29th November

Today we made the dialogue scene to put inbetween the marching piece and '9 till 5'. The way we did this was that we had a rough idea of what we wanted to achieve and what we wanted to happen and then mostly improvised it, tweaking something if it wasn't quite right like a piece of dialogue James said that Chelsea suggested he say something else and it stuck. The reason we worked on the dialogue scene was because we didn't have any scenes that weren't movement based and we really felt like we needed it so that we can now focus more on our characters. After we had been over this a few times we then went through the marching scene and straight into the dialogue and then into '9 till 5' so we could see if and how it flowed and luckily it did. 

Milestone Evaluation

A2 Drama & Theatre Studies

Zach - Following your challenge week appointment. Please ensure that you have checked your Markbook to monitor ongoing progress.
Your targets were....

• to ensure that your blog accurately reflects your effective practical input and supports your final SWED document.
• to include detailed examples from the lessons to ensure that your input into the performance is recognised and the influence of decisions made along the way tracked clearly, enabling you to better reflect in your Performance Evaluation.
• To ensure the balance of dialogue and movement are maintained..

Research & Exploration (SWED Work in Blog) working grade - E

Development & Structure (Practical Contribution)working grade - B

*If you continue working at the current level you will maintain your grade. If you follow your targets and develop both your written and practical work you will reach the next grade by the conclusion of the project.

Green - Working Grade

Red - Specific focus needed to gain higher grade.

AO1Research and Exploration

Students demonstrate outstanding depth of research that is far-reaching and comprehensive. It is clear how the research has directly influenced performance outcomes and practice for both self and others.   13-15 Students demonstrate an excellent depth of research that has produced a significant range of influence on performance outcomesand practice for self and others. 10-12 Students demonstrate a good depth of research that has produced a small range of influence on performance outcomes and practice for self and others. 7-9 Students demonstrate an adequate depth of research that has had some impact on performance outcomes and practice for self. 4-6 Students demonstrate a limited range of research that shows superficial understanding of the material and purpose of their enquiry. Research activity has had no impact on performance outcomes or practice. 0-3

AO1Development and Structure

Students demonstrate an outstanding involvement in the developmental process with a creative and imaginative input that has a far reaching benefit to both their own work and the work of others. 13-15 Students demonstrate an excellent involvement in the developmental process with a creative and imaginative input that fully benefits both their own work and the work of others. 10-12 Students demonstrate a good involvement in the developmental process with a creative and imaginative input that benefits their own work and some of the work of others. 7-9 Students demonstrate an adequate involvement in the developmental process with a creative and imaginative input that impacts on their own work but has little impact on the work of others. 4-6 Students demonstrate a limited involvement in the developmental process. They incline towards accepting creative ideas made by others with little understanding or appreciation of its relevance to the intended performance. 0-3

18th October

In this lesson we started working on movement pieces. We started on my characters story and came up with our first piece which helped as our starting point really. It helped to establish the sort of tone we wanted and the kind of movents we would use later on. My contribution in that lesson was to make it more Frantic-esque and to make it less predictable and we should individually do a little work out warm up. At this stage it meant that we could continue with movement in the following weeks and add and tweak things in this piece.
We first started by using the wheely chair and did some movement based around that. We were aiming to make it look quite like a routine but also as random and sporadic as possible. I'm not really sure what tone we want at this point but it certainly isn't something too dark or comical it sits somewhere in between for now. I don't think we know the tone yet because we are still working on the story and I think once we've figured out where it is going then we'll be able to find the tone. The movements we are using are quite routine-like and strict almost, but with more frantic elements thrown in. We are using routine movements to show the strict environment the characters are in in Paradise. From Frantic I would expect random and unpredictable movements and minimal dialogue throughout most of the performance. We are using some random movements however I do think we need to make it more unpredictable and that was part of the feedback we got from our teacher. I think so far the movements we've got are working for our piece because of some of the repitition reflecting on the routines of Paradise. I think the feedback we've had so far has been fair and I agree with it, I also don't think it'll be too much of a problem to adapt our pieces to fit it.

1st November

Today we kept running through the dance routines we already have to get to grips with our places at certain points in it and to remind ourselves of the routines we did earlier in the process. We also added the bed duet for the last scenes with dialogue. It was important that we added the bed duet because it now means we know where the play ends up and how to end it, it is just getting to that point now.

13th November

Today we looked at the lighting we could use for some of our scenes. We went through one dance piece using the possible lighting and it worked quite well. It was good to be able to see the posibilities and see what our options are so we have an idea a couple of months prior to the actual performance. I think that when rehearsing lighting a more physical scene the main difference is that you really get a sense of the tone and it adds another layer to it and you get a sense of the movement. We were aiming for an almost surreal sense to it when doing the lighting adding in greens and reds.  I suggested that we use a blue gel for a spotlight during the coffee scene when Lauren appears advertising the new winner for Paradise. We are not sure how she will appear yet but it will be as a hologram to let people know that this is set in the future. I don't think this will have a massive effect on the characters in the scene because it is quite a regular thing for them to experience.

8th November

In this lesson we divised a new dance piece for my character's every day to day life. We chose a remix of Dolly Parton's '5 till 9' as we thought it was fitting for the office job he has. It was important we got this done so we knew the kind of life he leaded before he was taken to the Paradise and so we had one of the first pieces mapped out. We are now at a stage where we can start thinkig about lighting for some of our pieces.

6th November

In this lesson we spoke about the structure of the play. The structure is that it will start with my character's everyday life and the repetition of the routines, he will then be taken to the Paradise where he finds out that all the advertising is false and a facade. After that he is interrogated and then starts his daily routines and fitness regime. My main contribution was suggesting that we change the order of two scenes because I didn't feel like it made much sense to have them how they were and luckily the others agreed with me. This was important because it meant that the play will hopefully flow better and make more sense in terms of my character, where he is and his understanding of the world he's in along with the deception he's been going through. The scenes we swapped around were the interrogation and his entry into Paradise. The entry into Paradise starts off as if it is a wonderful place and full of happiness and it then quickly changes and turns into chaos but I didn't think it made much sense to have the interrogation before it because then you don't get the same sense of deception along with the character.  Completing the rough structure of the play meant that we now have a better understanding of it and where it will be going, now we just need to individually flesh out each scene. The fact that everyone in my group listens to each other and is able to take on board other people's opinions and suggestions makes it much easier for us to talk about the story and the scenes we need to work on.

20th November

Today we have been talking about the dialogue scenes we are going to add in between the dances because we feel like at the moment we don't have enough dialogue scenes. We were originally going to have the first scene in a coffee shop but we decided to change it to a train station because we feel like there's more the background civilian characters around can talk about, for example 'the trains always late' and so on. We also started talking about the dialogue for an interrogation scene but we got sidetracked by the train station scene. This is important because it means we have more room and slightly more freedom for general chit chat of the civilian characters. The train station scene is meant to let the audience know what kind of world we are in i.e. the future where holograms exsist and it also introduces the Paradise in the advertisement. We want audiences to instantly understand that we're not in the world we live in and that things are fairly different. We need more dialogue because at the moment we've only got dance pieces and while we understand what is going on in each of them the audience might not without some expositional dialogue.

SWED Questions

How is the initial material being researched and developed at significant stages during the process of creating drama?

Whast have been the significant/most important decisions made?

- Why were they important?

What has your won input been?

What stage is the group at ?

What is the focus of the next stage?

25th October

In today's lesson (October 25th) we will:

-Choreograph a dance piece for when I reach 'Paradise'

-Work out the music for the piece 

We created a dance for when I arrive in Paradise and decided to use the song Kidz by Take That because it has a good strong beat to it and it fits because the sequence is based on marching like in the military.

October 16th

In the first class we got put into groups and I was put into Frantic. In that class we discussed possible storylines for our piece and decided on DNA as our stimulus and the film The Island as influence, another film we can use as an influence is Never Let Me Go and we also brainstormed everything we spoke about. In next lesson we went into the dance studio and started doing some initial movement ideas so we had some basis and grounding to go into and expand on in the next lessons.