Level 3 Acting Week 3 Synopsis Blog

Monday 22nd Of September 2014 Blog Entry:

Synopsis Of Day:

Lesson 1 & 2- Physical Theatre And Contemporary Theatre:

For the start of this week, we returned to some more Physical Theatre.  In this lesson, our teacher had instructed us to perform a series of physical exercises which required the use of our whole body to complete them.  These exercises did bring up a sweat, with me especially, as after we had done them, I was one of the only people in the room who was actually sweating, but maybe I was trying to hard.

After we had done these exercises, we moved onto another exercise which required the use of a partner to accomplish it.  This exercise was called 'Chair Duets'.  The exercise was as simple as this; there were two chairs for both people in each group, our teacher had instructed all of us to perform 3 movements using any part of our body then the next person would do 3 movements and so forth.  We had to do this until both people equally had performed 12-18 series of movements to complete the performance.  Whilst devising what our movements will be, our teacher had told us that our performance, the first time we do them, must not show any story between the 2 characters and for the second time we perform, we will all have to keep looking at our partner all the way through the performance.  Our teacher also instructed us to practice performing our movements as fast and fluently as we can as that is what we are all going to try and do later on in the lesson.

After a little while of practicing, our teacher had us all sit in the audiences perspective to view each groups performance.  She had made it so that 3 groups at one time would perform and whoever was in the audience at the time would review each group and say what they could of done better to improve the performance.  Each group had to perform their movement 3 times but it had to be different each time.  As our teacher had instructed us all to practice beforehand, we had to be able to show no story, be able to stare our partners in the eyes for the whole performance and to be able to accomplish each movement as fast and fluently as we could.  The three showings of each groups performances had happened in this order.  Me and my partner were in the second series of the 3 group performance and we were able to perform all 3 tasks that we all had to accomplish in our movement.

After completing and reviewing each groups performance, we had all moved into a different room to watch the two Frantic Assembly performances 'Lovesong' and 'Stockholm'.  Whilst watching both performances, we were to write down notes to help our Frantic Assembly Essay that we had to type/write up to hand in later on this week.  For this session, we had finished watching 'Lovesong', and having watched this performance before, I still received the effects from the performances' powerful ending.  For 'Stockholm' however, we did not finish this performance, but hopefully we will return to this in one days lesson as I quite like this performance since it's a much more different atmosphere than 'Lovesong'.

Conclusion Of Day:

After watching both performances, our day at college had ended.  I had learnt a lot today about use of movement that we may look at for our first production, '13', and I have also gained more knowledge to include in my essay for Frantic Assembly, which is turning out to be a very detailed document giving its 1000 word limit.

Wednesday 24th Of September 2014 Blog Entry:

Synopsis Of Day:

Lesson 1 & 2 - Principles Of Acting And The Historical Context Of Performance:

After my study day for improving and finishing my Frantic Assembly Essay, we had all returned to college to carry on our rehearsals for '13' and to also block certain scenes in the play.  But before we got to all of that, our teacher had made us perform some of the exercises that we had performed on Mondays lesson. Doing these exercises did get me more in the mood for rehearsals as it did relieve some of the tension in my body at the time to help allow me to portray my character more effectively during a blocking session for my scenes.

Since my character in '13', Martin, didn't have too many lines, I had asked my teacher in a previous lesson to allow me to perform as another character in '13' so I can be in the performance more.  For doing this, I had gained the character called Paul and for today, I will be blocking scenes for both Martin and Paul.  This also gives me the time to discover how I should perform as a different character, since performing as 2 completely different characters should allow me to discover different traits between the two and to project that into my own portrayal of the characters.

After a little while of rehearsing and blocking our scenes, before we reached the end of the lesson and would head off to our lunch break, we had a group session where we all sat in a circle in the room and we all talked about our hobbies and interests outside of college.  Many people had different things they wanted to say and through doing this, I had learnt more about the people I will be working with for the next two years on this course and how I could interact with them in conversation.  When it came to me to tell what my hobbies and interests were I had stated that I like to go out cycling and to also run when I can to keep myself physically fit, I said that I practice playing the Harmonica in my spare time when I'm not working and I also told everyone what TV shows I'm interested in.  These shows are ones like The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Game Of Thrones, The Big Bang Theory, The Simpsons and also Marvel titles films or TV again such as Marvels Agents Of Shield.

Lesson 3 - Performing Arts Business:

After we all had our lunch break, we returned to our 'Performing Arts Business' lesson where we were all to present our findings for the given job role in the Performing Arts Industry as a presentation.  Unfortunately for me and my partner and a few other groups, we had run out of time for the lesson to present our findings on Set Designer and other job roles, but in next weeks lesson, we will return to give our presentations at the very start of the lesson so we could all move onto another task.  Since we were running out of time however, we still did have 15-20 minutes left for this lesson, but this section was for another task our teacher wanted to look into.  For this task, we all looked at examples of a good and bad CV for an actor and we were all given the opportunity to develop our own CV if we hadn't yet done one.  I had already done my CV prior to this lesson, but I have yet to create my actor's CV which we will all look into for next weeks lesson after showing our presentations.

Lesson 4 - Developing Voice For The Actor:

After another break, we all returned to our 'Developing Voice For The Actor' lesson where we all delved our minds into 'The Alexander Technique'.  This technique is along the lines similar to the meditation exercise that our teacher had instructed us through in previous lessons, doing both had relieved my body of unwanted stress and tension, but doing the 'Alexander Technique' had made my body and voice feel much lighter in terms of weight.  This was more obvious in terms of my voice overall, since I have quite a deep voice, whenever I spoke it, to me, just felt a lot lighter than it did prior to performing the 'Alexander Technique'.  I presented this experience to my teacher and she replied saying that my explanation is natural and means that I have correctly performed the 'Alexander Technique'.  Our teacher suggested that we all should perform this technique at least 3 times a day, as this will improve our posture and vocal potential as an actor.

Conclusion Of Day:

After a brief discussion, our day had ended. I have learnt a lot more about our first production for this year, '13', for blocking some of my characters scenes and also having time to read the script and I have learnt more about specific job roles behind the industry such as where each job role may have developed their knowledge/skills for stage and/or film and there is also my discoveries in performing the 'Alexander Technique' which I will try to continue in my own time away from college.

Thursday 25th Of September 2014 Blog Entry:

Synopsis Of Day:

Lesson 1 & 2 - Tutorial And Performance Workshop:

For today we had all returned to another day of rehearsing and blocking scenes for our first major production, '13'.  We had, again, performed the exercises that we had learnt previously this week to get us in the correct mood for performance.  Not much more was discovered in today's lessons as me and any other people in the group had to try and block scenes ourselves since other members of the group needed to have their chance to block their individual scenes, but hopefully next week our teacher will try to come to a solution as to how she can try to block all of our scenes before our final performance in November.  For this session, I was mostly just reading the script, since I had not read all of it yet.  I had accomplished a significant amount of reading before the lesson had ended, I had read up to nearly the end of the play during my time at home after Wednesday and in the time span of this lesson, so I know a lot more about the story of '13' and, in my opinion, it's a very interesting read. Doing this helps me discover my characters lines and stage directions and it also helps me with my character development process for both of my characters in '13', Martin and Paul.