SOLO RADIO ASSESSMENT & CHARACTER STUDY'S

POEM ON DRUGS

WHY I CHOSE THIS PIECE:

I chose this piece because the first time I read it, I immediately felt a strong message throughout the piece that was clear. I felt myself envisioning all of these sound effects and characteristic skills in my head and I was getting excited because I thought this could be really good. Not only was it an entertaining poem with a strong message, you do do a lot with it, it had a lot of potential.

The genre of this piece would probably fall under audio poetry, all though it has quite an entertaining theme, i think this is more about getting the attention of the listener. I think it has a more serious theme. I think the performance style is factual and naturalistic, because it bases itself on the journey that drugs can do to you. The context is audio dramatisation of poetry, and I have also done some character work focusing on the way I use my voice.

I separate the text up and include different moods into the text as if the voice that you hear is the drug. The drug starts off as your friend and then suddenly becomes more manipulative and patronising as the journey goes on. I change the tone and the volume of my voice to show this change. I use quite a childish tone to begin with and then suddenly become this warped voice that isn't very pleasant to listen to which I think is quite a big contrast to the giggly child like voice at the beginning. I wanted to do this to highlight particular points in the journey of the poem.

The piece has come a long way since the begging, since then I have researched into the piece, got feedback from the piece and rehearsed with this. I think my diction and character has improved the most since I don't stumble as much as I did on the words as when i first started working on this solo. I think this is because I've separated the text more evenly and this created more natural pauses allowing me to breathe and catch my breathe. It didn't effect the pace however, I did slow some bits down due to feedback. 

WHAT IS THE PIECE ABOUT:

The piece is a poem, based on a structure/journey that drugs take you on. The poem seems to make light of the issue it's discussing and uses juxtaposition. I feel like it does this to to make the listener feel a bit manipulated by "the drug" and this causes the listener to think actually you don't sound pleasant at all, allowing the listener to make up there own mind.

HOW I INCORPORATED PERFORMANCE TECHNIQUES:

The performance techniques I have taken in to consideration include, Script annotation techniques, character profiling, script reading and spontaneity, working with SFXs, Content, and vocal techniques.

I annotated my script with where I wanted to include my SFXs and points to help with my overall performance, for example on my script I have the sound of prison cell bars shutting straight away. I chose this SFX because I wanted to listener to instantly be drawn in. I think prison cells would make the listener think of what this related to, and i think the first thing I would think about is crime, prison and a jail sale. I then annotated next to this "giggly girl, friendly, childish" and "breathe/pause" next to a certain point at the beginning. I did this to remind me and to show how I want this particular part to be changed. I put "high pitched" next to this as well to show how I do this with my voice. I highlighted my SFX's mainly in orange or red depending on the piece. I considered the content of the piece in order to get a feel of the character/ style of performance that I thought would be the most effective. I did my research, I made sure I understood everything I was talking about which helped me decide on the idea of creating a journey.'A small dose of heroin gives the user a feeling of warmth and well-being, bigger doses can make you sleepy and very relaxed." I took this into consideration and this made me think about the way I introduced the piece, I thought I'd make the user feel relaxed and comfortable before i start being a bit more mental. "The first dose of heroin can bring about dizziness and vomiting." 

The poem was quite self explanatory but having extra insight definitely helped. Script reading was considered, for example I needed to look at the punctuation and make sure I used it, in order to get a good pace, rhythm and space to breathe. I did change up some of the punctuation though sometimes in order to up the pace due to the characterisation of the piece. I did this by dismissing some of the commas and doing it faster to get more of a panic feel. This is when I use the intention to make the listener feel uncomfortable and this is where I use ghostly SFX to highlight and make it seem un natural.

RESEARCH RESOURCES:

http://www.talktofrank.com/drug/heroin

• "A small dose of heroin gives the user a feeling of warmth and well-being, bigger doses can make you sleepy and very relaxed."

• "The first dose of heroin can bring about dizziness and vomiting." 

• Heroin is highly addictive and people can quickly get hooked.

• Injecting heroin and sharing injecting equipment can  be very risky, as it runs the risk of the injector catching or spreading a virus, such as HIV or hepatitis C. There is also the risk that veins may be damaged and that an abscess or blood clot may develop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pax7QoV3_KU

https://www.gov.uk/penalties-drug-possession-dealing

Class	Drug	Possession	Supply and production
A	Crack cocaine, cocaine, ecstasy (MDMA), heroin, LSD, magic mushrooms, methadone, methamphetamine (crystal meth)	Up to 7 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both	Up to life in prison, an unlimited fine or both
B	Amphetamines, barbiturates, cannabis, codeine, ketamine, methylphenidate (Ritalin), synthetic cannabinoids, synthetic cathinones (eg mephedrone, methoxetamine)	Up to 5 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both	Up to 14 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both
C	Anabolic steroids, benzodiazepines (diazepam), gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), gamma-butyrolactone (GBL), piperazines (BZP), khat	Up to 2 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both (except anabolic steroids - it’s not an offence to possess them for personal use)	Up to 14 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both
Temporary class drugs*		None, but police can take away a suspected temporary class drug	Up to 14 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both

 The image above is my first annotated copy, which includes my first ideas of SFXs, first ideas of character work, pieces of the text I cut, and feedback from my peers and teachers in order to give a more effective performance. Some of the feedback I got for this piece was to use a manipulative tone and keep it girly/giggly.

 This is the script I am giving to Ray. I decided to give him a neat copy with out any added character/voice annotation.

WHATEVER NEXT- JILL MURPHY

I chose this piece because I wanted to show variation. It's a children's story about a little bear flying to the moon, and his adventure along the way.

The story is written by Jill Murphy, and is still very popular with each generation. It was a book I loved when I was a little girl, and I thought it was perfect for a younger audience. I thought it had enough characters to show a variety of skills I could show.  This piece shows four different characters. Baby Bear, Mrs Bear, The Owl and The Narrator. I decided to keep the narrator closer to my voice but clip it a bit more. For example I would keep my voice soft and smooth in tone, but make sure I announce my t's and d's in diction. 

The feedback I got when I performed this to a teacher was to really over play the owl, to make sure they could absolutely hear the difference between the owl and baby bear. I play the Owl over the top and therefore every line the owl says I keep to the same over the top owl stereo type. I decided to play Baby Bear as more of a young boy type character changing my voice to be childish but more in the boy gender. I did this by doing less giggles which I would associate with a little girl more. I wanted to make Baby Bear a boy because I wanted to have clear characters, and seeing as I had already two female character (The Narrator and Mrs Bear) I found it was a good idea to use another male character other than the owl. 

The reason Baby Bear meets The Owl at night is because Owls are nocturnal. 

I decided to use a operatic owl voice which sounds like I'm almost singing. This is because owls seem to have quite a lyrical tone in there voice when they hoot.

For this piece I will be staying in the same place when I speak into the mic. Although there are many characters in this story, due to having to narrate the story too, it's not convenient to move around. 

The relationships between the characters are quite clear, Baby Bear is Mrs Bears child and the Owl is Baby Bears friend that he meets on the journey. 

I've given Mrs Bear a bit of a Yorkshire twang in her accent, but only subtle. I did this to make her and the narrators voices a bit clearer. 

Children's stories are often there to help children learn to read, however they are important in the way they help children see the world. Children's imaginations are very large and I think an audio book is great for a child's development. Children who are partially blind might have audio books like this as a source of main entertainment. This book is based to a younger audience and would be ideal as a after school session on BBC 1 or 2 so that children can relax after school around 3 or 4 pm. 

Here's a quote from BBC iWonder:

'Scientists have found that children who have fiction read to them regularly find it easier to understand other people – they show more empathy and have better developed theory of mind (the ability to understand that other people have different thoughts and feelings to us, which is essential for understanding and predicting other people’s thoughts and behaviour).'

ANTI SMOKING ADVERT

This is the shortest piece of the selection, But I thought it would be good to use to help link my other two piece together. There seems to be a theme of harmful substances along with a childish outlook or theme running with it. 

More harsh and blunt adverts were launched at the end of 2012. They seemed to be proved more effective as they were more graphic images and were actually showing users realistic consequences of smoking/ second hand smoking. Users seem to respond to this a lot more as it's no longer just coming from what we hear we are able to be shown directly what we used to fill in with our imaginations which was probably a lot less than the truth. 

'There are two types of tobacco smoke:

• mainstream smoke, which is directly inhaled through the mouth end of the cigarette, and
• sidestream smoke, which comes from the burning tip of the cigarette.'

Obviously with radio we can't use our visual scenes, we can only use our ears, and so somehow I needed to create an effective way to get the listeners attention in a short amount of time. 'Second-hand smoke can reach very high levels inside cars because it is a small enclosed space.' This is why the first SFX I use is exhaling/inhaling smoke at the beginning of the piece before the next SFX of a child coughing. I think the listener will automatically connect the two together and realise why the child is coughing. It makes the listener think about why the child is coughing. Then I go on to explain a fact, which is that " Over 80% of cigarette smoke isn't visible". This advert is actually from the NHS and supports the anti-smoking campaign. The piece I am doing is inspired by an advert taken from one of the NHS TV adverts. I adapted this with sound effects as obviously we can't use our sight, only our imagination. The piece on TV has only the sound of smoke, and you can see it filling the room with a child in the room and her being completed surrounded by second hand smoke. It was representing the fact that you can't see the second hand smoke, and so highlighted the invisible substance. 'The adverts follow the Stoptober campaign, which saw more than 270,000 sign up in a mass attempt to quit two months ago.' I researched a lot into what second hand smoking could actually do to you and it turns out that second hand smoke can cause cancer of various types and other problems too. ' Sidestream smoke is about four times more toxic than mainstream smoke, although people inhale it in a more diluted form. This is because sidestream smoke contains much higher levels of many of the poisons and cancer-causing chemicals.' Problems such as heart disease, stroke and breathing problems. Second-hand smoke apparently kills over 12,000 people in the United Kingdom from lung cancer, heart disease, stroke and Chronic, Obstructive, Pulmonary Disease. Second-hand smoke is especially dangerous for children. This is why I have focused on this in my radio solo. Children exposed to passive smoke are known to be at a higher risk of throat infections, asthma, meningitis and even cot death. 

' During your journey, children in the backseat will be exposed to average smoke levels around three times the European recommended air pollution standard. '

' England has seen cigarette smoking rates fall by 10-15%.'

SOURCES:

http://consumer.healthday.com/mental-health-information-25/addiction-news-6/tips-former-smokers-campaign-ajpm-cdc-release-batch-1505-694427.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20805059

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/healthyliving/smoking-and-cancer/passive-smoking/smoking-and-cancer-secondhand-smoke

http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/2289.aspx?categoryid=53&

GROUP RADIO ASSESSMENT

SEEING BEYOND WITH MAYA FANTASMA

Group Radio Assessment: SEEING BEYOND WITH MAYA FANTASMA

CAST & CHARACTERS:

MAYA: ABBI MARLOW

FELICITY: ALICIA PERKINS

TOM: CONNOR CLIFFORD

BECKY: CHARLIE-ROSE LANE

It took us a couple of weeks to find a play/radio script that we all liked and could work with. We finally came across a short scripted stage play, written by D.M Larson around 2005. D.M. Larson, who started writing plays when he was in high school won Emmy's for his work and has quite a lot of experience with the theatre background.  

The first couple of weeks we looked at different genres of radio plays and analysed them with different questions which would help is when we came to perform.

We decided to adapt this stage play to radio after researching and looking at many different radio drama’s and stage scripts. We looked at different stage plays as we decided we could adapt these to radio if we found the right piece. We looked at radio scripts such as, Like A Virgin by Gordon Steel, Ouji Board, No time for Crime which is a segmant of a radio play we looked at from Crime Club. Crime Club stared Barry Thompson and Raymond E. Johnson. 

What the piece is about?

The piece follows a physic called Maya Fantasma, who fakes connection with spirits who are trying to contact their friends/ relatives who are in her live audience. It’s all a show until an actual spirit, Felicity, comes to Maya to connect with her living brother Tom. Felicity is trying to warn Tom of his wife Becky who is watching the show with him. Becky also happens to be a nemesis of Felicity.

Why we chose the piece?

Out of all the radio scripts and and stage plays we read I think we all clicked with this play the most, as it was funny but also had an interesting plot, which we could really dwell with. I think we cast the play perfectly on our strengths too. For example I think I work well playing Becky because I had one of the more mature  voices, which i could sculpture around the sort of patronizing character that i have to portray. I think Alicia works well as Felicity because I think she has the right charisma and tone of voice for the cheeky, mischievous character she has to play. Obviously we worked with how we were going to act and so this would effect how we spoke, and how we positioned our pallets to get the right tone, volume, clarity and accent if we had one.

I don't know why the piece was written as such, however the piece obviously has a hidden theme about somewhere. I think perhaps it makes the viewers, or in this case, the listeners think about a number of different sub topics. I first thought about psychic and how no one really knows if they are putting on a show or if what they are saying is real. This comes into religious views, as some people will create an argument against this, or maybe they would be for the mystery. I had a look around on the web and even asked my friends about it in class. The question I used was "Do you believe in Psychics?" The question branched out to many different topics. For example some people who said they don't believe in them, would use examples like big tragedies that have happened. The impression was that if they were real they'd be able to predict terrorist attacks and stop so much heartache. The opposing impression was that even if they could see this, who is actually going to believe them? Many opinion can be drawn from this. It was written in 2005 when the radio drama Red Panda Adventures was also first aired. This is a light hearted radio drama which has similar traits to our play in the sense of the comical aspect but also has mystery story lines. It has recurring episodes. Other plays around the same time were Mercury Fur, Playing With Fire and Romance. All different genres. This light hearted radio drama would contrast to a full on comedy sketch as it has a set in story for the audience to follow but doesn't have the full on comical sketches and over the top voices it might include. Ours is like a toned down piece. 

This Radio drama, has a comical undertone, but had a mystery feel running high over the top of this. It’s a drama that has funny aspects in the play but leaves the audience questioning why Becky and Felicity hate each other.

Real life versions of Maya are actually out there in the world. It's up to the opinion of yourself whether you believe in it or not. The subject of belief comes under religious studies and citizenship. It's a very personal topic, and often this will effect the way you see this. Examples of mediums and spiritualists that go public with shows are Colin Fry and Psychic Sally. There are debates all over the internet discussing peoples opinions on whether these people are real or if its all for show. 

Character:

Becky, patronizing, manipulating, not very happy, demanding, high maintenance, I think she loves tom, but gives him a hard time possibly because she is feeling guilty? Maybe because she’s guilty about something that has happened between her and Felicity, something that Tom doesn't know? I think this might trigger her frustration and angry side to her. I think when I first read the script I imagined the characters to be older than how we are playing them, however I am glad that we made the characters younger because I think then we could play it to a younger target audience. I think Becky was initially late 30’s/40’s and we've brought it down to late 20’s. I think I make this work because of the way I put a more mature tone on my voice by articulating and putting a slightly upper class touch to my vocal tone.

In my head I’m imagining the fact that Felicity hates Becky is because Becky may have cheated on Tom and Felicity maybe caught her or found out, and Becky maybe murdered her? I think our group decided that Becky had been caught cheating on Tom, by Felicity and Becky and Felicity got into a dispute over this. This resulted in Becky pushing Felicity down the stairs and killing her. 

I think Becky is the type of wife who would make Tom carry her shopping bags for her and pay for the shopping. I think she obviously has a reason why she wants to be with Tom. Perhaps he is rich. I see Becky as a bit of a gold digger who obviously wears the trousers in the relationship. I start of whispering with Connor (Tom) in the audience and this straight away adds some sort of connection with them. We have to make the audience understand that they are husband and wife and so we have the witty banter/bossy relationship at the beginning. It's like the typical old married couple where the woman is bossing and moaning this time. 

I based my character on Jean Ainslee from the film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. 

She's quite bossy and definitely wears the trousers in her and her husbands relationship. 

We are planning on having Alicia slightly behind and Tom and Becky together in order to get the effect that Alicia is in some other world and Tom and Becky go through Maya to talk to her so we will probably have her placed in the middle. 

The play was never actually resolved online as on the website where I found the script it had this message from the web master;

“

Hey students!

Write your own scene 2 for this play and send it to www.freedrama.com at pocolocoplayers@yahoo.com

The best scene will be published on the website and the student will be given co-author credits on the play.”

So no one knows exactly what happens next. 

Tv and Screen Acting

Acting with TV and SCREEN:

We were shown a documentary on acting and these are the notes I took down during, and what I considered when filming scenes and shots.

Notes:
-hide pain behind eyes
-its the bravery that moves us
-focus on surroundings and where you are
-environment
-eyes think about your eyes
-less is more
-who you're talking to
-don't tell the story of the plot, just be the character
-more emotion in the face, lighten face and make it brighter.
-Use of imagery (imagine what you need to see in your head)
(for example if you are acting where someone is talking about a ex that cheated, imagine him there, this allows to locate that pain on your face when you actually think of him.
-Being specific to who you're talking to.
-Breath on the impulse
-Replace characters name exercise
-Look around, be aware where you are.
-Don't always have to look fixed on the person we are talking to all the time.


During the Tv and Screen acting lessons, I have realised how different it is to acting on stage or in theatre acting. Stage acting is all about feeling and TV is a lot more technical. Everything from the angle of the camera, the eye line of the actor or the expression on the actors face all needs to be taken in a different perspective. First of all we watched a documentary where I took notes as the ones listed above. The documentary showed us studying actors listening to the directors notes and then taking them on board. Examples were where the actor was given a scenario and they had to be aware of their surroundings, environment, and who they were talking to. They were given exercises like swapping and replacing names in order to create a more realistic reaction to what the other person was saying.

First thing we did was experiment with the camera in lesson 1. We first looked at Joe who took a few lines from a monologue and then spoke them whilst being filmed. His eye line wasn't on the camera, he was looking at Alicia who was stood behind the camera and he was talking to her. His eye line looked different on the camera when we watched it back on the screen. By watching it back on the screen it was easier to pin point when Adam had a suggestion of what to try differently or improve on. I was asked to go next, and I did a few lines from my monologue from 'Like A Virgin' from Gordon Steel. We did a take for rehearsal and then we went for a take. I used less emotion with my face and just focused on my eyes and how i used them, I didn't always focus on who I was talking to and I smiled a lot to try and take away the tension and the pain which is what I felt I needed to use when taking on quite a dramatic piece of text. My eye line was based on Zac who was sat at about 25 degree angle right from the camera. After getting a chance to actually try a few shots, I realised how different I looked on camera, and how the camera picked up a lot more. We tried over the shoulder shots and took in turns to shoot our shots and up close shots.

We learnt about a technique this week where it's like 3 weeks rehearsal in three minutes. Basically you take a line and try it in a different way every time you say it. It was really interesting to watch because you had more time to experiment and decide what worked and what didn't and if more than one of them worked which one felt the best or looked the best when you said it. When the man was saying his line to the lady, the lady naturally gave the line back in the way he delivered it. I liked this exercise and I plan to do this because I think it will really help me get the right mood and emotion when delivering my lines. Or even with partner work it could help me when having to deliver a line to someone and try and get the right connection/feeling between the characters and what they are saying.

Learning about physical metaphors interested me. Being able to match what you are saying with an actual action was quite difficult because it seemed like I was being over the top and it felt forced. But doing the exercise opened up new ideas where I could actually take away smaller element from this action and make it more personal and realistic.

We worked on a script given to us today, which was American and so it tested our accents today. I struggled a little bit on the accent though as it's not something I have really introduced before. This scene would have gone better for me if I hadn't of 'Under Acted' which was my feedback for me today. I held back on some of the actions and I could have afforded to be a little bit more bold and go for it. I learnt that it's better to go for it and get pulled back than to not go for it at all and hold back.

We did a spontaneity exercise. We paired up and learnt a few lines each and then got up in front of the camera and improvised them. We were to be completely spontaneous and do every take differently.

Don't Underact, go for the cringey bits. It's better to bring stuff to the table than to play it safe. Accidents by nature are organic. If something is spontaneous, it's unplanned which means making it original. Sometimes it doesn't always work, but a lot of the time it's creative something completely new and authentic. Accidents within speech bring a level of realism to it. You don't plan it, but this is what makes it what it is. A fortunate accident, so by being bold with accidents this will be picked up by the ear of the listener, and I can use this to my advantage to be noticed.

Shakespeare Rehearsal Period

Rehearsing Shakespeare:

Week 1:

In the first week of being introduced to Shakespeare, we headed up to London to see Julius Caesar performed by professional actors at The Globe Theatre. This experiance was great as it is quite a change from sitting down and watching a musical or play. i was dreading standing up for hours watching a play I didn't think I was going to understand. I thought it was going to be bone dry and I was going to have to work really hard to understand what the actors were saying. The characters and the play got my attention straight away by starting the play off with some of the actors joining in with the crowd and letting us become part of the show. It was really well staged and I had a lot of fun feeling as if I was in the show. Before the show we got to take part in a workshop which allowed us to take some of the text and add different techniques into it. Some of which we did was adding an action with a specific word. We did this in pairs and watched how it effected the way we accented some of the words. We were introduced to the iambic pentameter which is something to help create a rhythm in the text. It usually shows and emphasis on every other line and usually has 10 symbols in each line.



Week 2:

This we looked at starting to experiment with pieces of text. We looked at a speech from the movie Annoyomus called "O for a muse of fire". We were asked to work together as a group and think about how we were going to stage it and deliever the piece. One thing that didn't go to plan was every one had really good ideas and tended to want to do what they wanted, we have a lot of good leaders in our group and so it didn't work at first when everyone wanted to rush in with there ideas. I see some good points in this because it showed that a lot of us were interested in trying out what we thought might work well. In the end we decided we'd each suggest an idea if we had one, try it out and if we didn't fond well over it we would move to the next suggestion. I think I worked well in this situation because I see myself as a peace keeper and therefore some of my suggestions were put across maturely and therefore received a lot better. An idea I had was to express it using different tones in our voice and mixing up the tone so it wasn't just all on one level. Adam stepped in an tried an exercise where we had to perform it as if we were drunk. This was really interesting because it added different levels and emotion. It added a type of energy that was a bit different too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue2bUpz_uRw

Week 3:

This week we were finally put into groups. I was given the part of Caska along side Shelby playing Cassius. So I started learning about Caska and trying to understand what he was saying in the scene. Later on Shelby was leaving us, and Imogen offered to stand in and be Cassius. It wasn't until quite late on in the rehearsal period that we realised that I didn't have a lot to say and Imogen had another character and therefore we switched and I became Cassius. I was excited about being able to do more, but I was also anxious about learning the lines because I'm not a confident line learner but I knew I would give it my best shot. The only downside was that I had already started on the character of Caska and felt like I had lost time. I didn't get to perform with everyone else last term because I was ill. Over Christmas I started to look into the character of Cassius a bit more, he seems to be quite a manipulative and controlling character. I think because I am performing her as a girl I am going to base her on a modern day character from Sons of Anarchy "Miss Stark". This is because she is always out for her own gain and I feel that Cassius is doing this too. Due being ill I never got to block the character for Cassius, or rehearse for the character. I did however get an insight into the setting. They are outside and it is thunder storming.

Character Study (Cassius)

Cassius: Character Study.








Cassius is a large role of one of William Shakespeare's most popular plays 'Julius Caesar'. He is one of Rome's noble soldiers, or so it seems. Until he became envious of Caesar. Cassius and Julius Caesar are long time friends. When Caesar becomes powerful and successful Cassius becomes jealous of him. Caesar knows Cassius and does not trust him, and therefore Cassius knows in order to dis-empower him he must along with the other men, kill him. He starts to target Brutus he long time friend who trust Cassius and starts to talk him into killing Julius Caesar. At first he introduces the idea to him, but later on in the story allows Brutus to lead the conspiracy.

 Cassius reminds me of  Tywin Lannister in one of today's tv programmes Game of Thrones. He is described as a ruthless, calculating and controlling man. He reminds me of him because he is the person who feeds people ideas and sits back and watches it happen in order to enjoy it for his own benefits. He doesn't actually go on his own he uses people and controls them with his persuasive power. Cassius is a manipulative man who uses Brutus' good nature and character to destroy the life of Julius Caesar. Cassius writes letters, stating they are from the people of Rome, and sends them to Brutus in order to make Brutus think the people of Rome were concerned about Caesar's power. I had the idea of basing my character on "Miss Stark" from a modern tv programme "Sons of Anarchy". She's out for her own gain, and will do everything in her power to make something she wants to happen. She uses people and turns people against eachother.

When we watched Julius Caesar at the globe, I liked how the actor portrayed his manipulative strength, but he didn't really mix up his level, he stayed on the same level through out the play, and so I would like to show a mix of level in my tone and emotion. My scene that I am doing takes place on the streets with a thunder storm. So I have to act as though I am standing in the middle of a thunder storm when I deliver these speeches. Today this sort of conversation could be to do with two friends not particular best friends, but people who know each other and Caesar well enough. It could be perhaps two girls talking about kicking someone out of a social club, or perhaps the government talking about kicking someone out of power.

Punk Rock Rehearsal Period

Punk Rock: The Rehearsal Period!

Punk Rock, isn’t like anything our group has done before. It’s very different, exciting and full of surprises. I think this play suits our class members as it has a variety of different complex characters that give us all a chance to really have something to work with. The first week we read through the script and I really liked Tanya and Cissy and these characters seemed to be personalities that I was drawn too. I really liked the Idea of playing Tanya, particularly for the end scene and she has to portray quite a serious amount of emotion. I saw this as a challenge I was eager to do. I would have been happy playing any of the girls but It just so happened that I was casted as Tanya anyway which I was quite pleased about.

Scene One & Week One:

The first week of rehearsals we started from the beginning with scene one. In this scene we meet all of the characters including the new girl lily. My characters reaction to Lily are a little different just like how everyone reacts to something new in the room. It's as if everyone is curious. As soon as I knew what character I was playing I decided to look into her a bit more. Everyone was required to write down a list of things particular to the character. We were asked to fill out a table including facts about our characters that are mentioned in the script, things she said about others and what others said about her, stage directions, and what she said about herself. I saw Tanya as quite a motherly character straight away so I started to take this on a bit more when it came to delivering the lines. I found it worked for some situations but in others it didn’t work so well and therefore I resorted to delivering them across as if she were trying to impress. Lines where I found it worked were when Tanya was trying to stick up for Chadwick and when she was standing up for Bennett. This Idea back fired a little when I realised that Bennetts lines push Tanya’s status back down and so I felt when I was doing this it wasn’t working so well and I was having difficulty with delivering some of the lines and getting them to sound right.

Scene One Recap & Scene Two:

 Luckily on the second week we started to get introduced to actioning and objectives. This helped me a lot because although naturally I was trying to think and place my characters thoughts in the right place, I didn’t actually know what actioning and objectives were but they made life easier. Actioning is where the actor finds a transitive verb to accompany every individual line. So from then on I actioned my scenes to make it easier, starting from scene 3. The verb we choose is to get the right reaction from the other actor for example;

Tanya ‘Leave him alone it’s boring’- I warn you

I used this verb because this is what I wanted Tanya to do to Bennett I wanted her to provoke a warning, although this doesn’t stop Bennett I felt like this is how the line should be delivered. We were asked to research actioning and I found a document on it called Max Stafford-Clark who we were advised to search for. This researched helped clear up what Adam meant by actioning. It introduced me to Units and Actioning.

I didn’t block anything in scene two as I wasn’t in these scenes, however I quite liked being able to watch the direction happening because this was the scene that we first used actioning and so it was helpful to be seen played out. It also showed how having a characters objectives worked out and their appropriate transitive verbs, to see the difference in the delivery of the lines. Also it’s interesting to know the characters thought processes.

Scene Two Recap & Scene Three:

Scene three gave me a chance to try out my objectives and actions.

Objectives written more clearly from one of the pictures in scene three:

Tanya wants to Marry Mr Anderson.
 Tanya wants to have his children.
Tanya wants to impress the girls.

Other objectives used for Tanya:




Tanya wants to stick up for Chadwick (short term) (maybe even long term)

Tanya wants to belittle Bennett ( short term)
Tanya wants to exit the room (short term)
Tanya wants to get good grades (long term)
Tanya wants to see Mr Anderson (short term)
Tanya wants to be seen as the mature one (short term)
Tanya wants to stand up to Bennett (short term)

Scene Three Recap & Scene Four:

Scene three was a more challenging scene as it was hard to get the pace up as we were still on book when blocking the scene. This was challenging for everyone. I found it useful to go over lines when other casts were running scenes to get off book quicker in these situations. Being able to understand peoples thought processes in this scene helped a lot, but juggling this with trying to action, keep the pace, provoke a reaction from the other characters was definitely a challenge for me and most of the 

other cast.

Scene Six:

Scene six was a very intense scene to block and run. It required us actors to try and portray a realistic reaction for when William pulls out a gun in the middle of a classroom and is talking like a crazy person. Obviously and fortunately none of us have been in this situation before and so trying to create a naturalistic performance of this came as quite a challenge but one we were all eager to try. I loved creating this scene and I felt it really gave me a chance to go for it, it felt powerful and I could sense that what all of us were doing was creating the atmosphere we wanted to achieve. This scene did require some work with breathing, all about trying to trigger the tears with the breath and the tensing of the stomach. 

Summary:

I think the rehearsal period allowed me to pin point my strengths and weaknesses each week, showed me that trial and error was normal and it's all about practicing to make progress and it also opened my eyes to a new way of being able to relate to the character and becoming that character. I'm looking forward to playing the role of Tanya, as I'm eager to see what all of the in depth research in to her life will bring in a full run of the performance. I think things I'd like to work on are getting off book quicker in order for me to progress quicker, and understand the thoughts easier without the blockage of reading off a page. I was happy with my progress in class though as I feel like the work I have put in with the character really helped benefit my performance. 

Break A Leg !

Character Study (Tanya)

Character Study on Tanya Gleason

By Charlie-Rose Lane

Name: Tanya Gleason

Age: 17 nearly 18

Place Set: In a Grammar School in Stockport

The first time we see Tanya is when she walks into the library to meet Lily who is sat with William, Cissy, Bennett and Nicholas. Tanya first enters flustered and annoyed and we see this expressed in a mild aggressive way when she comes across Lily, who has also helped build up the tension inside because Tanya has had to run around looking for her even if it's not something she wanted to do, and therefore with the year sevens having annoyed her it is quite clear she hasn't had the best of mornings. I think this shows that Tanya has a sensitive side even if it comes across in an aggressive tone when she has to deal with it.

Tanya has a serious crush on Mr. Anderson, which the others just seem to think it's mild; I think Tanya actually devotes her mind to him. In scene four I think she describes it in a way to make the girls think that she and he are a possibility although it’s most likely it never will be. I think Tanya does not want to be seen as the fat one, and so instead adopts the characteristic of the motherly one. I think everyone has something they want to be seen as but often doesn't have a choice in the stereotypical name they are given. Cissy for example wants to be liked and wants to be seen as the popular one, I think she tries and achieves this by having a high status boyfriend and keeping in the good books of other people like Tanya so it's easy to use the personal information they tell her against them or for her personal use.

Tanya puts on a strong front and often sticks up for other people. I think this allows us to see that she believes in equality, sticks up for people when they are being bullied and that her heart is in the right place. I think Tanya is a genuinely nice person who doesn't like it when people are upset. She tries her hardest to balance her sensitivity with real life issues. As well as being seen as the motherly one I think Tanya wants to be seen as the mature one. She seems to be the only one trying to stop the negativity at times whilst everyone seems to stand around and watch. I think she wants this status game to stop. I don't believe she's afraid of Bennett and often tries to stand up for herself but I do think she is wary of him. Tanya takes it to heart when Bennett calls her fat, probably because she thinks it’s true. Girls have enough problems when it comes to worrying about their appearance let alone when people like Bennett announce it to everyone who she has to see on a regular basis. I think she is more humiliated than anything.

Relationships with other characters:

Cissy: Cissy is Tanya's best friend but Cissy has upset Tanya a few times due to her gossiping traits. In scene one we see the first glimpse of this when Cissy has told her boyfriend Bennett about Tanya's biggest secret and fantasy which includes her being married to Mr Anderson and having his children as expressed more clearly between the girls in scene 3.

Lily: Lily is the new girl at the beginning but later becomes good friends with Tanya. Tanya being the friendly and mature one easily accepts Lily and looks after her.

Nicholas: Tanya isn't really close with him, just mutual friends.

Bennett: Bennett is not exactly friends with Tanya. I think they are mutual most of the time but they both get on each other’s nerves. I think Tanya has to put up with him because of Cissy but in the same time doesn't let him walk all over her and therefore gets her own back and suggests hints of knowledge about him she has gained from Cissy and tries playing him at his own game.

Chadwick: Tanya likes him as a friend, and looks out for him.

Costume:

I think Tanya Gleason wants secretly, maybe not as much as Cissy but enough to fit in. I think she would be the sort of girl to wake up an hour early to do her hair and make-up although I think her hair would be natural and easy her make up would have more effort done. I think she wants to look effortless without looking like she's made the effort. I think she would wear a nice coat on top of her basic uniform, have a nice handbag and wear patterned tights. I think she would have a item of jewelry that she always wears for example a necklace or a ring.

Things I think Tanya does which aren't specific in the text....

Tanya is probably the girl who goes home and eats loads at night, and doesn't eat during the day due to the fact she doesn't want people to think of her as the fat one. I think this wouldn't help her with her weight but she thinks as long as no one see's her eat it will be okay. I think this theory works because in scene 3, Cissy and Lily are seen eating on stage and Tanya does not eat. I think Tanya tried her hardest to make it seem she's healthy, for example when she says the line 'I think that's really dangerous, human beings have to eat, it's one of the things we do, five pieces and fruits and veg a day, thirty minutes exercise three times a week'. This seems as if she is trying to explain that she eats, but is healthy and does exercise. 

I think she is the sort of girl who would pretend she's reading so it makes her look smart but actually is just skiming the pages thinking of something else.