East End Tales Lesson 3

In this lesson we were put in groups and given a scene from the play. I like my scene because its really interesting. Its about a girl who works in her dads shop and a man is being racist to her. In the scene I like how the characters confidence grows. I also like the rhyming in some parts and the repetition of lines, it makes the scene more effective and exciting.

I like how we can do whatever we want with the scene, at the moment its a bit confusing but when we get a more understanding of the play I think it will be really good. Im really looking forward to using our bodies to represent characters, I think that will be a learning curve.

East End Facts

FACTS

1.  It was rich in royal hunting grounds, palaces and small port settlements

2. In the 17^th century it became the home of many Huguenot refugees who fled from persecution in France.

3. Reputation for extreme poverty, gang rule, violence and crime. There were pockets of richer housing but most residents were struggling to get by.

4. murdering spree of Jack the Ripper, who terrorised the East End and who became probably the most notorious serial killer the country has ever known. 

5. It took until the end of the Second World War to completely eradicate the slum housing and improve living conditions.  Much of the area was destroyed by German bombing raids. The East End’s concentration of key manufacturing industries and its docks made this one of London’s biggest targets in the war.

targets

lesson 6 (the performance)

Overall I think the performance went extremely well! No one messed up their timings of lines and everyone remembered when they had to come on stage.

When we rehearsed the scene to our other class I was starting to get worried that the performance was going to go down hill! It was because people were late with "Sephy get out of here" in my scene and there were big breaks. And also people forgot when their sex scene line was. But in the final performance it went perfectly and everyone was amazing!

I think our class performance was better than the other classes because, as in our scene we talked about sex and people had to kiss in every scene that they were meant to. But the other class didn't and I think were brave for that, and it shows that our maturity has grown as a class. But I do think that the other class did some scenes better than us. For instance at the beginning and end they had a court of dance, showing their characters feelings for the other people that were in their scene. It looked really effective and it made it clearer for the audience to understand the relationships of the characters.

In my performance I definitely think my acting skills have developed. I think my articulation has improved, so that now the audience can clearly understand everything I'm saying, even when I'm shouting. I think I also developed my ability to stay in character. During my scene there were people walking in and a child who was right next to me kept making noises. But the whole time I stayed in character and didn't loose where I was or get distracted. I think another skill I developed was direct address. I had never actually done this before but from my first run through from the scene until last night I have improved. I am more confident with making eye contact to the audience, and making sure Im looking at both sides of the audience, plus making my voice clear and loud enough for them to hear me. And finally a skill I developed was staging. Before I didn't really think about it, but having to perform to a traverse theatre thats all you think about. How to make sure your facing both sides of the audience. Me and my partner really worked on this, and we defiantly achieved our goal.

So in conclusion I did my scene to the best of my ability, I learnt all my lines, I faced both sides of the audience, I made sure my words were clearly articulated, I stayed in character, I got into my character and I stayed focus throughout even when I wasn't performing.

communicating my character's objectives through my body language, voice and movement

In the scene my character has mainly 1 objective, and that is to find out what is going on. I use my body to communicate this objective by being very upright, which shows I'm nervous but eager to understand. I also always have my head directly in front him, showing that I'm very serious in that I want to now what is going on. I also clench my fists when he's pulling me along, this shows that I don't feel safe and Im very precocious as I don't know whats happening.
I use my voice to communicate my objective. I do this by shouting a lot, trying to get him to listen. I also ask a lot of questions because Im scared.
And finally I use movement to communicate my objective, by pulling away trying to get him to listen to me, I also do this as a rebellion because I'm annoyed he won't tell me whats happening. And when Sephy gets a stick and she yells "Callum enough!" I pull away to show Ive had enough and then I start moving in slow motion to show I've been hit by an explosion.

Peer Assessment Sheet

lesson 4 - technical terms

2nd October 2014

In this lesson we worked on are technical terms for our voice. We used each 7 things in our scene to make them better.

SOUND AND SILENCE. We didn't actually need any silences in our scene because its very rushed and there is no time for breaks.

PITCH. We argue a lot in our scene, even though we are not angry with each other. This is because Callum is anxious because he knows that theres a bomb, but Sephy doesn't know whats going on, so they both clash at points. Examples of this is when Callum runs in and shouts "Sephy you got to get out of here now!" by Ellis shouting this line it creates drama and panic for the audience as they have no idea whats going on. As the scene goes on they get more angry at each other so the depth of their voices increases because their angry at each other but also very scared.

PACE. Through the whole of the seen it is very fast. There are no breaks, no pauses because we wanted to make the audience go on the edge of their seats. And by making the scene very manic with something happening all the time, it creates a lot of tension and excitement for the audience. 

INTONATION. Sephy asks a lot of questions in the like "whats going on?" and so when I say this line at the end of the sentence my voice rises at the end because I am questioning something. 

VOLUME. Throughout the scene the volume is very loud but very much increases. This is because Callum is getting more anxious about the bomb exploding and Sephy is really scared because she doesn't know what is going on, so the whole time their getting angrier and angrier at each other. Callum wants Sephy to hurry up and Sephy wants to know what on earth is happening, so they both start raising their voices to get though to the other person. An example of this is when Sephy shouts at Callum "Callum enough!" because by this time Sephy is really petrified and still doesn't know whats happening and Callum won't tell her so she gets extremely annoyed and shouts even louder at him. 

TONE COLOUR. The whole scene is very cold and abrupt. Because they are always shouting at each other. For example "Never mind your ruddy drink!" which Callum shouts at Sephy because he frustrated with her because she won't leave the cafe. 

EMPHASIS. In the scene when Callum or Sephy wanted to make something clear to one another they emphasise a particular word. We decided to emphasise words that show what they person speaking wants. For example Callum says "you gotta get out of here right NOW!" and emphasises the word 'now" because he wants Sephy to realise that she needs to get away now and fast because something bad is going to happen.  

All these things make the scene better because create panic and drama on stage. This makes the audience feel excited and want to know whats going on.