11|12|13 - Directing - New Script

Over the week, Mia dropped out meaning that the previous script I'd had in mind wouldn't work properly as I focused a lot on that relationship. I decided to write a different script more heavily influenced by Stephen Sondheim's. I used a notebook to write out the script and write down idea's of movement that could match the words to make it a physical piece. 

We went over what we did last week, removing the part with Mia, and having it go straight into the wood scene. 

After directing the script out, I wrote notes of what I would like to change or develop:

In the intro sequence - switched round Med and Sam as then Med would be behind Abbie - to show that the Huntsman had a dominance over Blue, the proxemics show their family relationship and his authority by her physical timid reaction to his prominence. 

In my script I had an alternate speech pattern between men and women, but I decided to make it so that the women say everything to uplift the tone. They can create their own pitch and pace, as this with juxtapose with the cheerful Red that is naive to the dangers of her journey. There also needs to be more enthusiasm in everyones voice and the pace of the walk needs to be a lot faster and more definition of the walks. 

Every understands the directions they should turn, not so set as my script says as after the walk they may end up somewhere else. no head movements as they are too tedious and don't make a massive impact, whole body turns created a lot more of a dynamic scene. 

Began refreshing on the frame movement, decided people would walk from either end and previous movement would have to be adapted for this. 

Refreshed on the sound scapes making each noise clear and worked on who needed to raise their volume. 

4|12|13 - Directing - Starting the Performance

Again I was only here for the first half so I started off the session, we all discussed our favourite idea's that we would want to keep included into the final performance and they all said 
-sound scape
-the idea of shadow theatre
-the frames to be used to climb through

I decided that I also really liked the first freeze frame and if we centre it around Red, and used the first line 'There once was a delicious little girl called Red, who was loved by everyone who saw her' 

For this session me and Kelly decided to work on contrast, so I would create the basis, making it creepy, then Kelly would try a variation to make it more comical. 

I made everyone but Red face the back, Red would start talking, on delicious the rest of the group would turn around, using a stage whisper to repeat the word 'delicious'. Blue would say 'who was loved by everyone who saw her'. The rest of the group would the walk away leaving the mother stood behind Red who was kneeling down. This meant that we could create a non naturalistic moment where the mother would reach out to give the basket to Red, and Red would reach forward to collect it. This symbolises the lack of direct information given by the mother to Red showing the reasons for why she may be naive. 

To then make it more eerie, we made the repetition of delicious really snide and said on a slow turn that would make them stare at red, they will then snap straight back to facing the back, ready to walk into a carousel that would be ready so that when they walk in a circle it becomes the wood in which Red can use for the next transition scene. 

We kept going over until we could get it fluid and that the turning was in synchrony We then added a sound scape to the carousel wood movement in order to link it and make a make the scene less static while Red prepares to go to the woods. 

27|11|13 - Directing - Naivety

As I knew I would only be there for the first half of the session it was decided that I would lead the first half and Kelly would take over before I left. We also knew that it was a year 10 school trip so we did not have Med, James, Romina or Megan on this date. 

We wanted to experiment with showing Red being naive, so I wanted to play around with her being a passive character that is easily manipulated. For this I told Richard and Sam that they would have to be comfortable with picking up Emelia. I wanted them to pick her up just by the arms, and then have the females come through and support her underneath, in the same position as when they did 'I'm flying!' in one of our first sessions. 

This took a while to develop, But I wanted that part to end with her hugging Blue, as if the incident with the Wolf raping her had just happened because of her passive actions. I wanted the women to run in with urgency, as if they were directing more of their energy towards the men and helping red rather than protecting her and making her aware of this. I wanted the men to seem very aggressive, we worked on the way they held there body posture and their gait would be relaxed as they felt in control of the situation and they'd become aggressive at the site of a girl. 

We decided also that we would begin to put the final performance together, which meant structuring the performance and selecting our favourite idea's. 

After, Kelly developed this so it was ready to perform, this is that performance: 

13|11|13 - Directing - Male Dominance

For this session, we split the cast into two, I would work with one half and Kelly would work with the other. As Kelly wasn't here the week before, I thought it would be a good idea that she worked with the biggest group from last week and develop the movement that they created and possibly some more transition ideas. 

I worked with Emelia (Red), Abbie (Blue), James (Wolf) & Med (Huntsman). Me and Kelly were discussing on the idea of presenting the Huntsman as a negative character aswell in order to reflect how society see's men as violent. I decided to test this out, by making these four create a piece of movement that showed the women's naivety/weakness against men. I told them small features I wanted to be part of it, these were

-a point where they're not touching the floor with their feet. 
-a hinting towards sexual activity
-a moment where the girls meet
-the frame represents the females person comfort zone/safety

Again, as last week, I allowed them to work independently creatively on this with little input, as I wanted them to enjoy the experience and wanted to see what idea's I could adopt into the final performance so they could feel self fulfilling when they have contributed. Their performance was this: 

The only thing I could improve is the fluidity but that would come with rehearsal. I think they managed to do well with the synchronising and thought it did well in symbolising how Blue could try and teach Red as her mother could not. The dominance the men had over the females was clear, and the final end where the men kicked the frames away suggested that the frames was a metaphorical 'safety zone' well and that the men would corrupt that. 

6|11|13 - Open The Door - Opening & Final Rehearsals

The last thing we needed to do was set the first piece of physical theatre that would create a massive impact for the start of the performance. We want to show the traveling aspect which can allude to the audience that they are being taken out of this country. We also projected news images that set the correct tone for the piece. It's also nice to use more
technological aspects of media as it gives a more professional feel to the performance.

The door sequence consisted of Me, Emily, Alex and Matt. The boys did most of the movement and lifting of the door whilst me and Emily created ourselves to be the people that manipulated the scene around us. Whenever we exited off stage, we would then bring on a part of the set the next time we entered. Gradually building up the scene made it more interesting for the audience to watch as well as getting a sense of character from the opening. Once we had created this, we rehearsed it to get it up to speed then moved on to the final rehearsals.

We went through each scene and decided on the scipt and fixed any incorrect tones or problems.

We manage to get the first scene with the Photographer walking in with the trousers down right straight away as we had the script set already and the humour was relaxed and easily achievable. 

My first bit of interaction's tone needed to be changed. I wasn't showing a mature enough response to realising the audience. I was holding a mug and originally I would spit the water out quite dramitcally, but we decided a slower release of water from the mouth back into the mug would create just as much humour. I am also going to expand on the 'partner' implication and make the sexual gesture bigger and slower in order to create more humour. I need to think of the tone of my voice when talking and remember to keep the language more mature and remove hedges and fillers such as 'erm' and 'um' except when I am doing so to create a more informal and comfortable feeling between myself and the audience.

When I'm going through the formal speech of the article I make my voice a lot clearer as if i am dictating everything in a clear reporter style. When beginning to read the story, Mr Chipp started to show me the images of the mutilated children, this made me do a word replacement list for when I am describing the child as I can then make the audience feel more uncomfortable and start to imagine what I have been witnessing whilst working on this story. It also creates a specific bond with the Journalist and the audience as I am the only person on stage and therefore the focus is on me and they have to listen to me. I decided that I wanted to continue holding the piece of paper, because I think you can tell a lot of the emotion from when i'm holding. When it becomes more involved with the story I look at the paper more in order to show the audience it was not a pleasant scene to watch and I can't look at them and admit that I did nothing but watch. I can also grab the paper and grasping them to show discomfort at the event I witnessed which adds another texture. I will also be using a dictaphone, as I get more and more lost in the reporting, I will not focus on it as much in order to give a natural performance of the Journalist.

When the bangs went when the Photographer reentered, we start laughing, this gives the first bit of relief from the serious tone, as well as being able to suggest to the audience that it's such a regular occurance that they are learning to laugh at what scares them. The only piece of improvement I was told was to make sure that I didn't sound so paniced and that I maintained an authorititive tone over my decisions.

The Army Guard's piece of interaction revolves around the way the audience will view him. We have given the him a reason to behave like a monster so therefore the audience can rethink their initial judgements of the character. The Army Guard also makes the audience question that they would do in this situation, so this case of empathy is a way
When with the child I will clean the blood of her with a blanket, this links to a moment in the story when I say the woman that the man takes his dead child too cleans her. This connection and reanactment of the world surrounding the Journalist and Photographer, shows the different connections the two reporters have made with their surroundings which utimately could represent the world and choosing to ignore and take action when the conflict is presented infront of us.

23|10|13 - Open The Door - Interaction

The last part of the devising process was to decide where and how we were going to interact with the audience. We discussed a place where we could each character could talk to the audience. The places we decided were

-Before the Journalist's speech - to set the reasoning of the piece
-The Army Guard - to give his side
- The Child's - Journalist to take control and get the audience to create the scene the child was last in
- Photographer leading the debate on whether they should take the child or leave it 

For my speech we decided that were going to talk about subjects that related to the teenage audience. These had to be current topics, such as Miley Cyrus's VMA performance and Cheryl Cole's arse tattoo. I would be asking them to raise their hands as this tells them from the beginning of the performance that they will need to stay alert in order to be involved.  We then juxtaposed this by presenting a news report that will not be well known to them, in this case, 'president assad's new regime'. This will make less hands raised and create a bigger point as the first two aren't really life changing stories. We will start the speech of by relating back to the Photographer and state how 'the world is always watching' so we can move on to the fact that you chose what you see and what you ignore. 

The Army Guard will be talking to the audience about how he is not a monster and that he has his own reasons and you can't judge the soldier for being scared of the child because of the affects the war had on his little sister. 

The second part of interaction that I participate in is when the child looks up, which is the first sign of movement throughout the piece. The Photographer asks what the child is looking at and I say she is remember. This will then be the most challenging part of interaction as we will be asking the auditions to create their own responses. We had to think of many different variations of what they could respond so we could lead them into a path in which they would be able to come up and create an image. The goal was to find out why she had blood on her hands, so as long as she was trying to stop someone from dying, I would have an idea of where I was going. I would bring the people up by the hand and give the character to them, I'd then ask them how they'd stand if they are that character in order to get them thinking and putting themselves in the characters position. 

The photographers lead the main debate, but it is also controlled by myself as the Journalist as well. We put the decision into the audiences hands because we want them to get to grips with the real life situation of having this problem and what they should do about it. We will split them into two groups, to side with either the Photographer or the Journalist. We will then in these groups create the points so we can have a debate and then decide on the ending so the audience can feel like they have molded the performance and decided the correct ending. 

23|10|13 - Directing - Developing Soundscape

As it was initially Kelly's week to plan something but was unable to attend, I thought I would continue with the idea of the sound scape but use the character relationships to expand on this. I split the cast into three groups and told them what they were to do. 

Emelia and Abbie - (Red & Blue) I created an idea that Abbie would play 'Blue', a friend of Red that was aware of the dangers if you stray from the path. I wanted them to show a friendship, growing up throughout the years. 

James and Med - (Wolf & Huntsman) - I wanted them to developing fighting as I wanted to see how it would look and if it worked well I would perhaps include a fight scene in the final performance. I wanted them to be agile, and I said they could use a wooden stick if necessary. 

Ruby (Granny) Romina, Jess, Megan (Depiction of Women) Sam & Richard (Depiction of Men)- I wanted them to create a travelling scene to Grandmothers house, this would perhaps be used as a transition, I wanted to see Ruby develop her old person persona whilst travelling through, and I wanted the depictions to become creative with movement and how they're reactions and actions support the piece as a whole. 

I let them mainly work independently so they could have fun, this is allowed me to see what they were comfortable doing and what interested them. I made adjustments where they were perhaps not focusing it 
towards an audience. For the performance aspect I made them perform all at the same time whilst doing their piece of the sound scape, as without everyone participating the sound would be too thin. I also think the larger group did well as they then began to think how they could intertwine part of the setting into the sound scape where they would hit the frames together. This is that performance: 

Mr Chipp said if I used three pieces of lighting to highlight the separate pieces of actions, it could actually be performed all at one. This then made me think, do the lighting but make it look less messy by having the actions on a loop so they perform a section of their piece and the next group would do there bit and so forth. However, I could've made it so the centre group did there continuously, but we had the two girls and the two boys do there alternating to show the stereotypical women and men. 

16|10|13 - Directing - Soundscape

For this session I wanted to focus on the mother and her relationship with her child and how she feels about her daughter growing up. As they all seemed really excited at the idea of sound scapes, I decided I would create a workshop that would allow them to develop the sounds. 

I asked Abbie to stand in the centre and create a simple sound that people could develop and add too. I then said that whenever they were ready they could enter the space, they had to walk in a circle around Abbie in the centre, and with their sound they had to move in a different way, whether they crawled or jumped, they decided. The people around the edge of the circle could either join a circle with the same sound and movement, or they could create another circle with a different noise and movement in the opposite direction. The sound had to add to the current sound in a way that it would develop the noise positively. They were allowed to filter in and out when they wanted and this allowed the overall sound to change gradually and their were moments where the sound was very thick and sounded very nice. 

After doing this for a while, I stopped them, I then replaced Abbie with Emelia, who is playing Red. I wanted to create a tone that was darker, so I told them to bare that in mind when entering the circle. Giving them a focus allowed them to elaborate more on sounds and feelings they get. Because the circle was so adaptable, if they didn't think the noise was on the right track, they had the power to change it and develop it with their own input. 

After this, I placed Mia, who is playing the mother, in the center of the space, and told the rest of the group that I wanted them to act it more. Instead of just sounds, people could talk, shout things at the mother. Whilst still in a circle they could also have physical contact with the people on outer layers of the circle and this could effect the noise they decide to make. There was a moment where I really liked the sound. I told everyone to remember what sound they were doing and that I was going to tell them to stop, and then start again doing the exact same noise. This helped them remember their sound so they could replicate it when necessary. 

The improvising aspect of this workshop was refreshing and it was great to see everyone be creative in the way they move and how they sounded. We made them vary the tones in their voices as well as the pitch, texture and tone of the overall sound. 

As they had their sound memorised, I made Mia sit in a chair, and they rest had to fit the familiar freeze frame around her. We then replicated the sound scape around her, building it up having people join in canon. I then wanted to demonstrate how we could alter the overall sound slightly, so I wanted them to transition into a new position create a new sound. I wanted Mia to show the character of the mother, so I made her hold a sheet to represent a baby. The sound scape tone juxtaposed with the mothers distressed tone, which symbolised the over reaction of the mothers inability to accept her daughter growing and the passive attitude she has towards this. This is the video clip of what we performed to the rest of the group: 

16|10|13 - Open The Door - Speeches

We were told to create or finish the speech for the character we had played the most. As I have always played the Journalist I had to finish the speech that we started before. I used the story that we decided from before so the final product was this: 

Since checks file July 2010 the regime has systematically and brutally repressed, silenced any and all opposition. The rebel…corrects self… Anti-government forces have used this brutality as a justification for their own ferocity and despite the furrowing of international brows the UN seems to be implicitly in agreement by the inactions and silence: the ends justify the means.

Or do they... *click* Me and my colleague went out with caution *pause* knowledge that the rebel forces are no longer holding back with their brutal methods. This meant we saw a number of killi *pause* tragic deaths.  These people... civilians, are trapped in a constant warzone. *pause*

Families, such as one witnessed yesterday, torn apart *pause* a horrific event. A man shovelling of rubble, after an attack by local rebels, found a child, his own child. The way his face dropped was heart wrenching as he collected the torn*pause* mutilated body. The face must’ve only been recognisable to him for the explosion had discarded her right side of face and face upper torso. Still bleeding he walked... stumbled on. He sang a song, and although inaudible to myself, he continued to sing, through the pain and tears, looking forward.

We followed this man as he reached the house of a woman, unsure of what to do her quick response led her to clear her table and attempt to resuscitate the child. The father stood back, shaking.. trembling. The likely hood that both these civilians knew the ultimate outcome of death was certain. She gave tried everything but in the end, they were unsuccessful.

This was just one of many gruesome and heart breaking stories witnessed by myself and my photographer. A scene we will never forget, but it surely won’t be the last we see. Anarchy reining supreme, cutting a bloody path through the civilians, holding back at no cost. And we are simply watching it happen. 

Mr Chipp let us rehearse for 15 minutes which allowed us to think of certain tones for different sections. We then performed them to each other which allowed us to give constructive criticism. This allowed us to develop our speeches, I was told to add more emotion when talking about the child, I also got told to create more corrections and that a tone should add to the reporter character by being more formal. He also wanted us to add the interactive aspect of our speeches that would get the audience to engage as we would talk directly to them. 

Mr Chipp then decided that this would be a good time to give out parts as the structure of the entire play had been set and we were now going through adding the interaction and we'd need to focus on this in our characters which would let us develop our characters personally. 

The Cast:

The Journalist: (both casts)

Myself - 

Photographer :
Matt Goodband - 

& Emily Giles - 

Army Guard:

Chris Doyle - 

& Alex Mellor - 

Sir did used my speech as a base and then improvised interaction so I could get an idea for the tone in which I should talk to the audience. This was really helpful to see how he wanted it to be done as I got an idea of the language that would be best to use. 

I now had time to look into my character as it was set. We researched Maria Colvin, an american journalist who died in the conflict in Syria. Aspects I wanted to make me character were 

-controlling. I wanted my character to be the person that takes the decisions and makes the final choices. 

-caring. I wanted her to look beyond just her job. She connects with stories and people on a more emotional level, but I don't want to make her to over emotional. 

-mature. I wanted her to have a sense of knowledge that appears throughout. 

I'm now going to add these aspects when performing to create a stronger performance with a more believable character. 

9|10|13 - Directing - Opening

I started the session by doing some team activities that would create trust in each other. The had to walk around the space, and whenever anyone liked they could shout 'I'm falling!' and the rest of the group would have to run over catch them and lay them on the ground. This activity was fun and it allowed them to bond with the others members of the group letting them trust each other. It took a while for them all to feel comfortable to start falling as soon as they said it, but once they managed it they had a lot of fun.

Because this went well, me and Kelly wanted to see how they would cope with a challenge. We wanted to try the alternative 'I'm flying!' where the person would be picked up and held as high as possible in a flat position. We understood more if people didn't want to this option, so we made it optional, Ruby was very enthusiastic and allowed us to demonstrate the position, which we made sure was clear to everyone what needed to be supported and the correct way to place her down. 

After this we allowed them to walk around the space, and any one was allowed to shout either option, and the rest of the group would have to carry out which one was mentioned. This allowed them to become focused for the session as they had to listen out to one another and then to carry out the process of falling or flying safely. 

We then decided to work on the freeze frames that we had created at the very end of the last session. We did some more discussion on how we felt about the script, Me and Kelly wanted to know what they thought of the script in order to give them the most enjoyable time in the creative process. We told them some of our idea's for soundscapes and shadow theatre and they were all enthusiastic, which gave us a confident go ahead to trial them out. 

The first freeze-frame we made sure everyone knew why they were stood where they were and why they were stood there, I made them say out in character the answers to both of these. It allowed them to explore their characters and let me and Kelly know where people needed expansion on the purpose of their character. We then created a movement piece where people could only move if they were pushed or pulled in a creative way to another position on the other side of the stage in order to create the freeze frame of the final position. This was just a simple way to get the cast focused on their character and character relationships and exploring creative ways of using each other to motivate there movements. 

9|10|13 - Open The Door - The Child

As the child is now the issue, we were told the purpose of this scene was to debate leaving the child or taking the child with us. Having this as the stimulus for the scene we created a large brainstorm where we debated why we should leave or keep the child and the argument that would be specific to that. This was helpful to create a more structured argument scene as we would be able to hit the correct points instead of going off track. This felt like an important part of the devising process so we could be as concise and just elaborate on the points we felt put it across the best. 

I worked with Chris for this section, I played the Journalist and he played the Photographer. We created a piece which followed the argument structure making sure the Journalist's best interest was the child and the Photographers was the story. Here's what we managed to create: 

After running the piece, we were told we had the correct tone, especially when I try and avoid the discussion of her dangerous side by asking for water and blankets. It was decided that I would also not leave the child when talking to Chris, which I agree with as we want to show her connection. He also reminded us of the pictures he told us to research of children caught in the warfare. This made it easier to use stanislavski's 'what if' and imagine this child to resemble one of these pictures in order to get a correct response. As a female I would also attempt to help this child as part of a motherly instinct. 

This scene is important as it's sets up the debate that the whole piece is trying to put across: if a child covered in blood turned up at your doorstep, would you let it in? 

2|10|13 - Directing

Working with the members of N2C, Mr Chipp commissioned us to set work on directing some performances which we would then showcase to a public audience. Myself and Kelly decided to pair up as we have a knowledge that our desire of a performance to look is very similar.

It was then agreed that the stimulus of our pieces were to be the Grimm's Tales, we had the book with the collection of the Grimms Brothers stories and dramatisations. When looking through these I felt the one I had the most idea's for was 'Little Red Cap'. This is from my previous knowledge of finding out the discovery of the darker version of Little Red Cap, and the underlying sexual meanings of how woman should not stray from the path, the depiction of the aggressive male, and the cloak being a symbolism of womanhood. It was from this that I began to do my work researching before the first session with the group that Mr Chipp choose for me. 

I began looking at other dramatisations of Little Red Cap for inspiration and came across a few. 

'Big Bad Wolves'( http://vimeo.com/769224 ) is a comedy deciphering the underlying messages of the the story and highlighting the flaws that were adapted in to making it less realistic and more accessible as a fairy tale with a moral for young children. I wanted to take these aspects and use them in my performances to make it more shocking for the audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH_llv6IWKM after watching this video that included no speaking, I thought that the silhouette effect gave a very eerie effect and this inspired me to use an aspect of shadow theatre at some point in my piece, perhaps in sections where I want to remove a cliché expectation of the familiar story.    

I also looked at the musical 'Into The Woods' by Stephan Sondheim, and was really inspired by his use of music to reflect the emotions of the characters and bring out some of the subtext. It is this rhythm that I wanted to adapt into my own performance to give it fluidity and engage the audience by having phrases that become more memorable from the rhyming and rhythmic aspect. 

After doing this research I decided to create a workshop for the first session, this is a vlog reflecting on the workshop and how it went:

2|10|13 - Open The Door - The Guard

This day we were adding the first piece of debate is the scene in which a Government Army guard is here to escort the Photographer and Journalist from the area. We wanted this scene to be fast pace with high energy serious scene. This will pick up the pace of the overall performance as the last scene is the Journalist reading the story, which is very low energy. By placing a high impact scene we will be able to hold the attention of our target audience of secondary school. 

We needed to return the Photographer back into the room so continued the humor &had a small scene in which they attempt to return the used tissue back to the Journalist. They go on to discuss the story and here's where the first bit of conflict takes place.

I worked with Matt to create a scene where he asked for which story I was going to use which would cause tension as he doesn't have the correct photo's for the story in which the Journalist wanted to use. By doing this we can see a work disagreement that is caused by the emotional connection the Journalist has made about the story needing to present the whole truth. This disagreement is disrupted by a large bang from outside which represents the war zone outside.

 This is when the Army Guard appears by knocking on the door. To open the door we opened it cautiously. When he entered he told us to pack out things to go, we made him connect to the outside war zone by opening the window and being ready to shoot.We created more violence in the scene by making the Army Guard grab the Photographer which gives a higher impact and more hectic feel to the scene.

The debate between the Journalist and the Photographer here was that the Photographer wanted to stay and record this story and aims to persuade the Journalist to stay. They come together as a team to tell the Army Guard a new plan to meet them in two days instead. This is where the Journalist takes charge, and because the Photographer has to persuade the Journalist is shows who holds the most power between the two. 

While the Army Guard is present, the next piece of conflict is presented when there is a knock on the door. At first we decided that we should act as if it was a rebel which would create a bigger juxtaposition when the door opens to reveal a child. 

We decided that with the previous scene in which P & J over the photo matching the story that the Journalist has developed a connection with these war surroundings. This is why the Journalist removes the aim of the Army Guard's gun to provide a kinder hand to check the child is unarmed. 

This scene presents one side of the harsh world that is going on outside the Journalists room, by doing this we bring a contrast of the safe world that the audience has been allowed to see, and stepped it up with the intimidating soldier figure. We also got to see more of the Photographer and Journalists character when presented with conflict.

We used the same process of creating two different approaches and blending the best parts, such as the comedy at the knock of the Army Guard in order to make a short relief between two serious scenes. 

25|9|13 - Open The Door - Door Sequence

The cast was split into two group, I was working with Chris and Alex. He gave us the square piece of wood and told us to create as many ways to get around these piece of wood. We tried to create a variety of ways, but most were using a rotational action that would be controlled by Chris and me and Alex would move the piece of wood corresponding to how Chris manipulated it. 

After creating a small sequence we were told to relate this to the war zone. We liked the idea (as we knew the square was actually representing a door) that every time Chris came out one side, he'd want to hide from what he was witnessing. This meant we could develop some moves and actually came up with an idea that we shut him in the 'bad' side and he climbs over. Instead of it always being the door manipulated by Chris, me and Alex held the door down so that Chris had to lift himself over the top of as if he was climbing over a wall, during this transition we made him into one of the people living in the war zone as he then got shot. We then laid him on the door and rolled him off as if he was a discarded piece. 

We were then given the prototype door, it was very big and much heavier. This helped us to take into consideration what the real door would be like, as that one would have a steal frame. We took out as little as we could from our sequence and tried to adapt the moves with the new challenge of the door. It was challenging to put the story across so we made sure that Chris carried it most of the stories feelings so me and Alex could focus on leaving the right amount of times for pauses as well as keeping the flow of it smooth in connection to Chris' movement. 

Emily, Kelly and Matt then showed us their sequence and we showed us ours. We had a certain amount of time to teach each other our sequences we required a lot of attention and focus, I felt I was quite strong at remembering what the other group had done just from performing to us. After this we separated again and cherry picked our favourite parts of each other's sequences. 

We then further adapted our piece by adding our favourite parts from their's and the parts that were the strongest from ours. By doing this we had a sequence that was not only a lot stronger, but was able to carry a lot more of the story that was necessary. We still felt our final part of the sequence where it looks like we're shoveling off a dead body was a good way to be able to link the sequence back to the start.

It was nice to take a break from the naturalistic acting and look into the what will be the physical theatre opening sequence that is to show a glimpse of that world and previous experiences of the Photographer and Journalist before the point the performance begins. 

18|9|13 - Open The Door - Speeches

We decided that the next scene the performance would be to have the Journalist read a speech that would switch the atmosphere to a more serious tone and explain most of the war situation. Mr Chipp gave us the first part of the speech, and then told us he wanted us to continue the report in the same style with a story in which we researched. The start of the speech was this:Since checks file July 2010 the regime has systematically and brutally repressed, silenced any and all opposition. The rebel…corrects self… Anti-government forces have used this brutality as a justification for their own ferocity and despite the furrowing of international brows the UN seems to be implicitly in agreement by the inaction's and silence: the ends justify the means.

We spent a while looking at the stories on the War Child page as we all agreed that the stories that would get the attention of the audience were about children younger than themselves. There were a variety of horrific events that were chosen. Some included rape, a father carrying their dead child, post traumatic stress humiliation. 

We all performed these speeches with a reporter tone, I held a pen in my hand and throughout my speech made corrections as if I were proof reading. We also had to show more emotion as the story got to us near to the end of the speech. 

Once everyone had performed there speeches, we tried to settle on a story that we all felt connected with us the most by being so emotionally scaring. These were the stories of rape and the father carrying the dead child. We had a debate about which the journalist would choose to write about and came to the decision that although the rape story is still horrific, the father and child story had a strong imagery that the Journalist would then be able to describe in more detail in her article.

After doing this, we all wrote a monologue of the same story and were able to workshop these with the other cast members. As the Journalist character is moved emotionally by the story we were able to add this into account when thinking of their characteristics. We liked the reformulation of the speeches, it gave a real sense of a reporter style that made the character seem like she was very used to depicting these stories to a dictaphone and we were able to put in subtle hints about what is politically correct to say. 

Marketing Unit - N2C Website.

Four out of the six of us decided to embark on the marketing unit: myself, Matt, Chris and Emily. Together we were commissioned to create a promotional outlet for the drama company ran by Mr Chipp called 'N2C' - which stands for no to conflict. This company aims to use drama to raise awareness of local conflict issues and then perform them to public or specific audiences.

We looked at a variety of ways in which we could focus our efforts to pull in more budding thespians. We considered leaflets, flyers, posters but none of these seemed to be a great enough outlet that we could put all our information on. We decided that the best way to reach out to a teenage generation and their parents is through the internet. We decided that a website would be the best and then anything else that the client desired we would also create. Luckily, this is exactly what our client had in mind and we were asked to create a website and a flyer that promote N2C and a leaflet for the upcoming production from N2C 'Open The Door'

Mr Chipp asked us to produce the bear bones of a website that promoted the company and let others know how to participate as an N2C member. He also asked that we create an idea for a two fliers so that post-unit we could develop the promotion of the 'Open the Door' project that N2C is starting as well as promoting N2C itself.

Target Audience: We want to attract teenagers age 14 - 20. This is because some of the work that N2C do is hard hitting and therefore the company members need to have a level of maturity and understand to develop performances with the correct attitude. We must also remember that parents will be view the website once the child is interested and therefore must not create an informal tone for sake of attractracing teenages, but maintain a professional standard to replicate the standard of the company.

Together, the four us came up with bullet points of initial idea's that would create the basics of the website, such as:

- we want the house style of the website to follow red, black, white (the same as the current N2C logo's)
- the font that is used for the logo to also be replecated throughout the website for continuity.
- use a variety of images to show the versitality and wide variety of performances the company try to acheive to percieve a unique drama company

Throughout the group we all had separate parts to focus on, 

As Matt was doing the computer development (as he has the most technical ability from the four of us) we only gave him one 'tab' or 'section' of the website to initially design himself.

Emily had to focus on the 'contact us/how to join' and 'about us' section of the website. This meant retreiving the correct contact information and details from Mr Chipp to ensure all possible ways of connection were available to our audience as well as it being correct. 

Chris focused on the charity tabs and the upcoming events tab, this meant he had to do research into the 'war child' charity and find out about where that support comes from. 

My own job personally was to first gather all pictures for Matt so he had the variety to choose from when arranging the website. I also focused on the 'Past Productions' tab and well as the apperance for the 'Home' tab. 

To design my page's, I wanted to browse various websites and see what appealed to me so I could carry these through onto our website. Our client told us he liked the 'dv8' physical theatre company website, so that was my first choice to go and pick ideas. 

Strengths:  it is very slick. Movement when clicking onto the first tab gives a professional feel to the website and the colours work well together. the tabs are visible at the top. The picture gives a good sense to the drama they associate themselves with, as well as being ambiguous making you click the trailer. 

Weaknesses: although the colour scheme looks nice, could seem bland in juxtaposition to the kind of work that DV8 carry out. The name, or logo of the company isn't as established unless you previously know of the company as it's fairly small and doesn't stand out. 

Opportunities: tabs allow the audience to navigate successfully and view more of the pages. Picture of engaging work will also grab the attention. 

Threats: feels more like it's promoting one show than the theatre company itself. 

I like the simplicity of the home page, it is actually a movement when you first go on the website and it transitions into this, although that works for this company, I think it's too advanced. I do like the quoting idea as it add's a touch of a professional and well viewed company. It is also linked to a 'trailer' which is enticing. I would like to include a video on the home page but maybe as a separate item to the pictures. There is a strong house style, which the group has already agreed to follow such as this website. We also noticed the link the twitter and facebook in the bottom corner, and thought that especially because our target audience is teenagers, that would also be a great feature to have. 

I decided to type in 'drama companies' and see what the top results would be. I chose the 'Watford Palace Theatre' as they do workshops with children which has some relevance to some work that N2C do. 

Strengths: the slideshow presents happy children which sets a positive atmosphere for the company and what it stands for and the ages it targets. The tabs are clear so it's easy to navigate around the website. 

Weaknesses: there are to navigation bars, one across the top and one down the side. Although this may seem helpful, it presents the audience with more options, and personally I find this confusing and too 'busy' looking. 

Opportunities: it shows a wide variety of ways to participate as a young person in an engaging way.
Threats: overcrowding of places to go/look may turn the audience away. 

I like the bold use of colours, such as the contrasting red and purple, although I'm not sure that would fit with the colour scheme for N2C. I really like the slideshow idea and will work that into the home page of the website so add some movement and that way I can show the variety and versatility of the acting that N2C does from the homepage.

After establishing these roles and looking at other website's features, we did rough copies of how we wanted our sections to look like without the text. We then arranged a meeting with the client Mr Chipp to present the information. 

After the approval of all sections of the website I had the outlines for what text I needed, and I just needed to create it. The only things I did not get to discuss with Mr Chipp was which past productions he would like to be mentioned, I decided the best way to get into contact with him was via email. This is that email with Mr Chipp's reply:

After this, I decided to create the text for the sexuality but we will not input it until post-unit. I was able to focus on the text necessary for the deadline and then decided to make a computer version on publisher of my pages in order to aid Matt when designing the website. But, as a group discussion, we have told Matt that if he finds issues with creating the design we put down for him, he can edit it to something as similar as he can in order to meet the deadline with a working website. Post-unit we will continue editing the website, enhancing it to reach the full potential. 

I then needed to hand in to Matt the design plan with the text that fits in where on each for the past productions tab. We had a verbal discussion with the overall idea's that I wanted and we would try and achieve the closest possible, and then develop post-unit. 

11|9|13 - 'War Child Project'

We have been commissioned to create a piece of drama for the charity 'War Child' to raise awareness of the conflict in Syria. The piece will be a Theatre in Education performance that we will tour around schools in Sheffield. The piece aims to raise the question 'what would you do if the child were at your door?' We are unsure whether it will be aimed for primary or secondary schools, so we have decided to aim it at secondary schools for the desired target audience, and then we can alter it to suit a change if necessary. We raise the problem that we don't do anything about the problem of children in war crime because it's not happening at our door, and therefore don't feel it is necessary. 

We started off the lesson in the dark, stood in a space. We had to imagine a door of our choice, and then create a room in our head. My room had the basics of a bed, a desk, a chair and bedside table. It also had a door to the bathroom, but I didn't create that image. We then were told to get in pairs and discuss our layouts, and then alter so we knew were all our objects were in the room. We physically moved ourselves around the space so we had a spatial awareness of our shared we room. 

Then, sir asked us to create a small scene where we were given the characters or journalist and photographer. We had to show sir through a small performance the layout of our room. To highlight objects in our room we..
-Got a drink from the bedside table

-Emily went into the bathroom

-I asked for where my papers were, which were in the desk

-I sat on the chair

-Emily went in the wardrobe

By labeling things and knowing ourselves where things would be, it helps to give the audience a clear idea on the room and they can begin to create the set in their own head. For the purpose of devising it was good to get a sense of what we both thought the room should look like and we could then have the starting setting sorted.

We then added character interactions - we were told the room was set as a hotel in Syria. We'd been creating a story for a few weeks and the room was damaged. We also had to incorporate the war zone that was happening outside the room. One idea that I had in my head was to make sure that the characters had a sense of history. So I added in lines such as 'where did you put my papers?' and 'do you want to use the bathroom first today?' to give an indication the relationship. Accusing of moving the papers creates a careless character for the photographer as well as tension between the two. 

We then decided that this bedroom would be the set for the entire piece. He removed one of the rooms and we discussed that with target audience of teenagers, we want to get them engaged by starting the performance with humor. We brainstormed idea's that we'd find funny such as:
-ceiling falling in (we decided too impractical) 
-loud bang shocking the person (gives too much away) 
-toliet related
  -poo
    - not having any toliet paper.  (We chose this)

We then each split off and worked with our pairs to create a scene where one of the characters would walk in with the trousers around their ankles looking for toliet paper. This humor says something about the way they were living and also implies a lot about the relationship between the photographer and journalist. We each created our own conversations from this in our pairs and then performed them to each other. By doing this, we were given an opportunity to see what worked and what might not. By discussing the best bits from each others we decided on the best outcome scene possible. As we want the piece to stay focused on the serious topic of the conflict we didn't want to make the scene to long as it would be hard to get the audience on track for the serious discussions that are to follow. We set the dialogue as:

Journalist: Morning
Photographer: Morning, good sleep?
J: sure, what are you doing?
P: looking for some toliet paper
J: that's a magazine...
P: erm yeh.. have you got anything more absorbent? 
J: well i've got my handkerchief but..
P: that'll be great, i've really gotta wipe
J: sure
(photographer leaves through the door with trousers still down) 

This short scene has the potential to engage the audience with the humor which will make them feel more comfortable with the cast as we are making the piece interactive. The fact that the photographer is looking for loo roll suggests that they have been there a while or have found it hard to have basic items so it subtly suggests facts that they're away from home and are somewhere that is not well off.

This way of devising allows us to consider a variety of idea's and collect the ones that work the best. It's a nice way of being flexible as we created the scenes very quickly and naturally so it was okay if some things didn't work because we blended all the best bits from each performance.

4|9|13 - 'Chernobyl'

Two tower blocks were set out in front of us and as the group of 6 we were told to create 3 freeze frames.

1. Off the ground

2. All on the floor - with physical contact

3. On each level. 

After create these three basic steps, we were told to put them together as smooth as we could, this meant adjusting which side we would face, but we kept the initial position, the outcome was this: 

After doing this we were split into 2 groups: Matt, Emily and Alex. Me, Kelly and Chris. 

We were then told to remake that movement in the group of 3. 

After doing this we were shown a visual stimulus of an abandoned Chernobyl fairground, we then had to recreate that setting with ourselves, Matt stood in the middle recreating the hanging drape in the center, this added levels and a certain depth to the beginning. We then moved into the groups. 

We then developed the three freeze frames to fit the story of the Chernobyl incident. To do this we assigned characters, I played the daughter and Chris and Kelly were the mother and father. We had an idea about them dragging me backwards to show the audience that the parents were going against the speech that we fitted. Adding the plastic bag gave a physical representation of the nuclear disaster and the effect. As the parents continue to have speech and they hold the bag behind my face it shows the guilt and responsibility they hold after sending the girl out to the fairground alone. 

This turned out as this: 

The overall effect meant we followed two stories. It was a unique performance because the original movement was not made to specifically fit the story, we adapted the basic movements in order to tell the story, in mine this was where Kelly dragged me back rather than pulling myself back. This is because it could resemble a foreshadowing action of what the mother wish she would've done and the guilt she would've felt. All the actions were very violent in juxtaposition to the words we put with it. This made it more unsettling to watch as well as leaving a lot of unanswered questions. This shows the success of this way of devising. When devising it can be hard to get a unique and interesting way to start a piece, starting away from the piece idea and focus on the movement then add dialogue gives a depth to the piece as there's more to watch as we focus on different meanings at different times. 

After watching each others performances,  Mr Chipp then set both groups to do a realistic scene following a character or couple of characters from the other groups performance.

Alex, Emily and Chris were following the story that myself, Kelly and Chris decided. They approached it from the aspect that I'd gone and not returned from the fair. They were awaiting news but there is now tension from the guilt and self blame on deciding to send her alone. This is when someone calls round to announce they've found the corpse. 

I liked the way they connected with the characters we had left for them, and the naturalistic scene gives the audience a chance to connect with the atmosphere that's left. When the police/doctor comes round to say, you can (or should be able to) feel the atmosphere drop when the news of the found corpse is delivered  This is because so far the information has been shown aggressively and the audience can relate to the confusion. 

Kelly had to leave rehearsal so me and Chris decided to do a doctor meeting where Chris was playing the brother Alex. As the doctor I was giving Chris the bad news of his results. Here is the piece: 

Creating this scene needed research onto the long term effects after the nuclear destruction took place. Finding out that Leukemia was very common afterwards we decided that would be the news. We make the audience feel uncomfortable when Chris questions the doctor because it's such a serious issue and instead of being upset, the character of Alex ends up getting angry and frustrated. The doctor, who if was working at this time would've been giving this news out very consistently throughout the day, we wanted to make it seem as if she was caring, but yet she still had other people to talk too about their results. 

Creating a realistic scene after the more vague movement was a lot easier, because it can allow you to answer some of the questions from the first 'scene' and we also get a better connection with the characters. It also allows a variation in the performance style which can create a better and more engaging performance.