Week 25 Blog ( Week 5 For Junk )

Week 25, Monday 12th - Wednesday 14th Of May 2014

We only have one week left until our final main performance for Btec Level 2 Performing Arts: ‘Junk’, which is to be shown in the college theatre like our previous two performances for this course. Having a very limited timetable of only three days at college per week, our teacher and the rest of the group were feeling more dedicated to complete blocking every scene in 'Junk', and to also rehearse scenes which we haven’t blocked already. To begin with on Monday, we looked at several scenes in 'Junk' which we needed to still block and we also continued rehearsing as much as possible until the days end to add and or create more detail in which would make our performance a lot more convincing and entertaining for the present audience members. 

The following day continued in rehearsals, and our teacher reminded us to think more about our characters whilst performing, which brings back the topic of the 'Hot Seating' session we have done in a previous session that I explained in a previous blog entry. In my previous blog entry's, I have stated about our tutor group working individually over the course of learning their lines in their own time away from college to create their characters using the script with their own originality, then testing their knowledge in the upcoming lesson with a ‘Hot Seating’ exercise. The way the exercise works is that one individual member of the group would sit in the centre of the room, and they would have to answer questions from other members of the group whilst portraying as their character in 'Junk'; with my character being one of the main lead roles, Tar. The questions have to be answered in the way of them being their character and the questions asked can be either something simple, whether it is about their hobbies or interests, or it can be something more personal, such as their origins, relationships, thoughts and feelings. 

I stated that I did find this exercise helpful since, when I took the seat in the centre of the room, it helped me to gain more knowledge about my characters origins and other personal areas in which I hadn’t come across on in my character’s profile. But during today’s rehearsal session, thinking about my character more was increasingly helpful, as it helped me, and hopefully others in the group, look more at their characters with increased detail, and I felt it allowed more experimentation with my characters relationships with other characters in the play. It also helped me get a rough idea of how I could show my characters reaction to certain moments in the play with facial expressions and other forms of body language. Doing this gave my character, 'Tar', more physical meaning to the performance overall.

While the ‘Hot Seating’ exercise was indeed a huge positive outcome towards the entire production process, as it did help us create a more detailed character and it also showed, to our teacher, our commitment to the course, there are also other certain requirements needed for the production process. The first requirement, that is worth noting, is the commitment to the job roles given to you. For example, having an acting role is very important and it requires an individual to learn lines, create their characters with both physical and mental emotions, and to also memorize staging movements for their main performance. Although there are other job roles in a production which require an equal amount of commitment as an acting role. For example, a lighting manager has to create a plan of how to create the lighting for all the scenes in the play, which is a lot of work, and they have to make sure that they can handle the technical side of the lighting management. The list does go on with the amount of job roles for a production, and each and every one of these roles require an increased amount of commitment and focus for every rehearsal session, as their main goal is to achieve in making a successful and all round entertaining performance for an audience, but also themselves.

In our rehearsal process for ‘Junk’, we have focused in the acting and lighting job roles more than others, but one area in particular that is featured a lot in our rehearsal sessions is our individual personal management. By saying this, I mean that it all eventually comes down to our responsibility towards the sessions, to ensure we have all that is required to work professionally in the Performing Arts Industry, and that all work is to be met with the required deadlines. For example, it is the individual’s responsibility to have their script, a pencil and eraser at hand, as well as knowing their lines for the scenes to be blocked in the session and later to be revising the whole script entirely, so when they stage the play they won’t need a script at hand and won’t need to be prompted, and when it comes to the main performance, they will be fully prepared. But when it comes to the homework side of it, they would need to understand their task inside out, so they can meet the deadlines and show progression in their commitment to the course. This also backs up the ‘Hot Seating’ exercise as it presents to the whole class and the teacher just how much they really know about their character role in the performances, and how much more they can learn from each rehearsal session. Attitude is also important in the rehearsal session since if there was someone in the group who had a unpositive attitude, they could possibly disrupt the lesson, which results in ruining it for other people who show dedication to the Performing Arts course. If this attitude continued to a point in their lives when they would rehearse for an acting role in a Film/TV production, they would be fired from that production instantly, since they run on a very limited timescale and they could also waste a lot of money for one person to not act properly, especially in action movies, where they have explosions going off etc.

Throughout the 'Junk' production process, the tutor group has achieved many great areas in which have led to positive outcomes, such as us developing our understanding of all our characters in the play, with help from the ‘Hot Seating’ exercise, and we have proceeded well in achieving what is required of us for each rehearsal session. But the most interesting thing about our rehearsals, is the style and structure we have chosen to perform in each week. At the beginning of the 'Junk' assignment, we were all given the script and were also given our performing roles for this production, and just like every production rehearsal session, it begins with a full read through of the given script.  Having a read through of the script gave us the introduction of the plot and the characters, as well as giving us all a decent idea of how we were to present this play on stage to a real live audience. As the sessions went on, we looked into more detail as to how we could make this play more original, this resulted in our teacher and the rest of the group to create a new stage layout for the stage area which we hadn't done before in previous assignments.The stage layout we chose was very different compared to what had previously used in other performances. Previously, for both productions, we used the traditional staging in front of the audience, giving them a full view of the stage in front of the characters performing. So since this was our final main assignment and performance for Btec Level 2 Performing Arts, our teacher wanted to go in a different direction for staging. For this production we were to create a new stage layout with the audience to be around the whole stage in a rectangular position, in a way this would have two reflective meanings. The first meaning is that it would be a similar staging structure to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.  But the second and most important meaning was that it was to represent a street style and give the moral message that this whole play was an incredible journey for the leading characters in ‘Junk’, a journey of events that go from bad to worse. It was later decided that the characters events were to be shown through the use of props as the staging would contain messy props, such as alcohol bottles and scenes of drug usage since most of the characters in 'Junk' are squatters, and over the course of the performance, the stage would get worse and worse as it would have loads of props all over the place making a much 'dirtier' picture. Doing this does give the audience an idea as to what these characters would be like in the real world.

Once our staging plan was complete, we then moved on with our visual imagination of the written world in both the script and novel of 'Junk'. In the script, it is very detailed of what the setting looks like, since the setting of each scene is explained before the lines are announced by the characters, but each member of the group had their own idea of how they could present it and visualize it, therefore our teacher came up with another strategy to counteract this, the making of 'Mood Boards'. The use of 'Mood Boards' was to present photographs of similar settings, as described in the script, and we would categorize them so we could look at the boards for guidance as to how we could get a better idea of how to visualize the play whilst performing. We created these 'Mood Boards' with images of the setting, other similar locations, squatters and images of drugs. I felt that the images contained with drugs was the most important part of the 'Mood Boards' to be included in the rehearsal process, since drugs was always at our side in the performance and it relates well with the production overall, and in a way, it would be the most enthralling part of the production. The usage of drugs is the main theme of 'Junk', and the images presented a moral message to the whole group. The moral message was simple “drugs are bad”, but it would also give the entire group the mission to present this play with the deliveration of the message to the audience in a dramatic style, to show them the negative side of life and how bad one can get in life. So I would say the 'Mood Boards' idea was extremely helpful at our side during the rehearsal process.

      

While rehearsing a play in chronological order seems to make sense for many directors with their productions, we had a different approach as to how we could structure the rehearsal plan, in time for the main performance in the upcoming week. Instead of beginning the rehearsal at the start of the script, we rehearsed slightly in the style of a motion pictures filming. We started with a scene taking place near the end of act one for 'Junk' and worked our way through randomly selected scenes in both acts. The reason why we took this approach was the amount of cast members we had. There are many characters in 'Junk', and we only ten cast members to work with, therefore, there are few scenes in which certain actors are not needed on stage. This is not the case for my character, Tar, entirely, since he is on stage with Gemma, his girlfriend, for most of Act 1 and 2 for 'Junk' since they are both the main characters to the plot line.

Throughout the assignment we have explored many areas, in which helped us with many issues we might have in presenting this performance, such as exploring how we could develop our characters, with use of profiles and Hot Seating, as well as how we could develop our understanding of rehearsal processes, for future assignments if we are to proceed to the Level 3 Performing Arts. But all in all I feel like this assignment has had the most impact on us as the story of ‘Junk’ has a very deep and strong purpose to it, and gives a very strong impact on each cast member equally. Therefore I feel grateful to take part in each of the given assignments as they extend my education in the Performing Arts Industry, and has given me opportunities to act in great plays which deliver different moral messages to an audience.