my video
presentation:
Monday, 8 February 2016
Arts Organisations
Arts originations:
· Equity: this is an organisation for professional and creative performers. They are known for there work with helping performers negotiate their working contracts and to make sure that they are being treated fairly.
· Spotlight: 60,000 people are part of spotlight. They are one of the best ways to “… market yourself as a performer”. This is for film and television. A lot of producers use spotlight as a way of finding new actors for specific roles.
· Arts council England: this is an organisation that funds performances and shows that may not have enough to put it on their selves. It gets public money from the national lottery and from the government.
· The stage: the stage is a way of getting information for actors. For example reviews, career advice along with job and casting advice. It gives them an insight into the performing industry.
Interview Practise
practice interview:
This was our classes practice interview, not all of our class was able to fit on the video.
The evaluation of my interview was that I was able to speak clearly and answer the questions asked with confidence and I was also able to ask the interviewer questions, this showed that I had a good understanding on the topic and was interested in it. I feel that I was able to make clear examples of why i would be good for the role I was being interviewed for.
Theatre Tour Research and Preparation
The photo above shows the research for the venues.
There are many ways in which I could raise money for the show.
· I could fundraise the money: Fundraising means that you raise all the money yourself and do not have to give any back. This is a realistic way of getting money because it is one of the easiest ways to get the money freely, however the down side of this method is you may not get the amount of money that you need.
· Sponsors: sponsors are a good way of getting the money because they can give you a larger amounts of money because of their disposable income, also they usually do not need much in return, for example thy may just want advertisement in your programme. The down side to sponsors is they are harder to get than fundraising your money.
· Arts council: this is a company that gives you money towards certain productions, they do this to promote the arts. The way in which you would get the money is pitching your proposal to them and if it is worthy then you will get the money. The down side to this is that they are less likely to fund small scale theatre tours.
· Loan: this will get you the money that you need, but it means that you will have to pay it back, this means you need to be able to guarantee the amount of money that you will make.
· Websites such as kickstarter: this is where people can donate online to you the amount of money that you need to fund your project. The down side to this is it is uncertain on the amount of money you will receive.
Training Paths
Acting schools and university's:
I feel that the acting school that suits me the best is Bournemouth Arts University, this is because I feel that it would be able to nurture me as an actor. Also in the surrounding areas it has a lot of opportunities to put on independent productions and also it has a lot of opportunities to be in shows outside of the class. Another thing that drew me to Bournemouth was the fact that it had the chance to do straight film acting, also chances to do voice over acting for animations.
Theatre Companies Research
Theatre company:
· CEO: he owns the theatre company and oversees all the performances.
· Producer: they are in charge of technical development:
He will be in charge of the technical developments, and the people this involves is the lighting technician, (in charge of lighting) sound technician, (in charge of sound) and the stage manager (he will be in charge of all backstage crew.
· Artistic director: they will be in charge of other directors for example if it is a big theatre company they will have more than one show happening so they will need a director for each show. This then in turn means that the director is in charge of the actors. The artistic director will also be in charge of the choreographer. He will also be in charge of the music director who is in charge of the orchestra.
· Finance and admin: there job is to lead box office, publicity, domestic staff, front of house and education liaison along with development manager.
šI
I find this role fly men interesting because it is a job that not a lot of people recognise in the theatre but they do a lot in the productions, fly men for me would be very fun to get involved in because I like being able to see and help with the shows from behind the stage.
Another role that I would be interested in is the lighting director, this is because I fell that the lighting is very crucial to a performance, this is because it creates the atmosphere and it can completely change how the audience view a scene.
I feel that it would be interesting to be the artistic director, this is because I enjoy greatly thinking up of new ways to make a production interesting. I also have very specific ideas on how I would like a production to go and by being the artistic director I would be able make theses decisions.
Audition Evaluation
My audition preparation:
The preparation for my audition I feel went very well this is because I was able to learn sections from both songs in which we had to perform, the two that I chose were “one song glory” and “officer krupke” at the beginning I felt it was difficult to learn “officer Krupke” this was because I was not used to that style of music and the fact that it was so energetic meant that it was hard to get the breathing pattern right, I did however find that putting on the accent and making it more comical made performing it a lot more fun. With “one song glory” I found that it was a lot easier to pick up and also to sing this was because it had a simple rhythm and simple words, the only part that I struggled with at the beginning was when the song went higher in the chorus but I soon was able to hit the note whilst doing warm ups beforehand.
As to knowing the story of both I found this harder, the being I was unable to watch any theatre performances so I had to rely on the film version, this however did not hinder me too much and I was still able to understand them both very well. Also by watching the films I was able to see what characters appealed to me the most.
Knowing the history and the background of both plays I found interesting so I feel that I gathered as much of the vital information that I could, this will aid me because I will be able to speak confidently on the key themes of both plays and also I will be able to give my point of view and what I can bring to both plays.
In the future I feel that I should have spent more time developing my skill in the singing performance so would be comfortable when projecting.
My audition:
Things that went well:
At the start I asked to perform "One song glory" from Rent, this is because it was the song that best suited my voice and would showcase my skills to a higher level, this is because my singing style is not classical like West Side Story is but more modern bohemian rock.
At the start I asked to perform "One song glory" from Rent, this is because it was the song that best suited my voice and would showcase my skills to a higher level, this is because my singing style is not classical like West Side Story is but more modern bohemian rock.
The things that went well was the fact that I performed my song with a lot of character and energy, this was good because it meant that it was entertaining for the people watching. Another thing was that I was able to answer the questions that was asked with confidence and I was even able to asking question with knowledge as to why I was asking them.
Another thing that I
Another thing that I
Thing that did not go well:
The thing that I picked up on that did not go so well was the fact that I could feel my voice shaking because I was slightly nervous, even though this is not such a bad thing i felt that I was unable to perform to the best of my abilities. But I feel I was able to make up for this by giving each song a very specific character that were different from each other.
What I need to do for future:
For the future I will have to make sure that I am confident in my songs and the way I have to hit the notes, this will then in turn make me seem more confident in my performance.
Friday, 5 February 2016
Review
During this performance I feel that my nerves may have gotten the better of me to begin with, but as the show went on I was able to sink into the character a lot more. Personally on the night of the show I was able to develop my character to his full potential because I was able to immerse myself fully in the atmosphere of the whole play. This gave a realistic representation of my character which I feel made him more relatable.
There was a very strong relationship/bond between the characters of Riff and Tony this was because there was fluid conversation and interaction between us both, this made the relationship feel naturalistic and therefor convincing to the audience to watch. My proxemics towards Riff were very close this showed that we were quite close.
During the number ‘Somethings Coming’, I felt that I was able to bring a large amount of energy into the song, this is very important to do in this play because of the tragic story line. By having the light hearted and fun, spirited song at the beginning it makes the impact of tragedy even greater, also because it is at the beginning it makes the audience engaged and able to concentrate. Another way I engaged the audience’s attention was by making eye contact with them and also making them feel involved by directing my singing and movement to them.
I feel that for next time I should try and make sure that I do not move as quickly round the staging, but still maintain the same amount of energy with my body language, this is because when it came to the climax of the song I was running out of breath to hit the top notes and this made me unable to hold the note for as long as I should have.
The interaction between Maria and Tony during the “Gym scene” was very shy and timid, I wanted to portray this through my acting because I wanted the atmosphere to be as if you were meeting someone you like for the first time, if I had acted relaxed and calm then it would have felt to rehearsed and unrealistic, by showing this I softened my voice and I also made sure to do nervous gestures. There was also a very nice dynamic change when Berndardo pushes me, it goes from very soft and gentle to loud and aggressive instantly. This change was done by speaking louder and turning my body language from doing small, slow compact movements to fast vigorous ones. Doing this is very affective for the audience because it engages them further, if the scene had dragged on too long in a soft way then they may lose concentration but by bringing a lot of energy and changing the mood of the scene it re-engages there attention.
The scene previous leads into the song “Maria”. This song shows that the character Tony is completely infatuated with her and that name, the blocking of this song is very minimalistic as it was on top of the scaffolding, however I used my facial expressions to show how over joyed I was. Through the rehearsal process I found that this song was difficult for me to sing as it was above my range, I practiced these notes a lot in rehearsal to improve my range and enhance my projection. However, during the show there were still moments where I found it hard to reach the notes cleanly, so I changed from singing the lines to speaking them. This both helped in making my performance cleaner, as well as adding more emotion to the song, as I was still talking in character.
I feel that the connection between me and Maria in the Balcony scene was very strong. The reason why it was strong was because when performing the song we made strong eye contact with each other, we also made sure to react to one another in positive ways, our body language between us was very light and flirtatious this in turn created the atmosphere of intimacy and romance, the thing that went less well during this scene was the slow part of the song, this was because we were unsure on the timing in this section. During the dialogue in this scene we were able to convey the feeling of romance and intimacy, I done this by softening my voice and making sure that I kept eye contact with Maria when I was communicating with her. I also made sure to subtly laugh at certain points during the scene to show that I was over joyed to be with her also to show that I was nervous at the same time, the blocking for this scene was up on the scaffolding at the beginning so I had to make sure that I made large gestures when I was saying crucial parts of information this is because it made the audience engaged and able to understand the story more. I feel that for next time I should work on my projection whilst still maintaining the soft tone in my voice this is so that people who are sat further away in the audience can still here the information and not have to rely on my gestures.
The next scene was in “Docs drugstore” in this scene the atmosphere was meant to carry tension because the two gangs were in the same space and organising the rumble. When I came in I had to use different body language and tone of voice when interacting with each character, for example when interacting with Bernardo and Riff at the beginning I had to show annoyance but my proxemics were closer to Riff as he is a friend of my character, the way in which I showed I was annoyed was by raising my voice and making the tone a lot sharper, making my movements sharp and aggressive showed the annoyance that I felt as a character, also by walking around the room at a faster pace than usual projected my annoyance to all areas of the stage and audience. I remain hostile when Schrank comes on stage until he leaves. At the end the dynamics change because everyone leaves the stage apart from me and Doc where it becomes a lot lighter hearted as I am still carrying the emotion from the last scene with Maria. I do not say this at first but show it through over exaggerating my movements and acting abnormally happy, especially after the situation that just happened previous. Because the character of Doc is my boss I have to show him respect which means that I would not treat him the same way I would Riff.
The scene “One hand one heart” is a very romantic scene and has to be filled with a lot of energy, this is because it involves acting with inanimate objects/ manikins. At the beginning of the scene I am happy to be seeing Maria but am unaware that Anita is still there so I have to acted shocked and surprised that she is there, I do this by looking down at the floor and not making eye contact with her, I also change the tone of my voice to being more serious and calmer than it was before. When Maria is talking to Anita I have to show that I am wanting to go over to her, I do this by running over to her and holding her hands. The thing that went well in this scene was the interacting with the dummies the reason this is, is because I was able to keep the scene moving smoothly when I was interacting with and moving the dummies, it is important for the scene to move smoothly and have a lot of energy because the dialogue is quite plain which would mean that the audience would lose interest and maybe not follow the dialogue which would then lead to them not hearing key parts of information.
I had to adapt this scene a lot because I had not run it with Bethany as much as I had Olivia this meant that when it came to interacting with the dummies I had to position most of them to the correct place on stage whilst not blocking the audience members. During the song the music was neve exact each time which led me to come in to early.
The “Quintet” was the most technically difficult out of all the songs that we did, it had a lot of different tempos and key changes. On this performance I was able to use my projection to reach the audience of the other side, because the rest of the piece involves groups singing together I had to make sure that I matched their power. For future performance I will need to work on projecting more when I reach the higher notes.
The “Rumble” involved a lot of energy, this is because it is the climax of the first half of the play, although there is not a lot of complicated dialogue in this scene it still maintains its energy with the body language from each character and the tense atmosphere it creates, the reason why this scene is so encaptivating to watch is because it makes the audience feel on edge, the lighting is used in this scene in a very pungent way this is because when I stab Bernardo the lighting goes red which highlights the blood dropping on the floor, I feel that the use of dynamics in this scene really highlights the death of each characters, at the beginning it is very upbeat and fast with a lot of aggressive movements from each character then it goes to the focus being on Bernardo and Riff as they fight. When Riff gets stabbed there is a moment of numbness from Tony then he realises the situation he is in, I run over to him and gently lower him to the ground, the whole stage is very quiet as I am with Riff.
The first scene that I am in after the intermission is “Somewhere” this scene is very emotional because it directly follows me losing Riff and Maria losing Bernardo. This scene went well because I was able to create a realistic feeling on stage by crying, I also had a good connection with Maria this was because I held her closely and the lines were very emotional, the most pungent line for me was “I love you so much” the reason I found this to be the most affective is because there was a gap beforehand and also the sincerity of it was powerful.
The scene where I and Doc interact after he had given me the money shows how much the dynamics between me and him have changed after everything that happened. It also shows another angle of how Tony views Doc, As more as a father figure. The thing that went really well during this scene was the change in emotion from being happy to being devastated/angry by the news of hearing that Maria had been shot, I was able to show the change very clearly because at the beginning I was smiling but as soon as I heard the news of Maria my facial expression changed completely. I also changed my body language to more rigid and to show that I was angry I clenched my fist and lowered the tone of my voice.
Finale: during this I conveyed the emotion of anger, this was done by me shouting aggressively, I feel that this scene was probably the most successful for me because it had a lot of energy that I was able to get all round the room, I was also able to show a lot of emotions because of when I see Maria there is relief and happiness but then I get shot so there is also sadness that I convey as well.
There was a very strong relationship/bond between the characters of Riff and Tony this was because there was fluid conversation and interaction between us both, this made the relationship feel naturalistic and therefor convincing to the audience to watch. My proxemics towards Riff were very close this showed that we were quite close.
During the number ‘Somethings Coming’, I felt that I was able to bring a large amount of energy into the song, this is very important to do in this play because of the tragic story line. By having the light hearted and fun, spirited song at the beginning it makes the impact of tragedy even greater, also because it is at the beginning it makes the audience engaged and able to concentrate. Another way I engaged the audience’s attention was by making eye contact with them and also making them feel involved by directing my singing and movement to them.
I feel that for next time I should try and make sure that I do not move as quickly round the staging, but still maintain the same amount of energy with my body language, this is because when it came to the climax of the song I was running out of breath to hit the top notes and this made me unable to hold the note for as long as I should have.
The interaction between Maria and Tony during the “Gym scene” was very shy and timid, I wanted to portray this through my acting because I wanted the atmosphere to be as if you were meeting someone you like for the first time, if I had acted relaxed and calm then it would have felt to rehearsed and unrealistic, by showing this I softened my voice and I also made sure to do nervous gestures. There was also a very nice dynamic change when Berndardo pushes me, it goes from very soft and gentle to loud and aggressive instantly. This change was done by speaking louder and turning my body language from doing small, slow compact movements to fast vigorous ones. Doing this is very affective for the audience because it engages them further, if the scene had dragged on too long in a soft way then they may lose concentration but by bringing a lot of energy and changing the mood of the scene it re-engages there attention.
The scene previous leads into the song “Maria”. This song shows that the character Tony is completely infatuated with her and that name, the blocking of this song is very minimalistic as it was on top of the scaffolding, however I used my facial expressions to show how over joyed I was. Through the rehearsal process I found that this song was difficult for me to sing as it was above my range, I practiced these notes a lot in rehearsal to improve my range and enhance my projection. However, during the show there were still moments where I found it hard to reach the notes cleanly, so I changed from singing the lines to speaking them. This both helped in making my performance cleaner, as well as adding more emotion to the song, as I was still talking in character.
I feel that the connection between me and Maria in the Balcony scene was very strong. The reason why it was strong was because when performing the song we made strong eye contact with each other, we also made sure to react to one another in positive ways, our body language between us was very light and flirtatious this in turn created the atmosphere of intimacy and romance, the thing that went less well during this scene was the slow part of the song, this was because we were unsure on the timing in this section. During the dialogue in this scene we were able to convey the feeling of romance and intimacy, I done this by softening my voice and making sure that I kept eye contact with Maria when I was communicating with her. I also made sure to subtly laugh at certain points during the scene to show that I was over joyed to be with her also to show that I was nervous at the same time, the blocking for this scene was up on the scaffolding at the beginning so I had to make sure that I made large gestures when I was saying crucial parts of information this is because it made the audience engaged and able to understand the story more. I feel that for next time I should work on my projection whilst still maintaining the soft tone in my voice this is so that people who are sat further away in the audience can still here the information and not have to rely on my gestures.
The next scene was in “Docs drugstore” in this scene the atmosphere was meant to carry tension because the two gangs were in the same space and organising the rumble. When I came in I had to use different body language and tone of voice when interacting with each character, for example when interacting with Bernardo and Riff at the beginning I had to show annoyance but my proxemics were closer to Riff as he is a friend of my character, the way in which I showed I was annoyed was by raising my voice and making the tone a lot sharper, making my movements sharp and aggressive showed the annoyance that I felt as a character, also by walking around the room at a faster pace than usual projected my annoyance to all areas of the stage and audience. I remain hostile when Schrank comes on stage until he leaves. At the end the dynamics change because everyone leaves the stage apart from me and Doc where it becomes a lot lighter hearted as I am still carrying the emotion from the last scene with Maria. I do not say this at first but show it through over exaggerating my movements and acting abnormally happy, especially after the situation that just happened previous. Because the character of Doc is my boss I have to show him respect which means that I would not treat him the same way I would Riff.
The scene “One hand one heart” is a very romantic scene and has to be filled with a lot of energy, this is because it involves acting with inanimate objects/ manikins. At the beginning of the scene I am happy to be seeing Maria but am unaware that Anita is still there so I have to acted shocked and surprised that she is there, I do this by looking down at the floor and not making eye contact with her, I also change the tone of my voice to being more serious and calmer than it was before. When Maria is talking to Anita I have to show that I am wanting to go over to her, I do this by running over to her and holding her hands. The thing that went well in this scene was the interacting with the dummies the reason this is, is because I was able to keep the scene moving smoothly when I was interacting with and moving the dummies, it is important for the scene to move smoothly and have a lot of energy because the dialogue is quite plain which would mean that the audience would lose interest and maybe not follow the dialogue which would then lead to them not hearing key parts of information.
I had to adapt this scene a lot because I had not run it with Bethany as much as I had Olivia this meant that when it came to interacting with the dummies I had to position most of them to the correct place on stage whilst not blocking the audience members. During the song the music was neve exact each time which led me to come in to early.
The “Quintet” was the most technically difficult out of all the songs that we did, it had a lot of different tempos and key changes. On this performance I was able to use my projection to reach the audience of the other side, because the rest of the piece involves groups singing together I had to make sure that I matched their power. For future performance I will need to work on projecting more when I reach the higher notes.
The “Rumble” involved a lot of energy, this is because it is the climax of the first half of the play, although there is not a lot of complicated dialogue in this scene it still maintains its energy with the body language from each character and the tense atmosphere it creates, the reason why this scene is so encaptivating to watch is because it makes the audience feel on edge, the lighting is used in this scene in a very pungent way this is because when I stab Bernardo the lighting goes red which highlights the blood dropping on the floor, I feel that the use of dynamics in this scene really highlights the death of each characters, at the beginning it is very upbeat and fast with a lot of aggressive movements from each character then it goes to the focus being on Bernardo and Riff as they fight. When Riff gets stabbed there is a moment of numbness from Tony then he realises the situation he is in, I run over to him and gently lower him to the ground, the whole stage is very quiet as I am with Riff.
The first scene that I am in after the intermission is “Somewhere” this scene is very emotional because it directly follows me losing Riff and Maria losing Bernardo. This scene went well because I was able to create a realistic feeling on stage by crying, I also had a good connection with Maria this was because I held her closely and the lines were very emotional, the most pungent line for me was “I love you so much” the reason I found this to be the most affective is because there was a gap beforehand and also the sincerity of it was powerful.
The scene where I and Doc interact after he had given me the money shows how much the dynamics between me and him have changed after everything that happened. It also shows another angle of how Tony views Doc, As more as a father figure. The thing that went really well during this scene was the change in emotion from being happy to being devastated/angry by the news of hearing that Maria had been shot, I was able to show the change very clearly because at the beginning I was smiling but as soon as I heard the news of Maria my facial expression changed completely. I also changed my body language to more rigid and to show that I was angry I clenched my fist and lowered the tone of my voice.
Finale: during this I conveyed the emotion of anger, this was done by me shouting aggressively, I feel that this scene was probably the most successful for me because it had a lot of energy that I was able to get all round the room, I was also able to show a lot of emotions because of when I see Maria there is relief and happiness but then I get shot so there is also sadness that I convey as well.
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