01.03.2020 - FEST - Own Rehearsal

WARM UP

In this rehearsal we made sure everyone had learnt their lines before so we could have the smoothest and most effective rehearsal.  We warmed up with a couple games of splat.  We played with high energy to get in the mood and so we were all warmed up.

RUN THROUGH

We spent the whole rehearsal doing run throughs to see which scenes needed working on.  It was quite difficult to do the entire run through as we had a cast member who wasn't able to come.  Some aspects of the plot we thought could be improved were the bar scene.  We think that these movements could be a little more synchronised as it looks a bit muddled up at the minute.  We also need to work on some scenes like the plotting scene between Jane and Dave. 

24.02.20 - FEST - Ms Trono

In today's lesson with Ms Trono, we explained everything we had completed over the holidays in terms of script writing and rehearsals.  Then we all got into our separate groups to complete as much as possible.  I had in mind to fragment Amelie and my monologues but as she wasn't at the start of the lesson, I decided to help Silvana with brainstorming the set and props and Hugo with brainstorming the costumes.  This is the type of idea we came up with for the costumes.
Louis/Harry
Tristan/David
James/Fred
Hugo/Laurent
Seth/Charles
Amelie/Meredith
Emma/Jane
Silvana/Marie

22.02.20 - FEST - Mrs Williams

WARM UP

For our warm up we did some sprints from one side of the room to the other.  After a few sprints, we added in a jump in the middle of the room.  We had to run to the middle, jump, run to the end of the room, run back to the middle, jump again and then run back.  After a few times of that, we had to jump up then touch the floor and run.  Finally, after a few times of that, we did a few runs with touching the floor, then jumping, then touching the floor again.  This made us all warm and ready to work.

MIRRORED CHAIR DUET

We first started off by doing the mirrored chair duet between Louis and Amelie, and Tristan and I.  We've already learnt the choreography for this chair duet but I think Tristan and I need to practice this a lot.  We aren't confident enough yet so this really needs to be improved so that Amelie, Louis, Tristan and I are all in sync.

RUN THROUGH

After the mirrored chair duets, we did a run through of everything we had done from start to as far as we got.  This went quite well but we needed to sort out the order of the plot and our fluency from one scene to another.

PLOT CHANGES AND ORDER

We've changed the plot a bit to make the ending make more sense.  Before, we didn't have a complete understanding of what happens to our characters and it was all a bit vague.  This is the new scene order:

• Prologue
• Fred's monologue
• Bar movement involving everyone
• 3 boys fragmented monologue
• Mirrored chair duet
• Jane and Meredith's fragmented monologues
• 3 boys argument
• David and Jane plotting
• Jane planting seeds inside Harry's mind
• Swindon 5 train station 
• Meredith asking Laurent to walk her down the aisle
• Charles explaining why he doesn't want to marry Marie
• Swindon 5 train station
• Laurent, Charles and Marie talk
• Awkward bar scene - David ranting, Laurent there, Fred splits it up
• 3 boys singing Sweet Caroline - David tells Harry that Meredith is cheating
• Harry and Meredith get into fight
• See Charles and Meredith's past relationship as Charles comforts her
• David's reveal of lies about cheating - Jane breaks up with David
• Harry and Meredith happy
• Charles and Marie argue but then propose
• Laurent and Jane happy

ENDING

We finished off our rehearsal with figuring out the ending to our piece.  First, we had a scene in the bar where David needs to get through all of the people he's hurt.  We used physical theatre with round, by, through to show this.  Then once he passes Jane, Meredith and Harry, he gets to Fred at the bar and downs a pint as Jane, Meredith and Harry give him a hateful stare.  He gets another pint and sits at the edge of the stage, centre stage.  Jane, Meredith and Harry walk up to him until he's enclosed and then walk away.  After this, Fred has a monologue describing what all the characters are going through.  Then the prologue we have at the start is done again, but as an epilogue.  We are also with different characters depending on our new relationships with people.  Then, in this physical theatre movement with lifts and round, by, through, we find a good position to freeze in to show the relationship between the characters.  After that, we all come together to do a bow.

15.02.20 - FEST - Mrs Williams

WARM UP
For the warm up, we joined with the LAMDA drama group and did a jumping exercise.  We stood in three rows all facing the front.  The first row had to jump 8 times and on the 8th, face the other way. The second row had the then jump 8 times and on the 8th, face the other way.  Then the 3rd row had to do the same but once they jumped to face the other way, they had to jump 6 more times and on the 6th go the other way.  This carries on going down the line from 8 to 6 to 4 to 2 to 1.  It took a lot of concentration as well, so both our bodies and minds were warming up.  The next exercise was called "Should Have Said".  We got into pairs and had to tell the other person about our morning.  Every time the person listening thought it was boring, they would say "should have said" so the first person would have to change the last thing they said to something more exciting until the stories became wacky.

CHAIR DUET
Louis and Amelie decided to use their chair duet but include Tristan and I to show the relationship between us as well.  We thought it would be cool to have the chair duet mirrored.  It was very fun but quite difficult to learn.  We will need to practice quite a lot to remember all of the moves smoothly and also get in time with Louis and Amelie.
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13.02.20 - FEST - Ms Trono

Today's rehearsal was quite short due to the parents evening.  This also meant that there weren't many people available.  I spent this rehearsal helping Silvana and Hugo with their monologues.  For Silvana's, she was talking about how her boyfriend doesn't want to propose to her.  We made it quite comedic with excessive details on her dream dress for example.  Hugo's monologue was about the conflict within himself as he doesn't know if he should tell Amelie that her friends were talking about her behind her back.  We also helped come up with some ideas for Amelie and Louis' break up scene.  I think the easiest way to show the lack of trust would be through a chair duet but we already have quite a lot of those so they decided to try something different like round, by, through.  We all came up with that they both still loved each other but lost that lack of trust, so they attract and then repel.

12.02.20 - FEST - Mrs Williams

MOVEMENT SEQUENCE AND CHAIR DUET

We created a movement sequence for the opening bar scene.  We got into pairs which would work the most realistically.  I went with James because even though I start dating Tristan, we hadn't met at this point and that is what happens in this scene.  The other pairs were Louis and Tristan, Amelie and Silvana and Hugo and Seth.  Within the pairs, we had to create a set of movements to a count of 8 so that we could put it in a loop.  For example, with James and I, my counts were, grab the beer glass, take a glug, cheer, slam it down and slide it to James.  James had the same amount of beats as I did but he was being a bar tender so cleaning the glasses and filling them up with beer.  James and I slid the glasses at the same time so the other person caught it.  I also had to play drunk as I drink more and more.  I came into the scene first, then Louis and Tristan, then Amelie and Silvana and finally Hugo and Seth.  Every time the pairs went up to the bar, I had to interact with the partners.  When the boys came, I had to try flirt with them and when the girls came, I tried to dance with them.  After the 3 pairs came up to the bar, Tristan came back up and I did a chair duet with him.  This was to show how we met.  We wanted to make the chair duet look as fresh as possible with a real connection.  One way we showed this was through having our faces extremely close together.  It was quite difficult to make this chair duet as we weren't on staging blocks.
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For this scene, we used the song Friday I'm In Love by The Cure as a stimulus.  We liked the fun atmosphere it brought out of the characters and the scene.
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After this scene it goes straight into a scene between Tristan, Louis and James where they have an argument.

PROLOGUE

We decided that it would be best to change the characters around a bit so Tristan was now playing David instead of Hugo and now Hugo was playing Jeff (now changed to Laurent), Meredith's sister.  The prologue we started with now didn't work with the new story line so we had to change some things round a bit.  I stayed the same but now had to teach Tristan the choreography that Hugo had previously.  After that, we went into the bar scene we created this morning and fragmented monologues between Tristan, Louis and Harry.

SWINDON 5

Then we created a Swindon 5 piece to portray the train station when Laurent goes to see Meredith in London.  It started off very choreographed so everyone was evenly spaced apart and we didn't have specific characters, it was more neutral.  Then after testing the waters we gave ourselves specific characters.  I was an old lady so I also walked very slowly and people overtook me.  We also added the specific places so it didn't look as if we were walking around aimlessly.  We had a cafe downstage left, the departure board downstage right and the platform upstage left.

FULL RUN THROUGH

At the end we had a full run through of the material we had so far and it worked out really well.  We also timed it to see how much content we had and it came to around 15 minutes.  This was a lot better than what we were expecting.  I think we're all a lot more motivated and excited.

06.02.20 - FEST - Own Rehearsal

After school, we did a rehearsal.  We tried to really get some more of the connections between the characters shown through physical theatre.  We worked on the relationship between David, Jane and their siblings.  We started off by having Hugo and I doing a chair duet.  We attempted to show the argument between our characters through this.  For example, in the chair duet, I push Hugo away.  We then proceed to get up and do round, by, through to show the conflict in the character's heads as they want to stay with each other but also don't get along and argue a lot.  Louis had a lot of ideas so he stepped in for Hugo for a bit.
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03.02.20 - FEST - Ms Trono

WARM UP

We started off the rehearsal with a warm up for our minds.  We were in a group of 2 and 3.  I was in the group of 3 so we had to go round and count up to 4 so each time we would say a different number.  We had to concentrate and try be as quick as possible.  After mastering that, we replaced the numbers with actions.  I became more difficult but very fun.

RUN THROUGH

We tried to do a run through but it was very difficult due to the lack of people.  It didn't really go to plan and we all got frustrated and had a lack of motivation.

IMPROVISATION

We then decided to try improvise some scenes.  These were mainly based on the characters Harry and Charles.  The first objective that Tristan had was to plant seeds of doubt in Louis' mind.  This didn't end up working so they changed the objective.  The new objective was that Tristan would try to get Louis to be like how he used to be and drink beer but Louis' objective was to not drink beer.  They then decided to include drinking a shot which looked quite good.  The part about Tristan planting seeds wasn't really working so Louis decided to quickly play Charles instead of Harry to give Tristan some ideas for the piece.  We then came to the conclusion that Louis and Tristan need to script the scene of them in the bar, Silvana and I to script the yoga scene and Amelie to write a monologue about her doubts.

YOGA SCRIPT

*Doing yoga whilst boys are doing their scene*
Marie - Wow what a great class
Jane - Yeah... so Meredith, how's it going-
Marie - With Harry? It seems pretty serious
Meredith - I guess... I mean it's nothing special
Jane - Oh right...
*Jane and Marie look at each other confused*
Marie - Anyway... Love that ring you've got there
Meredith - Yeah it's 100% vegan and made from reeds of hemp when I was in the Himalayan mountains, truly connecting with myself.
Jane - Wow I'm more of the diamond type but to each their own
Meredith - Diamonds?? So tacky
*Jane and Marie look confused again and long silence*
Marie - Could I try it on?
Meredith - Why?
Marie - Oh I've been meaning to buy myself one of those. Save the environment and all hahahah.  I just don't know what size to get.
Meredith - I made this one myself.
Marie - Oh right...
Jane - Yeah I agree with Marie, but I don't know if hemp is really my colour, do you mind? *clearly looking at ring*
Meredith - Sure... I guess
Jane - Mmmm.. I don't think it suits me.
Meredith - Yeah I knew it wouldn't. See I have a calm blue aura so green compliments it, but you... one minute, let me check.  You have a violent orange aura so it clashes.
Jane - Oh okay never mind.  You're right, okay see you next week.
Marie - *whispers* We're coming next week?!?!?

27.01.20 - FEST - Ms Trono

MAIN REHEARSAL VIDEO
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WARM UP
For our warm-up we spent some time playing Zip Zap Boing to get our bodies moving and to put us in the right mindset.  This gave us a lot of energy and set the tone for the rest of the rehearsal which was good.

OPENING CHOREOGRAPHY
We continued to practice our opening choreography and refresh our memories.  We then performed it and I think it went quite well.

FIRST MONOLOGUE
We decided as a group that it would be best to have James' character to be the first to speak.  He, as the bar tender, is pretty much the middle of all the action so I think having him open it would be most effective.  We also thought that it would be quite interesting to include some physical theatre around him whilst he is talking, which he could also be involved in.  We got this inspiration from DV8 doing Enter Achilles.
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James was having a hard time doing improvisation for this monologue so we hot seated him to help him think of subjects to talk about.  I think this has helped him, and the rest of us, enough to be able to write a monologue for James' character.
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22.01.20 - FEST - Mrs Williams

LOYALTY CHOREOGRAPHY

In this rehearsal, we tried to combine the poems we had from the previous lesson as stimuli to create more for our loyalty choreography.  I think the movement and poem helped give more context but if we were to use it, we'd need more direction because it needed to show some more emotion.

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Louis, James and Tristan.

• I liked their chair duet because it seemed effortless and I liked how fast and smooth it was.
• The movements in their chair duet were good.
• I liked how they intertwined their characters in the piece.

Hugo and Seth

• Their lift was controlled and smooth.

Emma, Silvana and Amelie

• The puppet section was creative and effective.
• The poem worked well within the piece.
• We showed a good storyline.
• We used different frantic assembly methods.

WHAT IF?

What if we intertwined our groups?
What if we had more than one storyline?
What if we include a monologue in the choreography?
What if we used the puppet movement to show Louis and Amelie's controlling relationship?

DEVISING NOTES

We took some inspiration by looking at different pieces of art by Damien Hurst and Tracy Emin, including Bedroom.  The idea of art being totally subjective is a great place to start a piece.  We used the piece Bedroom to create a short piece of theatre which lead up to the bedroom looking like the piece of art.


LOYALTY CHOREOGRAPHY

We spent some more time on our choreography with the poem but wanted to make it fit with our piece and the characters within our piece so we switched Amelie with Silvana and James took Silvana's place.  This shows the dynamics between James and I fighting over Silvana's attention.
After that, we created the potential opening scene with different Frantic Assembly methods.  We were in pairs to show the more dominant relationships between the characters.  The couples are, in order, Seth and Tristan, Silvana and James, Emma and Hugo, Amelie and Louis.  We each went off in our pairs and created a quick movement sequence with only one starting point which was the running into the scene.  I think we progressed very well and it turned out great.  I also like how we each had a line to incorporate in the movement.  I think the overlapping is really cool as well.
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21.01.20 - FEST - Ms Trono

In today's rehearsal, we used poems as stimuli for our choreography.  There was one poem on an abusive father to his son, one on a relationship and one on someone dying.  We chose the one by ... about someone dying but it was very abstract so we altered it to be more fitting to us which we will carry on in tomorrow's rehearsal. 

20.01.20 - FEST - Ms Trono

In this lesson, we spent a bit of time going over everything we had previously done.  We then rehearsed the loyalty choreography we made from last lesson and performed it to the group.  After that, we discussed the points of which group we liked.

Seth and Hugo

• They made the storyline very clear
• Their clamp lift was smooth

Louis and James

• Their round, by, through was really smooth and effective
• They incorporated the chair duets and lift well

Amelie, Silvana and Emma

• Our hip lift looked very effortless
• The chair duet showed the theme of loyalty

15.01.20 - FEST - Mrs Williams

BRAINSTORM

Loyalty

• standing by someone at all times
• cheating on s/o
• compromising beliefs to defend people you're loyal to
• brand loyalty
• biological family vs the people who actually raised you

IMPROVISATION

Tristan and Emma

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• Silent entrance - showing the desperation
• Narrative enigma
• Shift of emotions from angry to wanting help and advise

Louis, Amelie, James and Hugo

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• Amelie entering 
• Amelie being very controlling - parental controls on phone etc.
• Bar tender character knowing everything
• Relationship between Louis and Amelie's character
• Conflict in Louis - whether to stay in bar or go with Amelie - apparent in walk
• Wedding in the air but it never quite happen
• Possibly the morning of the wedding but doesn't go right.

Seth, Silvana and Hugo

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• Betrayal of trust 
• People finding out
• Misunderstanding - Hugo not knowing and then calming down once understood - shift
• Introduction of Hugo's character

5 POINT PLOT IDEAS

1. Bar scene with Amelie, James, Hugo and Louis
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?
5. All together at house party - find out all know each other

WARM UP

We did some warming up after lunch which we had planned in the previous lesson.  In our pairs we lead a warm up.  It was important to get our bodies warm and moving around as we were doing Frantic Assembly.

Seth and I lead some stretches and also used the song Roxanne by The Police.  Every time it said "Roxanne", the girls had to do a push up and every time it said "red light", the boys had to do a pushup.

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Amelie and Silvana also lead some stretches.

Hugo and Tristan made the group do push ups for 1 minute as well as sit ups for 2 minutes.

Louis and James used the song Love The Way You Lie by Rihanna and Eminem.  When Eminem was rapping, we had to hold a plank position and when Rihanna sang, we would break.

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At the end, we played a hand game where everyone lies on their stomach in a circle facing the middle with their hands in front of them.  Then everyone put their right hand over the left hand of the person to their right.  Then we would go round in a circle and everyone would tap the floor in order of the hands.  It gets very difficult because you think that your hand is next when it isn't.  Whenever someone messed up, they would have to get up and run around the circle before everyone has slapped around the circle.  If they didn't get there in time, they would have to do 10 push ups.

SWINDON 5

We tried a Frantic method from Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.  We started by having all of us walking around in a big figure of 8, trying to weave us together.  Then we added in points where we would change from walking forwards to walking backwards.  We then had Tristan in the middle who's objective was to get our attention but we didn't give it to him.  His next objective was to pick up a book from the ground but the rest of us had the objective of not letting Tristan pick it up.  This could be used in a panicky scene where the person in the centre feels like they can't get a hold of something or they're frustrated.  We also thought that this would be good in a train station, a school hallway and a busy hospital.

LIFTS

We moved on to lifts by Frantic Assembly.  The first lift we looked at was the hip lift.  One person had to have their arm around the other's waist and squat down to get their hip below the other persons.  Then they would take a step and then, with pressure applied to the hip area, would lift the other person up.

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The second lift we looked at was the clipboard lift.  One person had to squat to get their hips lower than the other persons and then the other person would put their arm over their shoulder and clamp it together.

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The last lift we looked at was the one rock lift.  There were two people standing opposite each other and one was squatted down.  Then the other would go up to them and press down on their shoulders and lift one leg up.  Everyone else would then lift the person from underneath.  The person in the air could then let go of the first person's shoulders.

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LOYALTY CHOREOGRAPHY

Using this music as a stimulus, we then had the task to create a piece about loyalty using Frantic Assembly's methods.  We could use the ones from last week as well, such as chair duets and round, by, through.
This is what we've created so far.
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14.01.20 - FEST - Ms Trono

CHARACTERS

David Loth - rich playboy - Hugo
Harry Thomas - office manager for stationary company - Louis
Jeffery Wilkinson - delivery man - Seth
Charles Brown - physiotherapist - Tristan
Frederick Normandy - bar tender - James
Marie Trainor - charity worker - Silvana
Jane Stephens - dental nurse - Emma
Meredith Wood - homeopathic healer - Amelie

CONNECTIONS

Relationships
Jane + David
Meredith + Harry

Siblings
David + Jeffery
Marie + Jane

Ex's
Marie + Frederick - child together

Best Friend
Harry + Charles



SETTING

East London - trendy place
Many different social classes
Frederick runs the local pub - all go there every Friday and Saturday night

EXERCISES

Jane, David, Jeffery, Marie and Frederick

Jane and Marie at bar to see Frederick, David and Jeffery at bar also

Showing relationships between characters
Some conflict between Frederick and David
Obvious it's the first time David and Jane are meeting
Uncomfortable for Marie because she wants what's best for Jane but also wants to stick up for Frederick.

Harry and Meredith

Just moved in and unpacking together

Meredith showing Harry how to meditate
Says to help with anxiety
He follows and believes - shows love for her
Says she's good for him - seems kind of toxic
Unpacking everything for her - toxic
He tries to keep calm and obeys her - doesn't want an argument
Harry trying to make jokes - she seems a bit sensitive

MONOLOGUE

You know, I'm pretty happy with my life.  I've always had a safe, secure and loving upbringing and my family have become my best friends too.  I don't know if that's such a good thing though.  They're all I need so when they're gone I wouldn't know what to do with myself.  I do have David though.  He's the only person not related to me that laughs at my jokes.  He has supported me through thick and thin.  Especially with my long hours at my work.  I don't really have much to complain about.  David has introduced me to his friends who are all super cool but have a lot of opinions on things.  I don't mind that because I have quite a lot of opinions on things too.  It's very exciting being involved in all the different dramas.  I try to be trustworthy within this but I do have a big mouth, one could say.  Hahaha.  Anyway, I should be off to work now.  Bye David, see you later my love.