Drama: Week Twenty Four

This week we have just been discussing the assignment briefs for our written work and putting final touches to it before we had to hand it in, it's been a week of tying up loose ends and completing tasks. 

Drama: Week Twenty Three

Monday 23rd March 2015 

Today we just ran through the tech for the production, it was a long day but worth it. I can't believe the performances start tomorrow!

Thursday 26th March 2015: The performances

The day had finally come, and everything that we've spent a quarter of 2015 working on had to be made worth while in these two shows.
Everyone was nervous and excited, the emotions on this day were altogether overwhelming.
The dress rehearsal did not go very well, at least we, the group, didn't feel it was successful. But at least it gave us one last opportunity to run through and make sure we all knew what we were doing.

Just as our matinee performance was about to begin, the audience already filling up the auditorium and chattering expectantly, a fire drill went off! We were all whisked out of the college onto the streets, in our costumes no less! After a bit of shivering outside we came back in and things had to continue as planned. So, we braced ourselves... and the show went up.

I felt really rather conflicted about the matinee performance. I was extremely proud of our group, we all pulled together beautifully, the energy was fantastic, the audience were engaged and responsive throughout, and the comic parts in the play got huge laughs. It went so, so well, and everybody felt very pleased with it. I left the performance feeling personally that I hadn't given quite as much as I could have, my whole time performing I felt a little self concious and not quite right, but I was assured by my peers that it didn't show and I remained pleased with how the performance went despite my concerns about myself.

The evening performance went very well, too. The audience weren't quite as responsive and lively, but we still all made the best of it and had a good time. It was the general consensus backstage that we had to go out with a bang and just have the most fun with it possible.
In this performance I felt I did better than earlier on in the day, I felt more free and confident somehow.
We did have one mishap during this second show, where the "thou liest" scene got all jumbled up. We said the lines all in the wrong order and got in quite a pickle but I was completely impressed with how well my fellow actors handled it; calmly and professionally. It just went to show that we all knew the play so well now and were working together in such a natural flow that we were able to work together and make it through the difficulty of the scene.
All together, though, I enjoyed it. Every time I exited the stage I felt pleased with how things were going, and the more I reflect on it the more gleeful I feel at our finished product.
It was exhilarating as well as strange for everything to come to an end, and as we took our bow and Rob made a small speech, relief, joy, sadness and a certain fondness washed over me. It's all finished now, and what a journey it has been working on The Tempest.

Technical Theatre 11

Today we got to actually start filming our music video, it was so, so much fun. 

Odinelsa and Kas are our main actors, and Nuray, Jack and some other people from the college are going to be extras for us over the next two weeks. 

The first day of filming went very well, we focused on filming the two main characters because we didn't have the makeup for the zombies yet; we'll be filming them the next two weeks. 

The shots we got today were different angles of a few scenes, chase ones where they're running, and some of a scene where they're in the viewing platform. I really can't wait to continue shooting out video and get down to the main action. 

Drama: Week Twenty Two

Monday 16th - Tuesday 17th March 2015 

As we near the play and time is ticking by fast, we've started just doing runs of as much of the play as we can. 

On these two days we were able to rehearse up to the scene where Ariel appears as a harpy and the scene where Caliban meets Trinculo and Stephano.

Now that everything is just falling into place, I've been getting more comfortable in the stage space. I'm really finally settling in so much in the scenes that I can focus on every little detail of what I'm doing. I'm determined to perfect my physicality in time for the play and that is my primary goal right now. 

I'm also trying to work on my vocals, though, as it's crutial that our hard work doesn't go to waste because you can't hear us properly. 

We definitely still have work to do, but it's getting there now. I'm rather nervous for the performances, so will make the most of the few rehearsals we have left. 

Wednesday 18th March 2015 

Today we had the first hour of the morning to finish preparing and perfect in our five minute Tempests, and then we performed them after our break. 

Ours went quite well, I was pleased with it on the whole. 

I felt that we didn't use our rehearsal time as well as we could have, but in the end we managed to pull together and make the performance 7 minutes long. This was surprising as we thought it wasn't going to be long enough when we did the final rehearsal, but we worked well as a group to pad it out more when we performed. 

Thursday 19th March 2015 

Today we discussed costumes for our performances and went backstage to see what we already have that could work. 

Technical Theatre 10

Today has been all about location scouting for our music videos.
Elvina, Ryan and I already had an idea that we wanted to film at the fountains by UAL, so we went straight there.
Our video is apocalyptic, so we need to use areas that are quite spacious and interesting.

We have chosen to use the fountains as planned, which we can have people running through and getting splashed, and we can have close up shots of their feet splashing down into the water as they run.
We're also using the open space there in front of the building and the steps, because there's a lot of space to have some extras, and we can have people hurrying down the steps and maybe even falling.
The canal, the footbridge along it, and the woodland just behind it will be part of the video too.
I think that the woodland will make for great visuals because it can kind of subliminally represent the wild theme of the song, and the way we're exploring people's dark and animal sides.
We're also using the viewing box that looks over the Kings Cross area so that we can get shots of the city from higher up and can also use the staircase inside to show how desolate and abandoned things are becoming.
We want the video to be really dramatic, and these spaces will allow for lots of chase scenes, and we can use how empty they are to show that the world around the main characters is getting darker and lonelier. I think it's going to look good!

We also looked at continuity today and Becca explained to us why it's important that we are on top of this and don't make any mistakes. We've gone over the things that we need to keep track of when making our video and I feel that having discussed it we'll be more likely to notice continuity issues we may come across.

Drama: Week Twenty One

Monday 9th March 2015 

We've been doing fine tuning of the scenes in chronological order today. 

The scenes I rehearsed are Act I scene I and act I scene II. 

Notes on stage directions: 

Act I scene I: 

Still pay rope around island, only far enough away from chairs to make room for people to stand. Stand inside rope until Prospero's "Bestir, bestir!", then step out and hold ship wheel. 

Stumble about but keep arms still as they're holding onto wheel. 

Stephano offers drink, this is when I say "Cheerly, good hearts! Out of our way, I say!" 

Take time to exit stage right. 

Act I scene II: 

Prospero walks around me during my speech that starts with "to every article", to open up the staging a bit more. 

I'm to direct much of my dialogue at the audience as well as Prospero to make sure they're involved. 

When I bring on Ferdinand, the first lot of lines is on voice over. Then the full fathom five lines are whispered right into his ear. 

Tuesday 10th March 2015 

Our group got the chance to rehearse the entire play today, which was absolutely fantastic. It felt great to put everything together finally and feel what it will be like to perform on the actual day. 

The feedback Rob gave us:

• Really nice listening 

• Good energy 

• Improve on projection 

I'm feeling really good about the play now, having run it through. However, we do still have some work to do, particularly on the final scenes of the play! 

Wednesday 11th March 2015 

I've found today really productive and helpful. Everyone in class shared the three hour class with Sharon rather than taking an hour each, which meant that we were all able to give one another feedback, which was good. 

Our task today was to work in our groups and develop our tableaus further, making them into five minute long pieces which cover the story of the Tempest by focusing on the key moments. 

We spent a good hour and a half working on our pieces before showing them to the other groups and Sharon. 

Now that we know our piece needs to be five minutes long, we chose more text to add to the scenes we've already prepared and we also added some more scenes from the play which we think are relevant. 

All of the scenes we have are as follows; the shipwreck, Prospero explaining to Miranda why they're on the island, Caliban being introduced for the first time, Sebastian attempting to murder Alonso, Stephano and Trinculo meeting Caliban, Prospero giving Miranda and Ferdinand his blessing, Prospero ordering Ariel to bring all of the parties back together, and act five, in which everyone comes together and all is resolved. 

We wanted to make sure that we didn't miss out any significant scenes from our short version, so it's fantastic that we've been able to add these features these other moments. 

We performed our piece for the rest of the class then. It lasted four minutes fifteen seconds, so we need to add more to it next week. 

The feedback we recieved was that our transitions from scene to scene were nice, we made good use of actual text from the play, and they enjoyed it. 

The specific feedback I recieved from Brandon was that my physicality was very good, and I need to do work on my projection. 

The target I have set myself is to commit to my vocal and physical choices more and give my all to my performance both in the Tempest and in our assignment with Sharon. 

Thursday 12th March 2015 

This morning we recieved feedback from our peers on the sight reading assessment we did last week. 

My feedback: 

• Project more to get my voice to the back of the audience when we perform. 

• Good tone, pauses and pace. 

• Good articulation, pronunciation of words on point. 

• Movement of voice was good. 

• I have an interesting, simplistic voice which is calming and makes you want to hear what I have to say. 

• Nice flow and articulation, but move voice a little more. 

• Good energy in voice. 

• Good flow and taking of time. 

• It sounded like I knew what I was talking about even though I had only read the marierial once. 

• Mind the softness to my voice not making me too quiet. 

• Good at hitting consonants. 

• Good interpretation of text. 

I found it interesting to hear this feedback from the group. It was very pleasant as what people had to say was so positive and also constructive. I feel pleased with how my assessment went and with what my peers told me, even though some of their opinions were conflicting. Some people for example said to me that I didn't need to project any more contrary to other advice. Everyone's opinion is different of course and I shall endeavour to take everything on board and improve with the help I've been given by the rest of the group. 

Technical Theatre 6

Homework assignment:

For our homework while Becca was away, we had to fill in a sound quiz and choose a song which we could edit thirty seconds from.
I found the sound quiz all right to do, because having the extensive research facilities like the internet made it more easily accessible to learn about the things in the quiz.
The song I chose was Arabella by the Arctic Monkeys. I chose this sound because it has really strong beats and I thought it would be good to play around with them, particularly the drumming and guitar. I also wanted to play about with editing bits of the lyrics as I thought it could sound good because Alex Turner's voice is so gorgeous.

My thoughts on the technical aspects of the second year's drama performance:

I thought that the sound and lighting for the performance really added dramatic effect to the pieces of drama, and had a large influence on the atmosphere.
The sound was used interestingly, I was particularly taken with some of the sound effects and music that they used for the third story, a nice combination of these creepy, almost inhuman sounds and eerie melodies which really made you feel on edge and like you were in the dreamland that was in the story, or rather in the main character's mind.
I also thought the lighting stood out at several points, the ones that come to mind are also from the third story, actually, although there was nice spotlighting in all three pieces at at least one point.
In the third story, the lighting turned very dark at some points and added to that dark theme of the drama, which made it look really cool.
I can't think of anything I would have changed about the technical effects for the performance, it all seemed to be perfectly on time and I thought the lighting and sound all fitted really well.

Song editing:

Today, Wednesday the 21st, we spent the lesson putting our songs into Logic Pro and editing them.
We were split into teams, my team was Ryan, Mo and I.
This is how we did it:

First, we needed to rip the music we wanted to use. To do this we had to use an MP3 converter online, by copying and pasting the Youtube urls from the videos of our songs into the converter before downloading it. Then we used ITunes to transfer it from downloads into Logic Pro.
Next, we started editing our songs, cutting them together.
We had to have thirty seconds of each of our song within our project, but the seconds could be spread about wherever we wanted them.
We listened to all three songs, Mr. Blue Sky, Body Language and Arabella, and then we decided which one we wanted to be the start of our piece of music.
We chose Body Language to start with. About seven seconds in, we cut it, and edited Mr. Blue Sky to start then, from about two seconds in.
Then we cut to the chorus of Mr. Blue Sky, then cut in the chorus of Arabella. Once the end of the Arabella chorus came, the bridge of Mr. Blue Sky came on and Arabella continued to play at the same time. Then we cut out the chorus of Body Language and set it to play at the same time as the two bits of the other song, so that all three were overlapping, with the other two being the backing to Body Language.
Arabella and Mr. Blue Sky then stopped after their instrumental parts ended, and Body Language played through to the end of the chorus and stopped, ending our whole song.
To edit the different seconds of the songs together, we had to work out which seconds we needed from the songs, and use the Split by Playhead button to cut those parts out.
At first we were just getting used to it and made a few mistakes, but once we got to grips with it it was ok.
We played it through a few times at each time the song changed to make sure the transition would sound good, and once we had put all of the clips together, we listened to it the whole way through.
Once we were sure we were happy with it, we saved our work and named it "Mr. Usher Monkey", which is the name of our team.

Technical Theatre 9

Today we worked further on the music video project, as now the difficult part came about. We had to finally choose a song to use and storyboard our video.
Mo was here this week, but he had to work with the others catching up on what we did last week, so Ryan, Elvina and I left to work on picking our song.
We had a few different options, but in the end we chose Pompeii by Bastille, because there's a fun, clear narrative to work with.

This is our idea for the video: 
It starts with a huge blackout, then fades up to meet our two central characters. They are waking up to find that the world around them is different, something frightening has happened. They see somebody writhing in pain on the floor, and they watch the person transform into being creepy and different.
They run away from them, but find that more and more people around them are changing into these weird human like creatures.
They have a close encounter where one of them is caught but saved by the other and they manage to escape. The one who got caught is infected but doesn't tell their friend.
The rest of the video is chasing around and trying to escape as the world around them "crumbles" and people continue to change, until they are the only two left and they have nowhere left to run.
Then, the infected friend changes and joins the masses, leaving our other central character all alone. This is how it ends.

This is the storyboard we drew up: 

We have to think about locations we might want to film it in over the next week.
These are some ideas I have, but we might not decide to use them:
- In and around the college as the starting point
- The fountains outside UAL
- A park
- Perhaps a closed down and abandoned underground station

Drama: Week Twenty

Monday 2nd - Tuesday 3rd March 2015

Today our lesson was very focused and productive, I really enjoyed it.
The day started with sitting in our groups and filling out a sheet we'd been given. In this we had to discuss what we hope to achieve over the last few of rehearsals.
This is what I wrote:


In the next few weeks leading up to the play I have a selection of things I would like to work on. Following on from feedback I've received and how I've felt in rehearsals up to this point, something I really want to work on is my body language as Ariel; I'd like to develop mu fluidity within my movements. I've discussed this with both Rob and Sharon recently and I've been thinking about it a lot. I hope to improve my vocal and physical projection to give my all to the role and the other actors on stage, as well as the audience.
Something which I have recently started aspiring to do more is be at ease and relaxed in my role on stage. This weekend I was lucky enough to see the SWP production of Farinelli and the King which was very inspiring to me, and I'd like to adopt a similar attitude to that of the actors and actresses who performed in this play. They were completely at one with their roles, which is what I would love to achieve. I was particularly impressed by Mark Rylance and Melody Grove, who played the King and Isabella. They were both so mesmerizing, their talent really captivated me. They had this certain aura of just being there, just being truthful and spontaneous in those moments. It seemed almost effortless because they were so wonderful, it didn't feel like watching actors... they just were the characters. I was truly motivated and inspired, I'd love to apply the bursts of energy I felt from watching that production to my own work.

We then played an improvisation game then; Just a Minute. It was hilarious and really fun.
Our next task I found particularly interesting, we had to do a fun run of the Tempest in our groups. It was fascinating just seeing how much energy everyone put into the tiny mini production, everyone seemed to be having way more fun than we do when we're working with the script itself.


In the afternoon we did some rehearsal, choosing various scenes from the play at random.
It was our job to day to observe and make notes so we could give collective feedback at the end of the session, which we did. This is some of the feedback that came up quite a few times for people in general:

• Be more physically committed to the part.
• Project.
• Don't dance, stay grounded.
• Move the voice.
• Slow down with the lines.
• Improve on articulation.

This is some specific feedback I received from the group:
I need to move my voice more, to make my part and what I'm saying more believable. I should make sure I don't fall into a monotone and that I'm always inflecting at the right places.

On Tuesday my group didn't do any rehearsals, it was all observation for me on this day. 


Wednesday 4th March 2015


Today we worked with Sharon again, this time focusing on our individual goals in the run up to our performances.
We did a lot of vocal work, humming, turning the hum into an "ah" sound, and then eventually into one of our lines.
Then we worked on our characters, helping and supporting each other as we took it in turns.

The work I got to do on Ariel today was nice. The whole group backed me in saying some of my lines and adding gestures to them, and I found that working with the others made it more comfortable and actually got me to feel more bold and brave with my movements. It was really good, and I think it's going to help me with being more decisive about my motions and body language. I'm going to try and apply the big, bold gestures we used today for Ariel to the rest of my rehearsal process.

Thursday 5th March 2015 

This morning we had an in class assessment; sight reading. It was actually quite fun and everyone did well, it was pretty enjoyable. 

We didn't recieve feedback today, we will be getting that next week from Rob along with the observational notes from the rest of the class.