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. 

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.

05.02.20 - FEST - Mrs Williams

WARM UP

We did a massive warm up with the another year group.  We started off by doing the game samurai which is about concentration.  The class splits into two groups and there is a leader for each group.  The leader then does a movement which the other team has to reply with another movement that correlates.  If the leader punches, the other team must cross their arms.  If the leader kicks, the other team must jump.  If the leader claps, the other team has to spin.  If the leader moves their arm either way, the other team must move in the direction of his arm.  If the leader puts his hand up, the other team must squat.  We then did another warm up which was to move around the space until the teacher said something and then we did what they said.  When the teacher said to clear the space, we had to run to the closest wall.  If they said opposite, we would have to sprint to the other wall.  If they said shell, we had to curl into a ball on the floor.  If they said sprawl, we had to have 3 points of contact on the floor.  If they said neutral, we had to stand in a neutral position and if they said favourite we had to point to a specific point in the room.  Then the teacher played Bohemian Rhapsody and we had to sing throughout the activities.  It warmed us all up and motivated us.

PLOT POINTS

Louis gave us some more plot points which were very useful and gave us a great place to start from when creating the other story lines.  He created a story for Silvana, Seth, Hugo and my characters.  Some of the points he thought of were that Hugo and I are in a relationship but Hugo spends all of our rent money on clothes etc. and then we get evicted so he tries to get us to live with his brother but my character and his brother don't get along at all so I say that I don't want to live with him.  I then go and live with my sister and then when we're more stable I want to get another apartment with Hugo but he's more interested in the rich life with his brother.  We then break up and then I realise how great life is being single and then Hugo wants me back.  We then both realise that we're better off without each other.

IMPROVISATION

We tried to do an improvisation of the bar scene like our Party Quirks exercise in the improvisation unit.  This was to show us going in a bar and meeting some of the people.  We each had objectives for our characters.  My objective was to somehow portray that I had slept with the barman who was Silvana's ex.  I found it quite difficult to show it without straight up saying it.  We then decided to dissect this scene into two different ones as there were too many conversations going on at once.  One of the scenes was focused on my character and her sister Silvana and the bartender.  Silvana and I already knew our objective but James didn't so we tried to show him through the scene.  I started off quite slow but then figured out ways to portray it in a comedic way.  The second scene was Tristan, Louis and Amelie.  Tristan's objective was to get in between Louis and Amelie.  Yet again it was quite slow to begin with but then they came up with some great ideas.  We then improvised some more scenes related to Louis' ideas about Jane and David.  We improvised the scene between Jane and David (played by Louis today because Hugo wasn't here) about when he tells her that they're getting evicted.  After a couple of tries with different ideas, this turned out quite well.  We then did the scene between Jane and Marie which went well so we decided it would be best to script it, and then the final discussion between David and Jeffery.  We thought that it would be best to keep these scenes quite short as there is no need to waste time just to get an easy message across.

SCRIPT

Jane and Marie discussion

*Jane and Marie sitting down*
Jane - Ugh! David!
Marie - What's he done this time?
Jane - Blown all our money.
Marie - *Gasps* On what?
Jane - Clothes and shoes.
Marie - He's so stupid.
Jane - But guess what's even better?
Marie - What?
Jane - He couldn't pay our rent and now we're evicted.
Marie - I told you he was bad news.  Why do you never listen to me?  Didn't I tell you?  Huh?  I'm always right and you never listen.
*Silence*
Marie - So where are you planning on living then?
Jane - Yours?

WARM UP

For our afternoon warm up, we did something quite similar to this morning with the teacher giving us instructions but this time, when "favourite" was called, we had to point at James and he had to face the audience in neutral.  Then pointing just went to looking at him.  We did this with a few other people as well to see which looked most powerful.  I think that it looked most powerful with James.  We also did a game where we all held hands and one person stood in the middle of this circle and then one person on the outside had to try touch the person on the inside but the people holding hands had to try protect that person.

FREEZE FRAMES

We then did some freeze frames.  The first one was of the bar scene which everyone was involved in.  The other freeze frames didn't involve everyone so the other people just pointed at the scene.  Then we made another set of freeze frames for the second plot line in which the first freeze frame was the same.  We then tried to come up with a third plot line / freeze frames for the barman.

RUN THROUGH

We then did a run through which was difficult for my character as Hugo wasn't here so I did the movements at the start by myself.  The rest of it went well and it was helpful to see where we were at.

IMPROVISATION

We did some improvisation for the scenes involving Frederick, Charles, Meredith and Harry.  The rest of us did some script writing and compiled it all in one word document.

29.01.20 - FEST - Mrs Williams

POINT PLOT / STORY LINE

• Physical Theatre Prologue (feat. Monologue from James)
• Exploring relationships with characters
• Overhears customers
• Louis and Amelie on stage together - they already live together and are planning the wedding
• Harry loves Meredith
• Meredith is a control freak and gets a kick out of controlling
• Charles wants to split Harry and Meredith because he's in love with her
• Charles tells Harry a lie that Meredith has been seen with the bar man
• Fight between Harry and Frederick 

Little things that pick at Harry

• Harry smells Meredith's perfume on Frederick 
• Phone gets left behind and receives message from Frederick
• Harry finds a piece of clothing that isn't his
• Left phone behind when she's gone to yoga, yoga teacher texts asking when she will get there
• Getting a message from a nickname / unisex name
• Leaving phone behind - message from Frederick saying 'you left your bag here' when she was at the bar with Harry
• Meredith goes to bar and bar tender pours drink and says something a bit flirty or personal which Harry doesn't like
• Charles introduced Meredith to Harry and Harry was supposed to be the wingman to Charles but just stole Meredith
• Harry at bar, notification on Frederick's phone of 'M' - Harry thinks it's Meredith but it's Marie

5 Points

• Wedding planning
• The lies
• The fight
• Harry being left alone
• They separate and find their loyalties lie within themselves

More Detail

• All characters introduced
• All relationships introduced
• All relationships shown through the wedding planner (guest list, best man etc.)
• Dinner party announcement of engagement
• Charles tells Harry about little rumour
• Series of lies in physical theatre
• Spying on Meredith
• Gradually gets more and more convinced
• Conflict
• Wedding cancelled
• Harry being left alone

WHAT WE WILL DO NOW

Do point 5 last because it's a result of everything else that happens.

Makes more sense to start with point 1

Split into groups

Louis, Tristan and Amelie (James scribes)

Emma, Silvana, Hugo and Seth come up with scenarios about the conspiracies to do with Meredith cheating

CONSPIRACIES

• I saw her at the bar with Frederick
• Frederick was giving her free drinks
• They looked all over each other
• He took her to his room
• Instead of going to yoga class, she goes to meet her lover
• She can't keep her legs closed
• Frederick keeps winking at her from across the room
• She actually eats meat
• She's slept with everyone in this town

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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