New Blog

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Work over Christmas break

This was the work that we as a group set each other to to over the Xmas Break, The following is my work:

News Reports

Good evening and this is 8 o'clock news. It is the end of June 16th, the anniversary of the day we took back control of our country. The day Jamie claimed power over us. Today we remembered the Dark Decade ... our government betrayed us, every company shut down, the power went out across the country, the prisons emptied, the police did nothing. Suddenly it was in the streets, a riot that lasted weeks. Then there was nothing ... just nothing ... no government, no jobs, no security. We lived like animals. For ten years we lived in that hell, then he came and restored order and peace, no more survival just living. We are happy now, Jamie. We have no problems, Jamie. Our lives are yours, Jamie. We do what you want, Jamie. You control us, Jamie. and with Jamie's love and kindness we only have five rules to follow:

1. No individuality

2. No feelings

3. No freedom

4. No love

5. Do as Jamie says

Goodnight, and remember, Jamie is always watching.

In other news, on the outskirts of sector B a local civilian by the name Lewis Faith was brutally murdered by a notorious rebel gang. We believe he was a witness to their crimes and so they took him out.

Breaking news, at midnight last night, sector A was bombed by the same group that killed civilian Lewis Faith. These terrorists are extremely dangerous and must be reported immediately if seen. Stay safe and remain in your homes and remember Jamie is always watching.

Today we join together to celebrate the anniversary of Ruby taking over after Jamie’s mysterious disappearance. It has been a year and there is no update on where he has gone and so is still one of our greatest mysteries. In other news the terrorist group that murdered Lewis Faith on the outskirts of the old sector B have vanished and not been seen since.

Goodnight and remember Ruby’s one rule:

Live your life to the fullest because you never know how much time you have left.

Techniques-Training Scene

We need more techniques in our performance so we created a bit and just developed it until we ended up with a piece which starts with another news scene being played that explains that the section we rescued at the start has been bombed ant the news are blaming us. At the same time this is being played we have split screen going on with Sam telling Jeremy that he is on his last warning and will be kicked out if he does anything bad and the rest of us watching the news reel and yelling at the screen and talk to each other about it. After that we have Meg and I doing a practice fight session where we have repetition in our movement and start a conversation that discusses James and if we trust him, then one by one everyone else comes in and it turns into an argument between Toby and Meg then Toby and Kai which is when Freya enters and kicks Toby out. Then we arranged that while we are all angry that is when we go into the scene where we beat up and kill James.

I am really proud of what we created, I like it. All we need to do is rehears it and work out what exactly we are going to say and film the News scenes.

Techniques - Revisit to the induction

This lesson we looked at techniques, we were shown a video (Link here) and I liked the use of dialogue starting in the middle of the conversation and I want to apply that to our piece. I liked the different screens showing different things and I really want to use that in our piece, have about three/four projections on the walls of the stage and have them show the 'perfect' world that Jamie has created and use images and stuff to help create the world we live in. I also think that instead of a voice over monologue to open the performance, we could have a local news video where we are sitting there and explain how Jamie came to power in an indoctrinating way of like "We are repressed and we like it" type thing. This could be projected on the back wall.

We also re-visited the induction scene with James and I feel we have created a really good looking movement piece (link here to video of piece) I think Dom needs to look more assertive with his moment, and Meg spin faster so her gun fire just takes one beat. I think I need to spend more time adjusting Ashley's posture and maybe circle him, sizing him up then put my hand on his shoulder. I also need to look more tough when moving around and kicking him.

Style + Beat up Scene

This lesson we looked at the style of our performance. As a group we decided that our style will be naturalistic and dark, our characters are realistic (to an extent) and we have been through a lot. We wanted our piece to be emotional so we can show the lives our characters have lived.

From this style we wanted to create our beat up scene, where the group has reached tipping point with James and beats him up because they think he is Jamie. With our style of dark we created a whipping scene (Link here to the scene) I like our scene as we can light up Ashley's face with a red light to really show the pain and as the scene will be low lit it will create the dark atmosphere that goes well with our style. But we do need to plan lighting because if it is too dark the audience wont see anything that is going on.

Character Description

Name: Craig Harris

Age: 41

Occupation: Ex-Officer in the Marines Now: Rebel

Life: During childhood Craig’s father abused him whenever he went out drinking, Craig was terrified to tell anyone this was happening even his mother. When he was nine, his mother came home pregnant but the baby wasn't her husbands. That night Craig was awoken by his mother screaming so he ran to find out what was happening. He saw his mother crying on the floor with his father standing over her with a knife. Craig jumped on his father, who swung the knife and hit Craig in the head with it, leaving a scar on his forehead but Craig was quicker and he grabbed the knife and killed his father. From that day on Craig protected his mother and little brother. When Craig was sixteen he joined the marines to protect his country, like he protected his family and he worked his way up to be an officer; that was when Jamie took over. Jamie turned on his own country and used the army to control the public. Jamie told Craig to gun down a group of civilians because they wouldn't comply with his ideas. Craig refused to harm civilians but Jamie threatened the life of his mother and brother, so Craig agreed. However in the heat of the moment Craig didn't realize when he charged into the civilian home and blindly slaughtered the two people in there, he actually killed his family. Filled with distress he went into hiding until he found a small rebel group trying to take Jamie down. Craig was more than happy to assist them on the promise that he gets to see Jamie killed.

This image has a scar that I think Craig would have except only the part on his forehead that goes to the corner of his eye, not the parts under or the second on that starts in the middle of the forehead.

This image shows the type of clothing I think my character would wear and the body type I think my character would have, I obviously won't look like that for the performance but that is what I think I should look like. Also the hair style in the middle is the kind of hair I thing Craig would have.

Improved Romance Scene

We looked at the love triangle today and thankfully the dance we created last year was forgotten so it forced us to create something new that actually looked good. We first have Jeremy take Sam up on a roof where he has a picnic for her and they sit and talk and look at the stars with romantic music being played quietly in the back. The next day Spencer asks if Sam wants help training with a firearms weapon and they have a romantic time where Spencer helps Sam out the when she hurts herself he is there for her and eventually he gets out a guitar and plays her a song.

I much prefer these date scenes than the dance thing we were trying to create last year because they are more intimate moments for Freya, Toby and Kai to perform and are better to watch than the dance.

My New ideas + Show developments

Over the holidays, I watched the movie 'The Theory of Everything' and watching Steven Hawking slowly be reduced to life in a chair it gave me idea's for a performance we could do.

Idea One:

the lead is diagnosed with a terminal illness and the play is about how they cope with it until they die but also about how their family and friends cope during and after their death.

Idea Two:

The entire cast is diagnosed with a terminal illness and the play is how each of them cope with it, fight it/suicide/live life to the fullest etc.

After going back to school everyone liked the idea but weren't comfortable scrapping our old idea for this new one, so we incorporated the idea in a way. For our performance we will have a timer occasionally appear on the back wall/ceiling that is counting down. when the timer hits zero that is when Freya kills us all and we find out the countdown was how long she was willing to let us live.

We improved on the sleeping friendship scene that we created lest year. we changed it so we all are asleep then one by one we stand up and explain our story of how and why we ended up fighting Jamie. This forced us to create back stories for our characters and helped us develop them.

My back story is that I was working as an officer in the army but the Jamie took over and started to force us to kill civilians, I refused and was threatened to do it or my family will be killed so I gave up arguing and went on the mission. I went in killed everyone before they could react and fight back but afterwards I found out that it was my family I was sent to kill, I realized I killed my family. So I ran from the house and kept on running until I came across a little band of people planning on taking Jamie down and I signed up and helped them the best I could and supplied them with as much information I had, I was a turning point in this rebellion.

Love Dance

We wanted to create something that portrayed the love triangle and how Sam is cheating on both Spencer and Jeremy. We eventually decided to show this in a dance, we tried to choreograph something that could show this but our best dancer/choreographer was away so we weren't doing that well. I think this scene is definitely something we need to go back to and show Meg so she gets her input for the dance and hopefully improve it.

Sleep scene

In our plot we wrote that we will have a scene that shows Ruby and Sam's friendship and Jeremy and Spencer's friendship. So we created a scene to show just that, after we agree to let James in we are sent to bed due to curfew so we all lie on the floor, then after a moment Spencer wakes Jeremy up and the talk about the girls they like and show a bond between them. Spencer then leaves to use the toilet and that is when Sam wakes up and talks to Ruby about the fact that Ruby has a crush on someone and they show a bond there. To be honest, I don't really like this scene because it seems really boring and Ashley, Dom and I are just lying on stage with no point. The conversations seem really dry with nothing that interesting happening, so I think we can either write a script with a better conversation on it or change the idea completely.

Induction Training Scene

After the opening we wanted a way to show that James wasn't cut out for working with us, so we created a movement piece that shows him going to each of our stations and trying to do what we do but fail and after we kick him out. The scene then carries on for us to plan our next move but as we decide what to do James mentions important information so we let him stay but I don't trust him and I talk to Sam about it but she just tells me to keep an eye on him. I like our idea to show James not being very good but I don't think our movement piece is that impressive or nice to look at, so I think we need to go over that and improve on it.

Opening

We want to open with a monologue (voiced by me) played into the room giving context to what the future looks like and explain how Jamie took control and what is happening. We then created a soundscape to show our first mission and to get the story started. (link here to see the opening) I feel that the basic idea looks good but we need to work on timing and our characters, I think that if I say something like "it's all clear, Jeremy do your thing" then Toby enters it will look better, and if Dom says something like "Sector One cameras are down, good job team" so the audience understands what is happening. I also think we need more reaction to hear that our activities are being noticed like Freya turning to Dom and saying "Tim can you work on deleting all video evidence of us in Jamie's Media network. Spencer, Take a message to all our informants, telling them to lay low until we give the all clear. Ruby, go topside make sure this punk wasn't followed here. Craig, check social media, find out how famous we've become."

Idea development

We wanted to develop our idea so we created a rough story line that we can work of and created characters for each of us to play. We changed the character Simon to Jamie because we wanted the leader of our rebel group (Sam) to actually be Simon and the throw the audience off we assume Jamie is a boy the entire show but have him turn out to be a girl in the end. We decided to have Freya play the role of Jamie/Sam because we thought she could play the role of a leader very well and  I think to include the character change at the end will allow her to show a new type of evil character that we haven't seen from her yet. We wanted a character to enter the rebel group and be new and inexperienced to fighting, I also wanted us to suspect that he is a spy for Jamie. This character was decided to be played by Ashley and is called James, I like the Ashley is playing this role because there is an essence of an underdog/outsider to his character that I think he can pull of. We also wanted a Character to fall in love with Sam, so when she betrays us and kills us, we get to see a hesitation when killing the character to give some more depth to the character of Sam. When deciding who to play this role we had a slight problem because both Toby and Kai wanted it, so to settle the argument we created a love triangle between the three but Sam is dating both of them without them knowing. Toby's character of Jeremy, we decided to be the rebel groups close combat and Kai has the character Spencer and he is the groups weapons expert and runner. I feel that Dom has a look of intelligence and not so much a field agent, so we created the character Tim our groups Technical Adviser. I wanted a role that was really different to other characters I have played, so I am playing the role of the ex-soldier, I have left Jamie's Army and now am fighting against him, I am the character who strongly thinks James is a spy. We created the character Ruby for Meg, our groups sharp shooter, she is sort of our groups assassin. I like Meg playing this role as she can really make the role a Fem-Fatal character, beautiful yet dangerous. We want her character to fall in love with one of us and I think she can cry over the dead body of whoever she is in love with at the end.

New idea

As our would you rather idea has been dropped we decided to go to our roots, we asked ourselves "From the title 'Chasing Pavements' what can we create?" and the idea of people 'chasing' their freedom. I wanted to set the performance in the future because the other group was setting theirs in the past and I want to do something different and I also thought that the future will allow us to play with lighting, sound and props and be creative with it. I think as a class we got inspiration from the school musical 'We Will Rock You' and films like the hunger games and Divergent as we wanted a Dystopian world to rebel against. we created a concept of a big brother state where 'Simon' is always watching, a new way of looking at the game 'Simon said'.