Friday 27th November (head shots and What you own

This In the start of this lesson, I focused on my production role, which is the film and sounds. To finish the filming all that we had to do was the solo head shots. This involves slow pace spinning around, I decided to have it in dark lighting and then quite shadowy. This gave it a dark and eary line. We are now ready to edit the film and add some effects too our footage.

In the second half of the lesson, I got the opportunity to have a one to one with a peer to focus on my singing technique, with the song 'What you own' in particular. I was happy to do this as she has a good understanding of technique when singing and what to do to get the power and right mood to the notes. I hoped to get some techniques that I could use when singing.

I began by wanting to focus on the first solo verse of the song and my pitching with it. I said that this was my main focus. During my rehearsal I was given advise to really push from my core when coming up to higher note, and once I focused on this they came out a lot easier if I didn't get my self worked up on them.

Friday 27th November (Evaluation of Music Stimuli)

For our music stimuli I wanted to play around with something different, and not just a contemporary piece. I once saw a show where they used the 'Benny Hill' theme song and wanted to follow the theme of cops and robbers.




We began by playing around with some general chasing movements, and how we could travel around the space. and movements that we thought would fit. Our main focus was old talkie movies and slap stick comedy, this involved comical faces and looking out into the audience. I think by using this style it really brought the piece alive for the audience and made it really interactive for the audience. I was happy with my performance in this as I thought that it really suited my style and my comedy traits.


To improve my performance I would like to look into lots of different styles of dance that would suit this style of performance. I think a mixture of jazz and contemporary would work well with this as they can work well with a faster beat and then can be changed around to fit in the movie style movements.


If we work on this dance again, I would like to look at creating a unison movement that could go in the middle of the dance, I have thought about using a movement phrase that I have used in a dance before and then just adapt it using dynamics and changing up the rhythm.


Video of my Music based stimulus dance

Thursday 5th November (Christmas Bells)

I began the lesson by reviewing act one and my progress in Act One:

• I feel really confident with the opening number of rent, this is now one of my most confident songs, and am feeling really relaxed with my harmonies and my placement within the song.
• Tango Maureen is now working more, and I feel that me and Joanne have got the right level of connection, and I have played around with the relationship, and I feel that it worked well when I was being really sarcastic and pitying her.
• Even though 'You'll See' isn't my main song, I feel confident with my characters objectives in this song and it now works well, with my emotion towards Benny/Betty. I think that it works best when I completely blank him/her and make them feel so unwelcome.
• The song that needs to improvement is the 'Tune Ups' as I really need to work on the timing and the pauses within the song.

Before the next lesson we need to learn the songs:

• I should tell you (which not in)
• La Vi Boehme (Which is my main solo song)
• Will I ( All I need to do for this song is find out which part I am in)

In the second half of the lesson we started to learn the song 'Christmas Bells', for a first run of this it wasn't great, I was not sure of the timings of my section with Roger, this made this rehearsal quite slow on my part but this has given me a target to improve on over the next few days to listen to it, and get the timing of it, so I can know my part inside out.

Friday 6th November ( sing through of act one)

This lesson we had the musical director for the full two hours so we did a full sing through, we did this stationary, and just put all of our focus onto singing and the songs.

'Tune up'

These songs I felt were quite hard, as there is no piano accompaniment, only a drum beat, I found it hard to keep my timings and then found it hard to work out where all of the pauses went.

'Rent'

My first song is rent, I was happy with this song, and because I had spent a lot of time on my singing technique in this song and was really confident with my harmonies, and I could then leave this song alone until closer to the performance.

'Tango Maureen'

This didn't go as well as it has done in past rehearsals, I was confident with my solo sections in the song, but the problem then came in when we sang together as I kept losing my pitch and then the harmonies threw me off. I would like to spend some more time on this to get the harmonies stuck in my voice and get more confident with it. 

My target for the next few weeks is to have one to ones to work on the tango Maureen and all of the tune ups.

Friday 13th November (happy new year b and speed run)

In this rehearsal we had our first half with out muscial director, and we spent this time to look into Happy new year B' and we did a sing through of it. I was confident in this song as I didn't have to many lines, so I took a leadership role and offered my support to others that may have had more in the song. My lines are simple, but the line in particular that I spend more time on was "friendship is thicker than blood" and " depends on not denying emotion" as these have a had melody and they are faster than everyone else's, I had to play around with saying these in different ways in order to fit them in to the timings.

In the second half of this lesson we went into the rehearsal room and did a ruff speed run of the second act, this involved looking into ruff blocking but this was mainly for the areas and then how we would link each scene. 

My initial impression of the act is that the pace is a lot faster than the first act, this is a big change as in the first act it covers about a month of the lives of the characters but in the second act it covers a hole year, and the characters lives seem to jump from one dramatic state to another. I think that the pace is one of the main features of the this show, and in order to fit in all of the messages within it the pace needs to be kept up. Although all of the characters go through a journey in the second act, I saw into my own character and how he is always thrown into the middle of everything, and everyone seems to take everything out on him, such as Roger shouting at him when mimi leaves, Maureen not liking him getting along with Joanne. 

Over all the second act has a negative feel to it, this is a big change to the first act, and would come as I big shock to the audience as the watch in comparison to the first act. At the start of this act we hear the song 'Seasons of love' this is a foreshadow of the act that is about to come, as the song tells the story of the life and how you should make every moment count, and that is the moral of life to the characters as they see everything changing.

We also looked into the narrative devices within the show, the main one is the in character narration, and my character plays a big part in that, as most of my lines and my earlier songs are out to the audience and narrate the characters and their lives. This helps to keep the audience on top of what i happening. But also helps to keep the story rolling as it does jump around a bit. The other narration devise is obviously the songs, as in most musicals that tell. Story either of a character (E.G 'tango Maureen, where it describes the character to the audience and highlights a lot of her character traits).

As a class our target for the next few weeks is to get on top of our act two songs, as we won't be spending time in lessons learning them but just running, so I will be taking on independent rehearsals for our own songs, such as 'what you own' where I have a arranged a one to one with the musical director, to get my half of the song down early.

Thursday 19th November ( goodbye love - I'll cover you)

This lesson we had some time with Kim, our musical director. This was a good opportunity to use as we could go through any of the big group numbers that needed tackling. We started by looking at 'Goodbye Love'. This is a big number within the show, and involves most of the named characters, the main focus for me during this song, is the latter, as I have a section with Roger. I was confident with my lyrics but not as much with the tuning of my notes and timings. My main struggle within the song was the line " perhaps it's because I'm the one of us to survive" this is was struggle because it was so high.  I don't think that this is out of my range but I think that it is a big jump from where else I have been singing before. To get to that note, It helps me to notice how it feels to sing the note rather than where it is on the scale. The feeling is a push that I need to work my way up too. Eventually I got up there and I hit the note.

Once I was confident with all of the notes I looked into my characters relationship with Roger in the song S we are arguing, this came naturally for me and James and we got to that tension level pretty quick as we felt it as we shouted at each other. The only other thing that I wanted to explore is how we got to and from these different mood changes, how we would link them.

For the rest of the lesson we also looked at the song 'I'll cover you reprise'. In this song I am part of the company and sing the verses of seasons of love over the top of everyone else, to keep it simple im singing the same melody line that I do in the original, which is the bass line, I'm the only one singing this so I have to work on projecting over everyone else. 

During this lesson people were also working on costume. I am part of the costume team and I am responsible for my my own costume and Max's who is playing Angel. I have my costume ready I think, so I just placed it on a hanger, but then went to max too discuss his costume and how he can use what he has in different ways to make it look different from scene to scene. He had a plain pink dress and I said that he could get away with that for most scenes if he changed what he wore it with, I said that we would look into his scenes and plan a costume for each scene.

My personal targets for my character development is to; create a scene list to get ready for the film, which is my other production role. And I want to plan a character plot line of my characters feeling throughout the play, and how he reacts to everyone else.

Friday 20th November ( filming of marks film)

ZThis was the lesson that I was able to dedicate to my production role, I took on the role of preparing the scenes for the film, I made a list of the scenes that I wanted to cover over the lesson, as I thought the more prepared that we were, the smoother that it would run. This is the running order of the scenes.

When we began the lesson we sat in a circle in the classroom and I talked everyone through the list above. This made it clearer of what I meant by each scene and what costumes I thought would go best for each. We began the filming by doing all of the homelessness scenes, this went quite quick, and we got lots of different shots that we thought would look good, from all angles. The next scenes tht we did were the couple scenes, this was set on the stairs, and the direction that I gave to everyone was to play around with the camera and each other, this worked well as It gave it a natural feel and made it look real and as if they were all having fun making it. 

I was really happy with my participation within my production role, and I feel that I took on board a strong leading role within the film, and for the scenes that I was in I gave the impression that I didn't want to be filmed, this again highlighted my characters shy side. 

Next Friday I want to do some more filming along side the lesson, what I want to explore next is song natural staged, solo shots that can be added in with the footage that we already have.

Thursday 26th November (blocking of act two, first half)

In today's lesson we began looking into the spacing of act two and how each scene looked next to each other. We began by running 'Seasons of love' in the theatre, for this we are spaced in a life going straight across the performance space and then every other person is facing the other way, this is so all of the audience can at least see some of the cast straight on. We spent some time looking into certain parts that needed some movement but still wanted to keep it minimalistic. On the line "it's time now to sing out" we all start clicking, going from up stage to down stage. This brings up the tempo of the song and makes it lively to lead into 'happy new year'. I made a suggestion to the director that we stop clicking on the word "measure" I felt that this was a good lull of the song and fitted well afte the crescendo.

We then went straight into the running the act. The first song is 'happy new year', I feel really confident about this song, after going through it a couple of weeks before. Today I explored more about my characters relationship between his friends in this song particuarly, I feel that in this song that he is almost at his breaking point, as he has been locked out of his flat and no body seems to be bothered. He first loses his temper with mimi and roger, I played this subtly. But then when Maureen comes in messing around, Mark gets quite short with her. But then when he realises that she is having a bad time with Joanne, I started to play on this, by giggling at her and filming her while they argue. I feel that this is now one of my stronger songs, as I'm confident with my singing and notes and now feel that I have a clear character path and objective for each interaction.

The next song that I'm in is 'Happy new year B' and I was confident with my lyrics and singing in this song like I was in the first one. But when we just gave it a go and ran it, it became very clear that the spacing needed some work and everyone was just standing around, and it looked very clustered. To break this up I tried to walk off and add some more levels by sitting down by the flat, I backed this up by using this as support of Mark trying to stay out of confrontation and being quite with held. At the end of a suggestion I said that we need to really look into everyone's objectives in this song, and how everyone would be feeling after finding out that the flat is empty. I think that my character of Mark would be quite calm about it, but would begin to shut him self out and not say much.

The last bit that I did in this lesson was 'Seasons of love B' for this im placed up in the flat, while everyone else is in the pairs around the space, at first I felt lonely as I saw everyone conversing with each other, but then I started to take this literally and thought that maybe this is how Mark would feel about looking at all his friends having fun and him all on his own. I tried to use that feeling to effect my singing, by making my words slow and lower and not putting as much effort into my speech.

The main things that I learnt about my character in this lesson was; the drastic change in my emotion from going from the end of act one and then to the beginning of act two which are polar opposites. The second one is his relationships towards everyone but then getting closer with Joanne as they begin to relate over Maureen.

Before next lesson I want to look into the setting and feeling behind the song 'Halloween' as this is my next song that is coming up.

Rent (Friday 2nd October) blocking today for you and tango Maureen

In this lesson we did some more personal tasks and then split off into smaller groups to work on songs that not everyone was in. I went off with the people playing, roger, angel and Collins and we began some work on 'Today 4 you', this song has a great feel to it and is such an energy lift for the musical. We wanted to reflect this in the way that we set it, so we looked into alternative ways of movement and moving around that space. We have set this song in the flat and my character and roger, have been bombarded by Collins who has a suprise of treats and drinks, followed by angel in drag. I wanted to think of my own character mood changes throughout the song and the song as a whole, this is what I suggested for the mood changes for me and roger.

Everything up to "no flow" (page.17) we are enthusiastic and excited about seeing Collins again and him bring the treats, I suggested that we showed this mainly through facial exspressions but also the way that we move round the space and how much fun we are having.

The next mood change is up till when Collins says "Angel Dumott Schunard" this is where we become more confused and thrown in the middle rather than excited, as angel has walked in and we are not used to this pep in the flat. I tried to show this through looking round for confirmation and awakard laughs to fill the time. I think this big jump in energy change works well as it really highlights the entrance of Angel. At first I don't think everyone was on board with the awkward change in the scene but after we ran it think it worked well.

At the last set of "today for you, tomorrow for me" that angel sings this is when the energy changes again. It then goes back to the excited mood from us where we get into the song and how much fun we see angel and Collins having. This is a gradual mood change and we show this through a slight head bob and a tapping foot, to slowly bring up the energy again.

I think with setting these clear objective changes it helps to break up the song, and doesn't seem to drag on. We ran the song, while focusing on these changes with created different sections to the song that weren't written in.

In the second half of the lesson I looked at some chreography for Tango Maureen, one of the actors playing Joanne has had some experience dancing the tango so we spent some time exploring the basic step patterns. I suggested that we looked into switching the dominate characters around and making Joanne the leader earlier on than the script says. This would help to highlight both of our characteristics as Mark is quite quite and submissive but Joanne is quite controlling.

Our target is to book a slot with the dance director and look into chreography of the song and how to make it flow with the song.

Rent (Thursday 1st October) blocking of pages 1-15

In this lesson we started our first blocking session, we are in our performance space for this rehearsal, which was a lot more helpful as we could see the space that we hade and could see where everything would be set in comparison to everything else. At the start of the show I have these small songs called, tune ups, this is what my main focus was on during this session.

Prior to this lesson I had looked over these songs and had down some work on the lyrics. We began by just running the song and seeing how it played out. I made a suggestion before we started that my character of Mark was to be quite annoying and up in Rogers face during this scene. I said this as I thought that Mark was going on at roger and was really up in his face, with his camera. I think this worked well as the motive and feel for this scene as its the first time the audience get to see any of the characters and I think this makes it clear what marks interest is in and how passionate he is about it. When we had run this scene a couple times, trying out different stagings, we found it best to be down in the main space of the flat, in section H, as it gave me room to move around. To progress this scene even further, I'm going to look into my characters objectives in this scene, and why he is being very up in Rogers face. My first impressions was to just get more attention, this i then linked back to my back story's and how Mark wasnt seen as much of a success by his mother and she didn't really notice him.

My next song that I'm in is 'Rent', I had noticed a problem with this as me and the person playing roger are the main singers in this song, which meant that i could not do the dance that we had originally choreographed. We were then blocked to just be on the blacony (G) and just sing the song from up there. This worked really well for the majority of the song as we were over looking the rough streets that were happening bellow, but when it came to the end where everyone was singing too, I thought that the energy dropped from my and roger, so I then started to improvise and see if it would work if we came down into the main space and do what was planned with the rest of the company. I think this worked as it brought everyone together and brought the energy up. When singing this song I tried to show some of my characterisation for Mark show through. I did this with my tone of voice, by trying to seem wordy and whinny with what I was saying, I think this began to come through but I think with time and learning more depth to the song it would come through even more.

At the end of this rehearsal we did a sing through of the song 'seasons of love', we began to work out some of the basic harmony and layers to the song. I do the bass line, which is at the lower end of my register and I can just reach the notes. With my part going under everyone else's I think it creates a very soulful tone to the song, which really helps create the tone of the piece. Before the next rehearsal I would have liked to looked at my part in 'tango Maureen' and see if I could work out some of the harmonys between my character and Joanne.

Rent Rehearsal one, Looking into character relationships and storys (Thursday 24th September)

This was our first lesson working on our character that we were given, we began the lesson talking about rehearsal discipline and what is expected. The main thing that is expected is for everyone to be involved and to know what they are doing at each time. With rehearsals this year we are expected to be doing something at all times, and when the rest of the group are working on a scene or song, we should be independent and work on something that may be coming up or something that we are not 100% with.


Once we got our scripts we did a starter work to come up with three background stories for our characters lives. My first story was that Mark was offered a big film directing deal and he was to move away from home to Hollywood, but he couldn't face leaving his comfort zone, so he lost the deal. Which made him lose a lot of his confidence with his work. I think  this story gave me a lot of reasoning behind my character feeling throughout the show and why he is always feeling shot down.


My second story is about his up bringing and how Mark's mother would really push him into be so successful in life, this pushed him so far that he decided to leave, and moved over to New York to live a creative life and do what he loves.


My last story was all about the current day, and how he was planning to return home for Christmas, but he didn't have enough money to get back, but his mother would pay for him to get home as she doesn't think that he works hard enough to fund for himself.




We then went round the theatre in different pairs and did some improvisation work, I did some with Holly who is playing the part of my mother, and we just set it in our childhood house, and it went off from there. From our improvisation together I got a lot of background facts to support my bad relationship with my mother. The main thing that I contributed to the scene was that I said about how my brothers and sisters all had good paying jobs and how my mother would clearly treat them better than she would to me.


I then moved on to do a scene with James, who plays Roger and we set our scene to the first time that we met. It followed the lines of Roger, Maureen, Collins and Benny already living together, and we did a scene with Roger showing Mark around the flat, and how there relationship blossomed. The main thing that I put in to my character from this scene was that mark was a bit of a push over to everyone when he first moved in and he would just follow everyone around, to do what they wanted to do as he didn't feel that he was in the right place for him.


I also did a short improvisation with Paige who plays Maureen, this was to explore the relationship between them, This went the best out of all of our improvs as we had a good pace and covered a lot of topics in it. We followed the main story of Maureen getting ready for a show and Mark setting up all of the sound equipment, this then led to a argument. From this I got a feel for my characters temper, and how far he can be pushed before he loses it, I played around with lots of different ways, but I think it worked better when he took a lot of Maureen's stuff then only broke at the end.


After we had done these improvisations we had to come up with some final decisions about my character that I have learnt from doing the improvisations.

1. The first one was about his feeling towards his work and how he is always doubting himself and not always believing in his talent.
2. The second is about his family and how pushy they are to him,  this put him off returning home and made him feel a bit more confidence about his choices to move to New York
3. And I also got a final feeling about the relationship between Mark and Maureen and why things didn't work out, they have left things with mark still wanting to be friend and make things work, but Maureen only really cares about mark, when I benefits her and she can get something out of her.

Dance Evaluation - Gernica Devised Piece

The Stimulus for our dance piece was a painting by Picasso which was influenced by the Guernica war, this painting was very busy and they were a lot of expressive faces, we came up with lots of words that we thought expressed some of the characters in the painting.


From the painting I saw lots of splayed hands and strong facial expressions, this gave the painting a very strong theme, which I first off thought was a theme of a riot or something, as there was so much going on.


To start off our work we looked at different ways of holding the body. This involved learning some different moves, these involved lunges and holds, all exploring different levels and different emotions.  Some of them were attacking moves and the others were taking shelter. We then made up our own solos that incorporated all of the moves and we then had to work on different transitions into each movement. I was really happy with my solo in this piece, as I thought that it showed good focus and had some good dynamics, this included changing the speed of how I moved, from slow, rigid movements and then fast, panicky movements. I think that this linked really well to the original stimulus and really showed all of the different emotions of the piece, and showed the destruction of what was going on.


Once we all had our solos we then were put into groups of four, within my group I think that I played a key part in my group when it came to devising, this was good as it gave me a chance to voice some of my ideas, while incorporating it with everyone else's solos. I gave a lot of contribution when it came the filling in the gaps of the dance and how everything should be spaced, I tried to make some sections really close and some really far apart, which would show the chaos of the war and then making things seem really spare made it look dead and empty.


During the final performance I think that I used really good strength during my solo, I did this during all of the holds and when doing some of the more rigid arm motifs and movements. I also thought that my co-ordination was successful, I think that was mainly clear in the jumping phrase that I learnt, this involved stag leaps and hops, during a travelling phrase. When it came to my Interpretive skills I think I showed great focus when directing things out towards the audience, this created the tension of the piece. I also was happy with my musicality and how we waited for certain points in the music which fit best with the movements, this particularly showed in the lull of the music, when we dropped our energy and then brought it back up when the music picked back up.


I think my over all strength of the piece was my performance skills, and how well I portrayed the stimulus and the meaning of the dance, I showed this through my facial expression and my focus out to the audience. I think that I could have improved on my extension and how I participated all of my body into the dance, this includes my face and not just relaxing with it, and getting to lost in what move comes next. For next time that I respond to a stimulus, I would like to spend more time looking into different movement styles and how they can be used to portray a meaning behind something.

LOU LOU THEATRE COMPANY

Two men and a pint of Orange Juice  -    Cast of 2

Lantern Theatre Brighton
Malbourgh Theatre
Brighton Dome studio
Dukebox theatre

We would need a cast of 2 people to perform the show, this would be because the show involves multirole playing. I would employ my own stage manager but would then use the technical team of the theatre. And then a general designer that would design costume, set and props, and then I would direct and producer.


To make set I would set up schemes through the local school to help create set


£2500 starting budget

This was my pitch towards the dragons. I thought that It went very well and I had fun when pitching it to them. during my pitch I feel that I covered all of the criteria set. I had a thorough Budget form that had some well thought section, where I took into consideration all the costs needed to put on the show. I feel that my research into technical requirements and venues came in need when pitching it all across.

For my funding I looked into the brighton fringe festival and spoke to one of their representerives. They told me about a scheme that they offer where they give money to new performers and new companys, so I then included this into my form.

This is my budget form for my theatre tour.

Profiles of Different Theatre Production Roles (Friday 6th November)

Artist Director


This person has overall responsibility of all of the work that goes through the theatre, they would make all of the final decisions when it comes to everything artistic, this would involve set, music and anything put onto the stage. This job role would work with everyone in the theatre, to correspond with the team leaders that would manage each department. This job role would respond to the director and the producer of the show. I think that this would be a good job to do as you can get to have a taster of each department. And I think that it would suit me as I could us my creative skills, and I am good at working in a team and supporting everyone.




Stage Manger


The role of a stage manager is to organise and coordinate the running of the show, they would make sure that every department in the building is in place, pre show. They would also be involved during the show, and they would be in the left wing, sitting at the desk and watching the show, and calling each department operator through the cans and would give them three queues, one to tell them that they have something coming up, one to tell the stand by, and then the last to tell them to do the queue. This role would only really respond to the director and theatre manager, but they would also be involved with most people in the theatre. I could use my coordination skills to do this job, and it would help to be in order and making sure everyone in ready.




Stage Hand


The role of a stage hand is to be based on the stage and is mainly involved around the set, and what is on the stage. they wouldn't necessarily build or design the set but the would be responsible for what it on stage, for each scene, and then sometimes the actors off the stage, I think that I would be good at this job, but I don't think that this is creative enough for me. This person would respond to tech manager and also the stage manager.

Rent (Friday 18th september) Characters and Role on the wall

In this lesson we got our characters for the show, I got the character of Mark, which was who I was auditioning for. I was very happy with this as out of all of the male characters in the show I saw the most potential for my self to add characterisation and get into the characters feelings.

We had a lesson just focusing on our own characters, we did this in the form of a role on the wall, and we did this while watching a schools edition of Rent, which is what version we would be doing. During this I came up with a lot of facts about my character, some that I knew from the show and a from watching the films and then some that I have made up to give my character depth in the scenes.

My Role on the wall explanation

HIV and AIDs


During the context of our piece, it is during the aids and HIV epidemic, and a lot of the characters are carriers, The difference between HIV and AIDS is that HIV is a virus that attacks your immune system, which weakens it down, until your body is unable to defend its self against the virus. Over time medication has been brought out not to stop the illness but to delay its effects of it. From HIV you can lead to AID's, you cant get AIDs without having HIV first but you can suffer from HIV without it leading to AIDs


Main Causes of Homelessness


Homelessness can come from lots of different causes, but the main two categories for  the cause of homelessness is Personal and Structural. Personal reasons can include things that our down to yourself, this is things like not getting enough qualifications when you were in education, not having the right social skills etc. Structural causes of homelessness is more general. such as poverty, lack of affordable housing, or not available to get benefits


'Starving Artist'

A Starving artist is someone who gives all that they can to achieve their dreams in the arts, this can mean that they are living of a minimum wage, and have to keep their spending to a minimum, in order to fund their art.