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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Dealing with Clair

PLOT/THEMES

• Clair, a real estate agent, is helping the couple, Mike and Liz, sell their house.  They ask Clair to accept the first offer.  A perfectly good offer is made, however, then a potential buyer, James, enters the scene and offers a higher bid.  All ethical notions go out of the window and Clair is stuck in the middle of the couple's double dealings and receives too much male attention from both the buyer and seller.

STRUCTURE

• Non-linear - The story wasn't in chronological order from what I saw.  It was quite hard to tell as there appeared to be 2 story-lines, however some points seemed to be as if these 2 story-lines were happening at the same time, like when the Italian girl and the investigator wire up the house to hear all conversations going on in the house.  At the end there was a jump in time from when Clair appears to be dying on the floor to when Mike and Liz get another estate agent to help them sell the house.
• 2 narrative story-lines - What occurs within Mike and Liz's house and the investigator.
• Dramatic irony (audience knows outcome but characters don't) - There are a few lines during Clair's phone call that signify something will happen and then this is anchored by the unwanted male attention from the buyer and seller of the house.  There is also a very poignant part when Liz says to her husband that he would "rape" Clair.  Even though the husband isn't the one to kidnap her or rape her or whatever happens at the end, it still foreshadows events.

SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS

• Clair's phone call - seems to be studied by investigator and foreshadows events later on - also sets mood and tone for play as eerie and ominous.
• The Italian girl's Italy call - find out she's involved in the investigation.
• Mike and James giving Clair too much attention - foreshadows events later on in play.
• James and Clair playing snap - clearly unprofessional and they both know it - finally seems like a tipping point which it is.
• James on the phone - see Clair on the floor barely moving - find out what happened to her.

ACTING / MOVEMENT

• The set was a model village with a room behind it and a walkway on top of the room.
• The actors would use the model village space as if it was a room in a house and interact with the model houses as if they were seats, rooms and props.
• The first scene, containing Clair's phone call had interesting movement as it portrayed a passing of time.
• The proxemics of the character revealed a lot without having to explicitly say - for example, James and Mike would get very close to Clair indicating their interest in her.

TECHNICAL DESIGN

• As I said before, they had a model village which they used as if it was furniture and seats etc in a house.  
• The stairs to the bridge were used as part of the house and underneath that was the investigators room.
• There were also model trains behind the wall upstage to signify Clair's house by the railway. 
• Most of the time there was quite a plain white lighting, however, right before the very end, all the lights went off and there were people in masks with torches on stage and walking around in the audience to make it more interactive. 
• Liz's shoes were set in a parking lot of the model village as if they were parked there but she changed her footwear when getting changed for James to come over.  Clair wore 3 outfits, a towel, blazer and skirt and blazer with trousers.  The investigator wore a plumber's outfit as a disguise to get into the house.