Radio - 1

To begin this blog entry I am going to tell you what I have and am doing in the radio section of my two year course. I will be explaining what why and how the script for group project was done. I hope to be able to give a good idea into how all of these choices came about and inform you on the way radio is produced and recorded.

Group Project:
We began the group project by being put into our groups, mine consists of Paige, Dan, Reece, Charlotte and myself. The group started to get into working as a group on the media of radio by reading together an old Flash script from the 1930's which was interesting because we were able to see how radio was performed and annotated in the 30's. Learning about radio for us began with the beginning where the shows performed were quite primitive and the sound effects weren't that good, it gave us a good indicator as to how we didn't want our piece to sound like and how we also wanted it to sound. The choosing process began with each person in the group bringing in a radio script of their choice mine was, The Importance Of Being Earnest. I chose this script because I had previously heard the play on the radio and very much enjoyed it and thought having a go and trying to do our own radio version would be a lot of fun. We all had a look at the different scripts everyone had brought in which presented us with a wide range of choice, in the end we chose Paige's piece which is, The War Of The Worlds. I felt that this was a good choice for our group as it gave us a lot to work with in terms of characters and plot line, The War Of The Worlds is a radio drama that is based on the book of the same name by H.G.Wells the play was originally narrated by Orson Welles and was performed as a special Halloween episode that was so believable that it cased chaos and Orson Welles was forced to come back on air and issue an apology for any problems this may have caused any of the public or anyone else. The drama is dramatic and holds a lot of potential and so it was chosen as our piece. We began by reading the chosen drama through a few times to get a feel for the piece and find our own pace to the play. Once the pace had been established and the play was far more familiar the part choosing began, this was done by finding out which characters we needed people for and then matching everyones strengths to their suitable character choice so as to have the best effect for the piece. We also wanted to get started and start to annotate and learn our roles so that we would find working on the play a lot easier in the long run when we do our final performance and need to be at our best. Once we had finalised all of the main details that we needed to begin such as casting and the play itself, everything started to work a lot faster. Now we are reading and re-reading our script in our roles to try to establish the correct vocal tone and pace that will suit our part, this includes accents, pitch and also annotating so that we are able to remember when these things come into the play and need to be used to create the best performance we can. We started to work on choosing the sound effects that would work well with the piece, this included searching through different ranges of Spanish music for the Ramon Raquello section. The Spanish music was interesting to sort through as we wanted it to retain it's Spanish influence and yet also reflect the atmosphere of the piece and set the scene. We then also chose where we felt sound effects would be appropriate, such as scenes where there is supposed to be an explosion or a crowd behind the reporter. During this process we also went through the script a few times as a group using the effects alongside our words to not only get a real feel as to how the end product would sound like but also to see where we might have missed something and needed to add in the sound effect to make it a better sound piece.

The British Broad Casting company (BBC) was formed in 1922 on the 18th of October, the first play that was written for audio was A Comedy Of Danger and was broadcast on the 15th of January in 1924 this piece was written by Richard Hughes and was revered by the critics, the play was a huge hit mostly because it was written for Radio and not originally as a play it was specifically for the format of Radio Broadcast. Before this monumental step the only type of play that had been shown on Radio was a version of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, this was broadcast on the 16th of February 1923, this was also well received by the public as it was a new form of entertainment that could be enjoyed from the home. This was a new form of entertainment for the country as it showed that the country was developing well, the 20's were a time of innovation and new trends, the world was changing and so was the aspect of broadcasting. This was the time when plays and dramas were written especially for Radio and it was a huge hit with the public and more were commissioned and so the art of Radio Drama was born.  This changed the way I engaged with my character because of all the things going on in the background of the era. The war happened a year later and even so political tensions were high, this meant that as a reporter I needed to add that level of caution to my voice. The Social and economic situation at the time of the original broadcast was dodgy, there was a recession and nothing was going smoothly especially with the threat of another world war. This changed my ideas of how the presenter would report the bad news of the alien attack, it made me think that a lot more caution is needed in the voice to show the delicate social, political and economic situation. This play uses sci-fi and realism to engage it's audience, creating the realistic approach to a real broadcast on a main channel allowing a lot of listeners to hear the show. The show relies on the way that it is written, with real reporters acting in and producing the effect of a real studio broadcast, this in turn created the mayhem that happened with the original show and made people believe that the alien invasion was real. The original show was done with one narrator, we changed this to a few instead to allow each member of the group to have a good part, we did keep the monologues in as we felt that they made the whole piece more dramatic but divided them up between group members. The pace of the piece is varied, it changes from reporter to reporter, with the main reporters it goes in a much slower and monotone voice, when the reporter is talking from the scene it goes a lot quicker as they are reporting a scene that is changing very quickly.

Film and TV - 1

This term we have begun our Film and TV unit studying camera technique and how being on stage and screen can be so different not just in technique but also in the acting itself. We began with talking about which films showed our favourite actors and what we liked especially about each of their performances, this then gave us an idea as to how things would work in the situations shown.

The first week (I really was there as I had been at a drama school audition) we looked at filming short scenes that we ourselves had chosen. The brief was to choose a dramatic scene from a film or TV show of our choice with our partner, so naturally Zach and I chose to do a Phoebe and Joey scene from FRIENDS. This did not go particularly well. We had chosen a scene that was comedic although sort of dramatic at the same time, in our minds, and it turned out that the weirdness of being on camera got to us and we didn't try to make it our own or try something a bit more normal, we tried to imitate Phoebe and Joey which did not turn out very well. When we watched the other groups who had chosen some much better scenes we also got to see some better ways that you can act on the screen. I learnt a lot more about camera angles as well and how you have to stay so still when the camera is behind you filming the person in front of you and that every shot is precisely lined up to your head and the other actor in the shot. Learning how the camera works is also in a way learning how you work because you need to act as though you are the same person because the camera needs to be your friend even though you can seriously fight!

So it's been quite interesting so far and we've really just been learning the basics to do with filming, it's a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. The technicalities are much more complex that I originally thought, so although it's a learning curve and there's still much more to go I am enjoying learning about how things work and finding a different side to my acting and how to morph yourself to act on the camera.

Shakespeare - Blog

The play we have been studying is Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, it tells the story of a man called Julius Caesar and how he came to power and was assassinated by his most trusted advisors because they felt that he had too much power for one man. The scene that my group were involved in was where Caesar is persuaded by his wife Calphurnia to stay at home after she had a dream that he would die if he went to work, Decius whom I play is sent to fetch Caesar to the senate house only to arrive and find Caesar refusing to go to work and needing him to go so that the assassination can happen Decius works his magic and convinces Caesar that the dream Calphurnia had was actually a dream of good fortune for Caesar's fortune which in turn convinces him to go to work and complete Decius' part in the assassination plot.

During the first week we mostly spent our time trying to connect with our characters, to embody them. This included jumping into their shoes thinking how they would think and finding their stature, how they walk, talk, eat and how their facial expressions are displayed. This caused some tensions within my group (as we were all separated into different scenes that would then be compiled to create a birds eye view of the play) because we were all quite on edge with finding the character and trying out their emotions which can sometimes be difficult for an actor and as we only had two weeks to learn, block and perform these scenes it was somewhat harder and easier at the same time.

The challenges we faced in the first week were mostly down to the lack of lines learnt and that made it very hard to be able to animate a scene, as holding a script occupies your hands and your face as you are reading the lines. We managed to conquer this by learning a few lines at a time and then putting it all together and having only one of us as a prompt so that we didn't feel too much pressure over the lines and that made it all the more comfortable to just be free and easy with the scene. We also started to block scenes so that we could begin to associate certain movements with particular lines.

In week two we were a lot more panicked as it was all coming at us fast and we still had a lot to do, luckily we had all learnt our lines and so now were working on our facial expressions and our hand movements and figuring out how our character would react to the other characters lines and looking at the characters have to haves, what they need out of a scene. It was also a time for looking at costume and seeing what they would wear, because of the difference in status and the time period it meant we could do a lot. I wore all blacks and then a leather jacket to give the impression of an army style jacket, Joe wore a make-shift toga to give off the typical Caesar vibe and Alicia as Calphurnia wore all blacks to show how she is almost the mediator in the relationship and situation between Decius and Caesar.

In the final few days of putting these scenes together it was more or less just rehearsing and re-rehearsing the scenes to make sure that the scene was in order. When the day of the showcase came around we were all a little on edge which is fairly normal, and were both excited and nervous creating a brilliant atmosphere. The show was going well and then it was our turn and it started off well, then one of the group forgot their lines and skipped a big chunk of the scene, this was not a problem as we were prepared and just went onto the next bit and it went un noticed by the audience and turned out to be a good performance. I felt that my specific performance went a lot better than I thought it would and and was pleased with the outcome, I felt that I managed to convey the jealousy of Decius and the intent of the assassination without having that shown to Caesar and kept my agenda hidden. I wanted to work on how you could look at Decius and see the good friend of Caesar and then look at my eyes and see the dark plan behind the facade. Overall I was very pleased with my performance and enjoyed working on Julius Caesar with my group and learned a lot more about Shakespeare and the history of the play as well.

Decius - Character Study

Decius Brutus

A minor character in the play Julius Caesar Written by William Shakespeare and based on the real life events of Dictator Julius Caesar. Decius is an instigator to Julius Caesar's assassination and a Roman politician. He was also Caesar's cousin and was heir in the second degree to caesar in his will.

Decius plays a key role in the assasination of Julius Caesar as he is the one who persuades Caesar to come to the senate house after he had said he would not go due to his wifes worry over a dream she had of his death. Decius is one of the men who all join together to kill Caesar after Caska attacks him first and they eventually kill him and become his murderers.

Decuis is a very cunning character who knows just how to persuade people to go agains their own decisions to get his own way, the way he persuades Caesar to come to the senate after his wife calphurnia has begged on her knees that he stay home is a fairly good example of how he can make others trust him, even over those who are far closer to the subject that he is trying to seduce.

Decius seems to in a way distrust Caesar, even though he is his cousin. Decius treats Ceasar almost like a child recognising how in his own mind Caesar was not fit to be the Dictator of Rome and took it into his own hands, this could also be seen as jealousy from Decuis, himself thinking that he is the lowly cousin and wanting to have the power that Caesar has.

In Conclusion I think that Decius is a very messed up character he has had to live in the shadow of his cousin and feels so strongly about this that he even conspires and ends up killing his cousin Caesar. We also note that Decius is a very deceptive person and incredibly talented at persuading people to do what he requires them to do, or to gain information from them. This overall makes Decius a very intersting character even though his part is limited without his persuasive talents Ceasar would never have been assasinated and so in turn the entire outcome of the play is due to Decuis' cunning persuasive gift.

Audition Speeches - Cymbeline "I see a man's life as a tedious one"

My second classical piece is from the Shakespeare play Cymbeline, it tells the story of Princess Imogen and her lover Posthumous and how Imogen and Posthumous are separated after her father the king of England exiles Posthumous after she and Posthumous wed without his permission and because she is the only living heir her husband will become the next king. This shows the pressure put on Imogen and through the play we get to see how she copes with all the trials the come her way.

Beginning characterisation for Imogen I began by reading the play through several times and making notes on how I thought she would act in certain situations and how she would be feeling in the different stages of the play as a woman of that time and in that situation. I wanted to push the idea that she is still deciding how to lead her life even though a lot of it has been decided for her, that her thoughts are quite deep and unlike a woman of the time the play was written. We see Imogen being bold cross dressing even in her circumstances, I find this bold for a woman of her position and love the fact that she is going by her own mind, her first line in this monologue is " I see a man's life as a tedious one" and to me this line just says it all. The line states how she feels about what a man's life is like having lived like one for just a few days, she realises that not everything is how she originally imagined and I wanted to show this in the speech her indecisiveness in how things are and how so many things are rushing through her mind that she has to say them all at once and how she looks at things from both sides not just one. I wanted to show that she thinks very differently to a lot of the people around her and defy's their expectations of how she should be, I find that very appealing in a character and that was also one of the reasons I chose the speech because it shows more than you think.

I thought that the audition went relatively well compared to how I thought it would be, I was worried as to how my character would come across as I wasn't totally prepared with her actions and feelings. Baring this in mind the actual audition went how I wanted it to, I allowed myself to let her take over and show how she is indecisive and her attitude to life is very indecisive too with how she acts to her current situation.


Imogen

Name: Imogen
Age: Unknown
Family: Posthumous (Husband) Cymbeline (Father) Guiderius (Brother) Arviarargus (Brother)

Imogen is the daughter of the king of England, Cymbeline she is also the wife of Posthumous who is currently in exile because he and Imogen secretly married without Cymbeline's permission, this upset Cymbeline because Imogen is his only living heir and so whoever she marries will become the new king. This then sparks off the events of the play leading to cross dressing finding long lost family members and the reuniting of love.

Audition Speeches - Bronte "Do you ever wonder what our lives would have been like"

My contemporary piece is from the play Bronte by Polly Teale it was written in 2005 and follows the lives of the Bronte sisters and how they felt about their own situation and lives as women in the 19th Century. I chose this speech because I found that what Anne Bronte questions is exactly what she needs to question as a writer and as a woman in a society that disagree's with a woman thinking this way. I loved the way that she is passionate about the smallest of things and takes note of the insignificant things and turns them into something that means a lot to her and to how she sees life.

I began characterisation with looking at reading some of the Bronte's novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights and finding how the characters within the stories are possibly related to either how the sisters themselves felt or how they saw other women and men of the time. I also used materiel from the history books and historical clothing to see how the clothing of the time would affect how they would have walked, sat and stood. Finding that a corset would of course restrict a lot of their movement and how they would have spoken as well, the corset causing constriction of the chest and only allowing a small amount of movement. To practice how I would stage this monologue I began with the research above and then practiced my own movement and how I could adapt my own self to embody Anne Bronte and how her movement would also reflect how she was feeling and how those feelings would come out on her body. I also read up on Anne and watched documentaries about her life and how it would have been, what her daily life consisted of and what events had happened in her life to shape how she is in this monologue and her ideas on how we as human beings act and what in life we refuse to acknowledge and try our best to prove wrong.

In the performance I undertook in the mock audition I felt quite connected to Anne as a character and as a person I could almost feel her influence rubbing off on me as I was delivering the lines. I also felt that I managed to keep the movement to a minimum as would be expected of Anne with the restriction of the clothing of the time and yet still portray the emotions and ideas that are running through Anne's head and that she has to confess to her sister Charlotte. Overall I felt that the performance itself gave over what I wanted it to but could still be added to by a little more variation in movement.

Anne

Name: Anne Bronte
Age: 28
Family: Charlotte Bronte (Sister) Emily Bronte (Sister) Branwell Bronte (Brother) Patrick Bronte (Father)  Maria Bronte (Mother) Elizabeth Bronte (Sister) Maria Bronte (Sister)

Anne was born into a large family as the youngest of seven siblings the two oldest having died very early and her mother passing away when anne was only one. She and her siblings were then brought up by their father Patrick Bronte who kept them all close to home in the parsonage of the church where he was the curate, from there Anne and her siblings all began to write their own stories to escape from the lack of interaction of other children their age they had, this was due to the lack of hygiene of the area and a lot of the children carrying disease and after Patrick Bronte had lost two children to disease before he was unwilling to loose another. The Bronte sisters also wrote under pseudonyms to get their work published as it was uncommon to have a woman's novel published in that era, not just because it was written by a woman but also because it wasn't seen as decent for a woman to be writing stories as it could put ideas into their heads.

Audition Speeches - Romeo & Juliet "The clock struck nine"

My classical piece is from the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet written between 1591 and 1595 It tells the story of Romeo and Juliet as the title suggests. In this play we witness the romance that blossoms between these two lovers and how it brings across their demise, the speech from the play I have chosen is spoken by Juliet, she is remarking and moping about how her nurse has not come back from seeing her Romeo in the time she said she would be.

To begin characterisation for Juliet I read the play over and also watched some of the film versions of the plays to gain an idea of how other actors have portrayed Juliet in the past. I then compiled mental markers as to the mannerisms that they used to evolve Juliet, also being 17 I know what it's like to be 14 and impatient. So from compiling information from books, performances and personal experience I created my own version of Juliet. I found my version to be a little more down played than some of the versions I had seen on screen, I deliberately down played the character because I felt that in a lot of instances the character is overplayed with the stereotypical "I'm a teenager and the world revolves around me". I wanted to change her to become a more understandable person for an audience to see and relate to, to find that the impatience is a universal thing not just for a teenage girl waiting for her boyfriend. To rehearse this character I played with the vocal tone of her, seeing as she's meant to be a young teenage girl I knew the voice needed to be a lot more high pitched and whiny in a way as a lot of younger voices are before they mature. I also looked at how she might move having been brought up in a high ranking family and being subjected to act and talk like a lady of the time, this led me to become very aware of how she carries out her actions.

I felt that my mock audition went very well, I liked how I felt within the character and how I delivered my lines. In the audition I felt that I managed to convey the downplayed Juliet and how her feelings are universal feelings, I also felt that I used the stage appropriately to the situation of the monologue I was Performing. I felt that I managed to explain through the monologue who Juliet is to the audience and that there is more to her than her stereotype suggests.

Juliet

Name: Juliet Capulet
Age: 14
Family: Lord Capulet (Father) Lady Capulet (Mother) Tybalt Capulet (Cousin) Rosaline Capulet (Cousin) Nurse (Surrogate Mother)
Spouse: Romeo Montague

Juliet is a fourteen year old girl who lives in Verona, Italy her father is a Lord and so she and her family hold a high position in the society of Verona. Her family have been feuding with another high status family in Verona called the Montague's, during this play she falls in love with the son of Lord and Lady Montague which becomes a catalyst to their demise.