weekly blog 4

Weekly blog 4

On Monday we Focused on 

* Still moments/Freeze frames 

* Getting in a neutral state 

* Staging- Traverse Theatre 

* the 'Sex scene'

Still moments

We focused on still moments in part of the lesson so we could understand that even when were not using dialogue emotions are important. Jake starts our scene of when he uses direct speech to the audience i then Knock on the door. I used emotion by showing my face was else where and unfocused. I think there is alot of silence in this scene becuase Both characters have difficulty in their lives but mainly lynette because of her accident and she was in a fantansy world in my scene we find out that she wants to be like that again and she feels like she is knowhere.

Neutral state

At the start of the lesson we looked at getting into a neutral state and putting our emotions and physicality elsewhere, i learned this helps get into character and also understand why that character might be doing why she or he is doing that. We can create new thoughts and processes so when we get into the Neutral state we know exactly what do its almost like putting a mask on and fitting into it. We started by walking around as our normal self then dropping our shoulders and keeping our legs and feet the same width apart while waling. We then stood still and let go this helped me notic what i do and how i need to get neutral. After doing this we started thinking about what our character would do. 

The 'sex scene'

As we were practising sir came round and gave us 3 or 2 sentences from the play that we had to write down. At the end of the lesson we found out what we were doing . As were are all performing a scene we had to do something with the sex scene. Many people would hate to do this as it would be really embaressing and awkward. Luckily sir thought of a really cool idea to perform it. We all were standing in random areas of the room and sir as sir counted we read out our lines in order, we took a few trys to get in the hang of it but together it sounded really interesting. I think its a really cool idea as it will make it less awkward and the audience will not only be engaged but actively listening. 


Traverse Theatre

A big part of theatre is staging, we are looking at traverse theatre. This is traverse theatre; 

We talked alot about how and why Traverse staging is good here are some reasons: 

* Different places you can stand on the 'Catwalk' can have a really interesting effect on the audience such as if actors were trying to show upset or annoyance they might stand at eaither end with their backs facing away. 

* Be able to hear what everyone is clearyly saying

* You get two or more different veiws and if the actors move around you get to see the emotions from different points of veiw 

* actors can show their emotions and body language really easily. 

Down the Catwalk There are 3 hidden squares one at the start and the middle and then at the front, The first and last box are normally used for performing but the middle can be used for direct address to to the audience. 

In my scene i only use one line of direct speech- "You know what i miss, i miss being bonkers" 

Direct speech is really good way of engaging the audience because your almost talking to them so they instantly want to hear what your going to say.

Homework 4

Homework 4 

Tchnical Terms: Voice

Sound and Silence

There is alot of silence in my scene because lynette is quite a meloncholic character so the scene isnt full of talking and joyous emotions. Also Callum and lynette both no that lynette has given up but callum tries to give hope to lynette but she tries to fight back, this means pauses and silence occurs alot in this scene. There is also alot of seriousness because of the recent event with jude and lynetes fight. 

An exampe;
Callum: Lynny, you are alright, aren't you? 
(PAUSE)
Lynette: i dont know. 

Pitch and Pace 

Voices are quite varied in this scene. I noticed when i was asking a question my voice got higher and when Jake (callum) asked a question it was low and serious. When we start disagreeing the pitch gets higher and the pace gets much faster and angrier. When i leave callum instantly stops me using a fast tempo this builds up tension and creates excitement. I like the different ranges of pace in our scene because it makes it interesting and you can also show the characters objective through how fast or slow there talking. Emotions in this scene are also cleary shown with how we change our pitch and pace. 

An example;
Lynette:I do. I know i was living in a fantasy world before but at least i was somewhere. Now i'm nowhere. 

Inotation

There isnt much of a range of Intonation during this scene because callum and lynette are siblings so neither of them demand eachother to do things and they are also quiet characters. However a few lines you can tell lynette wants callum to answer her question;
lynette: which is-? 
this is short and simple but i have chosen to emphasise it so she seems demanding and also as if she is doubting callum. 
Also another example shows that callums voice rises when he is trying to proove me wrong this starts to build up a disagreement which really helps because it means i know when i need to start chanign my pitch and reacting. 

Volume 

My character uses a basic volume in this scene. Lynette is very quiet character so i chose to be very soft in the way i speak. This is simple but it has a great effect because the audience can instantly tell my character and see my 
emotions. My voice is the;
loudest- 'You know what i miss, i miss being bonker' 
im my loudest saying this because its a confession that is angrier and upset at the same time so its as if im bursting it out
quietest- 'No.You?' 
im the quietest here because im lost at the start of the scene and ive just walked in callums room. 

Tone color

The differences in quality of voice are quite interesting because mostly its warm and understandng but sometimes it gets cold and abbrupt.
Here are two examples; 
- lynette: I told you were aloud to blink. D'you remember? That the screen wasn't going to diappear. 
here is where im refelcting and thinking about the past so my voice is gentle and calm 
however here
'Doing what?!'
this is when i am confronting Callum about his future and trying to show him that things wont get better for me and noughts. 

Emphasis

here are certain word that are emphasised; 

- questions, 'how would we pay for that?' 
this is emphasised because shes upset and angry 
- End of sentences, 'further you have to fall' 
the ends are sentences are emphasised so that so there is an effect and we can see clear emotions
- word after pauses, 'keep (PAUSE) going'
this is helpful because it makes the sentence interesting

weekly blog 3

Weekly Blog 3

In theatre today we started with our vocal and physical warm, including 

- waking up our bodies by shaking out are arms,legs and shoulders also rolling our heads round and loosening our necks. I think we do this not just to warm ourselves up but to calm down and get into a natural state this helps to change our emotions to fit our character. 

Next we focused on articulation and projecting again. I think we repeat the exercises and warms up we do so we can get in the habit of it so we can into our characters easily. We also focused on our characters objectives this means we can set targets to complete. 

After doing the warm up we went into another fun excercise where we were split into groups of 7 and made up our own hacka which is the traddition warrior fight that most men do before a rugby match almost to warn off the oponents. I think we did this so we can show our confidence in the performance and show emotion to our rivarlys such as jude to lynette. 

Next we went into focusing on our individual scenes using our targets to achieve what we wanted. Me and jake who is playing callum really focused on projection and getting our emotions across. Near to the end of the lesson we asked some of the classmates to watch us ;in mondy lesson we got nervous when asked to perform even though we felt we did well rehearsing by ourselves. When we performed infront of people more people came to watch and it was much less nervracting.

The finale thing we did was write another target sheet for mondays lesson. 

In mondays last lesson one big focus was on the 'sex scene' and sir thought of a really cool way to engage the audience and make it less awkward. We were all given some simple lines to read one after the other in the scene, i thought this flowed and sounds cool as we were not all in the same line repeating awkward and boring lines we were spaced out and using emotion. We also focused on traverse theatre which my 4th homework is about.

long term target

Long term target

My long time target is... 

To be able to make an interesting character in every peice by using pace, facial expression, body language, and projection. I also want to have used all of the skills needed to make a pefromance or peice of theatre exciting.

homework 3

Homework 3 

Why do Actors need to

warm up their voices

Actors need to warm up their voices because like a musician has an instrument an actors instrument is their voice.

A vocal warm-up is a series of exercises that prepare the voice for singing, acting, or other use
Physical whole-body warm-ups should also be done because Stretching helps to activate and prepare muscle groups that take care of balance and posture, and muscle groups are directly involved with breathing and facial articulation. Stretches of the back, neck and shoulers which we have done in class are important to avoid tension, which helps the sound of the voice on stage while they are performing.
Preparing the breath involves not only stretching the many muscles involved with respiration, but preparing them to exhale during for long periods so they can sing and speaking passages. Specific training of the respiratory muscles is required for singers to take very quick deep breath and sustain their exhalation. 

Without Warming up they could stumble and stutter because there jaw and mouth arent warmed up properly this could lead to a bad performance.

weekly blog 2

Weekly blog 2

In Thursdays lesson we started of with many exercises using our bodies as well as articulation. We all stood in a circle and did mouth exercises and then we laid on the floor and thought about our characters. Doing this helps because it changes how I think and it puts my head in a completely different place such as I will start thinking about why the character is moving in that sort of way or why she say what she does. 

Next we changed our position, Tucking in all our skills and keeping them safe. We also turned on our backs and chose a spot on the wall and projected our voices to it. 

One of main tasks was to use a tongue twister and in groups pick a genre of music and change it in a musical way. In my group we took quite long to do this but we ended up picking rap and 'how much wood could a wood chop chop if wood chop could chop wood'. I didn’t really enjoy this task as I get quite nervous when it comes to anything musical or singing but it turns out everyone quite enjoyed it and they gave my group a distinction. After we performed we went into practising our pieces. 

In Monday’s session, we got assigned our roles and what scenes were playing. I’m playing my favourite character Lynette who had a bad attack with her cross boyfriend. She went into her own world into her own world but now she’s realised it wasn’t realistic. Later in the play she kills herself which is interesting because im thinking to put a ghost like effect on my character and thats how she comes across. I’m working with Jake who plays callum. I quite like the scene because its short sentences which i normally dislike but i need to get used to doing things i dont really like to do because being an actor varies in what you get picked for.

Homework 2

Homework 2 

Character profile

Name - Lynette

Gender- female

Age- 21

Clothes- baggy comfy clothes, hidden arms and hands, oversized pyjamas such as jumpers and bottoms. The reason i think this is because Lynette is quite closed and because her accident i dont think she would go out much. 

1- what people say about her- 

* people say that Lynette is quite lonely and in her own world 

* in the play jude gets angry with Lynette and I've inferred that he thinks Lynette is naive because she believes she has dark skin but he is yet to find out what the accident actually was 

* Callum thinks Lynette as his big sister that he still loves and knows is gone but wants her to come back the whole of my scene Callum try's to tell Lynette it is going to be okay. 

2- what a Lynette thinks about herself 

* i think Lynette knows that she was in a fantasy world and she wanted it to become reality but it couldn't 

* in my scene we realise she has left her world and now hates reality of being lonely and upset the way she answers i dont think she has any hope in her 

* i think she thinks shes useless and a mistake because of the way she talks about being a cross and she cant ever be one 

3- what Lynette says about other people

* i think she thinks Callum is smart but also not very wise with the way she asked him about his future i also think she probably loves him because Callum is doing what she did which is love a cross and i think she will appreciate that. 

* i dont think she likes jude at all because he hates her for her thinking she is a cross and she hates him for hurting her and shouting in her face i dont think they've ever been close and never will be. 

* i dont no a lot about what she thinks of her parents because it doesn't tell youa lot  bur when Lynette dies Meggie is distraught this shows us she meant alot not only as her child but how much she cared for her. 

Homework 1

  

Lesson 1 

Noughts and Crosses 

Homework 

How do the Characters body postures help to inform you of their statuses? 

Toby

Toby surprisingly stands upright and straight throughout the clip. This is interesting because he is a nought so you easily think he's going to be quite a closed person. There are two times where his posture changes , in his bedroom he is curled up and when he falls to the ground when the shoot off starts. This shows us he is willing to change what everyone thinks of noughts but he is also nervous to do this as we can see when he goes to Mc Auley. This is informs us he is quite lower status and a complex, brave but sensitive character. 

Rebecca 

In this clip Rebecca is only in it once but what i can infer by the way she is cradling her arms, she is quite a closed person but possible quite high up in status because toby looks like he is serving her. This tells me she is a shy but snobby character. 

Mc Auley 

By this video i can already tell Mc Auley plays a big part of the book. His posture shows he is high up on the nought side, because he is quite upright and straight. Although when it looks as if he was about to attack the girl he was slightly hunched so this made him look dangerous. By the way he talks to Toby he seems like the 'villain',  by that i mean the way he talks to him even when he is lower than toby you instantly associate him with being higher in Status than him. By this i think he is a sly and dangerous nought who likes to get money and be obeyed. 

Callie

In the clip i can infer that Callie is important in The world they live in, she shows the audience that she is brave because she stands up when she is being shot at and doesn't change her posture until she is injured. Her status doesn't seem that high as she is with Callum a lot of the time and i think Callum is a low status character also steering away from the subject of posture i noticed Callie is neither a nought or cross but in this clip we dont no whether this brings her status up or down. By the shootout many people might say brings it down but that could be because she is with a nought. I think she is a brave but also a vulnerable character. 

Information pack 

I found it interesting that in the pack it refers back to the past this shows Malorie Blackman has been through a lot and has seen a lot while growing up. After all this i think she decided to write about what shed been through because she wanted the world to know what is was like for her but she also wanted to change it around sometimes drastically and sometimes to keeping it the same.

Also Malorie Blackman had used key themes from history such as the IRA bombing in manchester. In the booklet it tells us that the Arndale shopping centre got seriously damaged like the Dundale shopping centre. The way Blackman writes isn't fancy and her paragraphs aren't long in this i learnt she does this because she wants it to appeal to teenagers which is quite interesting because it did to me and i read every book after , as the paragraphs change a lot its fun and exciting to read . 

weekly blog 1

Weekly Blog

For the past two theatre seesions weve been reading Nought&crosses. This week we have been studying 

- Breath control 

- articulation 

- Projection 

- Different levels of societys

- Status

- Using body language to show emotion 

- Transision 

Breath Control and articulation

We did a few exercises on speaking and using our mouths to project the whole room we also did the common (red lorry yellow lorry) which uses your tongue and mouth. Doing this, i learnt actors have to do a lot of mouth exercises before a show because your voice is your instrument. This is interesting because if you want to learn acting skills this is one big part of it. 

i found learning about breath control really helps because when i learn lines, i find it hard to know when to take breaths and carry on again without stumbling over words. 

Projection 

I think projection is key in Theatre because you need the audience to hear and undertsand what your saying. We did the exercise moo,noo,loo,foo,zoo This helped with artivulation as well as projection. One of the main exercises we did was laying on the floor and choose a spot on the ceiling and project our voices using the alphabet. We dont just use projection to help the audience hear us but so they can understand our characture, E.g if someone was really angry they might scream or shout really louding or if someones character was shy the might still project their voices but whispreing. 

Different levels of society & Status 

In noughts and crosses we learn there are two levels of class- higher class people are crosses and lower class are noughts. In theatre we did improvisation using classes 1 was very low such as nought and 5 was very high such as a cross. We had to walk around acting in character and communicating with everyone else, this also helped because it is related with what were studying so we can understand how different charcaters are treated in noughts and crosses and apply it to our pieces. By reacting without a script to Different people using different status helps me build confidence in drama because in some cases you have to improvise on the spot. 

Using body language to show emotion & Transisions 

In the last part of the lesson we did an excersise using a sheet with 3 prejudice sentences from the play on 

- " He was with his dagger Friend" 

- " Everyone knows they're all muggers and they hang around in gangs" 

- " How should i answer? Think! Think!" 

In the first part we used 2 words from each sentence and made a freeze frame connected to nought and crosses, and any person could shout out the word in whatever order they want to 

In the second part we could use the whole sentence betwen the group and use slow motion. We learnt slow motion can be used in all different ways to show characters and emotions. 

In the last part we went over what we learnt and shared opinions i enjoy doing this because i can compare things and learn skills. 

Acting skills audit

Weekly blog 

Today was my first thurday theatre session it was really interesting because its all so new and it was really exciting to. I think my group is a mix of characters both boys and girls so that also makes it better. 

Acting skills Audit 
Here are a few things i think I'm quite good at 
- putting myself in the characters situation , feelings and shoes 
I think this because whenever i get a certain acting role i think alot about whats happening to them and really get in the mind set of them this helps because you forget about yourself and any problems you might have this makes you shine out in front of an audience because there not doubting whether you are truly acting a different role and getting out of your own skin 
-showing my emotion with speech and pace 
I think i can show my emotion because i can be very vocal but not only focus on speech but how I'm saying it or what my body language is showing the audience , i love using pace its really fun to discover what you can do.One of my favourite acting roles is to be quite nervous and speak almost so fast that they cant understand you because it means you engage the audience as they want to understand and slowing down in e.g a monologue can show your thoughts are more meaning full

Here are a few things i think I'm not so good at
- being really confident in acting ,I'm   constantly thinking who's better than me? Getting worried everyone's thinking I'm bad or scared teachers don't think I'm good enough even though i like to read out loud such as reading a script, I think showing my skills in front of people makes me not shine out as much as i probably could. I think this needs to change otherwise i wont do as well as i wan t to. 
-learning lines, quite a lot of people say this because it can be tricky but i just need to get used to it and find ways to help 
- when i'm thinking about one specific skill i often leave the other one alone which is bad for exams and shows because i c
an get my lines amazingly but not think about other characters or spacial awareness