Monday, 1/2/16:
Today we continued with the scene that me, Katrina and max were working on Wednesday. We had a fair few interesting ideas for it, some of them we even made up as we went along. We also worked on the scene afterwards which involves a robbery of the diner and the death of Anita. During the argument scene Anita will be played by Katrina and then Elle in the robbery scene. I will be Playing Roy in the former scene and either Brad or Jack T in the latter. Today Jack A had to fill that part because neither Brad nor Jack T were in today. Although we still got the first scene done and then the next scene (Which is our second to last) nearly done. The scenes go like this. I am pacing up and down while looking at a letter on a table, then I go over to the letter looking at it which says that I'm infertile and then I throw it to the ground. Anita comes in and finds it on the floor and reads it. She then confronts me about lying to her and then we have a physical representation of an argument with one of us not wanting to explain but wanting forgiveness and the other angry about the others deceit. Then Anita thinks about not being able to have a baby. We then go into the next scene where it's years later and they have reconciled and they are closing the diner for the night. A man (Played by Sam) refuses to leave and pulls a gun out on Anita. He shoots her and steals the money from the dine while Roy comes down and finds her dead. At the end of showing this Karen said that we should ask ourselves certain questions when doing this such as why does Max where the mask? although no questions were aimed at me and I can't think of any as of now.
My Input:
The ideas that I personally contributed today started with the argument for first scene we did today. I suggested certain moves for the moments after Katrina grabs my face for me to look at her. I suggested a series of turns and round by throughs. I am always trying to keep her from facing me since I don't want to explain why I hid the truth from her. We tried it out with me choreographing it and it was very flowing and looked very good according to the group who watched us. It was also a way to feed into Katrina's idea that she mentioned. I noticed in order to do Katrina's idea we would have to swap sides somehow and my idea fit very well and caused us to do so, so that was more motivation for me suggesting it since I really liked her idea. I also helped with directing Sam in the robbery scene and suggested how he should walk and approach Elle and how he should shoot. I suggested that he get up slowly and then walk past her to then stop and pull the gun out. The others seemed to change that slightly to that he now walks towards her and then pulls it out. They wanted a slightly physical moment between them and I said the easiest thing to do was to a round by through so it establishes a higher status for Sam. This seemed to be ignored in favour of a hymns hands sort of moment which works quite well. I also suggested that Sam should have his gun pointed at Elle for at least 5 seconds of complete silence and then he should shout "BANG!" which would be startling since it follows the silence or at least in the way we did it.
Group Input:
The idea that Katrina mentioned was to have the argument as a sort of dance. She had a few specific moments that she wanted to build upon as we went along. She showed me that she wanted me to grab her side and then bring her leg up and then we both move our top half in a circular motion. She also said about falling to the floor after I tear a metaphorical baby from her womb and then cries, "I'm never going to have a baby". At that point the which we recently introduced for this scene chorus will start singing "Bye Bye Baby" in a somewhat creepy manor. As of now I don't know if the intention is to have a moment of dark humour or to be actually creepy/disturbing but it comes off as both right now.
Teamwork:
Today, despite the fact we had 3 people away, we worked extremely well together and actually got a fair bit done. A lot of the group seemed more open to ideas such as when I was helping Sam with his scene and how he should approach it. I listened to his reasoning of why certain things should happen and vice versa. We all listened and expanded on any ideas when appropriate and even compromised a fair few times so that we could have something that worked as well as it could.
Strengths and weaknesses:
We worked very well today despite a few members not being here and the group was open to the idea of the gun sequence being mimed which I personally think is best for it. Sam in particular was surprisingly open for direction from me today which was great. He offered his opinion of the mime since he is the robber and would be the one doing it. He was not in favour of it and I listened and explained that from what we have got, it would be a more interesting scene physically than using a prop gun. He then lightened up to the idea thankfully and we stuck with what I think is quite an interesting take on the piece, both from a dramatic and physical stand point.
Weaknesses:
The only real weakness of today was that we had a couple members missing and this had a mild impact on the development of some scenes. This was not a major detriment but was a little inconvenient.
Developments:
Me and Katrina expanded on the scene that we have with Max and it has gone well. We now have some more basic choreography for the scene such as a lot of turns to display the objectives of the characters. Such as Roy (Who I'm playing in this scene) will mostly be turning away from Anita in this scene but she is trying to get him to face her. However even though Roy does want to avoid it he also doesn't want it to evolve into a full blown fight and is attempting to reconcile without a full explanation due to feeling ashamed. We need to finish it but it is coming along nicely with these moves which as of now are a little slow and awkward but with practice will get better. I initially thought my ideas were going to be ignored but thankfully were considered and they look good as of now, especially when I go round Katrina quickly but delicately. Now for convenience and flow I will throw the paper in the middle of the floor instead of under the table so it's more plausible for Anita to find it.
Research:
One point that Max brought up was whether or not Anita or Roy should own a gun since it seems common for business owners nowadays to have them but we don't know if they did in the 1990's so I looked into it. What I found suggests that it is allowed to be done depending on the state jurisdiction or gun laws since some of them vary. I found out however after researching this that we will not have Roy or Anita use or threaten to use a gun.
Problems and solutions:
As of now Katrina does have some issue with the spinning due to her knees but she is willing to keep going and practice it. she did get slightly better as we ran it and thankfully. Some of the Anita's were not in during the later half of the session so that means we could not block anything after Anita's death since the rest of them were supposed to come in for a montage although with knowledge of this we did not just stop with it altogether, we spoke about the movements that may be most dramatic or moving in anyway or at least to get a sense of reflection and possible nostalgia.
Tuesday, 2/2/16:
Today we had to show what we have of our pieces to the other group and the second year actors. We had to let the other group first and then we would go afterwards. I must admit I was impressed. watching made me realise that as a whole our group is just more unorganised since they had a more or less finished piece and we did not. This was unfortunate and sadly we had some issues that made our piece look far worse than it actually is. One, sound problems and two, Jack T was not in.
Criticism:
The second years and the other group gave us some criticism for the piece and since ours is incomplete I was expecting a fair amount. One thing was that they didn't get about Brad being a black man, they had no idea what the mask was supposed to be. I was very puzzled by this and even understood it and then I realised something. Max had forgot to do his speech about racism before the scene began and that meant they had no context. so while that was valid it has been somewhat fixed since we have to get him to remember that he has to say them to give context for the scene changes. Another one that Chloe gave us was that the freeze frames in the 50's scene with Jack a and Georgia are a bit messy. Actually in general that was the main criticism we had for the piece since a lot of our cues were wrong and made it seem very unfinished (Which it is) but that was due to lack of run throughs and improper cues which will be ironed out as we go along. Another point was from Matt from year 2 was that the "Tetris" theme stands out too much and while I can understand this in the sense that from it fitting the era isn't right, that wasn't the point of it being used. We did it more for the intent of the characters, not to represent a period. I will discuss that with the group when I get the chance. One comment that I wholeheartedly agree with is that during the 50's new years scene. Joe pointed out that we're just dancing normally and while I knew that, it never actually came into any of our heads that that was an ideal opportunity for physical moments that seem more surreal or more appealing than dancing normally. That is something that all of now think needs work so we're going to work on it at some point. We also were told that the customers should be doing things such as Berkovian movements and this I agree is true but we are already doing it to a degree such as me and Jack A do it when we drink and the girls even do some synchronised movements. But I do agree that there should be a lot more and that the ones we have should be made more noticeable.
Problems and solutions:
One issue was with the music, since we had no one to operate it that wasn't an actor, Max had to do it himself but with this came a couple of problems. One, he had to go off stage at points to turn it on and this lead to some very awkward moments and some slow pacing. Two, the songs were not edited to start at the points we wanted so this meant something like the "Tetris" remix started at the beginning rather than from about 40 seconds where we wanted it to be. This lead to a scene that was a nit too long and messy since a lot of people didn't get the timing right due to that we didn't have the actual cue to do so. Three, Max actually got the wrong music at one point for the twist song even though that did not affect much it's still a mild issue. Four, since the music had some issues that we didn't expect, it caused us to noticeably react to it or make the timing seem more off and messy. The way this could be resolved is by having the sound clips edited so that they start where we want them to but don't cut out the end so we aren't too tightly timed and in case we run over. Another issue was Brad's black mask. It fell off during the performance and not apparently it didn't communicate that he was black. This is a problem since there is no other way to indicate it with out being racist. We can't put make up him for that reason and even then he could not keep it on for the entire thing since he plays Roy at one point. The only solution I can think of at the moment is to literally hold up a sign pointing it out or someone saying it verbally. I will talk about that with the group on Thursday. The last problem we had was that Jack T was not in and this meant that we had to show the piece with him missing in certain scenes which besides looking weird also confused people slightly. This can be resolved by re blocking certain scenes without him in mind since his attendance lately has been very low. This shouldn't be too hard and it will be very effective hopefully in making it less awkward than simply not having him there.
Developments:
Today Sam had to leave because of an appointment right after showing the piece. Because of this, I had to fill in for him as the robber for the 90's scene and almost right away the group agreed that I should be the robber since I could show the emotion of anger in my phase more and could pull off a more intimidating physicality.
My input:
I Suggested quite a few ideas today that were at the very least considered or incorporated. Today max mentioned that just staring with contempt and hatred at me looked really cheesy, while i disagree with that I thought it was an ideal chance to give him something physical to do so I suggested him acting out his character's anger on me in a violent way while the music is playing. I suggested doing something extreme. The move I said to do was to cut my throat by wrapping his arm around my neck and then aggressively rubbing it and going back to him with a cutting motion. This looked very good once we went over it a few times so Max could get the anger and speed right. Max then added some of his own movements which I would follow and flow with that looked very good according to the people that watched. Max maybe a little rough when performing the actions but that's something I'm OK with as long as the actions look smoother or more authentic because of it. I also suggested that instead having a black out for Elle to get onto the table, we should just lift her up onto there (Or just one of us if possible) so we would not have to use up another lighting cue. This is now what we are doing. I also said that I should shout "BANG!" even though this technically was brads idea for the war scene we scrapped, I have applied it for a different context and form of delivery. Now it's done with silence and to one person. I mentioned this before but I have added more to it. When I went to walk off/run across the front of the stage to leave the scene, I thought I'd just look at the audience with a look of horror or anger/rage. This hopefully may add something a bit more involving even if only a little. Georgia then said that it would be a good idea to shoot into or above the audience which I think is an interesting idea and does seem to work as of now. I also want to change my dance scene to where I'm at the bar and drinking in a clockwork motion (Maybe not to a beat) but every time the song says twist, I will spin around and then get back to drinking again until my cue for something else happens. I need to try this out at some point and hopefully it should look interesting. And finally I suggested using actual 9/11 audio for the scene so that it adds authenticity to it because I think a generic explosion sound will be a bit cheesy or out of place in my mind.
Teamwork:
The group worked well today and had a very great sense of focus and even with taking on ideas. We listed all the criticisms we remembered from our session and then tried to see if we could add anything or change anything to improve these moments. Even after Katrina had to leave we still got on with our piece surprisingly well which I was very happy about we even got a few very good ideas from here such as the aforementioned moment where max symbolically kills me.
Wednesday, 3/2/16:
Today we did not have a devising session but we all decided to stay back and rehearse what we had or develop things. We partially blocked the 9/11 scene that Katrina had come up with. She had the idea of us more or less destroying the set but in slow motion. Me, Jack A and Katrina would be the explosion which destroys the building. We would flip over the tables and chairs and then see how it looked. We decided to do a rough version of this and it looked surprisingly good even though it definitely needs smoothing out. I personally think this idea is fantastic and could be very moving if done correctly. The only real problem with this is that sometimes you can see we're having trouble with certain things such as controlling the objects properly but this is something that should be fixed with more and more practice. We also need to see if we can assign certain people to certain objects but this is something we'll need to work out. We also had an idea for a brief wedding scene for Anita and Roy but we need to think of a way to fit it in and choreograph it.
Thursday, 4/2/16:
Today We tried to get as much as possible done as we could and even blocked our 9/11 scene completely. It has now developed into something that looks very nice and stylised especially with the music that was suggested. It now seems very fluid and to an audience member, hopefully moving.
Creative ideas/input:
I suggested to Jack A that we should have faces that imply anger or chaos since we're the ones causing the destruction. He liked the idea and it seemed to go well although Katrina just wanted to focus on the moves at that point rather than the small details.
Group input:
The song suggested was a song called "I miss you daddy" which is a 9/11 tribute song that does fit very well with it and blends with the slow motions and general speed of the piece. Another idea suggested was that Daniella and Sam will come on the stage with grey sheets to act as smoke or debris. Even though we plan to have actual smoke it will fit and make the scene have a motif somewhat with the use of sheets. An idea for the end was for the moment when we will (if we can find one big enough) lift a sheet to cover the stage and then move all of the set off and then all form a horseshoe around Max who will lay on the table and have a final moment with Elle.
Problems and solutions:
A problem with our final scene is that while it's great and potentially very moving, it does mean Max now has less to do. Originally we planned for him to have moments with each of us at the end to give him a decently lengthy scene which would conclude it nicely to see him finally get a big part. I spoke to Max about this and while he wasn't annoyed and completely understood why, he was still a little disappointed so I tried to help him come to a compromise. I suggested that in his moments of dialogue he shouldn't just move naturalistically since this could be and ideal time to add some Berkovian walks like in the intro sequence of "The Trial" or that he could even mime during moments when he isn't talking to make his scenes lengthier and more physical. He seemed open to the ideas and says he will consider it. I hope he does because I know he is capable.
Strengths and weaknesses:
Strengths:
Despite having moments of being very unfocused, we actually got a fir bit done and have had some good ideas or have gone over the choreography. We managed to re-block the opening scene without Jack T who will no longer be in the piece and the scenes do seem to flow pretty well without him thankfully. The fight scene I had with him is the same except that now it will be brad pushing me over the table and then I will stay out of the scene while Jack A and Brad do the same as they did before. Today a couple members of the other group came into our room and wanted to see a scene that we were unable to perform Tuesday. Me and Katrina were working on our scene so we decided to show them. We ran through the whole scene and then asked if they had any feedback. They admittedly didn't have much. They both said that the scene was very good but needed smoothing out with the choreography since it seems obvious we trying to remember it slightly. I appreciated this but it was something we already knew however I still think it's useful to let us know.
Weaknesses:
A weakness of this sessions is that at a few points we did lose focus as usual. We some of the group did which impacts the others ability to to work but other than that I think today went quite well.
Developments:
We have finally decided what our costume will be. It will be all of us in black clothes and with just one article of clothing to distinguish who's playing who. The current Roy will wear a jacket or waistcoat and the current Anita will wear a headband or bow in their hair. We will get which ever is easiest to find.
Research:
Today I thought of doing some research into the event of 9/11. Now I actually know a fair bit about the event due to reading or watching a lot about it in the past but I'm gonna look some things up again just to be sure. We are focusing specifically on the twin towers in New York so there will be no references to the pentagon attack or flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania. The one thing I had to find out was whether or not people actually took shelter in buildings or just ran away. What I already know and can find suggest both but since nobody knew that the buildings would collapse so quickly (If at all) they had no reason to get a s far away as possible. This means that it would make perfect sense for people to take shelter in Roy's diner, especially considering that they're injured. Also while the collapse of each building only lasted for about 11 seconds, the debris and smoke would travel fast around the city for a good few minutes (Especially in the surrounding area) so this means that the length of the destruction scene makes sense and isn't too long. The videos I've seen of the collapse do support this, they are linked below.
Links for this week:
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdIiyBFlPr8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8mz09VQQ2M
http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks#
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