Constructive Criticism
To start this week off we had Deborah, she wanted to see what we had created. We showed several different 'bits', that we had worked on. First was the wedding scene. The feedback was that the vocals were good but it needed to be louder. This we took into consideration and we decided to put a rating system on how loud we are. 0 being silent and 10 being a shout. we said that we could go from 2 to about 8 to show how this scene was getting more intense as the wedding progressed and that the emotions of each character were getting stronger.
We then went to the scene where the girls are dancing in unison. This came straight after the wedding but didn't really work as we haven't really met any of the characters yet. The scene which was in unison didn't convey the message we were trying to portray as it looked like the three girls all had the same feeling or were all the same character.
Our group then showed the boy bit, in this we see a fight style movement between me and Joe and Lewis comes to break it up. Our feedback for this was that she liked the introduction of Lewis, but at times it was quite clunky, and it was overall bringing the scene down. We decided to look at this again and make it slower in an attempt to make it seem less clunky.
The last bit we showed was a new scene where Father introduces Bobbie to Brother Taylor, in this scene Bobbie tries to escape but Father pushes her towards me and then I do a perverted dance with Bobbie to show the horrible character of Brother Taylor. In this scene while dancing with Donna, Father is watching them in a proud manner. Kennedy who plays the mother comes in and tries to stop it because its not what Bobbie wants. Yet Kennedy's character is stopped by the father and hit. We thought this was good as it showed the abusive relationship. However Deborah suggested we take it out as this abuse has already been shown, and there is space to show something else instead. We took this into consideration. But haven't thought what we might put instead.
Laura's Lesson
Kirsty was unfortunately ill for this lesson, but we had Laura. In this lesson we noticed that we needed a scene before the confrontation between Billie and Brother Taylor to show how the fight ensued. In this scene they are dancing and then it ends with a kiss. I thought this was great as it set the scene and showed their passionate love while also giving something Brother Taylor to be angry about. It was really useful that in this scene I am supposed to be angry about a certain relationship as I have encountered a similar emotion before in my life. This was good as I could use affective memory a Stanislavsky technique to portray my emotion. I felt my acting was really good in this scene and I felt I portrayed the emotion that my character was feeling in an outstanding manner.
Another positive in this lesson was the rolls I did with Lewis in the confrontation scene. It felt so much more fluid when executed properly. Unfortunately we found it quite difficult but we have practised a lot to make it look good. Even though we have been having a lot of trouble with this move we are eager to keep it in as it shows a strong connection between these two characters and their hatred towards Billie. Before this part there is a bit with Joe and I. We worked on this a lot as we wanted to make sure that we were fluent in the movements and made it look less clunky by making it slower. This worked for a lot of the scene and also gave more moments of tension.
In this lesson I also noticed that Frank was very disciplined in his group, I noticed how he got things done and that he achieved a lot in each lesson. I aspire to be this disciplined in the lessons to come, so our piece can reach its potential.
Another positive in this lesson was the rolls I did with Lewis in the confrontation scene. It felt so much more fluid when executed properly. Unfortunately we found it quite difficult but we have practised a lot to make it look good. Even though we have been having a lot of trouble with this move we are eager to keep it in as it shows a strong connection between these two characters and their hatred towards Billie. Before this part there is a bit with Joe and I. We worked on this a lot as we wanted to make sure that we were fluent in the movements and made it look less clunky by making it slower. This worked for a lot of the scene and also gave more moments of tension.
In this lesson I also noticed that Frank was very disciplined in his group, I noticed how he got things done and that he achieved a lot in each lesson. I aspire to be this disciplined in the lessons to come, so our piece can reach its potential.
Organisation
We wrote out a rehearsal plan today so we could keep on track and stay focused. In this lesson we looked at linking scenes together and also work on the ending. For the ending of our devising piece we wanted to have a visual of Billie falling off the bridge, we had the good idea that the other characters would help Billie fall to show how they are letting him down. We were given the idea by Laura that Joe could do a forward roll into our arms, we did this and it looked a lot more smooth than the idea of picking him up. It also got Joe in position for us to let him down.
I felt this week we made good progress and it was vital that we got feedback on how we could make our scenes better and where we could go with it.
You have documented your group and your own personal process of devising week by week to a good level of detail. You discuss how you worked with the ideas via experimentation, how you moved forward with ideas and the group's rationale for rejecting other ideas.
ReplyDeleteYour blog will benefit from you clearly identifying how your response to the stimulus, abstract imagination and positive co-operation in your approach will impact upon the end performance.
You will also need to discuss the way in which your work is being influenced by further stimulus (i.e. wedding traditions, abuse, relationships, families, physical theatre, abstract movement, minimal text etc) and the practitioners (Berkoff) / devised performance work (DV8/Frantic etc) that you can reference as influential over your style. Use the skills and techniques developed in your physical theatre sessions.
The inclusion of written work regarding your research and development of your character & development of your physical presence on stage (which you have worked on consistently in devising sessions) will be beneficial. You are also missing from week 5 onwards until this present week.
You should also strive to reference websites (such as those listed on the assignment brief) or books from the library (e.g. devising theatre/character studies/performing a role).
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