The Mock

I haven't been blogging for a while because the lessons we have had have just been rehearsing for our mock which we have done and the the exam is in three days. As I chose to do bretch the techniques used were: plaque cards, changing costume on set and others that I can't think of writing this. The mock went really well, better than I though as I didn't mess up and I said all my lines correctly. And ever since we have been rehearsing. We have made several changes/ improvements since the mock to make the performance more brecthian and hopefully better.

Devising double lesson

In our double lesson we mainly just devised for our exam. However in the first hour we did some physical theatre work, which was demonstrated at the Frantic Assembly, which I didn't go to so it was good to get some ideas. We were divided into two groups and the chair were arranged like this:

I started off in the chair labelled X. We then decided our theme would be a children's playground, so moved to different chairs and acted like children. As we moved from chair to chair we made some sort of contact with at least one other person. On the first moved I contacted another player by high-fiving each other and basically acting like a child. I then just barged through the others.

For the rest of the double lesson we devised for our exam. Everything was going extremely well, we had three scenes that lasted nearly ten minutes that just needed polishing. However, after school that day me and Kayleigh (the other member of the group) stayed after school to practice but Tom was getting stressed because non of his group was turning up to rehearse. Miss suggested that Tom could join our group, and we obviously accepted it because it wasn't fair for him. We have managed to add him into our first scene we just have to think about him in the other scenes and what brechtian techniques and political meaning behind it.

Multi-Rolling

In this lesson we did multi-rolling. This lesson was really helpful for me and Kayleigh because we are doing Bretch and one techniques of Bretch is multi-rolling. We got into groups and pretended that we were old people and we each had to come up with our own ideas and we had to transition into the others. These three characters each had to sound different and physically look different maybe in terms of levels, postures or gestures. Our first one we did a British woman saying "It's a bit chilly outside isn't it.", then we transitioned into a man with a walking stick that was hunched over so this was lower which saying  "Awwww my back" and lastly we transitioned into the last one which was a northern woman sitting on a mobility scooter and saying "Don't hurry me this machine won't go any faster." This has really helped me understand what to do for when we devise and create our exam piece.

Devising for our mock and GCSE Exam

In our previous double lesson we got into our groups and started devising for our exam. As the brecht group had six people, and the exam board says 2-5, we had to split up. Miss suggested it would be better if we had a group of two and a group of four instead of two groups of threes. I am in the group of two. Me and my friend Kayleigh, the other member of my group, had already been messaging each other ideas. We had come up with a scene where we  were both sisters, one being a nerd, the other being a cool kid who rolls up their skirt and doesn't really care. I am playing the cool kid.

For our set we had created a bedroom scene, a desk, a been bag and a chair. We start the scene off where I storm into to the room demanding for the laptop, which Kayleigh is on, so I can go on match.com. To make this brecht we are doing to stick a piece of paper on the back of the laptop that says 'Geography Assessment', because at the beginning of the scene Kayleigh is sitting at the desk doing her geography essay. The message behind this is piece is not to judge a book by its cover. We are using the quote "It's not what you look at, it's what you see." The main story line of this is that the cool kid seems all lazy and bad girl at home but at school she tries to fit in by skipping class and not doing homework, on the other hand the 'nerd' is studious at home but cool at school. This suggest that even though we look like something, inside is a whole new person, and that humans judge people too quickly.

Brechtian Work and Development

In this double lesson we decided what type of theatre we wanted to do, for our exam; Brecht, T.I.E or Physical. I originally chose  T.I.E but we were indecisive on what we wanted to do as a group as there was too many options and we didn't all agree with each other, so I moved to Brecht. We then started devising a piece that used an object on wheels. Ours was an office chair. We created a school scenario  where I played a nerd, two other members played the "mean girls" of the school, another member played the school's 'hottie" and the last member multi-roles from a "God" to a school boy. By using the chair, we created a scene where the "God" would move around with the chair and place it behind you. If it was placed behind you you'd have to sit on it and then they would say something to you, that you didn't believe at first but by sitting in that chair, it has changed your mind or opinion on whatever it was that the"God" told you. That would then make the scene turn more dramatic and striking for the audience because the "God" only speaks the truth so if you friends with someone, sat on the chair and the "God" said that she was talking about you behind your back, you would go from friends to "enemies".  The scene started with the two mean girls talking together about boys, the nerd, aka me, sitting on a chair on my own, writing in a notepad and the school's "hottie" just sitting on his phone "acting cool". The "God" then moves the chair behind one of the mean girls, she then sits down and the "God" tells her that the other mean girl likes the hottie as well as her and that she has been calling her a slut so the "hottie" won't date her but will date the other girl who is saying mean things, as they both like him. The mean girl who has been called a slut then goes over to the other mean girl and they get into a fight. Because the nerd doesn't like the two girls she just stays out of it, as does the "hottie". The "God" then brings the chair behind me, so I sit on it and he tells me that the "hottie" does like the mean girls, but he likes me instead. I react disgusted and confused because  I don't like the "cool boy" because I think he is too full of himself, and I don't understand why he'd like a nerd and not the cooler girls. Then the"God" moves behind the "cool boy/hottie" and tells him that the two mean girls both have crushes on him. He acts quite angry as he says something on the lines of  "Why is it the the girls I don't like, like me and the one girl I love doesn't?".

That is all we did for the first half of the lesson. After break we came back in and rehearsed what I have just explained and then performed it to the our two groups and we watched theirs. That took up about half of our other half of our double lesson so we only had about half an hour to come up with another scene that could either go before what we had just performed of after. We had time to come up with a scene to happen before the school scene. The chair was turned upside down and used as a clothes hanger thing in a clothes shop, that you turn. We hung our blazers on the wheels as if they were clothes. We only managed to have time to act that out as coming ip with he ideas took a while. However we came up with idea of the mean girls being in the sop and putting the blazer on backwards and they would just laugh at how ridiculous it was. Then the nerd would come in and put the blazer on properly and the mean girls would be like "did she seriously just do that."

That is all we had time to divide during our previous double lesson.

Paper Dolls


In this lesson we firstly did some work as a class using paper. We were told to fold our paper in half and imagine it was a bird. That bird was to lead us around the room swooping up and down, around in circles, when meeting another bird it would react to it. we got into groups of four and were given a certain amount of paper to create a human figure. Miss had to help us because putting the structure together wasn't easy. But we created a paper model that looked like a human being. We had to work together with hand and speech coordination to make it look like it was walking like a human would. We then were told that we had to make it into a person, we chose Nicki Minaj so we used out extra paper, that we ripped off the arms to make the arms a better length, scrunched it up into four separate balls and attached them as boobs and a bum. We moved the structure so it looked like "Nicki" was singing, putting on lipstick, twerking and then doing a slut drop. To improve this we could of not added the extra balls to make it look more realistic to make the audience think more and get more imaginative whilst watching us perform it.  Here is our paper doll:

Brechtian Theatre

Brechtian Theatre Work

Today in drama we focused on Brechtian Theatre. We got into groups of four and were given a few lyrics from a beetles song - A day in the life. Our interpretation of the lyrics were there being a car crash so that is what we acted out.

Our lyrics were :
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn't notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They'd seen his face before
Nobody was really sure
If he was from the House of Lords.

We created a very basic car crash scene where I was a passing teenager who notices the crash and sees if there is s a pulse of the people that crashed, one of them survived but the other wasn't so lucky.

He blew his mind out in a car - This is the line where we imagined a car crash.
He didn't notice that the lights had changed - There was a phone call and the driver picked up and wasn't paying attention so the lights changed the driver made an abrupt stop and the driver behind crashed into her.
A crowd of people stood and stared - Eliza and I (school girls - teens) and saw the crash happen so I scream and we both run to see if they're alive or not.
They'd seen his face before - The drivers were complete strangers.
Nobody was really sure - Not sure if they survived the accident or not.
If he was from the House of Lords. - As we only had half an hour to do this task my group didn't have time to create a part for this line but it would of probably be that one of the drivers was from the House of Lords and one of the school girls noticed it and that would mean that it was a sad time as a very important person might of just died.






Here is the music video for a day in the life.








 

Physical Theatre Lesson

Physical Theatre Lesson

In today's lesson we focused on physical theatre. It's not my favourite way of presenting something, but I enjoyed this lesson a lot. At the beginning of the lesson we were shown an image of a window. The image is called Wind from the sea by Andrew Wyeth.

In groups we were told to look and write down what we thought about the picture; what the meaning behind it, the setting, background history, what it could mean or represent. Then as a class we discussed and came up with five words we loved most; Ghost, Flashback, WW2, distant and neglect. After that, in those same groups we created five still images, one for each word. 

My group started of with the WW2 image then transitioned into ghost then distant then flashback  and then neglect.

We also added in a song called Derbun Skies by Bastille:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPT3OU72oKo

This is our WW2 image:

This is our Ghost image:

This is our Distant image:

This is our Flashback image:

This is our Neglect image:

Physical Theatre, Brecht and T.I.E

Physical Theatre:

A form of theatre which emphasizes the use of physical movement, as in dance and mime, for expression.

I Like this image because it is extremely creative and could show how movement can have an impact on the audience. The picture could represent strength because they are all having to work together to keep themselves up. It could also represent trust as they all have to believe in one another so the shape stays still.

This video is mind blowing. It takes a lot of core strength and general strength to do this and that's what makes physical theatre more amazing. It shows how much effort and time has gone in to make it and it tells a story at the same time.

 Theatre in Education (T.I.E):

A process in which it includes all the interactive theatre/drama practices that help aid the educational process. As T.I.E is used, new strategies and objectives for using theatre in education tool emerge.

This picture kind of represents what T.I.E is and how it helps children and adults understand matter. For me this picture represents a 'bully circle' as the girl in the centers facial expression looks scared, which could mean that she is getting bullied. The girl hugging her is her friend and supports the girl getting bullied and is trying to make to bullies/ crowd of people leave her alone.



This video is a good example of T.I.E and also relates to the image above.
It shows the bad side of things, but the message behind it is the opposite.
It makes the audience realise how bad things are so they will think twice before doing something they shouldn't.

Brechtian Theatre:

A theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners who responded to the political climate of the time through the creation of a new political theatre.

This image is a good example of Brechtian Theatre as it shows a political event. It involves the use of plaque cards and outfit and scene changes on stage. I like this image because it shows a good example of what Brechtian Theatre is.

The video shows and tells you about Brechtian Theatre, what its like and its impact. I like it because it gives examples and explains things in more detail.

Welcome to my blog for GCSE drama

Hi,
I'm Emma and this is my blog for GCSE Drama :)