Week 14 Blog ( Week 2 For Shakespeare )

Week 14, Monday 13th-Wednesday 15th Of January 2014

To start off the new week, we started with a warm-up. We did this same warm-up on the previous week, it mainly helps to get the blood flowing throughout our bodies and to get prepared for a full day at college. After this warm-up, we were given our first task of the day. Our task was to complete a quiz which our teacher had made for us, this was a recap quiz, to see if we could all remember the facts about Shakespeare and his life which we learnt on the previous week. This was an easy challenge, as I remembered most of what we learnt on the previous weeks lesson, and I managed to score a 9/10 on the quiz, which is pretty much what everyone else in the room had achieved also, which was good. The only downside to this task was that there were two people absent on last weeks lesson, and they had no idea about Shakespeare's life or anything else we had done on the previous week, including the play's we were going to perform in March for the Shakespeare Assignment.

After completing the quiz, we moved on to our second task. We were all, again, given a sheet of paper with objectives to complete on it. This sheet was about the Iambic Pentameter. The Iambic Pentameter is a type of speech were the actor would speak in a rhythmic beat as they were saying their lines. There should be at least 10 beats you can use in a line to be able to use the Iambic Pentameter properly, but this isn't always the case, these 10 beats have to be 5 'Stressed Beats' and 5 'Unstressed Beats', so the rhythm would be: "de Dum de Dum de Dum de Dum de Dum". The Dum beats used in the Iambic Pentameter, are known as the 'Stressed Beats', these beats are used with more emphasis than the other 'Unstressed Beats' in the line given, for example: "The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace", this is a line from one of the play's we have to perform which was also written on our Iambic Pentameter task sheet. I will show an example of how to use the Iambic Pentameter for this quote, the words I underline are the 'Stressed Beats' whilst the words not underlined are the 'Unstressed Beats': "The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace". You may have noticed that in the word 'lesser', I had only underlined 'less' rather than the full word, I did this because if I had underlined the full word to be a 'Stressed Beat, the rhythmic beat is lost and doesn't sound right. Therefore having the 'er' at the end of 'lesser' as an 'Unstressed Beat' would keep the rhythmic beat flowing until the line is complete. The Iambic Pentameter comes in three forms of language:
Prose: Ordinary speech with no regular pattern/rhythm.
Rhymed Verse: Usually in rhymed couplets.
Blank Verse: A recognizable meter, known as the Iambic Pentameter. ( Used this form for task sheet )

After completing the task, we moved on to another task also related to the Iambic Pentameter. Our teacher had split all ten of us into groups of two, our task was to create 5 lines for each person to say using the Iambic Pentameter to announce the lines written, still using the 'Blank Verse' form of language. My partner and I had to create a scenario where we were both in a restaurant, we both decided that I play as a Waiter, whilst my partner was playing as a Customer.
This was my group's end result to this task:
Partner: Have you got my table ready yet sir?

Me: No, it's covered in lots of sticky blood!

Partner: I don't mind, because I am a vampire!

Me: Holy Cow! I've seen all the Twilight Film's.

Partner: That's just a film, it's not real life, I'm John.

Me: We have your table ready now, go in.

Partner: This has been a barrel of laugh's, goodbye.

Me: I really loved you in the Twilight Film's.

Partner: My name is not Robert Patterson, San!

After Completing our final task for today's lesson, our teacher gave us some more 'Blog Notes' to include in these blogs to show what we learnt from the lesson and to tell if we took part for most of it, or if we didn't. The first note is to explain what type of warm-ups we did and how effective they were, and also to explain why we did it. The types of warm-ups we did were Rubber Chicken, which is when we flick both hands and feet quickly eight repetitions for each body part, then doing the same for four repetitions, followed by two repetitions, and finally reaching one for each hand and foot and after going into a full body flop whilst shouting "Rubber Chicken!". I thought this warm-up was effective to get us to wake up a little more since it was early Monday morning, and it also gets our heart pumping blood faster so we can be a bit more hyperactive for the lesson. We did this warm-up to, again, wake ourselves up from a half week break ( for me ) off college, and to come back ready for all the lessons today. Our second warm-up involved using our vocals, this warm-up was to basically to help with the Iambic Pentameter task's we had to complete for today's lesson. For the warm-up, we were to say the phrase: "Why fly so high? Said Naughty Nora, Whilst eating an apple, With Zoe the Zebra in the Zoo. For each phrase, we were to use different tones of our vocals to pronounce the lines properly. The first line we say with a high pitched voice, for the second phrase, we blocked our noses so the way we spoke was more comedic and partially deep, the third phrase we pronounced was with a more 'posh' voice, and for the last phrase, we had to say it at our deepest tone of voice whilst doing a 'Guerrilla Emote' where we smashed our fist's into our upper chest. This warm-up was effective as it helped us with the Iambic Pentameter task partially, but mostly, it actually helped me with my singing lesson later on the same day. we did this warm-up since, as an actor, we have to have different tones of voices at our disposal, and this was a way our teacher could hear these voices in action. Our third and final warm-up was at the end of our first lesson, we were instructed by the teacher to lie on the floor and find a point in the room to focus on or just close our eyes, and we were asked to breathe in through our noses and out our mouths still normally breathing as we would, and we were asked after inhaling to tense the part of the body our teacher asked us to tense and then exhale whilst at the same time relaxing the tensing of the body part. After a few sets, we were asked to crawl up into an embryo shape ( tucking our knees into our torso ) and then to spine roll up until we were standing up straight. I thought this warm-up was effective because we had a chance to relax for a few minutes after a three hour lesson being fully focused for the whole of it, and it calmed all of us down since some people during the lesson were more hyper than others. We did this warm-up mainly to relax everyone seeing as they were getting a bit hyper after the lesson and needed help to relax and calm down since we still had a few hours left at the college.

Our second note was to briefly describe the Iambic Pentameter and how it will assist us in the future. I had already briefly described the Iambic pentameter in the second paragraph for this Blog. To be honest, I wouldn't know how it would assist me, other than to use it in Shakespeare Play's since the actor's in the Elizabethan Era/Golden Age may have used the Iambic Pentameter in Shakespeare's play's. But I haven't used it enough yet to decide how I could use The Iambic Pentameter for future projects other than to say that I have had history with the form of Shakespearean Language.

For the third note, I have to say if I had engaged in today's lesson. I did take part in almost all of the lesson again, as Shakespeare is one of my favorite subjects to come across in Performing Arts. I was also asked on how I could apply this to rehearsals, well I can say now that if I think I'm focused non stop in lesson's, than I'm sure that in rehearsals, I will be more focused than I am now, hopefully resulting in a higher grade for this assignment.

For our final note, we have to say what we inputted into today's lesson. The thing I remember imputing into the lesson is when we did the task where we had to make up a scenario using the Iambic Pentameter from a conversationalist's point of view, since I offered most of the line's me and my partner were to present to the class.

After our break, we had our Singing assessment, which I would say went well for me since my singing teacher gave me signs of good vocal work for the song we were singing whilst I was doing my solo. And for next week's lesson we are to get the grade our teacher is willing to give us for using vocal work, breath control and to see if we could hold the notes for the song.

After Singing, we had moved on to our final lesson with our tutor. As I may have mentioned in the previous week's Blog, Me and my partner had given a presentation about Greek Theatre and the Origins of Both Drama and Physical Theatre to the rest of the group. We came to the lesson today viewing everybody's presentation's, which admittedly, wasn't as long and detailed as me and my partner's presentation, but nonetheless, they still handed in the power point our teacher had asked us to complete for several week's now and now we can finally put that behind us.

On Tuesday, we came back to yet another warm-up which we had done previously, The Rubber Chicken. After this warm-up we played a couple of games which was a nice treat from our teacher. After at least an hour of playing these games, our teacher decided it was time we did some actual work. She started off by giving us a question sheet with five questions written on it, our task was to answer these questions in a short amount of time. This task was easy for me since, after writing yesterday's Blog entry, I had grown my knowledge of the Iambic Pentameter, which is what the question sheet was all about. Thankfully, everyone in the room had got 5/5 on the sheet, which means that yesterday's lesson had still been stuck in their heads.

After hearing the answer's, we had a sit down with our teacher in a circle formation. She then went on asking us how we learn our lines for each script/monologue we perform for an audience, I stated that when learning my lines, I would use repetition for all the lines, and then I read through the whole script, for if there is a reason that I forget a line, I would look at the script and learn that line using repetition once more, and then I would read through the whole script again until I've completed it. After discussing our method's of line learning, our teacher had told us about the 'Corpesing Method' which is what many actors use when they perform in rehearsal's. This method is used if at any point where you would forget your next line, you would just stand still with a blank expression, and then repeat the line you have said once before until you know what the next line is, then you can move onwards. I have seen this method done before when I watched a pantomime when I was younger and it was very interesting hearing it come up. She then after went to talk about the 'In The Moment' technique that most actor's don't realize they do until they have performed all their lines. Many people in the room had shown that they use this technique, as well not knowing they have used it in the first place. This technique is basically like photographic memory, picturing the script in front of you when it really isn't, and you would perform these lines later on not remembering yourself saying them. I thought this was a weird technique, I have no knowledge of using it and I have never heard of it before until now. Our teacher said that we can use these technique's if we were to struggle learning our lines for the assignment.

After these technique's were given to us by our teacher, we moved on to our second task, which was to get out our scripts for the part's we were going to perform for the Shakespeare assignment in March, and we were instructed by our teacher to say our lines to ourselves but with a blank expression also with no emphasis involved on certain words, which is the 'Corpseing Method' our teacher had told us about before. I performed this task very well, learning half of my lines for one of my script's in less then ten minute's, which was very surprising but familiar since I do this in my spare time when learning the lines anyway, but I do it with emphasis and expression.

After this task, we came to the end of our lesson, and since it was the end, our teacher had given us the 'Blog Notes' we were to include in this week's Blog. The first note was to give my thoughts on learning any lines I have done in the past and also the ones I'm learning now. I can simply say that learning lines is a breeze for me, since I kind of have a photographic memory about it, and it doesn't take me long to learn them off by heart either ( At least 2 days maximum, with my experience in learning lines ).

For the second note, we had to briefly describe the 'Meisner Technique' which our teacher also demonstrated to us in our sit down earlier on in the lesson. The Meisner Technique is when you do a response to another person's character whilst looking at them, for example: There is a man looking at an attractive woman, the man would smile at the woman and she would give her response to the man's smile with anything from a giggle, to a smile back, or can even go to complete rejection from the woman to the man. Also she asked us to include how it would help us in the future, Again, much like the Iambic Pentameter, I haven't performed anything using this technique, so I wouldn't know how it would help me, until the point if I'm asked if I have knowledge of the Meisner Technique.

For the third note, I have to say what I engaged in for today's lesson. I mostly engaged in the Corpseing task, as when I was done with the task of learning at least 4 lines from my script's, I helped others who were struggling with this task, and demonstrated how to them how to say their lines with any expression or emphasis, much like a robot's voice.

For the final note, I have to say what I inputted into today's lesson. The only thing that I inputted was when we were sitting with our teacher in a circle formation, and we were asked how we learn our lines outside the classroom. I inputted by saying how I learn my own lines using repetition and hearing my voice playback on a Dictaphone, which is what one other person in my group does also.

After finishing our short break, we went to our movement lesson. Since there were two people absent the week before, they had to complete their assessment for the dance's we had learnt before the Christmas Holiday. After this we moved on to learning how to Balay. This was hard for me, since my co-ordination is terrible, but I will work on this dance outside of class in my spare time.

On Wednesday, we had our Physical Theatre lesson. We returned to the lesson starting with a couple games with our teacher that required us to think. The group had to stand in a circle, and our teacher would give us a category to answer to another person whilst walking towards them, the category's ranged from different Super-Heroes, Famous Actors, Book Author's and Film's with an Actor that appeared in them. After this game, we moved on to our task for today's lesson. Our teacher had us, since last week's lesson, to research an animal, which we had close relations towards, and to act exactly like the animal in front of a camera. We had to move like it would, having the same Tempo of Movement, and to act exactly like it would to our best ability. My animal was a Meerkat, so I had to act aware all the time and when on all fours, move quickly along the floor. After introducing to our teacher what animal we had chosen, we had all performed this task at the same time in front of the camera, only then after showing our teacher and students the act alone. After this task, we had to imagine how our animal would be acting if it were human. This ranged from how it would walk, how it would talk and what it's attitude would be in social life. I had pulled a very nervous, quiet voice which sounded squeaky for a 'Meerkat-Like' Human Being. After completing this task, our teacher had given us more homework for next week's lesson. We had to work on our animal's turning into human's, we had to speak like it would, walk like it would, giving it's personality, where it work's and also not forgetting it's own name to our own choosing.