UNIT 9 PERFORMANCE PROJECT
When being told we were given the opportunity to devise our own performance and the theme being Christmas, I believed it would be a challenge because most Christmas movies or plays are cliches. I wanted ours to be different and something we could all bring out our own ideas and personalities to create as a group. I thought of Christmas and the things Christmas had to offer, good or bad;
Before starting the rehearsal process for our production there were many elements we needed to research and gather. In class we were put into small groups were we would talk about ideas towards our devised piece, from plays and artwork to movies and books. First thing that came to my head when thinking about what our play could be based on was my favourite movie of all time, The Hunger games.
The hunger games is a dystopian science fiction based a best selling novel. It's about a capital that holds 12 different capitals which forces these 12 districts to pick a boy and girl to compete in fights till the death until one remains. This amazing movie gave me a couple ideas in terms of producing a story line for our piece. I then told my group that the movie has one governor that decided everything that happened in their world which we could add to our piece, making one man the dictator over everyone and every action.
Another idea was lighting as since we were controlled by one man, the lighting could constantly be brighter when he was in the scenes to convey that he has much more power than anyone else and that he sucked the happiness from everyone he was around to make himself feel better. Costumes would vary on someones persona, for example: if my character was full of hope and happiness regardless of the dystopian society they was in, they would wear light clothing that even showed in darker scenes to show there hope throughout the play. Lighter clothes would also separate the good people seeking change from the bad people who resisted change, they would most likely were darker clothing and look more of less the same. This showing that they couldn't be changed from there idealistic ideas about how the world should be.
Sticking with the idea of there being a dictator, as a group we started to develop on ideas of how we would make this dictator relevant and not just an average evil character. We came up with the idea of maybe 5 kids find old photographs of the dictator with his family in a slow globe maybe or maybe a pair of wedding rings which belonged to the dictator and maybe a potential wife
Throughout all the best idea that i got was that there would be one main character who would defeat the dictator and bring peace and hope back into there world, making it a utopia that it once was before. I wanted the beginning to start bleak and hopeless that the audience would never expect a change, this leaving room for plot twist and a more crazy story line. overall i aim to leave the audience with emotions like laughter and tears, where they hate certain characters and pray for other characters to find joy in a dark world.
After generating these ideas we fed-back as a class to compare and conclude on how we'd exactly like our devised piece to turn out. All the ideas from each group were all great and thought out thoroughly Our teacher took each idea and combined them into one, where he then wrote out our scripts and assigned roles. I was assigned the role of on Acolyte, the henchman for our dictator whose name was developed into 'the evil one'. I was happy with the role I was given as it allowed me to come out of my comfort zone in terms of cross-dressing; masculinity, being uptight and someone who wasn't friendly. I was the leader of my acolytes and also the smartest which there was just 3 of us. This was an advantage as I like working in a team but also this allowed us to use frantic assembly within our performance as we were a little group together and were able to try working as a chorus and working in unison overall but also I was able to portray my leadership skills.
We wanted our play to be based in a dystopian society; A world which is controlled by man. This created suffering and envy into hearts as they were not allowed to celebrate Christmas, a harmful holiday which created consequences. Civilians were always being told how to live even if they didn't want to obey. We wanted to incorporate key things that have happened within the world over the years during Christmas or have anything to do with Christmas as a whole. Such as; changing the time of year in the performance to 1842. Also having Charles Dickens being in the play for writing The Christmas Carol this has significance as the 'evil one' could be seen as Ebeneezer Scrooge who hated Christmas until he was shown the joys that Christmas truly brings. We also added WW1 and the setting of No Mans Land where the British and German played a football match the day of Christmas. This was a highlighted key moment in the whole play as this allowed the audience to also gain knowledge on things they might have not known but also allowing them to connect with the performance on memories of how far we've come in life.
We also used pantomime theatre, in terms of using music, sounds, lighting and props to convey certain things throughout the performance. Such as using a certain sound to convey an emotion that the character didn't have to say through speech. This worked well as it allowed our audience to feel certain emotions and build connections with characters.
During the rehearsal process we went through a lot of developing and changed many things because we wanted our performance to be perfect and as actors and characters, we blossomed because we were trying new things that would work and fit well for the performance. As previously stated I was taken out of my comfort zone in terms of becoming masculine, I had to try out numerous vocal exercises linking to; pitch, diction and articulation, my posture in terms of how I stand, I stood with my back straight and head high to convey the power I had between my two other acolytes and my stage presence so I could look more uptight and fitted for my character. To achieve this I also watched a few clips and movies which contained acolyte behavior so I could get the gist of how to portray my character to the audience.
When thinking about initial ideas for our costumes, the first thing that came to my mind was split costumes. I wanted the villains to wear dark shades and the hero's to wear lighter shades, this to show the contrast between the split worlds they lived in. The darker colours are for the emotions that have been suppressed by the dystopian society while the lighter colours for the hero's represent hope and light that can be brought to their world. After long thought we decided to have everyone in the cast wear to were black because we believe it suited the era that everyone was in. The black symbolised depression and hatred which were emotions that were produced by the one man who ruled over them.
During rehearsals we were given the chance to perform short pieces of our process to our class were we was given peer feedback, I was fed back that my character has great stage presence and is growing strongly within the performance and that my voice is developing to the slow pitch I wanted, if I continued to do my vocal exercises I would get the right pitch by performance day. As a group of Acolytes we were told we work well together and each character was thought out correctly, we all added our own twists to our characters. This reassured me majorly and allowed me to think clearly about what I could develop next.
One of my strengths throughout the performance would be staying connected to my acolytes because normally when performing whatever you do for yourself will effect your performance but when working as a 3 you have to make sure you're all on the same page which we always were. Our energies bounced off of each other. Also I believe my develop process for my character was a big strength for me because I stayed open minded and allowed my character to flow through me, in terms of truly becoming my character. I feel as though my character was remembered for my presence to the stage. However one of my weaknesses would be slowing down my words and articulating certain words carefully, sometimes I felt as though I was rushing myself due to nerves.
A Questmas story
- Being with family
- Good food
- Watching Christmas movies together
- Christmas Jumpers
- Carols
- Scrooge and The Grinch
- Crackers and party hats
Before starting the rehearsal process for our production there were many elements we needed to research and gather. In class we were put into small groups were we would talk about ideas towards our devised piece, from plays and artwork to movies and books. First thing that came to my head when thinking about what our play could be based on was my favourite movie of all time, The Hunger games.
The hunger games is a dystopian science fiction based a best selling novel. It's about a capital that holds 12 different capitals which forces these 12 districts to pick a boy and girl to compete in fights till the death until one remains. This amazing movie gave me a couple ideas in terms of producing a story line for our piece. I then told my group that the movie has one governor that decided everything that happened in their world which we could add to our piece, making one man the dictator over everyone and every action.
Another idea was lighting as since we were controlled by one man, the lighting could constantly be brighter when he was in the scenes to convey that he has much more power than anyone else and that he sucked the happiness from everyone he was around to make himself feel better. Costumes would vary on someones persona, for example: if my character was full of hope and happiness regardless of the dystopian society they was in, they would wear light clothing that even showed in darker scenes to show there hope throughout the play. Lighter clothes would also separate the good people seeking change from the bad people who resisted change, they would most likely were darker clothing and look more of less the same. This showing that they couldn't be changed from there idealistic ideas about how the world should be.
Sticking with the idea of there being a dictator, as a group we started to develop on ideas of how we would make this dictator relevant and not just an average evil character. We came up with the idea of maybe 5 kids find old photographs of the dictator with his family in a slow globe maybe or maybe a pair of wedding rings which belonged to the dictator and maybe a potential wife
Throughout all the best idea that i got was that there would be one main character who would defeat the dictator and bring peace and hope back into there world, making it a utopia that it once was before. I wanted the beginning to start bleak and hopeless that the audience would never expect a change, this leaving room for plot twist and a more crazy story line. overall i aim to leave the audience with emotions like laughter and tears, where they hate certain characters and pray for other characters to find joy in a dark world.
After generating these ideas we fed-back as a class to compare and conclude on how we'd exactly like our devised piece to turn out. All the ideas from each group were all great and thought out thoroughly Our teacher took each idea and combined them into one, where he then wrote out our scripts and assigned roles. I was assigned the role of on Acolyte, the henchman for our dictator whose name was developed into 'the evil one'. I was happy with the role I was given as it allowed me to come out of my comfort zone in terms of cross-dressing; masculinity, being uptight and someone who wasn't friendly. I was the leader of my acolytes and also the smartest which there was just 3 of us. This was an advantage as I like working in a team but also this allowed us to use frantic assembly within our performance as we were a little group together and were able to try working as a chorus and working in unison overall but also I was able to portray my leadership skills.
We wanted our play to be based in a dystopian society; A world which is controlled by man. This created suffering and envy into hearts as they were not allowed to celebrate Christmas, a harmful holiday which created consequences. Civilians were always being told how to live even if they didn't want to obey. We wanted to incorporate key things that have happened within the world over the years during Christmas or have anything to do with Christmas as a whole. Such as; changing the time of year in the performance to 1842. Also having Charles Dickens being in the play for writing The Christmas Carol this has significance as the 'evil one' could be seen as Ebeneezer Scrooge who hated Christmas until he was shown the joys that Christmas truly brings. We also added WW1 and the setting of No Mans Land where the British and German played a football match the day of Christmas. This was a highlighted key moment in the whole play as this allowed the audience to also gain knowledge on things they might have not known but also allowing them to connect with the performance on memories of how far we've come in life.
We also used pantomime theatre, in terms of using music, sounds, lighting and props to convey certain things throughout the performance. Such as using a certain sound to convey an emotion that the character didn't have to say through speech. This worked well as it allowed our audience to feel certain emotions and build connections with characters.
During the rehearsal process we went through a lot of developing and changed many things because we wanted our performance to be perfect and as actors and characters, we blossomed because we were trying new things that would work and fit well for the performance. As previously stated I was taken out of my comfort zone in terms of becoming masculine, I had to try out numerous vocal exercises linking to; pitch, diction and articulation, my posture in terms of how I stand, I stood with my back straight and head high to convey the power I had between my two other acolytes and my stage presence so I could look more uptight and fitted for my character. To achieve this I also watched a few clips and movies which contained acolyte behavior so I could get the gist of how to portray my character to the audience.
When thinking about initial ideas for our costumes, the first thing that came to my mind was split costumes. I wanted the villains to wear dark shades and the hero's to wear lighter shades, this to show the contrast between the split worlds they lived in. The darker colours are for the emotions that have been suppressed by the dystopian society while the lighter colours for the hero's represent hope and light that can be brought to their world. After long thought we decided to have everyone in the cast wear to were black because we believe it suited the era that everyone was in. The black symbolised depression and hatred which were emotions that were produced by the one man who ruled over them.
During rehearsals we were given the chance to perform short pieces of our process to our class were we was given peer feedback, I was fed back that my character has great stage presence and is growing strongly within the performance and that my voice is developing to the slow pitch I wanted, if I continued to do my vocal exercises I would get the right pitch by performance day. As a group of Acolytes we were told we work well together and each character was thought out correctly, we all added our own twists to our characters. This reassured me majorly and allowed me to think clearly about what I could develop next.
One of my strengths throughout the performance would be staying connected to my acolytes because normally when performing whatever you do for yourself will effect your performance but when working as a 3 you have to make sure you're all on the same page which we always were. Our energies bounced off of each other. Also I believe my develop process for my character was a big strength for me because I stayed open minded and allowed my character to flow through me, in terms of truly becoming my character. I feel as though my character was remembered for my presence to the stage. However one of my weaknesses would be slowing down my words and articulating certain words carefully, sometimes I felt as though I was rushing myself due to nerves.
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