Auditions for Actors Blog

Introduction

For this blog entry, I will be listing the 3 monologues I have chosen to perform for this assignment, also giving my contextual research and any other background information towards my characterisation in these monologues. The 3 monologues I have chosen/been given to perform are:

• Skin-Lad's monologue from the play 'Road' by Jim Cartwright
• Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" monologue from the play 'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare
• Sam's monologue from the play 'Not Safe for Work' by Emma Hart

I have a bunch of preparation to do for these monologues, ranging from understanding the play as a whole whilst also adding my own characterisation to each of the people that I will be performing as. In order to become more familiar with my character, I will be adding profiles for each of the characters that I will be performing as.

Skin-Lad from 'Road' by Jim Cartwright

I will firstly be talking about my characterisation with Skin-Lad, as I had already done the contextual research for the play and back story/profile for him in the previous year. I will simply list below the information that I had for the character when I was performing in that play: http://sdcperformancens.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/road-by-jim-cartwright-full-blog-entry_60.html

How I've Developed the Monologue for this Assignment (Feedback on the Voice)

My skills as an actor have definitely improved since I had performed this play last year, so much to the point that I have much more confidence and physical presence whilst on stage. With this advantage, I was able to take the character of Skin-Lad to the next level. I felt like that with my recent performance of Skin-Lad that I was able to portray a much more menacing presence. 

When I performed as this character last year for the play 'Road' by Jim Cartwright, I'd been given feedback that I had more characterisation, my voice had much more clarity as well. I'd projected the words quite well also. I feel that it's been much more developed since then through feedback from my voice lecturer. The notes she gave me were:

- Excellent Clarity in the voice.
- My overall diction was good, but was lost a certain points.
- She said it's the best she has seen of the monologue, which makes me very proud to hear.
- My accent was changing throughout the performance, ranging from northern, Scottish, and southern.
- The pace of the piece was excellent, it was very engaging, and dynamic.
- The facial expressions I had, along with how I was using my mouth and eyes to exaggerate words was very good.
- Very strong characterisation.
- There was a little too much pacing going on throughout the monologue, but not too much that it looked out of place.
- She had suggested that if this monologue were to be used for an audition piece, that it should be cut down considerably or to speed up the first part of the monologue.
- Lewis had also given me the note that it had definitely improved a lot since the previous time I properly did it, there is much more confidence to be seen from me.

Self Evaluation on this Monologue when Performed for Assessment

When it came to the assessment, I had performed this monologue first. At first I can admit I was a bit nervous, but who wouldn't be in this scenario! But I feel that once I got going and was fully into character for Skin-Lad that the nerves quickly faded away. I feel like that I had performed this monologue on-par with how I'd performed it to my voice lecturer. I have done this monologue so much that it's kind of muscle memory with me performing it, meaning that I have a low chance of doing it differently.

I treat this monologue like it's a brother to me, I take care of how I perform it, I don't rush at all, I'm fully embodied into the character of Skin-Lad. Each time I perform this monologue, my confidence and sense of character increases ever so that it has now been received as a very effective and strongly dramatic audition piece.

The only problem I had when performing this monologue to only my tutor and her friend was that I didn't have a larger audience. I feel that, like with every performance I do, if there's a large audience I do actually have more confidence in myself and perform the role better than if there isn't an audience. Since me and others had been told to not look directly at our tutor and friend during the performances, it gave me a challenge to encounter whilst performing. I was pretty much performing this monologue to nothing but air, and half the time I felt like I was looking downwards at the floor, which isn't very good for an audition piece. Other than this problem alone, I feel that I still performed to the best of my ability and hope to get a good grade, and also some good feedback on the performance.

Hamlet from 'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare

When it comes to William Shakespeare's plays, 'Hamlet' is one of the few that I've never really witnessed. With the "To be, or not, to be" speech being quite famous, I had a challenge to face with this monologue, since I had to get my head wrapped around the play as a whole, and to also understand the character of Hamlet, and what he's really saying to himself in this speech.

A Synopsis of the Story in the play 'Hamlet'

The moral of the story in the play is that Hamlet is severely depressed after the death of his father, and once he's been summoned home, he discovered that his mother is all ready to be remarried. With this cause, Hamlet suspects there to be a bit of foul play occurring. His suspicions are confirmed when the ghost of his father pays him a visit, telling Hamlet that he cant rest easily, as he was murdered. He asks of Hamlet to avenge his death, without the sacrifice of his mother, as the ghost said he'll deal with her itself.

As the play progresses, Hamlet succumbs to madness. He starts to question whether he should trust the ghost. To take advantage of this situation, he performs the play named 'The Murder of Gonzago'. Within the plot of the play, Hamlet adds in extra scenes which depicts the same death which his father had. Hamlet then simply renamed the play to be called 'The Mousetrap'. This plan does come to a success, and Hamlet finds out who the murderer of his father is. He discovers it to be Claudius, whom goes off stage in a less than enthusiastic state. In Hamlet's state of avenging his father by killing Claudius, he also kills six other people, being many family members around him.

After this cause, Laertes plots with Claudius to kill Hamlet with a poisoned sword. A massive fencing duel takes place, ending with Hamlet picking up the poisoned sword, after already being slashed by it, and killing Laertes. In his last words, he tells Hamlet of the poisoned sword, and that he too shall fall the same way as him. Gertrude, Hamlets mother, believing that Hamlet had full won the fencing match, drinks a toast of poisoned wine, meant for Hamlet, later resulting in her death. Enraged, Hamlet quickly dispatches of Claudius with the poisoned sword, and downs the last of the poisoned wine, killing himself. Before his death, Hamlet announces the next true heir to the throne. The play ends with the now new king arranging a funeral of honour for the now slain Hamlet.

How I've Developed the Monologue for this Assignment (Feedback on the Voice)

The monologue that I have chosen to perform from this play is the infamous 'To be, or not to be' speech delivered by Hamlet. I had quite a few famous shoes to fill by performing this monologue. At the first stage of development for this monologue, I started out by watching how many other famous actors had performed this same monologue. Specifically, I looked upon the performances of David Tennant, Adrian Lestor, and Kenneth Branagh.

After watching these three actors perform this monologue, I soon discovered that Kenneth Branagh's delivery of it was much more light hearted and quick paced when compared to the other two. out of the three, David Tennant performs the monologue at the slowest pace. Adrian Lestor is kind of slow as well on the delivery of his lines, but I feel he added much more emotion through his facial expressions and his voice. Kenneth Branagh's performance is much more diverse when compared to the other two actors, as he truly looks like this mad man which Hamlet is depicted to be, whereas David Tennant and Adrian Lestor are much more depressed.

Not to say that I didn't like how David and Adrian had performed their monologue, they are two very good stage and TV actors, but it's just how Kenneth Branagh had interpreted the monologue which I preferred the most. With this, I took inspiration from how Kenneth had performed the monologue, but I also gained a few bits of inspiration from David and Adrian, resulting in how I performed the monologue to be depressing to begin with, but then adding slight moments of exaggeration, particularly mid-way through the monologue, when Hamlet says "To die, to sleep-To sleep, perchance to dream". From this point on, the monologue becomes much more fast paced as Hamlet lists, "the pangs of despised love, the laws delay, the insolence of office,the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?" With this part of the monologue, I implemented the speed up of piece to not make it drag as much as how David Tennant had performed it, plus the quick execution of the lines, alongside good clarity, diction, and articulation just makes it sound more effective to me in terms of using my voice.

When performing this monologue to others for feedback, they find it to be performed very well. My voice is very clear  and articulate. The way that used the P's for words like "Pangs, Spurns, and Patient" made it come across as a very effective piece. Whilst performing the monologue, however, it looked as though I was really trying to restrict myself from moving, thus resulting in me standing in one stance for the entire run through of it. I wasn't necessarily trying to restrict myself from moving in this monologue, but I wanted to take a risk of trying to perform this monologue whilst not moving from the beginning spot. I would still perform physical movements, via gestures, but I wouldn't physically move myself around the stage, I would stay in the exact same spot from start to finish.

Self Evaluation on this Monologue when Performed for Assessment

Much like Skin-Lad, I had performed this monologue to the best of my ability, as any actor in an audition scenario would do. Although my tutor compliments my skills in performing Shakespeare, I did indeed have a hard time thinking of how to perform this particular monologue.

I kept thinking throughout the audition that I was going to keep being compared to famous actors whom have also performed the piece, and I think this resulted in me not performing as well as I could have. Following this up, my tutor found this monologue to be the worst one performed out of the three I did. So, after taking this information and analysing what she had told me thereafter, it made me agree with the statement that I've stated.

Given the chance, I would like to perform the monologue again, to show how I could really perform it, without thinking of being compared, but seeing as I got a distinction for the assessment with flying colours, I guess that leaves me with the option to not perform it again, as I've already achieved the highest possible grade.

Sam from 'Not Safe For Work' by Emma Hart

When compared to the other two monologues I had to rehearse for this assessment, this one was the most emotional. I loved the contrast between the three monologues, with Skin-Lad it's quite mental, faced paced, and almost scary to watch, but also to perform since it's so much different than my own persona. Then I would perform Hamlets speech, which can be perceived as depressing and almost succumbing to madness, contemplating life itself in a way. And then I would perform this monologue, in which the character I'm performing as, Sam, would talk about this girl that he's desperately in love with, sharing with his work collogue the stories they had whilst being together and that he misses her. Analysing these monologues this way made them ever more fun to play and rehearse with, thus resulting in me trying much more things within all three, taking very big risks in some areas, to make these monologues the best that I can possibly make them to hopefully impress my tutor in an audition scenario.

How I've Developed the Monologue for this Assignment (Feedback on the Voice)

When rehearsing for this monologue, I took full advantage of the words within, adding as much emotion as I could, seeing as the other two monologues were quite mental and depressing, I made this one with tones of happiness mixed with sadness. Doing it this way would hopefully show how much I can diverse myself as an actor in an audition scenario, which is a very good thing if done correctly.

For the beginning of the monologue, when I'm speaking to Miranda, my co-worker in the office they both work in, I started with the tone of sadness within my voice, I wanted to really show how much Sam misses his girlfriend by using just my voice to start off with and then going into a crying state. This would then be followed up by moments of happiness, using thought-tracking to remember what Sam liked about this girl - "I think she's my soul mate. Stupid things, like, I love the way she eats... the way she eats is so...(added moment of remembering how she eats) and she's funny, she's beautiful.... and...Brave". I feel that by adding this acting technique that I can really perform this monologue much different to the other two, hopefully resulting in a higher grade, as I would show that contrast between the monologues.

Skipping to the bit mentioning when Sam and his girlfriend are on the tube, I would add moments of laughter and excitement to help look like I'm reliving that moment again, along with exaggerating some lines like "and she's just so fearless(exaggerated line), you know?". Doing this would show how much Sam really idolised this girl, and expanding his feelings ever more so on why he misses her so much. I continued to do this with a few other moments in the monologues until its quite emotional ending "I just...really....love her."

When performing this monologue to others before the assessment, after performing the other two monologues beforehand, they really noticed and were really impressed by how my contrast of character had changed completely, making my confidence for the real thing increase more so since this what I had originally planned to do with my monologues. By performing it in the order of Skin-lad, Hamlet, and then Sam, it would show how I can show my skills as an actor. they said that they could really detect the tones within my voice throughout, and they also thought that the moments of thought-tracking and pauses especially throughout the piece made it very dramatically emotional to watch. They most importantly believed me when saying that I missed this girl.

Self Evaluation on this Monologue when Performed for Assessment

After performing this monologue, I thought it was the best I had ever performed it. For some odd reason, I couldn't get the last few lines in my head throughout the whole of the rehearsal stage, the wording just didn't really work for me. But in the assessment, I actually said these lines word for word, which is what I'm quite impressed by. I had followed my tutors notes completely as to what to do for this monologue to heart and I feel that it came out to be a very effective audition piece.

I would be confident in saying that the level of execution for this monologue is on par with Skin-Lad. When putting the two side by side, they are indeed much different characters, and I feel that by having this contrast, that it would make a good impression on the panel, which it did. These two monologues were the best received by my tutor and her friend, and ex teacher of the college. They were so impressed by my skills as an actor that my tutor said to me personally and with the whole group in the room that I was the most impressive performing, which left me feeling very proud of myself and increasing the confidence of myself.

To follow this up, I am very happy with how this monologue was received, and I've been advised that if I was to audition for something in the future, I should definitely use either Skin-Lad or Sams monologue for a near definite chance to succeed.

'The Man of Mode' by George Etherege

Introduction to 'The Man of Mode'

 

For our final performance of the year at South Downs College, we will be performing a restoration styled play named 'The Man of Mode, or, Sir Fopling Flutter'. This play is of the comedy/drama genre and was written by George Etherege in 1676. The play is set in the Georgian period, and follows along with the story of a man called Dorimant as he tries to win the love of Harriet, whilst also disengaging himself away from an affair he had with Mrs. Loveit.

Initial Movement Workshop

Bows and Courtesy's

To start off this new era of performance rehearsals, we all needed to get our minds set into how the people of the Georgian era would have walked and greeted each other, whilst also understanding how they would've interacted in conversation.

To start this off, we learnt how both genders of the Era would have bowed to one another. The males would do a slight bend on their back whilst stretching their right leg forward and having their left leg slightly bent behind them. Whereas the females would do a courtesy, which is, in some scenario's, still used in the modern day, deepening on the occasion of course. It is also important to note that both sexes would be looking at each other eye to eye whilst executing their bow. For the servants of the main characters, this would slightly change, with them looking down at the floor rather than in their masters eyes as a sign of respect to their ownership.

Sitting/Walking/Posture

The way that both sexes of the Georgian Era would have acted in their everyday lives is much different when compared to modern day society. Nowadays, the general populace have become quite lazy and slouched over in their movements, they don't exactly portray themselves correctly. There are a bunch of exceptions of course, as not everyone is like this, but it's still true to observe. When we look towards the people of the Georgian Era, we can see that they really do care so much more about how they portray themselves to the society around them. At all times, both male and female characters would have correct posture, whether they be sitting down or walking around, their back would be straight, giving correct posture, and they speak over others considered below them.

Improv and Object exercise

As a sort of exercise to go along with our restoration project, and also to go along with an improvisation assignment for after we've finished performing 'Man of Mode', we all had to bring in an 'object' for each of our characters respectively. We would pick an object which we thought suited our own interpretation of our character, add some sort of backstory to it, and present a speech whilst using said object in front of the whole group and a camera to record evidence.

For this exercise, I brought in a flintlock pistol, with the back story that Old Bellair served in all the battles of the English Civil War. This was my idea to support his uprising and stature amongst the other characters featured in the play. I unfortunately didn't have much preparation with the flintlock pistol, as it arrived last minute, but I gave the exercise my best attempt, with a few moments of slurred speech just to think about what to say towards the camera. The trickiest part of this exercise mostly was when I had to answer questions from the audience. It wasn't too stressful that I didn't have a extensive knowledge of what I was saying, but I tried to give some sort of confidence to what I was replying back to them. Even if what I was saying was historically wrong in a way, I still gave my reply as if it was correct.

Overall, I think I did alright in this exercise. I definitely wasn't the best person in the room, but at least I went up on stage and gave it my best attempt. It was complete and fully improvisation after the first 10 seconds of speech, so I'm proud to have made this accomplishment with very limited rehearsal time.

Staging the Prologue

For the prologue featured in the script of 'The Man of Mode', there is a large block of text that needed to be said on stage. We had decided that instead of a main character, such as Dorimant, saying the whole thing, we feature all of the characters featured in the play saying a particular amount of lines. This is called a Choral Speech, and it is mostly used in circumstances like this, where there is a large block of text that needs to be read in order to progress to the main events of the play. By doing it this way also, it gives our audience a good impression of what the tone of the play is going to be, by form of how the actor would say their respective lines.

After learning and doing this first time, it must have been quite an impressive picture to witness for our tutor. To go back and forth between all of the actors, one after the other, and then progress to the next scene.

Adam's Workshop

After a little while of rehearsing the first few scenes of the first act for 'Man of Mode' with our tutor, we then had a workshop session with her husband to get a different perspective of direction. It was in this session that I portrayed my character ideas for Old Bellair. I wanted to portray a fair mix of characteristics from Brian Blessed, for this I spoke quite loudly when saying my lines, and also Matt Berry, by adding some range of humour towards my lines.

I presented this idea to our teacher for the session and he agreed with my decisions, saying that it would be something nice to see on stage every once in a while as there's a lot of drama currently on stage between Old Bellair's scenes. Since I am also playing as a Lady also for this performance, he said that I should try and diverse the same techniques of acting into that character, but obviously make it a little different from how I should act as Old Bellair so both characters aren't the same.

Development of Character and Relationships with other characters

Old Bellair

Since starting 'The Man of Mode', I'd just pictured the character being quite old and wise, just like any other regular old person in real life. That was until I'd done a bit more research into the Era. People who lived in the late 1600's would've died at quite an early-ish age, around 40 to 50 years of age. This implies that the character of Old Bellair is not old at all, not much older than his son, Young Bellair, perhaps. By acquiring this knowledge, it gave me a better understanding of how I could possibly play the character on stage.

Once I had a costume sorted out with Milo, who was to be Old Bellair when I was to act as Lady Woodvill, we experimented with how we would say our lines and also interact with others whilst on stage. I had told Milo of my intentions to act as Old Bellair by mixing Brian Blessed and Matt Berry together, to which he gave me his ideas, which are actually much different than my interpretation of the character entirely.

Here is a funny clip of Brian Blessed on 'Have I got News for you' which I took inspiration from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spS71LKcA3Y

and this is a link to a performance of Matt Berry in a show called 'The I.T Crowd': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oye9AmOdsZc

I really tried to make a combination of these two great actors for Old Bellair, which I hope I achieved in some way. I did find, through the progression of rehearsals and the blocking process that my more exaggerated movements whilst someone else would be speaking was limited, but I made the most effort I could for when it was my time to speak. A particularly scene which was my favourite as Old Bellair is the very first scene he appears in, which is at Lady Townley's house. As Lady Townley is Old Bellairs sister, I wanted to show the chemistry between them on stage with my co-star Sophie. We have a few moments on stage where it looks as though we're both completely mad, which is kind of a sigh of relief for the audience, since they probably don't understand a word any character is saying, and to see two actors on stage go completely mad and start laughing with each other does bring a great comedic moment for the two characters.

I think that me and Milo playing the same character differently is a good idea, as it offers the audience watching the play a second time with a new cast a much different take on the events occurring. It can turn out to be more entertaining, depending on the actor(s) on stage. Everybody in the group has their own take on their own characters, but no two people can play the same character exactly the same, as we're all unique in our own characteristics.

Lady Woodvill

Lady Woodvill was a much more interesting character play when compared to Old Bellair, this may more than likely be because she's a lady and not a man, but it can also be because it's something I've never done before when it comes to acting. By deciding to audition for this character, it presents me with the opportunity to expand my performance skills. To perform as an opposite gender from a completely different Era is a challenge in itself, and I'm not the only lad in the group to take this on, as Lady Woodvill is also double cast.

Both me and Lewis have progressed with Lady Woodvill much differently. I'd noticed he'd taken the role into his own real life characteristics, whilst also adding the slightly heightened tone of voice to sound more 'lady-like'. How I'd worked with Lady Woodvill is much different. I had a conversation with my step mum about the role and if she could recommend any sort of inspiration for the role. This was when she introduced to something called 'Hinge and Bracket', which is, evidently, two guys performing as women in a comedy series from the early 70's to the early 2000's. My voice for Lady Woodvill, as well as how I would kind of act on stage, was inspiration taken from this comedy series.

Here is the clip of Hinge and Bracket that I watched when I first learnt about them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=get7UPCe3I8

As rehearsals progressed, and as I learnt my lines gradually up towards the first showing of 'The Man of Mode', my confidence performing as Lady Woodvill improved a whole bunch to be ready for the main show. It was when I put the full costume and the make-up on that I really became the character, minus the few voice breaks I had on stage.

Audio Analysis (Radio Distinction Grade Re-sub)

Title of Programme: Albert and Me (Radio 4 extra)

Are the sound effects appropriate and do they relate to the piece?

At the beginning of the episode in this series (Series 2, episode 8/8), it starts off in what we can gather is a bowling alley, as by the sound effect at around 50 seconds into the episode where we can hear some pins being hit by a bowling ball, and there's lots of references to something concerning a 'ball'. They relate to the piece as it is part of the episode, and it is definitely easy for an audience listening to decipher where they are.

Does the use of incidental music enhance the programme?

At around the 3 minute mark of the episode, we can hear some music being paced between scenes which, in my opinion, is very reminiscent of the music we can hear throughout episodes in 'The Flintstones' cartoon, where they also place it during the transition of scenes. I feel that it does enhance the programme since it signifies the audience as to when some time has passed in the episode, and that a new scene is happening.

Did the programme hold my interest?

The programme held my interest for two separate reasons. The first reason is that I don't really listen to many radio plays, if any, when compared to watching staged plays, and any that I do come to watch manage to hold my interest because of how well the actors use their voice and obviously the use of sound effects describes where the characters are within a scene. The second reason is that Robert Lindsay is one of my favourite TV actors, and it was really interesting to hear his voice in something other than TV/Film.

How effective is the radio programme?

I think that this radio programme is very effective because of its characters and the way that places in scenes are described. What I mean by this is that we can easily decipher where the characters are in the episode by the use of sound effects. Like previously mentioned, we can discover that the first scene takes place in a bowling alley, but in another scene, after some music has been played to transition to another scene, we can hear a typewriter being used, meaning that the character(s) are in an office of some kind.

What time and channel would be appropriate for this material?

I think that something with this quality would be nice to watch during the evening after you've finished work and laying in a nice hot bath.

The channel that this radio play should be featured on would have to be on a radio specific programme on the television, perhaps a BBC Radio broadcast? Or, just like it was originally broadcasted, put the radio play on Radio 4.

Title of Programme: Star Wars Battlefront Reveal Trailer

Are the sound effects appropriate and do they relate to the trailer?

To see a game trailer capture the cinematic essence of the Star Wars universe is definitely something to reel in audiences without question. The sound effects are more than appropriate as they are very reminiscent, if not, the same used in the movies. They relate because it brings a real sense of atmosphere and I guess realism to the game itself, you feel like you are part of the Star Wars universe.

Does the use of incidental music enhance the trailer?

Much like the sound effects, the music is the one of the better parts of the trailer. It's exactly like the soundtrack from the movie's. I feel that the music used throughout this trailer helps to move it along with the gameplay. Much for the same reason, it helps to enhance the piece since it brings that Star Wars atmosphere to the big screen, but this time, you're in control of the Heroes/Villains actions.

Did the trailer hold my interest?

As a big fan of the Star Wars genre and practically anything related to science fiction, this trailer definitely held my interest the whole way through. One of the most specific reasons I liked this trailer was the action held within it along with the words 'Game Engine Footage'. Since the trailer says this line, I know what to expect by playing this game, and the action that follows thereafter is more than satisfying, and I can speak for all the people who liked this trailer also.

How effective is the trailer?

I feel that the trailer is very effective in its portrayal of the game overall. It lets the fans of Star Wars and the game developers know exactly what they're getting into when buying this game. The fact that they included the words 'Game Engine Footage', along with the sound effects carried over from the movies, and again, along with the little voice acting of the rebel and storm trooper soldiers going along with the fantastic action sequences makes the trailer that much more enjoyable to watch and it ever so increases the audience hype for the game to come out.

Vocal Development Programme Entry 3: 2nd Table of Comparison

Date of Session: Wednesday 10th February 2016

What Exercises did I perform in this Session?

1. "Red Lolly, Yellow Lolly"
2. The Alexander Technique (with Spinal Role at the end to finish)
3. Rolling the tongue around the mouth in a clockwise and anti-clockwise motion for 8,4,2,1 counts
4. Reading through one of my monologue's using the punctuation included in the text.

Vocal Reflection Post-Exercise

Posture

After having performed these exercises, especially the Alexander Technique, my posture for the day did feel a lot better than before the exercises. I felt like I was really standing quite tall, but I was also relaxed in all areas of the body, which tells me that I had performed the exercise correctly.

Doing this with the spinal role at the end did make me feel a bit light headed at first, but after a couple of moments, I returned to normal, feeling relaxed physically. My voice was also affected by doing the Alexander Technique. I'd made note that my voice seemed to come out of my mouth much lighter than before. What I mean by this is that there is less tension on the throat and I guess the mouth whilst speaking. My voice had also slowed down in speech, I guess because I was relaxed and had zero tension following the exercises. This tells me that I should do this exercise more in order to work on one of my vocal weaknesses being Articulation.

Tension Points

Following the exercises I'd done in my two previous recorded sessions on this Vocal Development Programme, I didn't feel any, if at all, much tension whilst performing these exercises. However, there was a point whilst I was performing the Alexander Technique that my leg started to tense up rapidly, causing me to make my leg straight again. I'm not entirely sure what the cause of this was, but it has happened before. Maybe a way to get rid of this is to perform more stretches throughout the day, especially before performing any exercises.

Breath Capacity and the Control/Delivery of the Voice

After finishing the main exercises, I'd performed my Skin-Lad monologue from the Jim Cartwright play called 'Road'. This was to test whether or not these exercises had worked well mainly with articulation and I guess projection since I'm speaking for this monologue. What I'd discovered is truly fascinating. Whilst reading the monologue from the script, I'd noticed, since my voice had slowed due to having performed the Alexander Technique, that I was including much more punctuation within my speech. It's also good to make note that I'd at one point dropped the script entirely to go through line for line since I've already learned the words off by heart, and since my voice had slowed, I'd noticed clearly that the punctuation was coming out of my mouth, and I'd went back to the script to see if it was correct, in which it was.

This tells me that the Alexander Technique is a good exercise to perform if you're trying to include punctuation in your speech, but the other exercises could come into question as well. The "Red Lolly, Yellow Lolly" exercise for example, could be another cause as to why my voice had slowed down, since it's quite hard to go through these words with fast speech, because when I went through at first with my normal voice, which is quite fast paced, I'd noticed I was saying "Red Lolly, Yellow Lorry" instead. I hope that performing this exercise more will counter this, and hopefully I can speed up the tempo in which I say the line without slurring my voice.

Articulation

As I've stated quite a few times in the headers above, my articulation after having performed these exercises did come across as being quite strong. I started to test this more so by not only reading my monologue, but also a couple of books lying around the house. I went though a page or two after having done the exercises to discover that my voice did sound quite articulate, as it should be. To me personally, because of my weakness in articulation, and the fact I don't really read too many books nowadays, I was very surprised and pleased with the end result. This will definitely influence me to perform these exercises more, to see how far I can bring my skills in articulation, hopefully to the point that I'll be able to make Articulation one of the strengths of my vocal traits.

Projection

Along with my articulation improving post exercise, my projection had somewhat gained a kick also. Alongside analyzing the development of my articulation whilst reading the monologue and the books, I was also keeping an ear out for how my voice was coming across in terms of volume without putting too much stress on the voice (shouting).

I'd had my step mum also witness me perform my monologue in front of her to get an extra set of ears, and also another opinion, especially if it's someone else listening to me. She had told me "Your voice is very clear and comes across in a nice enough tempo that I can understand what you're saying. Your voice also has a very good resonance, so those weird exercises I had to see you do obviously worked!"

So as we we can see from my step mum's interesting comment, my voice had definitely improved post exercise. Perhaps for the two weeks that I'll be performing these exercises, I'll make a time to compare a before and after exercise analysis, to see what these exercises really do in terms of affecting my voice's efficiency in both Articulation and Projection.

Areas of Improvement

After completing this first session, I don't think there's really anything that needs much improvement. As I'd stated, I'll do more stretches throughout the day to counter the weird tension I had in my leg during the Alexander Technique so it hopefully doesn't occur again. Something I could also do is to just try and speak much slower whether I've performed the exercises or not throughout the day, to see if it catches on, and also to see if I'll come across as being much more articulate than before.

Date of Session: Wednesday 24th February 2016

Vocal Comparison to Previous Session


Posture

I'd taken the liberty of performing the Alexander Technique after finishing my main physical exercises at the gym, and also before I go to bed in the evening.

For when I finish my gym exercises, performing the Alexander Technique afterwards did make me feel both relaxed and gave me the impression of having a good workout session. I could feel this particularly when I was working on my back muscles on a certain day. Performing the Alexander Technique, and finishing with a spinal role, did make my back feel much straighter than before the Alexander Technique, when I'd finished my gym session. This could only affect my posture from here on out, and walking home from the gym, I could feel like that I was walking quite tall and with a straight back also. I didn't really have the chance to see if this affected my voice in any way, but I would think that it'd have some sort of difference than if I hadn't performed the Alexander Technique that day after my gym session.

Performing this exercise before going to bed obviously made me much more relaxed, thus making me go to sleep quite quickly. I'd noticed that, once it was time for me to wake up, I felt much more energized and ready for the day. This became obvious when it only took me about 10-15 minutes to get myself ready for college, when before, I'd normally take about 30-40 minutes. This has allowed me to have more sleep in the morning before college, so doing this exercise before bed is definitely worth it to have more sleep.


Tension Points

As I had made note from the last recorded session, I did have a certain moment with my leg tensing up during the Alexander Technique. Since then, I have performed much more stretches throughout the day and I've also done some light yoga in order to become a little bit more flexible in my movement. From recent studies of me performing the Alexander Technique, my leg hadn't tensed up at all, in fact, it only happened again for the second time a couple of days ago, but this was after I'd been running that day, so perhaps that was the main cause of why it happened the first time? In any case, I've had these two weeks to perform the Alexander Technique twice a day, once after I was finished at the gym, and again before bed, to see if there's been any sort of improvement, and I feel that I've achieved this.


Breath Capacity and the Control/Delivery of the Voice and Articulation

As I said in my last recorded session, I was going to try and speak at a slower tempo, to see if it catches on, and to also see if I come across as being more articulate than before. Doing this alongside performing the exercises did stir some attention from a couple of people I've had conversations with.

They had noticed that I've done something to affect my own voice, in which I told them what I did, leaving them quite surprised. I do manage to go through more sentences in a much more controlled manner than before, which tells me that this is a good thing for me to keep doing in the future. The people that I spoke with haven't really delved into how to improve their voices, and me telling them what and why I was doing these exercises left them feeling quite uneducated if anything.

One of these people was someone that goes to my gym, and he was wondering why I was doing the Alexander Technique (he didn't know what it was, so he was simply asking me what I was doing). Once I'd told him what it was, he looked quite confused, perhaps because he didn't see the logic behind performing it. So this was when I asked if he'd like to try it, in which he did. I instructed him through what he had to do in order to perform the Alexander Technique correctly, and once finished he said roughly along the lines something like this: "Wow, I do feel a bit light headed from doing that, but I do definitely feel much more relaxed. Before I felt quite tensed up in my arms, but now, they feel quite light. I'm not sure I like the feeling... But I can see why you would choose to do this after your exercises definitely."

So this was definitely an interesting experience to go through, to be able to teach and direct someone about a vocal exercise.

Projection

Through me reading my monologue and a couple of books, I was able to analyze my projection. After two weeks of studies, I've come to the conclusion that my projection wasn't affected too much from doing any of these exercises, but projection is already one of the strongest traits of my voice, so it doesn't really have to be worked on as much as Articulation for example, which is what I've been doing.

What other exercises could possibly improve these areas of the voice? 

In terms of Articulation, any exercise that requires me to go through a piece of text that is kind of difficult to say quickly over and over is the perfect choice. A line like "Through the tip of the tongue, and the teeth and the lips" is a good choice, but I'd already done this phrase in the past so I thought it'd be good to do "Red Lolly, Yellow Lolly" instead.

How are these exercises suitable for improvement of the vocal technique?

They're mainly suitable because it affects how your voice works in everyday life, as I've recorded down in this entry. People do indeed pick up if you've changed something about yourself, whether it be physical or even vocally. They're also suitable because, like with physical exercises, doing vocal exercises can only mean you'll get better progressively over time, thus making your voice stronger and stand out over others.

Why should I keep doing these Exercises? 

Like I said before, if I keep doing these exercises, my voice is only going to get better, which is an essential thing to process when it comes to being a professional actor in the performing arts industry.

Vocal Development Programme Entry 2: 1st Table of Comparison

Date of Session: Wednesday 19th January 2016

What Exercises did I perform in this Session?

1. Holding my breath for 8,4,2,1 counts and breathing out in the same counts.
2. Humming High, Low, and Normal Tones
3. Rubber Chicken

Vocal Reflection Post-Exercise, Including Feedback Received from Session

Before talking about my reflection upon my voice, it's key to take note that I wasn't particularly well during this session, which had a dramatic affect on my performance of the exercises overall. But still giving them to the best of my ability, this is what I picked up from performing the exercises:

Posture

My posture hadn't really changed too much from before, it's still quite straight, but it's not as relaxed, possibly because of the exercises performed, particularly the Rubber Chicken exercise.

Tension Points

Whilst doing the Rubber Chicken exercise, I had discovered that there is tension within my body, particularly in the shoulder, lower neck region.

Breath Capacity and the Control/Delivery of the Voice

My overall breath capacity had made a significant improvement post exercise, allowing me to perform some lines from the radio play we're performing with ease. I had made a note that my overall control of speaking these lines was not much different from when I had spoken them before, but my delivery came across with a heightened tone and, in my teachers ears, sounded "enthusiastic".


Articulation

Although I hadn't performed any articulation exercises, my voice did come across as pronouncing some words, words that have the letter 'T' in particular, with efficiency. Some people in my group had made a comment asking whether I had done some articulation exercises before the radio session, to which my reply was "no".

Projection

Although I don't really shout too often in my radio play, in normal everyday language, my voice did sound louder and also clearer when speaking. As soon as I spoke, I had all eyes on me, which tells me that my voice must of over-empowered most other people's during the conversations we had that day. This could've been because of me performing the humming exercise along with a few others in the group that day.

Areas of Improvement

One area which definitely needs improving is where I hold the tension in my body, which I have evaluated being in my shoulder/lower neck region. To do this, I was thinking of doing some stretches, perhaps yoga, to focus on this area in particular to hopefully release the tension which in turn should have a good outcome on my vocal delivery.

Although my articulation was good for this session, I still feel that I could do with some more work on it, since this area of the voice is, in my own opinion, my weakest trait when it come to evaluating my voice overall.

Date of session: Wednesday 3rd February 2016

Since the last session I had recorded in this blog, I had been performing the 3 sets of exercises 4 times a week for the 2 weeks I had not recorded anything down, to see if there was any, if at all, improvements to my voice after performing these exercises for the 2 weeks.


Vocal Comparison to Previous Session

Unlike last session, I am no longer ill, meaning that I can perform these same exercises with an improved effort.


Posture

Again, my posture hadn't really made any significant changes from post exercises, but these exercises don't work on that particular area.


Tension Points

I had made a note from the previous session that I'd do some more stretches and/or Yoga to help ease the tension in my shoulder/lower neck region. Within the two weeks I've had between recorded sessions, I've been doing quite a bit of yoga alongside my exercises at the gym, and I've noticed a significant improvement in my shoulder/lower neck area overall. When performing the Rubber Chicken, unlike in the last session, I hadn't received any tension at all and felt quite energized after performing the exercise.


Breath Capacity and the Control/Delivery of the Voice

Much like in the last session I'd recorded in this blog, my breath capacity had a significant improvement when comparing both before and after doing the exercises. But what I had noticed is that my voice had slowed down a little bit during normal dialogue to include proper punctuation during my speech, which at first was a bit weird for me as I normally speak quite fast, but I feel that this is a very good thing to achieve from doing these exercises and from doing this assignment.

Articulation

When comparing to the last session I'd recorded, there's not much different about my articulation, mainly because I hadn't done any articulation exercises, but this is an area that I will move onto for the next table of comparison as it definitely need improving.

Projection

Again, much like last sessions evaluation, my projection did sound louder and also clearer whilst I was speaking.

What other exercises could possibly improve these areas of the voice? 

One exercise which Brandon taught me is kind of the same as holding the breath for a certain number of counts, but instead of breathing out in those same counts, you instead blow the breath out in rapid pattern (blow, pause, blow, pause, blow, pause) until you run out of breath. When doing the exercise in this way, I could feel this working more with my diaphragm, which is a key muscle to work on when it comes to improving the voice. This is an exercise which I will definitely keep doing in the future, so I thank Brandon for teaching me this variation of the exercise.

How are these exercises suitable for improvement of the vocal technique?

As I've clearly put in my comparison of the two recorded sessions, we can see that there's been some improvements in some certain areas of my voice, but not all. Perhaps it would've been better if I'd performed an exercise for each area of the voice instead for the most dramatic results.

Why should I keep doing these Exercises?

Overall, these exercises which I'd performed for the last nearly 3 weeks have indeed made a positive outcome on my voice in certain areas, and these are exercises which I'll definitely keep performing to see if there will be more improvements. 

Vocal Development Programme Entry 1: Identifying my Vocal Characteristics

Identifying my Vocal Characteristics

Some of the information that I'll be posting in this entry would be carried over from my Voice and the Actor Assignment 1 - Entry 1: Analysis of the Voice (https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=931375328338557687#editor/target=post;postID=7688149128442167901;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=3;src=link)

I think that I'm very well spoken, I portray a typical British accent. I'm very precise in my wording, I have the ability to enhance my voice with emotion. I have a good command of the English language. My tone is good and my diction is clear. I am quite articulate. I have good posture - which contributes towards my breathing, which originates mainly from my fitness level. My vocal 'colour' is focused. My weakness is articulating the tones of sadness, and upset etc.

I have a habit of, when being chastised, muttering under my own breath comebacks towards what the other person is saying. I speak at a medium pace, but, when placed in a scenario where I'm upset or angry, my pace is accelerated. I think I vary my rhythm, I speak at the same pace as my peers, depending on the situation, circumstance, and topic of conversation. My pitch is strong and precise because of how well I hold myself - due to the fact of my fitness levels, which ensures correct posture. My fitness levels also enables me to breathe correctly, which in turn, ensures me to complete my sentences without sounding rushed and/or short of breath. Where required, I can display dramatic pauses - an example for me, was when I performed the monologue by Skin-Lad in our performance of Jim Cartwright's play named 'Road'.

Unless I'm 100% dedicated to I'm saying, my confidence can falter, leaving my voice quieter and unsure in tone. In articulation, I have a weakness sounding the letter 'r'. I am able to project my own voice depending on the environment of the performance taking place. At times, I can sound monotonous. Because of my current home environment, I have been exposed to a larger vocabulary, more adult interactions, which, in turn, has increased my confidence in front of any audience. Although both of my biological parents are from the north of the UK, I don't in fact possess any of the vocal mannerisms that they would use. I do have a weakness with some accents, a strong example would be the Northern accent in-particular.

Reflecting upon my Voice (Vocal Strengths and Weaknesses)

Posture

Going to the gym and exercising has now become a prominent reason as to why my voice has improved over the course of 2015 to now. One of the things that has definitely improved from doing this is my posture and overall balance of myself. I now hold myself quite upright because of both the strength in my core muscles and my back. This has a positive affect on my voice also, as it allows me to project my voice with ease and efficiency.

Along side this point, I always try to follow what my teachers say when it comes to vocal ability, and also following along with the research I have previously done for the subject. Having good posture is an important thing to have when it comes to improving the voice, it allows you to hold much more air to project your lines/sentences with ease, it gives you much more stage presence as you hold yourself upright with confidence and could also make you more noticeable on stage, and it also puts less restriction on your bodily movements when performing, you don't want to be hunched over when moving your arms for example because it would just look silly, it's much more worthwhile to make the effort of standing up straight and performing to the best of your ability.

Tension Points

The place where I definitely hold tension the most is in the shoulder and/or lower neck area. There are multiple reasons I can come up with as to why this is:

1. Sleeping at a certain angle: When I go to sleep at night, I do have a tendency to position myself in an almost awkward position which just feels comfortable to me to make me eventually drift off. I have been trying recently to sleep with a straight back, but I always shift around during the night to wake up in a random position. For example, just last week I tried this method, to then realizing I woke up in the fetus position. Admittedly, this is a position which I do find quite comfortable, so I'm not entirely surprised of waking up to be like this. Other than how I position myself when sleeping, it could just be me placing my head at a certain angle which causes it to become a bit stiff in the morning afterwards.
2. Lifting heavy weights when exercising: Although this may benefit me in most areas of my vocal, and also physical ability, it does have its drawbacks. I do lift some moderately heavy weights when working out my shoulders. It may be to do with the position I have to place my arms in order to do the exercise that might be bothering my shoulder/lower neck area, hence causing the tension that I get.

Breath Capacity and Control

Here's me using my fitness levels excuse again, but it has really improved my overall air capacity from previous performing experiences/social interactions. I can control the flow of my breath when speaking lines with a decent effort, I say this because of my moderate ability in articulation and pace, I can sometimes speak too fast and mispronounce words. Another reason as to knowing that my breath capacity has improved is because I can hold my breath underwater for a much more extended period of time when compared to a few years ago. It could also be because I have been performing vocal exercises in this area of the voice that may have improved this.

Resonance and Projection

I feel that my voice does have a sense of resonance, since, because it's quite deep, it does come across as vibrating to audience members. I feel that this also compliments my ability in projection. People have told me that my voice can come across as quite soothing when placed in the correct scenario, hence improving my confidence in performance areas.

Diction and Articulation

My diction and articulation does tend to fail me quite a bit when it comes to my vocal ability. I do and know that I mispronounce words, but I feel that it's mainly because of the pace of my voice that does this. If I was to work on vocal exercises to do with the pace of the voice, it may actually come to some benefit for obviously pace, but also in terms of my ability in diction and articulation.

Delivery of a range of different texts or styles/Feedback from peers and/or teachers

Recently, I had performed a monologue in my voice lesson to an audience. The monologue is called 'Life is Hard'. It's just a random monologue which I found on the internet, but I had used this monologue because of its relativity towards my own personal experiences throughout the past 2 years of my life. This is a monologue I hadn't yet learned off by heart, so I had to read it off of my phone, which I felt hindered my ability in performing the monologue. But, regardless of this, I had performed it to the best of my ability as I always do when it comes to doing something like this. My voice teacher had complimented my efforts saying that I had performed it very well, but there were a few problems which needed to be fixed.

1. Am I speaking in the 1st or 3rd person? One of the main things which needed to be pointed out for the delivery of this monologue is whether or not it should be performed in the 1st or 3rd person, or to simply put it, is the character talking to himself or to another person. When I had performed it a second time, this time with me talking to someone, some of the lines where delivered in a different way, but it also had much more meaning behind it when compared to me just talking to the audience, or what might appear as me talking to myself.
2. Pronouncing the letter 'r': One of the main problems which my voice teacher had picked up from my performance was that words with the letter 'r' wasn't being pronounced correctly, the letter was completely overlooked from the word when I had said it.

How will I develop my Voice?

Over the next couple of entry's for this Vocal Development Programme, I shall be exploring these 3 statements in the form of a table of comparison. What I mean by this is that I shall be comparing how my voice performs one week to another doing the same set of exercises to see if I've had any, if at all, significant improvements. Here are the 3 statements:

What other exercises could possibly improve these areas of the voice?

How are these exercises suitable for improvement of the vocal technique?

Why should I keep doing these Exercises?

Solo Audio Performance: Children's Story, Monologue, and ADR

'We're Going on a Bear Hunt!' by Michael Rosen (Children's Story)

I had chosen to perform this children's story for my solo audio performance because it was one of my childhood favorites, and I also hadn't heard it for quite some time so it brought back some memories. Another reason I had chosen to perform it is because it could offer some voice variation, for example, for each section where the script mentions "Uh Oh, a 'something'", I could perform as a different character for each time I get to those bits in the story, whilst the rest would portray a narrative voice, being my normal voice.

To expand upon the voice variation in my performance, I will list all of the characters I'm going to add to my, let's say, interpretation of 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt':

1. Narrative Voice (My Voice)
2. Little Boy Voice (Slightly high pitched, elongated pronunciation of words, speaks slowly)
3. The Mother Voice (very high pitched, with areas being slightly deeper, speaks very fast)
4. The Dad Voice (very low pitched, speaks at a medium tempo)
5. Black Diva Voice (here is an example from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZivBdavi_M)
6. Little Girl Voice (Very high pitched, along the level of the mother, but the tempo is slowed down slightly)
7. Gay Man Voice (here is another example from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlHC1h1Jcws)
8. Bear Growl (low pitched growl, trying to imitate a bear growl, done twice during the chase scene)

My targeted audience for this piece is the ages of 4-8, mainly because of it being a children's story, but also because the voices I do would probably most likely make children laugh. I think this children's story was a good choice for me to perform as there is the possibly of voice variation, the main performance which I'd researched, which features the writers voice as the narrator, didn't perform any vocal variation. So in the end, it makes my performance of his book stand out, and also being unique.

The only problem I had with this piece was actually finding the physical copy of the book. I'd searched countless library's not even finding a single one, which is a bit odd. I did, however, find a copy of it on the internet, which is what I ended up using for the entirety of the assignment. Using it on my phone could also benefit towards my performance, as I wouldn't spend any unnecessary time flipping the pages of the book, which will come up on the microphone.

'Life is Hard' by Unknown (Monologue)

I had chosen to perform this monologue for my solo audio performance because it links to my past experiences in a way, and it is also a much different tone when compared to my children's story, with that being quite happy/excited, to it now being quite sad. I guess another reason as to why I wanted to perform it is because I thought my voice suited the piece in a way, and I also liked how it was kind of a mix of a monologue and a poem, especially towards the end of the piece when I say this line: "Everybody wants to be happy. Nobody wants to be in pain. But you can't have a rainbow without any rain."

When performing this piece, I will not be offering any voice variation. The only thing I will be doing with my voice is possibly some areas of emphasis, and also changing the tone of my voice at times so it all doesn't stay monotone.

My target audience for this piece would be the ages of 18+, mainly because, when you reach the age of 18, you should have some sort of maturity to the way you act, and you should also be able to take things in with the appropriate manner and not joke about it. This goes the same for anyone over the age of 18, so I think this target audience is best suited for this piece in particular.

The only problem I had with this monologue is that, when I found it, there was near to no punctuation throughout the whole thing, so I had to add it all in for it to make any sort of sense. With me doing this, I felt that I was able to give a nice pace to the monologue, as I wasn't at all rushing when I had read it through with punctuation opposed to without.

'Star Wars Battlefront' and 'Fallout 4' (ADR)

For the audio dubbed recording sessions, I was given the opportunity to choose my own roles from a range of video game trailers which we were tasked to perform our voices in. The two video game trailers that I had picked were 'Star Wars Battlefront', and 'Fallout 4', and the voices that I was cast as were The Emperor and the Male protagonist.

For this part of the assignment, I tried as much as I could to get the timings right, but to also sound like the original voice actors in the trailers, and I think I did a good job at gaining that level. I could already do a pretty good imitation of the Emperor's voice, and I only used my normal voice, with perhaps a slightly heightened tone, for the 'Fallout 4' trailer.

I picked these two pieces specifically because both of the characters voices are much different when compared, and I'd like to have my teacher witness how far I can take my voice in terms of characterisation.

The only problems that I've had with this, when rehearsing, is the timings for the lines that are said in the 'Fallout 4' trailer. I was going slightly ahead by a few seconds when compared to the original performance, and I didn't have as much pauses within the lines. This may not matter for the final performance, as it can be edited, but it does catch me off guard as I know it's not correct to the original, which could also inevitably hinder my overall performance of the lines said.