Supportive Written Evidence Document - S.W.E.D

Supportive Written Evidence Document

Section - 1 - Research
The stimulus I have chosen to research is "The importance of DNA" below is all the resources and findings I have used.

In both these studies I found that even with twins separated or together they were both very similar in characteristics. I found that to be interesting as DNA seemed to be giving them the same interests and hobbies. Also it gave them the same talents and mental aptitudes.

So then I looked at genetic disorders, things that make humans different from others, many places state that missing just a few bases in one of your chromosomes can change your whole life.

For example cystic fibrosis is created because you miss 3 out of over 3000 bases in 1 of your chromosomes. This alters the shape of your proteins in your lungs which stops salt from being transferred across the layers which means you can have the build up of thick sticky mucus.

One culture that has many disorders is the Amish. The Amish was founded by about 500 German-Swedish settlers who joined over there traditionalist and religious views. However because they only have a small selection of ancestors genetic disorders are becoming more apparent, much like if a person was too have a child with a sibling.

IN LESSON PREPARATION
In lesson we spoke to each other in pairs about familiar topics such as games and books. Whilst this happened another pair would analyse our speech patterns, our  movements and would write down quotes that they felt were interesting. Using this we created short dualogues that we gave to other people in the class to recreate in a naturalistic way.
Next lesson we performed the pieces and watched them to analyse how similar scripts could be portrayed in such different ways  Moving on from there we created large mind-maps about a chosen character from TV/movie/books. We wrote down all about what they wear, how they talk and walk, how they are perceived and much more below is my mind map of Captain Jack Sparrow.

After this I was partnered with Rachel, and i interviewed her about people in her life trying to get as many characteristics and mannerisms they have as possible. Below is my sheet for that as well.

During our next lesson we created characters based on the mannerisms we had collected. My character became a 16 year old girl named Laura Anne Jones, she was a shy girl who was a closet lesbian. She had parents who are sickeningly sweet and she is always trying to rebel against them although she doesn't have the confidence to make friends in fear others might judge her. (Yeah, after a few mannerisms you start to speculate...). 

Using these qualities we had to come in all dressed as are characters and remain in character throughout. My character only really had one other in the class that they actually connected with willingly. Surprisingly I found that to be the narcissistic business man (Kyle) who bonded with Laura over the mutual hate of where they were. 

Next we moved on to frantic assembly, we gave ourselves a well known stereotype quickly at the beginning of the lesson and focussed on how they moved and interacted with others - what body language and signals they gave off - we then got into groups and began devising small sequences of movement that portrayed all our characters. 

Finally we worked with changing the speed dynamic within a scene to change it about and make it seem much less naturalistic. We also restricted the vocals used so the scene was predominantly about movement. Incorporating both this scene and our section of movement from before by the end of the lesson we had a rough devised piece to perform.

Finally we did work on the practitioner knee high theatre company. They use children stories and other works already around them to come up with scenery that they use to create a story. For kneehigh we were given the story of Hansel and Gretel and were told to put our own spin on it. We decided to incorporate the story of Oliver twist and the living qualities of Victorian London to create a piece about Hansel and Gretel at a factory.

Having tried all the practitioners I decided to use mike Leigh's style.

In our first lesson in our groups we decided that we were gonna use all the stimuli but would focus most heavily on "the importance of DNA". from this we came up with a plot line for our story. We are all separate characters living in a world where the government has profiles of our DNA , Ellie uses identity theft to keep herself hidden from the government, but when her and the person whos identity she has stolen log into the same building together its locked down with all characters inside. The story unfolds as all characters believe they are guilty in some way. 

The lesson after this we listed collectively as a group many characteristics of people around us that we know on to a big sheet to shortlist next lesson.

18/10/13 - During this lesson we were in character during a improvised scene. Our scene was a "speeding awareness" course. During this i found myself stuttering whilst playing my character, also that having a character that was easily frustrated but slow to say why help build my character and justify my already decided characteristics.

23/10/13 - Improvisational scenes between our characters. To log usuable lines and characteristics that can be possibly used in the final performance.

 During this time we decided to start geting characters involved in our plotline so we could begin creating a script. However we had to find somewhere to start. So i suggested that each person does a morning routine for their character to get us thinking in the mind frame of our characters.

Below is my morning routine.

We also had time to begin creating scenes in which the characters had a motive to talk to one another. We started with Sam and I as "Carla and Chris" our motive was that chris was uneasy about the whole "lockdown" and that I as Carla was trying to get him to calm down. It was very experimental and just a first draft but it really helped people see where they could go forward with their characters.

25/10/13 - Improvising various scenes that could happen during our plotline, so we can begin to determine a script. Also to film all improvs. (Personal) )to further develop my character through improvisation.

 During this lesson we began to incorporate more people into larger scenes that lasted for approximately 10 minutes long. Again i gave the characters  motives so that we begin to see how the characters interact with one another.

Below is the plan we had to go through on the day.

Below each one I put a motive so that people would feel less worried about improvising for such a length of time as many people were very unsure.

6/11/13 - To  continue to improvise scenes that could happen during our plotline so we can begin to determine a script. Also to film all improvs to further to develop my character through improvisation.

This lesson we tried to catch up Katie so she could have some improvisational scenes to work on. I suggested that we use lindsey and katie in a 5 minute scene about the characters cassie and jenny getting to know one another in the lockdown. Katie was having trouble in improvising so I suggested that she have a motive to talk to lindsey. This helped and we were able to create a 5 minutes scene between the pair of them. The scene is linked below.

8/11/13 - To review the videos we have created in previous lessons and try to draft a script and plot line for the lessons to come.

In this lesson we went over the videos we had already done and whilst others picked out lines that would be suitable for a script I focused on positioning and body language to find areas in which we could improve. Mostly I wrote down that our movent needed to be more involving for the characters, at the moment we are rather isolated. Also we don't have much change in our voices so looking into developing that would be beneficial. 

Below is a picture of the notes I took whilst watching the videos. 

 It is a brief set of notes however using these we can further improve our scenes. We also created a 1st plot line draft with some dramatic techniques in brackets using what we felt worked from the video. Below is the text from that document. 

-(Projector - The Date and Time or News Report). 

Characters need to be near each other previously to the lockdown. Without acknowledging others so that we can show how coincidental it is that all of us would be locked down together. 

- (Date and Time flashes up to move scenes through).

Within lockdown all of us in the same room. 

Some scene ideas;

Do we suspect a mole?

(People can sleep or sit out for scenes between others) e.g. Chris and Carla.

Chris and Lindsey.

Ellie and Katie.

Everyone Accusing - Everyone gangs up on Carla.

(Lockdown going over night).

Government arrive. End.

 

Researching what my character is about is difficult as the play is set in the future and my character is a politics student. This is something you cant research as it would be a subject that is tailored to the current time. So instead i looked into some of the sci-fi novels and movies that look into the future.

 Something that is particularly relevant to our piece is the George Orwell book, Nineteen-Eighty-Four, in this book it shows how a very similar idea as what we portray, that the government has utter control of everything and that  each person is watched 24 hours of the day, that anything that is said is recorded. In this book george says that the government can even change old news so that it appears they were always right, this is something we didnt carry forward however we do have the issue that we know characters can be reprogrammed yet the government do not ever let out information supporting that fact. Also anyone who knows about this is either reprogrammed themselves or left in a position where they are powerless to change it.

Another piece of media that was relevant to our piece was a lesser known film called brazil. The director himself does not know why the film is called brazil, it was just something he felt fitted the film. The movie is about a alternate future where a government worker is put on a case that happens to be about the girl he has been dreaming about. Feeling empathy for the girl he is forced to reevalute his job working for the government. Through this we see more of a sinister side to the goverment. Overall the story line is very different to oiur own however the set up of the government, being portrayed as untouchable by average citizens also the language they use and the protocols they claim to have mirror what we wanted the government to be seen as by the audience. However we tried to make it seem a lot more plausible and natural than the film did.

A character that really influenced some of my characteristics was, nicole kidman's performance in the horror movie "The others", the film itself has no link to our show, even her character her self is different as she is a single mother to seemingly disabled children, who actually turns out to be unaware that she is a ghost. However her personality as that character is something my character can relate too. She plays someone who is unable to leave her house and frustrated by her situation but has a lot of knowledge about it. She is also a younger woman which means our age characteristics would be similar. Generally I found the way in which she was seemingly staying professional but actually scared and felt just as helpless as anyone else was something that i thought could add depth to my own character.

We continued to work through it and decided that we would like more links between the characters. We were agreed that we did not want to show these links outright and explain them to the audience. However we did want to make the audience guess and think about the connections between characters and hopefully think about how the characters interact with one another. I felt that we had some good ideas such as making Chris and Daria long lost siblings was a good idea, I tried to show this by linking them with the shirt with the yellow paint. The characters themselves would never know the connection however the audience may pick it up which would be an interesting twist.

On the other hand we found that the group was struggling to understand where else we could take our characters and what to say now after doing so many improvisations. I decided to take what we had done in lessons and create a script out of the ideas we had talked about. This was by no means our final idea but I felt it would help those who were struggling get an idea of where to go. Once we become confident in the script we can adapt and improve it to a state that everyone has ideas in.

We used the script at part to run through and to see how much time we had. One of the main issues we had was adding movement to our piece. Mike Lee techniques are very hard to add body language and movement to as they are much more subtle techniques. I suggested that during the monologues we use some less naturalistic interpretations to give the piece more dynamic moments. The use of Myself and Katie as Chris and his sister during his monologue helps to liven up the performance a bit as otherwise it feels a bit stationary. Also during Daria's monologue using Lindsey to vocalise the social worker also helps add another dimension to the show.

Personally an aspect that I find myself really struggling with is trying to differentiate my character from my own characteristics. In many ways my character is very similar to myself. I am trying to over come this by taking away the confidence of my character. I believe trying to portray my character as more introvert is something that is very different from myself, even if the character does have very similar qualities (such as age, morals, and life plans) to myself. I feel by giving my character more slumped posture, biting my nails, stuttering and being generally more upset-able would give my character an edge that is much more unlike myself. Through practice and reruns I am trying to achieve this for my character. I have gone over my lines alone to become familiar so that I am able to push them forward in class.

One thing that I find very weak in our performance at the moment is transitions. This can be partially blamed on the fact that we do not have a completed piece, and none of our scenes could we safely say our finalised. However I think incorporating some dramatic techniques from other practitioners such as frantic assembly and Complicite may help to improve our work. I believe this is not straying to far from mike Leigh as his work is often portrayed in movie form and he has the luxury of cutting from one scene to the next without the need for transitions, however as a theatre based piece transitions need to flow or the play will seem disjointed and unfinished. Using techniques that other practitioners who are based in the theatre world have perfected will leave our piece looking developed. I'm suggesting to my group we use frantic assemblies puppetry to move on and off of the stage - even if it isn't followed forward the change of pace will show how time is not moving forward naturally during transitions.

4/1/14 - During the holidays we met up as a group and worked on editing (Daria's Monologue), changing it we decided that the following worked better as it more reflected how she would speak. 

You see, I lived on a system. I’ve never known of my parents or my siblings. Each and every day was the same, a fixed robotic routine, yet we were asked to record our thoughts and feelings personal private things, it was supposed to be stimulations.

But things began to change, I’d seen something that would open up a past chapter of  my life I could never reach. You see, these people around me were governing my life, writing my books, and i was just living it against my will. It was one afternoon that i watched them hide something, and it was mine. To you this precious top with some accidental spray of paint across it would mean nothing. They realised my despair at not having it as my own, this patronising woman just save me this all knowing smile and said; “There you go dear, we have considered all the consequences and it is accepted for you to keep this, now run along don’t get yourself into trouble.”

She knew exactly what was going on, no smile could ever disguise the fear in her eyes. Recollections your memories is dangerous, and knowing the truth will end your life.

This rehearsal was brief but we managed to work on staging and wording for this. 

7/1/14 + 8/1/14 During these rehearsals we looked at the ending of our piece, many of us were frustrated about how the scene was worded, I edited it so that it has a bit more of a climax and other characters such as Emily and Cassie have a bit more to say. Also it was my idea to link Jenni as the care worker that used to look after (Daria). After discussion we decided to explore an additional scene added to the ending that reveals all the characters to be frauds observing, Chris and (Daria), in something we have called "Project Integration" putting people who had previously been taken by the government and reintroducing them to society with certain characteristics of theirs removed. The scene involves government sector workers evaluating the situation and deciding to replay it with a "reprogrammed" (Daria). 

 We looked at our music and sound choices, here is a list of some of the sound effects we want to use:

- Tube train - This was for the beginning and the end scenes, to both open and tie off the piece. It was to be used to set the scenery simply as throughout our set does not change.

- Alarm / siren - This is for when the building is initially lock down to bring panic to the characters.

- Opening Door - This is for when the guard comes to grab Chris and his sister during his monologue.

- Scanning noise - For each time we use our thumbs as a method of entering the building, just so as to remind the audience that we are in the future.

One of the songs we looked at was a Muse song "Isolated System" . We thought this song would work well as it has new reporter sounds in the back ground of it. It creates the idea of a hectic society. The song also feautres the sound of a real ultrasound of a babies heart beat.This fits well with the origninal stimulus of DNA and identity. Overall its a well composed piece that can open our piece well.

We looked at how we wanted all of the scenes to fit together and mould the story line. Here is some scripted evidence of our work:

Props:
- Tag machine -
Text books
-Jack Daniel's bottle
- Hip Flask
- Frame for bank entrance?
-Bag for Carla
-Phone
-Bag for Cassie
-Can of Spray Paint
-Gray shirt yellow streak
-Thumb Covers? Symbolise the tags.

I have also been looking at costume ideas, I made the suggestion that the clothing we wear reflect how our characters are through the style and shape they are, however they were to stay black and grey to show how the government forces its inhabitants to conform. This will be to show how the importance of identity has changed throughout the years and it will hopefully make the audience think on how society is today and if they are happy with the direction we are going in.

For lighting we decided that during the lock down it would be a low red light. Possibly flashing as it begins. We also want a really stark, bright, white light at the end as the lock down ends. On the trains we want a yellowish light that could flicker to show the movement of the train.  During the lock down at the night time point, we would like a dimmer red but it still continued throughout, with a dim floor light as well just to give the appearance of a different time.
The set will be a bench and a table with two stalls from the learning zone that are quite modern looking. we will try putting the stalls and the table on a stage block to show it as a separate room and gives a larger contrast between Chris and Carla in their duologue.
 

9/1/14 - Objectives set for ourselves was to develop and hopefully conclude the ending of the play. We want to create a final ending that ties off the whole piece. During today's lesson we finalised our end scene. I felt that it would be a good dramatic technique to show that this wasn't actually the first time (Daria) had been locked down and that actually the whole lock down was a process to evaluate how well they had trained her. In the end we learn that she is reprogrammed with less emotion to make her easier for the government to handle. This brings a new meaning to the train scene in which they all sit motionless and silent. It appears that the group are reliving the scene again, reprogrammed.
We also timed our whole piece and it appeared to come to just under an hour but at the moment this is without devised transitions and without sound and lighting.

15/1/14 - During this lesson we went through the play without our script for the first time. It helped us realise what our shortcomings were and which scenes were really lacking direction. For example the scene between (Daria) and my character "Carla", we found we were very unsure of my lines and I realised that I was wandering around stage with no direction. Something I aim to cure by the show. We also worked on tech a bit more. We decided that floor lights to signify light would be better replaced by blue light to give an eery effect.

17/1/14 - Today we continued with our piece without script - today we went through lines and discussed how effective they were for a piece, also not using script meant that we ad-libbed our lines at points and the piece became even more naturalistic because of it. This has really benefited us and our performance as it gives it a new lease of life that it had been missing and it helps us to develop our characters further. I found that i really had to restrain myself from walking round the stage aimlessly. Focusing harder to remember lines made me focus more on the intent of what my character was saying.

22/1/14 - During this lesson we got to work in the studio to run through lines. We also went over scenes which we felt needed work. My scene with Ellie was gone over during the time, we helped us learn the cue lines. I also helped ellie stage her monolgue, she needed help learning her lines and moving about the stage, i suggested that she comes up stage and even out of the light for her final line "end your life" to add metaphorical significance.

24/1/14 - Our objectives for this lesson was to run our show without script and to find dialogue that could be improved throughout. During this lesson we ran our whole show. We did it exactly how we would apart from the fact, sound and lighting had not yet been set up. We found that generally we had a few parts that need the language changed to show the futuristic element of the performance. Realising we needed to change some of the vocabulary such as "Government" to something a bit more unique to the play could really accentuate the troubles of the time in which our piece is set.

28/1/14 - On this day we had a rehearsal with Sam, Rachel, Lindsey and I. During this rehearsal, we used our feedback to create a time laps using the music previously. In it I said that we should all move about the space one after another in our characters to show a great deal of time passing and freezing in positions to reflect oour characters. Then I decided to add partner movements to show the bonds between the characters. Then we all move together to go back to positions for the scene before chris' monologue.
During my singular movement I decided to portray what would be most prominent thought on her mind. I believe my character would feel guilty, as for now she believes that she may have had something to do with door closing as it closed right after her appearance. During my movement with Lindsey my character is a aid to show more of lindsey's character and how she is very oblivious to how she can be annoying. I walk around looking irritated but mhy character isnrt confrontational and at the moment feeling a bit accused so she would be slightly greatful that someone is paying so much.

29/1/14 - During this lesson we continued to create more techniques to improve our piece. We improved Rachel and my scene so that it had more of reference to the government and how it is controlling to the people. In the scene I am buying a "wheat cress bar", initially this scene was supposed to be awkward so that we did not have too much of an interaction to recognise each other in lockdown however now it is a scene used to give cultural context. We talk about the calorie content of the bar and how the government recommends how many to have across the course of a day.
Also we changed the dialog after the timelapse so that it fits more. How I had put the monologue in previously was to show that chris' character becoming uncomfortable in the piece, but working on it more i found that chris intimidating jenni due to frustration led to a much more powerful performance.
Also we put ellie into the movement between katie and I, so that she was sitting on the bench as we do our interpretive movement, this shows sam's character is talking to her. During this scene we didnt want anyone else to be listening to the speech so we have rachel and lindsey in a freeze frame across the stage.
 

Section - 2 - Developing Research Idea

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

Section - 3 - Social/Cultural/Historical Aspects of the Piece
How effectively are the social, cultural and historical aspects of your piece helping you to develop and communicate meaning?

Section - 4 - Research
How did the work of established and recognised theatre practitioners and/or the work of live theatre, influence the way in which your devised response developed?

Section - 5 - Style
How did you and your group explore the possibilities of form, structure and performance style?

Section - 6 - Character

Section - 7 - Structure

What happened when you swapped the structure around?

What did this help you to find out or explore?

Why did you settle on the final structure? Effect? 

Section - 8 - Last Stages of Rehearsal Evaluation
How well did the work evolve and develop as a result of organising tech, dress rehearsals etc?

Section - 9 - Performance Evaluation 
How successfully did your final performance communicate your aims and intentions for the piece to your audience?