15th March - Lesson Write up

Tuesday 15^th March

Lesson Write Up

Today in Miss Woffinden’s Lesson we reflected on our homework from the week before. She mentioned how detailed Frankie Cooney’s was and about Emily’s evaluation table and so I had a look on the blog at each of these things. I agree that Frankie’s is very detailed and an inspiration but Emily hasn’t put her table up yet and so I don’t know what she has evaluated me like and will blog next when I find out.

She said that the pictures I had put on were really strong and it would be interesting to see how we decide to use these in our workshop. The pictures were the same as I have used in blog entry: December 14^th Choosing the Issues and why? (Click on the hyperlink to follow it)

Miss Woffinden then asked us to decide on the purpose of our props and reflect on our research. The purpose of our dress is to look like a size four and to look old but to show her traumatizing past. The skeleton is to support the dress and as the true story is called 'The Skeleton in my Closet' we thought it would be really effective to take the metaphorically written work and make it literal. We thought that displaying her as bones of a skeleton would be powerful and help to give the story meaning and the respect it deserves.

Evaluating personal skills:

My role in the play is a bit of everything as we are all doing a little bit of everything. We are all involved in the script work, song writing, advertising, acting and directing part of the Task. I feel I could do a lot of good directing work and I'm keen to get involved that way. As for the script work, I reckon it is a working process and will be done in good time with outstanding quality.

If I were to evaluate myself using the PLTS' I would give myself green for: Being Organised, Managing Emotions, Managing Risks, Imagine, Make Links, Persuade Others, Identify Issues, Set Myself Challenges, Plan - Do - Review, Find Solutions, Invite Feedback, Share Learning, Take Responsibility, Build Team Strengths, Manage the Team, Reach Conclusions, Evaluate the Evidence and Stay Objective. 

If I were to evaluate myself using the PLTS' I would give myself amber for: Go For It, Finish It. This is because I don't want to seem too over enthusiastic and sometimes when I have ideas, I don't always want/ know how to carry them out. Question Assumptions, this is because I don't really know how to question assumptions or how to word it without sounding too rude. I don't question assumptions very often and so this is amber. Take Creative Risks, I generally have many good ideas I just underestimate myself too much and get quite worried in case I go for something and it doesn't work out as I had planned. I would then beat myself up all day about something not going to plan (metaphorically of course). Get Involved, because no matter how confident I am I get extremely paranoid that people are going to judge me as harshly as I judge myself. I get involved with everything I can do but I just worry too much about things not going right. I suppose this is all part of drama and evaluating yourselves and I think I should stop being so paranoid about nothing. Evaluate the Team, I know whoever I am with in the diploma team will be willing to accept feedback and evaluation from me and will not judge or take offence at any constructive criticism but I can't help but worry what people will think if I try to evaluate them. I don't want to sound unkind or nasty but I wouldn't know how to broach the situation. Explore a question; if I am personally honest I actually do not know what this question means and will ask Miss Woffinden as I am unsure of this. I am sure it is something we will have done many times as a diploma team but I am unsure of what it is because of the name.

Overall I think I am very positive with most of the PLTS' and I think I just judge myself too harshly and worry what other people think. I need to try to 'stop worrying and just have a go.'

Once we had discussed this for some time we re-wrote our timeline using Matchware Mindview. Here is our timeline:




Timeline made using Matchware - Mindview

 

Then we went into the drama room to rehearse our piece again and again until we were ready to show.

Here are pictures of us rehearsing:



Our Scripts



Then we performed. Miss Woffinden said she liked how we had used a true story but said we have to make sure it’s not copyrighted and make sure we use our own work in there too.

She also said we have to question whether the language is too formal for our target audience, but then again we don’t want to patronise them. It's something we have to think about when we are writing more of the script. I think our performance is controversial they way Me and Imogen use more formal language in relation to our characters and Emily and Courtney use more childish/ teeangerish language, in relation to their characters. We have to make sure we know why we have chosen our lines and in our case we want it to be religious to the true life story. As for the transitions between the scenes I think our dress may stay on the stage for the whole production as it is the main thing and all our script relates to that. We decided to use a questionnaire for our target audience to find out more about their knowledge of our piece. Here is our questionnaire and script so far:

15th March - Song Writing

Tuesday 15^th March

Song writing:

First of all we split off into our TIE groups to rehearse our pieces, then we came back as a whole and performed our pieces to the class.

Seb, Tom and Francesca’s song was about Children in Divorce. I liked how it set the mood and scene. It was quite heart wrenching. They had chosen to use a Cornet, a piano and a tambourine to create the effect they desired. The cornet sounded really good with the piano and I had wished to hear more (for Francesca to play for longer) and for Tom’s bit (the tambourine) to be softer and played more in time with Seb and Francesca.

Abi, Frankie, Olly and Jack’s song was about Gender Equality. I liked how they used different styles of singing, for example Frankie and Olly would sing normally and then Jack would come in with a rap and then Abi sings normally. I liked how they did this as it made it more controversial. They had decided to use a piano, a guitar, a tambourine and drums. The melody was really good and apt for the piece but unfortunately I couldn’t hear the lyrics because of the dynamics of their singing and the instruments. All in all it was great though.

Then it was our groups turn to perform but within our group we had decided only Imogen would sing and play the guitar. This is because out of all of us Imogen has the best voice which is not only the best but sounds absolutely superb and stunning. We also only chose a guitar for our melody as our piece is quite a lonely, minor piece and the acoustics alone sounded perfect and I could imagine our piece straight away. We decided it would be best for Imogen to also use a microphone as she sang rather quitetly. Imogen chose the chords from a Kate Nash song she likes and played on it a bit to create her own chords from an inspiration of Kate Nash. I think the lonely sort of sound it has makes the piece sond good and fit with our Eating Disorder Theme. To start the project we experimented with telephone melodies and 12 bar patterns to create sufficient chords. We didn't use this method to create our chords this time but I do like the idea of these methods for future references. We use the verses to tell a story of The Skeleton In My Closet which is an eating disorder. The chorus repeats the message many times to conver the metaphore of the skeleton. We are trying to educate people of the strugglt the Mother went through during her high school years and how traumatic her past actually was.

Afterwards we gave and received feedback for each group and lots of constructive criticism was given. Our feedback was for Imogen’s diction to improve so that the lyrics were heard clearer  as you couldn't really tell what she was singing and to explain our motives for only having Imogen playing and singing. Also we were advised to bring it to a better close as it stops quite abruptly. The feedback helped me a lot and as a result helped my group a lot and our whole TIE piece. Other groups liked our song and said it had power and meaning. I think our song will fit best at the sart and end of our performance.

The Process of song writing:

First we tried to gather inspiration by researching other eating disorder songs. We went on YouTube and several lyric websites by Googling Anorexic based songs. There are lots of anorexic based songs but none of them quite apt for our TIE piece as they don’t approach the issue quite as well as I had thought. Instead we chose to create the chords and come back to the lyrics. Imogen, being the most musically tuned in, wrote the chords which she thought appropriate.

Reading our story and script gave us a great idea to include the lines from our script and make them song lyrics.

I am really happy with our song and really like how we have “Powerful Lyrics” as quoted by Seb :)

8th March - Lesson Write-Up

8^th March

Lesson write up

In today’s lesson we gathered round and handed in our homework. We had a discussion about meeting Gail (The Artistic Director for the TIE Schools Company at the West Yorkshire Playhouse) and the types of questions we are going to ask her. We then were given our assignment brief for this project. Here it is:

After discussing the brief we went into the drama studio to decide on what else we needed to work on in our groups for our performance. We decided it was best that we write the script together in the time left that we had. Here is our script so far:

Beth, Imogen, Emily and Courtneys first scene : The Skeleton in my closet

8th March - 10 Questions for Artistic Director

8th March

10 Questions,

In today’s lesson we were told at some point we were going to meet the artistic director of the TIE Company at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Here we then had to devise 10 questions we are going to ask her when we meet her. Two of our questions had to be a certain topic: The first about how they are funded, the second about the staff structure. Here are my 10 questions:

  1.     What styles of theatre do you use in your productions?

  2.     Who decides on the themes you explore?

  3.     How are your projects funded?

  4.     Do you perform your own work or work that is written by other companies or playwrights?

  5.     What is your company staff structure?

  6.     Is there a hierarchy for the roles/ responsibilities within the company?

  7.     What are your responsibilities as an Artistic Director?

  8.     What is your most highly praised performance? What issue is it based on?

  9.     How long does it take you to produce a TIE piece of high quality and standard?

10.  Do you find it hard to decide on a target audience to relate to your issue/ production?