamp used to screw in a lantern onto a lighting bar.  

Drama: Week Sixteen

Monday 26th January 2015:

Today I did not do any acting as when my group were on they didn't go through any of the scenes I'm in, so I spent the day observing my classmates.

Tuesday 27th January 2015: 

Today we actually got the chance for each group to do a run through of most of the play, right up until act four. It was really good to get the chance to keep going, scene by scene, and to see the actual cohesion of the scenes and the story running smoothly. I really enjoyed it, can't describe just how helpful I actually found today in terms of developing my own character, but particularly my understanding of the play itself.
Before now I have been a little unclear of the order of things and doing so much of the play all at once was awesome because it made it all even more accessible. 

Today I found that I was able to get into character way more than on previous days, because it was all less disjointed. When I could watch the whole rest of the play and think more about the through line of the whole story and the characters surrounding mine, not just my own, I was able to see more sides to this play than before. And I found exploring it deeply so much fun.
Honestly, Ariel is a wonderful character, in my opinion, and I'm enjoying working on him more and more each time we rehearse. 

I was developing my entrances and exits as him today, really trying to get that airy sort of vibe going, as if he really is flying around the place. I was also working on my presence when onstage and not saying anything, so as well as just reacting to what is happening around me, I was really trying to get down to my physical presence. 

I was there to be this feeling that he is there, but also isn't... as he does come on stage invisible a lot, and I think that's a really fun notion to work with. 

I'm looking forward to keeping on getting more and more into the world of this play and felt quite inspired about it today because we got to do so much work on it, all of us.
It was also good to be rehearsing with my actual group, so we can all get used to the cast we'll have for our performance in March. 

At the end of the day, Rob gave my group feedback. For everyone in general, he said that we need to listen and react more to the scenes, so that our emotions bleed in through our body language. 

This makes a lot of sense, as I feel some of the play is very static at the moment and we really need to get properly into it. 

The feedback he gave me specifically was as follows:

• My interpretation of the role was good
• I need to not be as careful as I am being, to go for it more and just be less cautious about what I'm doing
• I had a good thought process
• I should be less timid about my lines and really spit the words out

I'm going to take on board this feedback and try to overcome this barrier that I feel I sometimes put in my own way, I want to break through it so I can really embrace this role to the maximum.

Wednesday 28th January 2015:

Today was our first lesson back with Sharon this year.
We for our lessons in three different sections, working with the groups we are in for the Tempest.
It was really good, I found it helpful to be working in my actual group again.
Our job today was to look at the entire story of the Tempest, the play from start to finish, and to think about the physical theatre side of it.
We did this by doing tableau. Our group was split in half and we had to come up with a tableau for each act of the play, which we thought represented a key moment in the story from that act.
The key moments we chose were the shipwreck, Ariel waking Alonso and Gozalo as Sebastian goes to kill them, Caliban becoming servant to Stephano as he thinks he and Trinculo are gods, Miranda and Ferdinand being given Prospero's blessing, and Prospero making amends with Alonso and Gozalo, but still feeling hatred towards Sebastian.
We felt that these moments summed up the significant parts of the story quite well. After we had come up with these, we were given some time to add lines to them and plan the transitions between tableaus.
Our group decided to use actual text from the play for our lines, and I felt it worked quite effectively.

This is the feedback we were given on our work:
- It was good that we used lines from the text
- Our transitions from frame to frame were smooth and nice
- We used the space well
- Perhaps we could have chosen a moment between Prospero and Miranda for one of our tableaus

I found today's lesson massively helpful. Quite a few of us said that we thought it was really good for getting to grips with the important moments in the story, and the actual order of events, and I agree.
It was good to look at these key points in the play, it helped to clarify things.
It was also really good to be doing the frames of scenes which our character isn't in, and to be playing the role of another character, as it broadens you knowledge of the whole play and gave us a chance to see things from different character's points of view, rather than just our own.
As Rob is so often saying, nothing exists in a vacuum, and it was evident today in our work that it's important to be able to comprehend the aspects of the play which aren't necessarily involving your part directly.

Thursday 29th January 2015: 

Today we spent more time rehearsing act 5. 

Drama: Week Fifteen

Monday 19th January 2015

Today we went back to the start of the play, and real rehearsing began. No longer were we just blocking through stage directions and getting the basic stuff planned and done, we started to get to the more nitty gritty details.

I really enjoyed rehearsals today. The two scenes which I did were scene one, as Boatswain, and the first scene that Ariel is in. 

At the start of the play, I am the first person to enter the stage space. I set up the scene, laying a large circle of rope around the stage, surrounding what represents the island in the middle. Once I have done that, the Master enters, and the play properly begins. 

Rob made the decision that the Master and Boatswain would be played by Prospero and Ariel so that they, who essentially have control of the happenings in the play, are the ones to set everything up. I think this really works because you can clearly see that we are the ones manipulating the situation from the very start. 

Everything really kicks off when Alonso, Gonzalo and Antonio/Sebastian enter. 

We are all in the midst of the Tempest, and so are on a rocky ship, in this horrendous storm, fearing for our lives. This means, of course, that we really had to play up to that. Because it's such an intense situation and the emotions the characters are experiencing are extreme, Rob encouraged us to actually "ham it up", over act it to really get into the extremity of it all. We had to be stumbling all over the place, throwing ourselves about the stage as we clung on to dear life in the middle of the storm.

Of course there was some chuckling, and it did feel a bit embarrassing to do, but what's the point of being on that stage if you don't just throw yourself into it? 

It was a very rough scene to start with straight away because of this and also the fact that we have to shout our lines, as we will need to be battling to be heard through the mighty sound effects at this point. 

Some nice touches were added to this scene as we went along. When Boatswain and Antonio/Sebastian are arguing, we set up a nice visual dynamic which made the meaning of the lines more clear to follow, especially for an audience member. 

I go to centre stage and fall to my knees, exclaiming loudly about the howling cries of people aboard the ship, and Antonio/Sebastian approaches me. This is where I say "Yet again? What do you here? Shall we give o'er and drown? Have you a mind to sink?" and a brief argument between the two ensues. Tensions are obviously high at this point, so I thought that any rash things you would say in the heat of an argument would be even more unreasonably blurted out. I tried to play this, and found that it really helped me get into the emotions of what my character is saying.

My character also has the line "Cheerly, Good hearts! Out of our way, I say!" , which is originally directed at some mariners, essentially just a few extras in the scene. Because we only have a limited number of people in our cast, we aren't having characters like that, so we changed it to be that it is Stephano and Trinculo I am talking to. They come on, stumbling around, laughing about the situation and messing around, and it's because of this that I direct that line at them. 

For me, this was a nice addition, as the fact that Boatswain is frustrated with them has changed the way I might have otherwise played that line. I now use that anger and tension my character is feeling to put the emotion behind the line and really shout it at them. I like this because it adds to the very charged emotions rocking around in this scene, which I see as to be quite a metaphor for the storm itself. 

I think it's really important to convey the urgency and intensity of this scene, and the little details like this totally bring it to life for me. I like to be as immersed as I would be if I were actually in this situation, and using Stanislavski's "magic if" is given much more texture for me the more there is to work with in the scene. 

Act one scene two is actually one of my favourite scenes at the moment, the first scene that Ariel appears in. As I said, we worked on that today, and I found it interesting because I'm someone who can really get into the exposition, introducing the audience to the situation, and also the characters. This is the scene where you are shown the base relationship between Ariel and Prospero, and you are given background to why Ariel is working for Prospero. 

It's important to make these facts clear to the audience, and I don't find it a drag to set up the situation, I like to expose exactly what's going on and use my character's personal feelings about it all to add more to it. 

From the moment I enter the stage, especially since my entrance is accompanied with a line about how I am here to serve Prospero and to do all of his bidding, I wanted to show that eager side of Ariel. Eager to please and to do his duty to Prospero, and to impress him so that he can earn his liberty. 

I want my character to be full of energy and actually quite captivating in that first scene, to play on his dutiful lines. I felt that Sam and I played this scene off each other very well, and it was good to do it knowing my lines and having already blocked the simple staging. 

We could become more detailed about it and ultimately just act in the moment.
We did add a stage direction; part way through the conversation, Prospero crosses over the stage to down stage left, and I remain down stage right. This gives me reason to change where I am directing my lines and to address them out to the audience. I used this to display the mischievous happiness that I am feeling remembering and describing the work I have done. 

Rob suggested that in one of my lines, where I am describing the state of Ferdinand when I left him, that I almost childishly do an impression of him, mocking him and folding my arms grumpily.

My tone in the scene changes when I broach the subject of my freedom, what Prospero has promised me. 

This is where the dynamic changes from quite simple joy to the more opposing opinions the two characters have. 

I played it as at first, asking very politely, and continuing to argue my side in good grace, but the moment that I begin to talk to much perhaps "out of turn", I am effectively silenced by Prospero. 

He reminds me of what he freed me from and reasserts his position of being in charge. 

At this point, I again become submissive and gracious, no longer arguing. 

It does change again at that last moment before I exit however, as I am pleased to hear I shall be freed in two days time. 

I'm still looking at the initial development of my physicality as Ariel. At the moment I think I would like to present him as graceful and fair, but with that hint of mischievousness and fun. I've taken inspiration from a production of the Tempest I saw in 2013, with Colin Morgan as Ariel, and I would also like to play him in a similar way in which he is clearly not human, and is almost like an animal in his movements. I'm currently just playing around with all of this, it's interesting to explore. 

Scenes one and two were the only scenes I acted in today, and Jerome did Ariel's other scenes. 

I observed the scenes Jerome acted in, and there were not any things to make note of, except that for the song Ariel has as he brings Ferdinand to Miranda, Kas, Jerome and I need to get together and decide how we would like to do it.

Tuesday 20th January 2015

Today we continued to work our way through the script. I was not in the majority of the scenes we rehearsed today, only one in the afternoon. 

This was the scene where Trinculo and Stephano are tricked by Prospero and Ariel, and the two of them along with Caliban are chased offstage by a pack of rabid dogs created by Prospero's magic. 

Because in this scene I don't do much until summoning on the dogs, I spent my time on stage developing my physicality. I started injecting that animal vibe into Ariel as he watches everything patiently, and then lets hell break loose. 

At first I simply changed my posture, almost crouching more, trying to keep that pixie like elegance I'd like my character to have but also wanting to look a little more wild and less human. 

I had a lot of time to think about Ariel's thought process in this scene, and decided I want to just be calmly watching, not even too excited for what is about to happen, because I know it will happen soon enough.

Then, when the time comes, I run to centre stage and jump up onto the island, before letting out a loud growl. This is when the dogs, who will probably be played by musical theatre dance students, will rush onto the stage and chase off the three one by one. Today because we only had our own class to practice with, Jerome, Ryan, Jack, Kas and I stood in being the dogs.

There wasn't an awful lot to work on in this scene but the choreographing of the chase was quite fun, and it's nice to spend time getting used to just being my character onstage reacting, as Ariel often has scenes where he simply observes.

Wednesday 21st January 2015:

Today we actually managed to run finish the play from where we left off yesterday and then run through the whole thing again from start to finish, which was pretty cool. It was good seeing it all at once because somehow it made it make more sense in a way, and helped with putting together my character's role throughout the whole play, if that makes sense. 

We split the play up into different sections and kept switching between the groups as we ran through the whole thing. I actually ended up doing the scenes I had already done over the last couple of days. 

Again today I spent most of my time on stage working on my physicality and trying to decide exactly how I want to be, adding any elements I could. I was off book for a lot of today so it was easier for me to move around and practice how I actually want to present myself without having a script in my hand. Rob asked if I was doing certain postures etc on purpose and said that he thought they were good for Ariel. I'm going to continue developing it, and particularly I want to work on being more nimble, as Ariel is referred to after all as "dainty" and other things to that effect. 

I'm looking forward to getting the proper set to work with so I can experiment with it in different ways. 

Technical Theatre Assessment

Finally the time came for Jack, Elvina and I to do our assessment, which we had been planning over the last several weeks.

As Bosonova Baby played, we had to light the stage as if there was a performance happening.
This is the lighting we used:

As the song started, the entire stage lit up in a deep, warm pink colour. Then, the centre spotlight came on, quite an intense white, with a head shot light just over it, but neither of them were too bright for whoever would be singing.
We had set the shapes of the lights which shone on upstage right and upstage left to form a quarter of a circle each, and they faded up one after the other, up stage right first.
It was Elvina's job to hit "Go" on our set states at the appropriate times and make these first four lights fade on at the right time.
Once the basic lighting was set and the song got started, we had red and blue lights in two strips horizontally across the centre of the stage, two red lights and two blue, which flashed on one by one very quickly. Jack was manually controlling white lights which he made flash up at every one of a particular beat in the chorus, and Elvina and I now moved on to sliding on and off blue and green and red lights in centre stage. We controlled these manually and had them coming on and off in time during the chorus, and the bridge. The four red and blue lights we had already set continued to go off during the verses.
The bridge of the song is quite long, and it was really fun to just play around with a medley of colours during that part, the bright whites which Jack was doing, and the red, blues and greens which Elvina and I were doing.
When it went back to the chorus, we continued in the same pattern as before, fading up the red, blue, greens with each "Bosonova", having the whites flash on the beat just after that, and then playing with them all during the few musical notes where no one is singing.
On the final beats of the song, we had all of the lights go off together except for the spotlight in the centre, and that's how it ended.

My personal favourites were the blue, red and green ones which we controlled manually and the white ones which were also manually controlled, as I found it most fun to get to play around with them and decide when they should go on and off.
It was actually really cool to see our work go into practice, and to watch the stage lights knowing we were doing them.
It was awesome :)

Link to our assessment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6SntVzOFV8&app=desktop

Drama: Week Fourteen

Monday 12th January 2015

Today we have continued to block the play. We carried on from where we left off last week.
For the first part of the day we were working in the theatre and then in the afternoon we split up the class, some of us in 222, some of us in 226.


We went through each scene a couple of times, planning our staging, just as we had done last week.
A scene we worked on in the theatre which was fun is the scene where Ariel mischievously creates a little argument between Trinculo and Stephano. I enter the scene, invisible, and speak on  behalf of Trinculo, being petulant and provoking Stephano.
It was fun to work on the timing of this scene and work out how to make the misunderstanding comical.
The scene I spent most time working on was the scene between Caliban, Trinculo and Stephano, in which Ariel tempts them with a gown and other clothing, and then they are chased by the magical hounds that Prospero summons.
In this scene I decided that Ariel is simply watching the chaos descend, standing casually as he holds up the gown to tempt them.


We finished blocking just before we reached the start of act five, and then we set out smart targets for this assignment in Proportal.
This is the target I set for myself:
One of my major targets for the Tempest is to reach a very high level of understanding of my character, their motivations, objectives and actions. I wish to get to know my character, Ariel, so well that we are almost as one, and it comes naturally to me to mold into playing him. I feel that the more familiar I am with Ariel, the more accessible each scene will be to me as an actor, and I will be able to portray him as clearly as possible in every scene.
I also aim to look more deeply at the play and develop my understanding of it to the point where I feel as though I know the world of the Tempest inside out.
And I wish to feel at the end of this assignment that I have put 100% into it.

Tuesday 13th January 2015

Today we finally finished blocking the Tempest. We spent the entire day blocking the final scene of the play, in which everyone finally meets again and everything comes together. 

This is possibly the most important scene we have blocked, because it concludes the entire story and I feel it needs to be neat and well executed so that the final tone of the play is portrayed clearly. 

My part in this scene is quite on and off, as Prospero sends Ariel to do his final biddings, before setting him free at last. 

In this scene I really wanted to play on that eagerness that Ariel feels to complete the tasks set for him and finally earn his freedom. I tried out a few different things as we went over the scene, and decided how I wanted to portray this eagerness. 

I follow Prospero around closely, listening closely and hanging on their every word, and although I want to maintain that fairy-like quality in movement, I almost rush off and on the stage to run these final errands.

I also, however, wanted to make sure I didn't disregard the connection between Prospero  and Ariel. We see Prospero show affection towards Ariel on a few occasions in this scene, as he tells him he shall miss him, he has done well and things to that affect. 

I tried to show that Ariel is pleased with this, and is not simply desperate to break free, as he also likes Prospero and feels he has been good to him. 

In terms of the actual blocking, most of my exits and entrances are down stage left, as I exit to bring people back onto the stage, first Alonso, Antonio/Sebastion and Gonzalo, and then Trinculo, Stephano and Caliban. 

When I am not doing my duty and am still on stage, I found myself not quite sure what to do, so I just followed the sure fire way of simply reacting to the scene around me in an appropriate way.

As Ariel knows what is going on, of course I don't act surprised as the other characters do, I simply watch the situation unfold calmly, and almost chuckle to myself at times, such as when Trinculo and co. rush on stage and find themselves utter bamboozled. 

One of the most interesting moments for me was the very end of the play. We set up an interesting visual dynamic, as it is only Ariel, Caliban and Prospero left on stage. Prospero is centre stage, Caliban down stage left, and myself down stage right. 

Prospero first turns to me and sets me free, at which point I exit stage right, jumping with joy to be finally free. 

And then, to conclude the entire play, Prospero hands his staff to Caliban, signifying him handing back what was taken from him. 

It's an emotional moment and I think that the staging is simplistic, but just enough to set the right tone for that last moment. As Caliban slowly, cautiously makes his way to the centre to take the staff, we see the balance of power shift. It's a very interesting ending, and I feel we achieved just the right feeling. It was definitely worth going over as much as we did. 

Wednesday 14th January 2015

Today we just went over our assignment briefs for the voice assignment and the historical context one. After that, we performed the final scene we had blocked yesterday so that the students who were not there could see what we had done. 

Drama: New Year, Week Thirteen

Tuesday 6th January 2015: 

Today was our first day back, and we were all just getting back into the flow of things.
Rob told us all who we would be playing, although some people had already been informed before the Christmas break, and he told us which groups we are in.

We spent the morning doing a read through in our seperate groups, then came together and spent the rest of the day blocking the play, getting through as much as we could. The three groups took it in turns.
I play the character of Ariel, and also Boatswain at the start of the play.
We blocked the beginning of the play, the setting up of the stage and roughly the shipwreck scene, and after that it was a matter of planning where everyone entered and exited, and trying to get a good flow going in the scenes.
As it was the first time properly rehearsing together, it was interesting for everyone to get to grips with the script and how it feels playing off the other actors and actresses.

Wednesday 7th January 2015:

Today we continued blocking, and managed to get very far into the play. 

It seemed quite tedious at times, as every scene had to be blocked and then repeated three times, each time with a different group. 

It's important to plan our staging correctly though, and we did make a lot of progress today. It also gave us further opportunities to get used to doing this play together. 

We had the rest off the week off to learn lines and do further research on the Tempest and Shakespeare.

Drama: Weeks Eleven and Twelve

Monday 8th December 2014 

Today most people performed their assesments while the rest of us observed, but Elvina, Katy and I were not able to, because unfortunately Katy was unwell. 

Tuesday 9th December 2014

Today we did our poems assessment in the recording studio, and we also watched The Tempest.

Wednesday 10th - Thursday 11th December 2014 

On these days, I worked tech on the musical theatre second year's pantomime. 

My job was to control the follow spot. 

I worked four performances in total.
It was actually pretty fun to do the follow spot, and although I thought it would be difficult to manoeuvre, it was fine really.
I had three characters I had to follow. For act one, I had the follow spot set to red, and it had to focus on the pantomime villain, the wolf.
After the interval, I changed it to pink and followed Dame Robin through a dance number, and finally I changed it to blue, and it followed the ghost in the woods.
That was it, really!
It was nice to get used to working backstage, even if it wasn't the most fascinating job to do.
I think I was being assessed on this job, and I feel that it went well.

This is the formative feedback I was given on my work for the pantomime:

You came into the role late in the production process, but you learnt the skills quickly and the director felt that you needed little guidance or direction during shows. You were confident enough to ask questions if you were unsure of what you were doing and this helped you to learn how to operate the follow spot quickly.

This is my action plan: 

My plan of action now is to continue to build on the skills I learnt from this experience, and use the knowledge it has given me for other productions that I take part in. Now I have learnt these skills once, I'd like to be able to be a bit more confident when using them again in the future.

Monday 15th December 2014

Today Katy, Elvina and I performed our assessment. I feel that it went quite well, however I was not thoroughly satisfied. I was not able to get into this particular assignment as much as our previous one, as personally I found the Greek Theatre more compelling than Our Country's Good. 

But, it was enjoyable working with Elvina and Katy, and it did all come together nicely, I think. 

Prior to performing our piece, the entire class did voice work in the morning. 

In the afternoon we sat down and discussed the Tempest, and the different parts we would all like to play. I said that I would like to play Ariel. 

Drama: Week Ten

Monday 1st December 2014 

Today we had a day off. 

Tuesday 2nd December 2014

Today we spent all of the day taking turns in our groups to do one on one blocking with Rob, to put the final touches to our scenes. 

I found this extremely helpful, and I believe Elvina and Katy did too. Before this there were a few things we weren't quite sure how we were doing, but getting pointers and direction from Rob helped us to make sure our whole scene was choreographed fluently. This meant that we felt much more confident about doing our assessment, and after we had worked with Rob on it we went over the things we had just altered until we all knew exactly what we were doing. 

Wednesday 3rd December: 

Today we played the memory game "shopping list" to help with our listening, concentration and memorising techniques. It was fun to just have a chill time and play a laid back game, and it was also actually helpful, I found. 

We also started to look at writing letters, which we will later perform as monologues, as part of our war stories assignment. 

Thursday 4th December:

Unfortunately, I did not make any notes on this day! Oops.