It took us a while to think of a stable idea to do for the show.
Our first idea was a mafia.
This idea f the mafia soon changed to it all being based around the Berlin Wall and family.
We got the idea of the Berlin Wall when we found out our song "Heroes"-(written by David Bowie) was written in Berlin, around the time the wall was up-(1977).

The reason why we changed our original idea was because we wanted our performance to be based on the song and we thought it would have been good to have history in our piece to give it more depth and to make it more meaningful.

Our biggest problem was that we didn't do enough research, so therefore it didn't look like we were living in East Germany in 1977.
If we did more research then we could have given off more of an 1977 East Berlin vibe to the audience which potentially could have made the audience empathise with us while we were on stage.

  

Assignment/blog

"The Berlin Wall"


My performance was called "The Berlin Wall", and it was about the Berlin wall and how it affected family's live. Our performance zooms into a young woman's life, who lives in Berlin in 1977. Her brother gets sent away on National Service to go and guard the wall and she doesn't want him too, because she doesn't want to take responsibility for her ill mother.

In my performance, there were areas that I think worked well, and others I think needed improving.
For example, one of the ways we could have improved it is by doing a lot more research into how people lived, what they did, what were the people's lifestyles like, and so on.
If we did even more research, our piece would have been more historically correct. If it was more accurate, then we could have used our acting skills better to perform our characters, because we would have known more about the way the lived.

However, a thing that did work well in our performance was when Aundréa-(Harry), shouted at the top of his voice, telling Nancy-(Izzy) to "Get the f**k down" off the wall. I think this worked well, because he had a lot of emotion in his voice. The main emotion I could hear was fear, because he was scared of shooting a civilian. He also had anger in his voice, which shows he's getting annoyed because he doesn't want to shoot, but he's going to have too.

In the blackouts we made the stupid mistake of not turning the torch off, so the audience could still see what we were doing. We could have stopped this from happening if we used our common sense and turned the torch off.

When mine and Izzy's character's have their argument in the third scene, we kept it very naturalistic so it was believable to the audience. We worked on keeping naturalistic in rehearsals. Nearly every lesson we'd ask Harry for feedback and ask him how we could improve it. We wanted to keep the scene naturalistic because we didn't want to go overboard with the shouting and look like idiots on stage, so we tried keeping it civilized. Not only that, by doing this it allows the audience to actually think about what the argument is about instead of just watching two people shouting at one another on stage.  

I think we all used the projection in our voices well, because when we watched the videos back of our performances, my group and I could hear ourselves loud and clear.

We also used the space of the stage well, because we were never huddled all in one corner or all in the middle we were all spread out on stage and we were constantly moving.
We worked on this in rehearsals a lot, because at first we wasn't very sure on what to do with ourselves on stage, so we asked a teacher and after him asking us questions about our characters we then knew what to do, which made us move around the stage.

The two lifts we did should have looked more clean. Because when we lifted Nancy-(Izzy), I think it looked a bit messy and not very choreographed. So I think if we spent more time on the lift we could have thought of a better/easier way of lifting her so it looked a lot more smooth.

Overall I think my performance went well, but if we did more research and fixed the minor, silly mistakes we did it would have went better.

1. What did you do today?

Today my group and I rehearsed our buts off and were deciding what each of our characters are going to wear for our performance.
We were also discussing what tech stuff we want doing- aka lighting, sounds.

From rehearsing today we managed to give Jade, our newly recruited group member, a proper character- with meaning.
We managed to get her into Izzy's and I's scene and also into the main gun shot scene.

We also got our props. We have a torch, a suitcase, pillow, toothbrush and a stick which will replicate Harry's gun.

1. Two major outcomes from rehearsals;

The first outcome from today's rehearsals was sorting out all of the scenes.
Because where I wasn't at college on the Friday, I missed the new scene that was created with me in it and I also didn't understand which scene came first, second, third and last.

So the first main outcome was that I learnt all of the scenes in the day, but we were then working on them and trying to improve them.

The second outcome from today was we also managed to do a safe lift for when we pick Izzy up for when she gets to the top of the Berlin Wall.

2. How did you come up with those outcomes?

Well, the first outcome was because I was in class and I was prepared to learn the scenes and understand all of them.

We came up with the next outcome-(picking Izzy up in a safe/stylized manner), because it didn't look right when Georgina and I crouched down, so we ditched that ide and we asked Sui if she had any ideas and she showed us a stylized way of picking Izzy up which was also safe.

3. How are you using...

- Song Lyric/Research?

Technically, w aren't using the actual song itself. We're using the research we got from song to give us inspiration.
We're setting a performance in the place the song was written-(Berlin- Germany),
the year the song was written in-(1977).
So we're really using some of the research we did on the song.

4. How are you applying acting techniques?

1. What worked in your performance and why?

One of the main things that work in our performance in the year it was set in-(1977).
The year it is set in has a lot of importance to our performance as it's set in Berlin in that time.
In Berlin in 1977, obviously the Berlin Wall was up and East and West Berlin were split into two.

Another thing that worked in our performance was when Izzy and Harry were in the first scene and they had a really long, awkward silence.
I also found that it was very affective because it shows the type of relationship the brother and sister have.


2. What you want to work on more?
-Any ideas for that work?

I want to work on mine, Izzy's and Jade's scene. As we're still unsure on what to say and what to do while onstage.
Also because when we are onstage, when we don't know what to say or do we just use unnecessary language-(swearing) just to accumulate time.

1. What was your group's feedback?

My group got many criticisms. For example;
-It was too choppy, meaning it didn't flow fluently,
-Too much swearing,
-We need to know what to say to each other,
-Stand in character.


2. What do you want to work on? Give suggestions on what you will do.

The main thing my group and I need to work on is mine, Izzy's and Jade's scene. Because it doesn't run fluently, also we keep on freezing and not knowing what to do/say on stage.
To improve this scene we're going to keep on rehearsing it and think of what we think our characters would be doing. What I mean by this is we though about what our individuals characters are like, for me we decided that my character; Sarah, is a responsible, caring, hard working person which nicely contrasts with Izzy's character; Nancy.
I would also like to work the fluency of the piece, so it seems more natural.

What I personally need to work on is standing and walking in character because at the moment I'm still doing all of my characterisations in the way that I walk and stand, and I just need to remember to stay in character at all times on stage.

1. Describe the exercise; Just Be

The exercise "Just Be" sounds like a really simple and easy exercise.
All you need to do is stand in front of a group of people-(preferably in neutral) and just make eye contact with people, and just be there.
However, even though it sounds like an easy exercise to do, it isn't. For me, I found it particularly hard because I felt awkward not doing anything and people just staring at me doing nothing. I felt like I should have been performing something, or doing something for people to watch, but I had to just be. So for me, I found it hard.

2. How can you apply any of today's exercises to your scene?

  I think you could actually use the game "Just Be" in a performance, because I think it's such a powerful thing to do, as you're standing there, just being there. And when you catch eye contact with the audience it will make it even more powerful as you aren't afraid to just be.

As my group and I were not rehearsing on Friday because we were still thinking of idea, we didn't take any pictures. But then we came up with a few ideas for our performance.

-One of the ideas being that Izzy was walking up and down beside The Berlin Wall. Then Georgina and myself ask her what she is doing, before long somehow Izzy manages to talk Georgina and me into giving her a boost so she can get over the wall, to be with her family. However, when she gets to the top of the wall, someone shoots her-(Harry, who plays Izzy's brother), as he pulls the trigger, he then recognises Izzy and has a flash back, before the wall was built- before they got split apart.

1) How did you come up that idea?

We came up with this idea by using some of our research we looked up. We thought of setting it all about The Berlin Wall, as the song we were given ("Heroes" by David Bowie) was written in Berlin in 1977. Overall, the song is about love, about two lovers, but instead of having two intimate lovers in our piece, my group and I decided to change the lovers into a brother and sister. We did this because then they have a longer history with each other, and they share the same DNA, so therefore when Harry shoots Izzy it will have more of a harder impact on the audience. Because it would be hard enough for any sane man to shoot someone, then for that someone to be a relative... It should be impossible to shoot them.

2) How does it link back to your song?

Our performance isn't completely based on our song. What we've done is find out some background information about the song (aka, where it was set, when it was set, who was it about, where was it written etc).
Anyway, our performance links back to the song with where the song was written-(Berlin) and when it was written-(1977).
With the information we thought would come in handy, we managed to come up with a very stable plot for our performance.

3) What is the next thing you want to work on next?

The next thing I would like to work next is choreograph each of the scenes and sort out who's going where at what exact time. Also, I would like to work on the group's dialogue because none of us know what to say ever.

1) What are the main feeling you tried to express?

I am expressing; violence, love and hope.
Because they are the main feelings that shone out in the song.
"And we kissed", "'Cause we're lovers"- this showed the love in the song.
"We can beat them"- this shows the violent edge to the song as it is saying nothing can get in their way.
"I will be king"- this shows that he is hopeful/determined to become king, even though we know he can't be king.

2) 1 idea for what you would like to do in the scene.

One of the things I would like to do in a scene would to have a killing-(violence) and have the person struggling for survival, and the person's loved ones to be hoping for them to stay alive.

1) How can we improve what we did in class?

One of the main things we need to improve on in class is the involvement of other, as a few people in our group aren't doing very much.
We can improve this by giving them more dialogue and more places to be on stage, so they're constantly doing something.

Another thing we need to do to improve our piece that we did in class is by our facts right. Because at the moment our facts were not entirely accurate, so to improve on that we're all going to be doing a lot of research on the Berlin Wall in 1977.

2) What more research do we need?

As I said in the in the answer above, my group and I all need to research The Berlin Wall in 1977.

But we also need to research why people wanted to escape to East Berlin.
Also, of course, why the Berlin Wall was built.
We also need to find out more about how it was so hard-(near on impossible) to get over the wall. What was stopping civilians getting over the wall?
We also need to know what the wall did to people's lives, and how it affected the soldiers/guards mentally.

3) How can we use what we learned from today's lesson exercises?