Loglines, Mask-Making, Devising

This week started off with a brief break from commedia, instead we discussed “loglines” used in film hooks. Basically the structure of a logline provides the basis for a pitch, at which point you would layer on more details. The three key words used for the structure are “when”(character with a pattern encounters a problem that challenges his pattern), “then”(with his key relationship he/she tries to solve the problem despite all obstacles), and “until” (he acts outside his pattern and solves the problem). The brief summary of the plot is all in the present tense, however it can contain some spoilers seeing as it outlines the storyline. Once we learned this technique, it made me understand how to incorporate the brief summary aspect to a pitch. The logline discussion also helped me see the relationship between a writer and a director and a writer and a producer (the director would need the loglines, and the producer would need the pitch)

Wednesday we took a step in a new direction and did some theatre in the making! Even though we haven’t decided if we are using masks in our commedia piece, we are making them anyway to get the experience and appreciate the ‘dell’arte’ or mask-making, which was integral to commedia productions. We went to the art block and then got a demonstration (haha, Axel) of how to use tissue paper, and gum paper to form a realistic mask off of a live model. I’d say this was more of an art and team-bonding experience, and I found that I really enjoyed the artistic elements of forming the facial features. The only issue we ran into was that the art masks were designed to be realistic, and commedia masks are meant to be exaggerated as if caricatures of the people. However, I think this problem will fixed in “post-production” because we will be adding painted designs and even some attached features. This lesson ended with a gigantic research task! I’m not freaking out because I’ve had a lot of experience with annotated bibliographies as well as with dance/choreography. I’m looking forward to the inspiration that will hopefully come to my choreography, but I’m not looking forward to hours of sedentary activity for the purpose of creating dynamic movement.

Thursday we redid some of our freeze-frames so they would capture the “essence” of the scene more accurately, we did this through the different levels and body positions that eventually gave the frame more depth. These frames were then printed off and hang up; they will act as the storyboard for our production and help us stay on track without referring to a specific line in a structured script (which we don’t have anyway). Then came the true test of acting; we were left to improvise and devise the story. I enjoy making up stories and testing out new ways of doing things; BUT I won’t lie about my feelings toward improvisation= I don’t like it at all. I’m still not completely comfortable taking on the role of actor yet; however on reflection I think this commedia production has all the right elements in it that will force me to accept the practice as legitimate and useful. It is helpful for me to balance the research with the performance, and then I can have a balanced outlook and theatre experience. (Note, my computer won't let me upload pictures for some reason...but I put them on the fb group :)

Freeze Frames

THURSDAY (January 13)

We got to have our freeze frames based on our play and we give some different ideas on how every scene flow and give them a title of every scene, at first we all have been asking what we is the next scene we supposed to do and Mr; Fearnehough give us some ideas on how we totally give the best emotion and the physical appearance of each characters, and we supposed to help each other think what is the best thing to do which is has been more interesting.

Return from the HOLIDAYS!
 Monday 7th of January:

We started the lesson about discussing the performance concept with Mr.Fearnehough and we then discussed different ways we could research the technical roles we had been given. The London National Theatre is a great website to watch videos on all different technical aspects of performances.

Wednesday 9th of January:
Wednesday was when the fun began! Halley taught us how to do loads of acrobatics! It was a really good way of getting into the spirit of commedia and learning new skills. We spent the whole 2 hours learning new things like:
- Somersaults
- Jump-ups (starting from down on the knees)
- The run, slide, spin
- The worm
- The coffee grinder
- Cartwheels
- Different types of jumps - Hitch kick - Guitar - Leprechaun - Butterfly
- And the most exciting one the Russian Circle Running

 

I really enjoyed myself and Halley was very good at explaining everything and was leading the whole 2 hours extremely well and helped us if we were struggling with some moves. I think everyone enjoyed themselves and we worked together very well and we realised how well we worked from the pain we all had the next day haha.

Thursday 10th of January:

For this lesson we had to do freeze frames for the scenario we had come up with for our Commedia piece. We started off by re-reading the scenario and just going into a freeze frame and seeing if it work we then showed Mr.Fearnehough and we fixed them and came up with tittles for the freezes so we would be more clear. This activity also helped us out to figure out what our character was really like and the different levels that could be used in the freezes.

I think we are much clearer now on the whole scenario and how the characters are and I am really excited to work on it even more !!!!

 

Acrobatics, Freeze-Frames and Planning

Monday-
This lesson we had a more theory lesson where we discussed our technical roles. We gave eachother ideas and discussed if they would work. We got advice from Mr Fearnehough on how we can research our roles which will help us find a plan to carry out our ideas.

Wednesday (Double Lesson)-
This lesson was a VERY physical lesson! We learnt and mastered acrobatics taught by Halley.
I loved this lesson as I love doing activities like this as I am a dancer and felexible like Halley so I was very excited to be learning all these new movements.
I really wanted to master  the movements as I will be playing the Zanni (nerd) characters and these movements will fit perfectely into character when spying.
Halley added lots of variety of movements which included :

• 
• standing movements
• jumps
• standing on hands
• floor movements

Acrobatics didn't only just teach us how to do movements but it also brought the team together. Some movements meant we had to work together as a team for example the russian circle running. It required a lot of teamwork and we pulled it off amazingly! 

Thursday-We all limped into class after our intense acrobatics lesson yesterday and today we produced freeze-frames for our commedia piece.

We first did our freezeframes and then after Mr Fearnehough came to watch them.
The first time we did them, we didn't help eachother enough and take a look at our freeze-frames to see what we could make better and change. We realised that after we did this the second time, a lot of our freeze-frames from before were just safe ones. We changed them after to make them much more fun, exaggerated and showed the story and emotions more.

Learning new things !

Monday – On the return from the holidays, we sat down and discussed our technical roles for the play, as well as the performance concept. There I learned to my dismay that we would be performing in front of our old classmates. Oh joy!

Wednesday – The day of acrobatic hell. In fairness, it was a great acrobatics lesson led by Halley. In it I learned a whole load of new things, including the fact that I am slightly bendier than a wooden stick and that I still can’t do a roly-poly. But it was great fun and we learned a lot of things that will help us in our play!

 

 

Thursday – On Thursday, we learnt the meaning of the word “sore”. However, we quickly got to work as Mr. Fearnehough’s instructions on the board made us realise that the performance was fast approaching. We started making a series of freeze frames to represent each of our scenes. We also came up with titles for our scenes so we can have something to refer to in the future.

Week 14:Learning Lots of New Stuff!

Monday- We discussed the performance concept. Mr. Fearnehough also went over different methods to research and work on our different technical roles. He told us about different websites and ways to plan.

Wednesday- This was the day of Halley's acrobatics class!!! It was super fun and full of new stuff. She showed us how to do...

 

• Rolls/somersaults
• Jump-ups(From a kneeling position)
• Run-slide-spin
• Coffee grinder
• The Worn
• Jumps
• Hitch Kick
• Leprechaun
• Guitar
• Butterfly
• Butterfly with partner
• Cartwheels
• Walkovers
• Russian circle running

She was an amazing teacher and had a lot of ideas about inserting them into the performance. Everyone did their best at the different moves. Some were really difficult, others were a little scary, and other just needed better teamwork. I was really proud of our group for working together so well. Sadly, though, Mary missed this class because she had not gotten back from the Philippines yet.

 What did was a little bit like filling in a
storyboard with pictures and titles.

Thursday- We began working on the acting part of the performance, the part that I have kind of been dreading. We began the lesson making freeze frames of each scene of the play, while Mr. Fearnehough helped out with the exams that were taking place. This exercise helped us to figure out the story better and figure out our characters better. We took pictures of each scene and later when MR. Fearnehough got there we showed him our freeze frames. He had us critique each other and help one another do better. This was very helpful in an acting sense, but really puts each person on the spot to immediately find a way to act out a certain action/emotion,.While this can be rather uncomfortable, it is a good to do, throughout the rehearsal process. It really helped me to look at myself and examine what I was doing and what it represented.

Acrobatics, Freeze Frame, and One Direction (yes, 1D was one for the whole class :)

            The week started with discussions about how we would individually complete our technical roles for the Commedia production. A useful way to compose an action plan is to research the methods of a specific person in that line of work (for example I would look into the work of a specific photographer). Because I’m tackling the choreography and acrobatic elements of the performance I’ve started my research into circus exercises, contemporary choreography, and classical Baroque dance style. My vision so far is to have some small choreographed sections that work as the interlude between scenes as well as additional acrobatic elements for the zanni, some type of over-the-top tango between Il Capitano and Isabel, as well as a sweet and romantic duet for the lovers. At this point I’m condensing my research and really focusing on the process a choreographer goes through.

            Wednesday was really fun! I got to run my acrobatics class, and I think the ensemble did really well. I started with some basic dance stretches and warm-ups but then pretty much went straight into acrobatic tricks. I didn’t know how much everyone could already do, therefore I structured my class so that the tricks could be made easier or harder depending on how quickly everyone picked them up. My background as a rhythmic gymnast and dancer gave me a lot of confidence in the movements and I felt really comfortable leading and helping the ensemble. The process of teaching the class has helped me realize that I prefer roles such as a choreographer or director as opposed to an actor. The highlight of the session (other than listening to One Direction the entire time…bet you didn’t notice that did you Axel??) was the “Russian Running Circle” when the ensemble successfully lifted two of its members off the ground! It is a definite crowd pleaser; on reflection I think I will add in more group/partner tricks into the choreography because they are relatively easy, but look massively impressive.

            Thursday was the day of acute muscle pain, thanks to my class…Mr.F put it the best way when he said, “I feel like I’ve been beaten up”, which was a perfect description. (At least I know that everyone, including myself, worked really hard during the class) Thursday was focused on the scenario itself and we worked on the different scenes by literally taking a freeze frame of each scene. At first our pictures were decent but visually we were all at similar levels and the attention was not drawn to anything specific. However after we began to change the positions (rotation, translation, inclination, thank you Mr. Decroux) and levels of our bodies the photos became instantly more striking. This process taught that sometime you literally need to step outside of your scene of position and see what can be improved. Also this was a really helpful group exercise because we could maneuver each other and give input in a constructive way.