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. 

Staging

In this lesson we worked a lot on staging. We worked on ways of making the scenes look interesting but making sure we don't have our backs to the audience.

Some scenes we actually used the whole class. One of them was my scene. This is because we wanted to make the bomb explosion look explosive but also we wanted the scene to look tense and get the audience on the edge of their seats. We did this by making everyone run in and scream Ellis's line "Sephy you got to get out of here now!". We did this because we wanted to make the tension of the scene rise. But what i really like about the scene is the way its layer out, everyone around me in different positions, it looks like a bomb explosion which is really effective.

So me and Elis can perform our scene and be seen by the audience, we did a different staging. We made very one drop to the floor which looked really dramatic as they do it when Elis runs in. And when they drop they drop in a line so its like a runway for me and Elis to perform, but is also easier to get off stage quickly and lets the other scene get prepared easily for their scene.









Another scene we worked on was the Sex Scene. This scene I think is one of the best. When we begin our scene there's one person that says the first line and then everyone waits until their turn and joins in. Its effective because every time its someone else speaking they always look at the person who spoke before them. Its also easier for us because it lets us have someone to communicate the line to. We also used the stage very well. We all space out across the entire stage giving the audience a opportunity to see us actors from different viewpoints.

In this lesson i learnt that staging is very important to make a performance interesting. If the audience are able to see whats going on they become more intrigued, but to make it look interesting then you've hooked them, all you need to do is deliver a good performance!

Technical Terms: Voice

1. Sound and Silence

In my scene there isn't really any silences or pauses. As there is a bomb about to go off Callum is very anxious to get Sephy out, and Sephy doesn't know what is going on and is quite scared so they don't have time to pause. They are constantly shouting to each other and hurting about.

2. Pitch

When Sephy says "Callum where did you spring from?" her voice gets higher as the sentence goes on, because she excited to see him but is also asking a question.

3. Pace

The pace is very fast a lot of head turning as one of us speaks then the other. But when Im doing direct address towards the audience at the beginning my pace isn't as fast, however it isn't really slow, there still aren't any breaks or pauses.

4. Intonation

When questions are made the pitch goes up. For example Sephy says "whats going on?" a lot, so her voce goes higher as she's asking a question but is also shouting.

5. Volume

The voice is most loud when Callum is arguing at Sephy shouting "Don't argue. Out! Come on!"or when Sephy shouts at Callum "Callum, enough!"

The voice is most soft when Sephy at the beginning is talking to the audience and says " I sipped my orange juice, grateful for the time alone", but there is still some annoyance in her voice.

6. Tone Colour

The quality of the voice is mainly cold and abrupt, and aggressive and hot. This is because they are both shouting at each other and Callum doesn't have much patience with Sephy as he wants to get her out of there quickly. An example of this is  when Callum says " never mind you ruddy drink. You have to leave NOW."

7. Emphasis

Callum uses emphasis on the word "now" when he says "You have to leave NOW." He does this because he wants to make clear that they have to leave immediately.

Another example is when Sephy shouts " Callum, enough!" and emphasises the word "enough!" because she wants to make clear that she's annoyed and wants him to stop.

Long Term Target

My long term target is to become more in touch with my emotions on stage. I want to make the audience feel something when they watch me. I want to be able cry if necessary and bring the character to life. Im quite good at comedy parts but not so much serious roles. Which is a problem since I've heard Brit only do serious plays! But i am going to work so hard on this. Im going to audition for any parts that really push my abilities. And finally I'm going to listen to what the teacher says, take it all in and use it. I'm going to watch other people use what I think is good. This is very important to me so I hope i can by the end of the year write down on this blog that I have achieved this and I have made someone really feel something when they watch me.

lesson 3

25th September 2014

As usual we started of by doing a warm up. Starting with body, we stretched and moved our mouths, imagining we were chewing gum. By warming up our body it helps us go from ourselves to our character more easily. Then we moved to our voice warmups, we worked on projection and articulation. We need to do this at the beginning so that when we go to rehearse we can make sure were loud enough but not shouting. And also so that the audience can understand what were saying. We after worked on breath control, this is important because we need to be able to say a whole sentence without stopping and have enough energy to do a whole performance. 

After the warmup we worked on the sex scene. In this scene we are using the whole class. We each say a line from the script. This is a better way of performing this scene than just having 2 people, because it won't be that awkward for us and the parents watching, but also its a lot more effective and looks a lot better and interesting. We are still trying to get the order right, everyone is getting confused but I think were get it soon, we just need practise.

What I found really fun was the Rugby chant (Hacker) exercise. It involved us making up a chant in groups and going opposite another group and shouting it at each other. I really liked it because we got to work as a team and have a laugh in class. But it did have some reflection to the play. Naughts and Crosses are 2 different groups and are against each other, so by doing the chant it made us think that even though Sephy and Callum are friends they are on 2 different sides of a war. 

For the rest of the lesson we worked on our scenes. I have achieved my target of learning my lines and staging it. I think the main target now is to really get the characters emotions into the scene and show how much they love each other and how scared they are. Because in this play Sephy and Callum can never feel safe or protected, through their whole lives they have been trapped in a society that won't let them be together. In this scene I think they finally realise how dangerous and scary the world they live in is. And what I want to do is show that fear and realisation of the world they come from. Because from this scene after they live their lives knowing this divide and the real horror it actually is. 

Direct Address

In my scene I use direct address two times. The first time I'm walking up and down the middle of the stage looking to both sides of the audience making eye contact with everyone. This is good because when i look at the audience they feel more involved and more of a connection with the character.

Still Moments

Still moments

Still moments are when the actors freeze on stage and the audience really get a chance to properly reflect on what the characters in the play are feeling and doing. 

We use it my scene, when Callum is pulling Sephy out of the mall and they freeze when Sephy is explaining what they are doing as well as after when they are running and talking. We obviously couldn't run in the scene because we would be running into the audience, so by freezing but still talking we can make it seem like were running by using are voices, but also the audience can hear us properly and see what are facial expressions are. If we were running it would be harder to project are voices and the audience wouldn't have time to see our faces. 

Traverse Theatre

Traverse Stage facts

1.The Traverse theatre can fit a lot of people.

2. It is a form of theatrical stage in which the audience is predominantly on two sides of the stage, facing towards each other. 

3. The stage is also commonly known as an alley or corridor stage. 

4. In some traverse stages, one end of the stage space may also end in audience

5. The ends of the stage are much larger than the traverse stage itself allowing for more space for actors, sets, and scenery


What is good about it

1. Greater projection of voice

2. Every action is visible to both sides of the audience

3. Intimate staging and allows the actors to use the audience for effect

4. Audience can see actors facial expressions clearer

5. Audience feel more involved 

6. Gets the audience more involved 


What people say about it 

Disadvantages for the audience:
---Once an actor walks past one part of the audience, the actor's back will be to the audience.
---It's not really convenient to place scenery on the stage. So, very minimal and small pieces of scenery can be placed on the stage.

Disadvantages for the actors:
---Very minimal and small pieces of scenery can be placed on the stage.
---Traverse stages are usually high off the ground. So, the front row audience might not be able to see very well.


Advantages for the audience:---Intimacy between the audience and actors.
---The audience can see the actor's entire body and hear the actors clearly.

Advantages for the actors:---Intimacy between the audience and actors.
---Scenery can be placed on the back wall.

How we use Traverse Staging

In my scene, me and my partner stand opposite sides of the stage. This will make the audience be constantly looking from one of us to the other. This is good because it gets the audience more intrigued, and they will be more concentrated to the scene. 

It is helpful for us as actors, because we have to concentrate more on facing the audience. I have to do this when I am directly addressing the audience. 

By using Traverse staging in our running part of the scene we can make it easier for the audience to see us as well as making it look a lot more interesting. 


Examples of Traverse Staging

1. fashion catwalk

2. 1991 The Derby Playhouse Community Theatre mounted a large scale production based on the events on Christmas Day in the trenches of World War 2 in 1914. The German and British armies (composed of a cast of hundreds) faced each other across the stage. 

HOMEWORK 2 (warm up)

Lesson 2Why should an actor warm up their body and voice?

An actor should warm up their body, because they use it a lot in theatre. If they do not warm up their body they can pull a muscle during the performance. As well as not getting their bodies prepared for the activities they will be facing, so they will get tired a lot quicker then they normally would if they hadn't of warmed up.

An actor should always warm up their voices, because thats what they use they most. They have to get their voices exercised and prepared for all the talking they will have to do. They also need to get their breathing under control so they are able to perform whole sentences without having to stop and gasp for air before they carry on. 

Lesson 2

Lesson 2

In todays lesson we started with a warm up. We did stretches and exercised our face by pretending to chew gum and be a cat. 

We then worked on the status of the characters in the play, going from 1-5. 1 being the worst off and 5 being the most richest. 
We learnt that the 1s walk with their heads down and backs hunched as they are embarrassed of who they are. In the play white skinned people would be 1s. 
We also looked at how 2s are more upright then 1s but still quite down and sad looking. These people would be like Ryan, because he is healthy but ashamed of who is and what he has done. 
We worked on 3s being normal, everyday people with a lot more goals then 1 and 2s, because they are more likely to achieve them, as they have more money and more education. We also said that they walk more upright but not with complete pride. People like this are Meggie, Callum and Jude. This is because they have a lot of ambitions in life but find it hard to achieve them.  
4s are a lot more proud of themselves and have obviously achieved in life, these people are like teachers and Sephys mum. Because they have the power to boss people around, but are not the most powerful. I think they always try to seem a lot more powerful then they actually are, they do this for self pride and status.
Finally 5s are the most powerful, and therefore walk around with complete pride, loving everything about themselves and looking down on everyone else knowing they are so much better then them. People like this are Sephys dad, as he is Deputy Prime Minister and has a lot of power.  

We also worked on articulation and pronunciation by doing warm up exercises on the floor and also in groups performing tongue twisters in different types of music styles. 

And finally we worked on our scenes in our groups. Some people performed theres and we gave them helpful feedback, so they can improve their piece. 

Character Profile

SEPHY

Name - Sephy 

Gender - Female 

Clothing - Expensive designer clothes. Mainly bought by her mother. Wears head band in hair a lot. Trainers and sometimes slip on shoes. Wears skirts and dresses which are quite pretty and young.

She wears her clothes at first with pride, because she likes them and thinks there quite nice. But to her she has always worn very nice clothes and has had a wide selection to choose from, so she hasn't really taken notice of it. And also Sephy isn't one to judge people by their clothes, and so they weren't a massive part of her life. But as the play goes on she starts to see that she is very fortunate to others in her clothing and actually she becomes embarrassed of them. For example when Sephy attends Lynettes funeral, she turns up in a designer, expensive black dress, which people at the funeral mock her for but also get afforded by as they think she is showing off about the fact she can afford nice clothes and they can't. I think this is where Sephy realises that she is higher class to others and she despises that. So from here she starts wearing her clothes feeling ashamed and embarrassed for reasons she can't help.

In the script Callum says to Sephy " Thank God. It took me almost an hour to find you".  This shows that Callum really does care for Sephy and would do anything to save her life. And by saying " Thank God" shows you that he is so relieved to of found her safe, and that she really does mean something to him.

In the script Sephy says  "Mother was driving me nuts!". She gets annoyed with her mum because her mum keeps wanting to buy her lots of shoes, and Sephy doesn't like this. And I think this is because of the reasons I was stating before about how now she feels embarrassed about wearing nice clothes because her friends can't afford them and she feels spoilt. She also says that her mum was "enjoying herself" and from this you get the impression that Sephy and her mother are very different in the fact that Sephy is embarrassed of everything she has but her mother on the other hand is very grateful and likes to show off about it by buying nice clothes and accessories. 

In the script when Callum runs up to her she seems very happy to see him. I know this because she says "Callum! where did you spring from" with the emphasis on "Callum!". So from this you can tell Sephy really like the company of Callum and loves spending time with him. 

During the script when Callum is trying to get her out she says " but I haven't finished my drink" and this shows that even though she feels bad for being as fortunate as she is, she still would rather drink her drink then go off with Callum. And this to me tells me that she still has this part of her that sees money over friendship. 

Later on in the script once the bomb has gone off Sephys first words our "Mother! Oh my God!". This shows me that even though Sephy gets frustrated with her mother when she wants to constantly waste lots of money on clothes for her, that she doesn't need, she still very much loves her and doesn't wish her any harm. 

Homework 1 (Double Cross by Malorie Blackman - book trailer)

How do the character's body postures help to inform you of their statuses?

In the clip, the character Tobey when talking to McAuley had a very different body language to when he was talking to Callie. When he was talking to McAuley he hardly gave him eye contact and was a bit hunched over with his head down, and his arms were by his side. This shows that Tobey was scared of McAuley but wanted to look stung and confident infrot of him, and thats why he didn't not make eye contact and had his arms down by his side so he wouldn't fight with them and look nervous.So from this I can guess that McAuley is a higher status then Tobey. When Tobey was talking to Callie his body language was different, as his back was straight, he wasn't hunched and made clear eye contact with Callie, and the character Callie did the same. I can assume from this that they both are on the same status.

The character Dan seemed to be like Tobey when talking to McAuley, but more nervous. He did not make any eye contact with McAuley and neither Tobey, he also had his head facing downwards the whole time. This tells me that McAuley had a higher stays then Dan as well.

The character McAuley was always upright and made eye contact with Tobey when he was talking to him. This shows that he wasn't afraid and felt confident. So from this i can conclude that Tobey has a lower status then McAuley.


what does it tell you about the type of people they are?

It tells me that the character McAuley is quite powerful and a very scary man, and that if you were to get involved with his business that he runs, you will get in a lot of trouble.

It tells me that the character Tobey is normally not the kind of boy that does things against the law. It tells me that he is very scared to talk to McAuley but feels that he has to and that the only reason he is going to McAuley is to do something that he feels is the right thing to do.

Lesson 1

In todays lesson we started by doing basic exercises to warm up our body. We started by pretending to chew gum which warmed up our mouths and then we did lots of different shapes and movements with our body, like when we got on all fours and pretended to be cats and hissed at each other to exercise our mouths. I liked beginning with that because it got the awkward tension out the room by embarrassing ourselves in front of each other. We the worked on our breathing, we did this by breathing in then slowly letting it out. After we practised our articulation, by saying A, E, I, O, U. But to try to interpret Naughts and Crosses into our exercise we said A, E, I, O, U to each other in way a character in the play would say it. This was good because we were able to start thinking about the play and the characters while working on our articulation. We then worked on projection and pitch, we sang words like "moo" and "me", we sang them in different pitches and at different volumes. 

After the warm up we started to think about the play. We had to walk around and talk to people like we were equal, we did this by constantly flattering each other. This I think symbolised the Crosses, by them being the best and the main reason of the play, equality, but changed it so everyone was equal.We then had to go from 1-5, 1 being the least important to 5 the most important. In the play 1 would be the Naughts and 5 would be the Crosses. I liked being the numbers in-between, because they were the most interesting to me. This is because you had to think more about them, as the 1s are very poor and sad and the 5s are very rich and happy. For me I liked being in the middle, because your not poor but your not rich your just happy as you are, you don't live on the street and you don't live in a mansion with loads of friends and a lot of parties to go to. You have a very normal life with no high expectations and your not constantly looking down on people, your just you and go on in life. I also liked this because in the play you don't really think about the middle people, so it was interesting to think about them as well.

To end the lesson we got in groups of 5 and prepared freeze frames. The first time I did it with my group we had 3 sentences but could only choose 2 words in each sentence to use in the scene. What was interesting was that everyone used the same words but all had different scenes. I liked from this activity being able to create a scene with only 2 words and freeze at the end but still can show a lot about the characters and the play in the short space of time. We then did the same thing but used the whole sentence and had to do it in slow motion. What was good about doing it in slow motion was that you could see every movement and facial expression a lot clearer and when you performed it made you think more about that then you normally would.

My acting skills and things I can develop

I find taking directions very easy and I think that it is something I am very good at. I am quite good at learning lines as well, I can normally learn a monologue in under a day. I think I'm better at comedy more then serious acting, but I'm not sure as I've mainly only done comedy parts. I really like developing characters and I think I'm quite good at it as I've done a lot in the past. I like to embody the characters emotions and bring them to life with actions or facial expressions on stage. I like doing acting where you cannot talk but only use actions, Ive done it only once in the past, but I found very enjoyable and I liked how you can show a lot about a character and not use words, I believe that is one of my strong points.

My not so strong points are definitely accents! I always get them mixed up or just sound really silly!!! I don't think I'm very good at playing characters who are really sad, I find it hard to cry on queue in front of people, but i never have really performed parts like that before. I like doing improvisation but I think i need to develop my skills, I need to try to think quicker on my feet and come up with a wide range of ideas and characters.