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We did a workshop on mime. It involved various exercises that experimented with different techniques used in mime. At first we did an activity that initiallyhad us throw a ball around the room passing it to each other which was not a strong suit of mines as im not great at catching, this activity then turned into miming a ball and pretending to pass and catch the ball. I did quite well on this part as it was quite easy to imagine the movements of the ball and of course mime fumbling the ball as i often would.

The second exercise we did had us walking around the room and then having chloe call out different conditions we'd have to consider while walking around some examples being: walking through glue traps, wading whrough waist hight water, walking across a trampoline or walking on an icy pavement. I quite enjoyed this one and felt as though I was capturing the various movments and quirks of walking in different conditions such as having my toes pointing inwards when trying to walk on ice or twisting my whole body when wading through the water.

the next exercise involved us placing our hands against a flat wall and taking steps back and fourth while keeping our hands on the wall. This was to get a feel for how our arms move to keep out hands on the wall which we then used to do the same exercise but this time not pressed against the wall and having to mime it as if the wall were there. For the most part I did well on this exercise but occasionally struggled to keep my fingers straight as if they were pushed against something and overall this did tire out my arms somehow.

We then did another mime exercise using balloons and holding them away from ourselves and walking around the balloon and trying to keep it in the same place as if it were held in place by something else. To help us keep the balloons straight and facing the same direction we were given markers to draw a face on the balloon. I did not do as well in this exercise and struggled to not over or under rotate the balloon when moving around it.

We then used the balloons in a exercise that involved pretending as if the balloons were changing in weight from very light and filled with helium to then being very heavy and an incredible struggle to lift. During that same exercise we also had to push the balloon through the air as if it was resistant to any movement or was actively fighting against us in the direction we wanted to go. According to what others had said, I did very well in capturing the struggle and strain of pushing or pulling this very heavy balloon.

On Friday we did rehearsals of our Frankenstein scenes until lunch which I think was some of the best progress I'd made in our rehearsals as I was really working to push Victor's frustration and holding the tension throughout the scene. we then had our formative assesment after lunch. This involved using full costume and tech for the assesments. Upsettingly, my scene partner and I managed to skip a couple lines and I ended up not saying the line I'd been working really hard to stress the tension on. Though neither of us picked up on that we'd missed it till after the assessment so we did not break character or ruin the scene in any way.

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we had our character through observation task explained to us and all the rules involved in observing people out in the public and taking notes on them. We then went out to find people we felt would fit our panto characters and had some more expressive features either in the way they moved and walked or in the way they talked. This task I struggled with a little bit as I found it hard to find someone I thought to be interesting enough to make an exaggerated panto character out of. However, I was still able to find someone and take some good notes down on different vocal mannerisms and atributes i'd want to use in my character.

During the holidays I found someone I though had a pretty comical and stereotypical "tough guy" stance and so I picked him for how I would do my characters physicality.

Today we had our summative assesment. First thing in the morning we had an hour to sort out all our costumes and do any last minute rehersing if we wanted it. We then went to sit in the seating area and we watched the HN2s do their animal studies performances this consisted of three performances of peacocks, rats and baboons. Once they were done we set up the dilacy scenes and they all performed those. We then set up the victor scenes and did those zophias group dis the first three to save us all from having to swap back and forth. For the formative I think I must have been more nervous having the HN2s watching cause there was a couple points where I almost messed up but thankfully I did managed to catch the mistakes before they actually effected the scene. One of my mistakes was that, in working hard trying to not forget the line I forgot during the formative I almost said it too early. And the other being that my scene partner started to repeat one of her previous lines. We managed to keep the scene going without a big long silence and she did manage to remember which line we were on after a little time. I overall feel quite confident in my performance.

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We learnt about script annotation, subtext and objectives.

We did this by going through a pamphlet chloe had put together on the importance of script annotation and the formalities of where to put annotations and the different terminologys used when annotating.

We learnt about subtext and how you can find out and understand more about a character by looking into what they really mean or might be thinking when they say a certain line. Subtext can also be taken into consideration when thinking about character objectives. Objectives are when your character wants to achieve in a certain scene and that being what motivates everything they do in that scene.

Once we understood the different aspects of script annotation we were partnered up and given short scripts to annotate and give more context on what could be happening in the scene. We then switched these with another group. I don't think I did so well in this activity and perhaps let down the other group a bit as my annotations were pretty messy and I think me and my partner had mixed up the characters names and so the between the two scripts it said that the two characters shared the same objective instead of having one of their own. Though when it came to the annotated script that another group had given me and my partner I found it pretty easy to understand the annotations and take them into consideration.

We were given our castings and scenes for Frankenstein. I was given the character Victor Frankenstein in a scene where he warns Elizabeth that he intends to kill the creature and then leaves only to come back to the creature killing her. Upon hearing my casting I was quite pleased and look forwards to portraying victor.

We worked in our groups to do some annotation of our scripts. We were told to mark beats on our scripts for lines or points in the script where we felt the mood had changed wether it was a change in a characters attitude, a change in conversation or subject, if something had physically happened in the scene to get our characters to act differently or if a character had intentionally tried to change the subject in some way. We also talked about our characters objectives and put those into our scripts. This was pretty easy and I felt I had a decent understanding, though there was some disagreement between my group, on where we felt the beats would be in the script.

We then learnt about some of Stanislavski's techniques such as: given circumstances, the four W's and the magic if. We were also taught about how to apply these to help our understanding of a character.

The magic if require us to think about how we would react if we were the ones experiencing what our characters were going through. This helps with capturing realism. We learnt about the four W's (who, where, what & why) and were then tasked to come up with a character taking these four things into concideration and making character profile out of that. The whole class posted these to teams and were then told to select one that wasn't their own. We were then given time to read through this profile and get an understanding of this character and their thoughts so that we could then do a short scene of our character just getting home from wherever they had just been in the character profile. For my little scene I got re-directed a couple times as I came into the room moody and frustrated which I was told was good but I then went on to add a line of dialogue having my character complain about not getting the part in an audition he went to, but it wasn't necessary and was a somewhat forced piece of dialogue. After having chloe explain that I should imagine the audience has just seen what my character had done the scene before, I then got a better understanding of showing my feelings rather than telling them and not being so expositional. This allowed me to give a much more realistic performance.

We then did an exercise on jaques lecoq's 7 levels of tension and how to flow between them. This started with a guided meditation to get us all the way down to a 1 where nothing is happening and we are completely relaxed and shut off, and then moving up the levels going to a level 2 which is a bit more aware than 1 but still very chilled and laid back. Going through 3 which is very neutral and then up to 4 and 5 which shows more curiosity and awareness. Then to a 6 which is very preemptive and paranoid and then we got to 7 which is complete hysterics and devastation. I believe I did very well in this exercise especially as we got up to the higher tension levels, when we were done I found myself having to do careful breathing in order to bring my heart rate back down and feel less panicked.

We then did an activity where we had act as if someone had walked through the class and left a suitcase behind, and taking the 7 levels of tension into consideration moving up the levels as people became increasingly curious about this suitcase. And eventually opening up the suitcase to either find roses or a bomb. We did this a few times and I did feel I was doing quite well after the first try and remaining naturally somewhat intrigued by the suitcase but not overly bothered by it as I obviously wouldn't assume a bomb would be in the case and be scared because of that.

The next exercise we did involved us being paired up and saying the lines "i dont love you" and "i dont care" and experimenting going up the 7 levels while saying these lines. We then had to perform a scene where one person would be packing a bag and the other would enter and the two characters would then say these lines starting at a somewhat neutral 3 or 4 and then moving up to a 6 and 7. We were told we could improv a bit if we felt the dialogue was holding us back from pushing the tension up but me and my partner got a bit carried away with this and improved perhaps to much and it was having an effect on us pushing the tension up as we were busy trying to think of the next line rather than having control of the tension.

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On Monday we talked about the different movement outcomes (1-4) that we'd be working on throughout the year. We then talked a bit more extensively about outcome 1 which was to do with your fitness as an actor and all the muscles and exercises for each muscle as well as many stretches that are important when warming up. We went through all this in another pamphlet.

We then went on to do the warm ups and stretches starting at our necks and slowly working all the way down our body's. This was also our first instance of trying to solidify the names of the muscles we were warming up as we worked our way down by calling them out as we went past them. I got on okay during the stretches until it got down to our legs as I'm not very flexible and was struggling quite a bit with some of the stretches and positions we were getting into. However if I can make this a routine I believe that would help with my flexibility and general lack of stiffness.

The next exercise had us going from one side of the stage to the other in various different ways. Some notable ones being doing little sidestep dance across the stage and also doing backwards rolls onto out stomachs and turning around to do another. This was another something I struggled with a bit in that I found my body automatically wanting go to my knees after the backwards roll instead of going to my stomach, which ended up throwing me off a bit. I also struggled a bit to keep to the beat of the music we had playing to keep our rhythm.

We then did an exercise called frantic assembly which was supposed to help with those who were struggling to keep to the beat. It was almost like a very simple dance routine where we were lined up in rows to create a square and then row by row we would bounce to the beat for a count of 8 but bounce and spin round to face the row behind you on the 7 and landing on the 8 and then the row behind you would do the same. To begin with I was confused about which beat we were spinning on and I also spun the wrong way a couple times but I managed to get the hang of it after a few tries and with the help of the person in front of me helping me keep count of the beats.

The session ended with a game where the class was split into two teams and we had to compete to write down the different muscles on post-it notes and put them on the right spots on a big diagram that was projected onto the back wall. I was able to help my team with a few of the muscles but at this point I don't know them all too well yet. Though my team did end up winning in the end.

Today mostly centered around improv exercises to help us develop those skills. We started off with a game where we were once again put into two teams and put at either side of the stage with a chair in the middle. Starting with the letter A chloe would call out basic questions like name something in the room or name an animal and we would have to think of something starting with A and race to the chair and be the first to call it out. I quite enjoyed this game and was thinking of a few good answers but often times my teammates would have already darted for the chair so I mostly just left it to then if they had already made it to the chair. This did make me think I could perhaps work on my response time and quick thinking to help me improv more in the moment.

We then did another game where we're were lined up in the two teams and the people would have to take turns asking the other random questions and the other person would have to do their best to not answer the question, not hesitate and not lose their train of thought due to the absurdity of some of the questions. I struggled with this exercise alot and found that I was very easily getting thrown of course by alot of the questions and then not coming up with any to ask in return.

The next improv game we played was called imposter and it involved five people being seated on the stage and the rest of the class sitting in the seating. Everyone sat on the rostra would be showen a picture of something. Chloe would then show four of the five chosen ones the photo leaving one to be showen a picture saying imposter instead. The five chosen ones would then go along in a line describing the thing in the photo with one word or a short phrase the imposter would have to listen to what the others were saying and try and blend in when choosing their descriptive word. After a few rounds of giving descriptive words the rest of us would have to try and guess who the imposter was. The imposter was also allowed to try and guess what it was they were describing to win instantly. This game had us thinking alot more about what words to use rather than rapid fire coming up with words. Though often times it was obvious who the imposter was usually by their first word cause they would have had the least time to try and guess what it was. When I got imposter I managed to blend in pretty well and though I didn't guess what it was I did managed to just slip under the radar for most people. Though a few were suspicious of me. I think I did better on this as the improv was alot more methodical, rather than random.

We then did an exercise where two people would be selected and one would have to go backstage while the one left on stage would work with the rest of the class to come up with a scenario to act out. The person back stage would then come in and have to join in on the scenario and very casually have to figure out what they were doing. Just by improving different things and seeing how well the person whose scenario it was would take your actions. When I was selected, I was the one to go back stage and when I came back the person on stage was being very impatient like they had be expecting me a long time and they also asked if I had brought "the things" so I quickly just added to it and assumed whatever it was would fit in a big rucksack or bag. I pretty quickly caught on that we were setting up a tent out in the wilderness. I did this by just being very curious and rapidly asking questions back to the person on stage therefore, not giving them time to come up with anything vague enough for me to not figure it out easily.

The next exercise we did had us get into pairs and take a very short four line script and and come up with what would happen next. We were given 10-15 minutes to split up into our groups and quickly come up with and reherse the scene. The part of the script we were given had someone come to the others door saying they had nowhere else to go so me and my partner decided on a scene where one of us had showed up to the door very injured and then sit down to start talking about what had happend. We then went to doing these scenes on stage but the person showing up at the door (me) would know what I had decided and the other person would be switched with another group and they would have to react and improv what to say next. For this one I kinda struggled to understand what the objective of the exercise was, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be trying to keep the person on topic or just make it through the situation I had decided on. I also played it a bit to comedically which wasn't very realistic so I kinda messed up a little in letting myself play it that way. However going through the scene went just fine and I didn't get too many notes on it.

Today we went into further depth on objectives and obstacles.

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Today we learnt about Stanislavskis idea of inner and outer tempo. First we went over inner tempo and the many different words used to describe the different inner tempos, and then the three outer tempos. The first exercise we did to explore this had chloe use a metronome to help us find what we felt was our natural walking pace. I found that my walking pace was faster than most but still had a few who were faster than I. Now with an understanding of tempo we moved onto an exercise where we were partnered up and would have to make two of the same short scene side by side displaying different inner and outer tempos. For this me and my partner did a scene where we would be getting ready to go out somewhere perhaps for a walk or an important meeting or to meet someone. my partner Ella, did a slow and casual version of the scene where as I did a much more fast paced and panicked version. For this I considered the Jagged inner tempo to try and help me show that I was in a rush and my thoughts were scattered as well as a fast outer tempo to display the tension and just how much of a hurry my character must have been in.

The next thing we did was an exercise to get us to explore our Frankenstein characters movement. We set the stage with pieces of set from both of the Frankenstein scenes this included benches, chairs and scientific papers scattered on the floor. We were walked through trying to embody our characters and given time to really think about how out characters would stand. We were then told to walk around the space as our characters would. For victor I mostly had to consider his high status and even higher ego so when I was moving around I held my chin up and looked down on the others moving around me occasionally shooting dirty or dismissive looks at other characters. I also had to take into mind the time period the play is set and remember that victor was still a posh gentleman so I walked around very straight and proper often with my hands crossed behind my back. As the exercise went on chloe suggested that the Victor's consider the stress and restlessness victor would be experiencing as well as how sleep deprived he would have been. With the few pointers from chloe I believe I managed to capture a pretty good idea of Victor's movment.

Today we talked about circles of attention. This first started with a pamphlet explaining the different circles of attention and how they are used in performances. We then went round the class and told everyone what we felt were the circles of attention we typically used. I explained that not all that long ago I would have considered myself a small circle of attention person but upon joining the course have found myself using more of a medium circle and sometimes a large circle of attention. To explore this further we did a few exercises. First was an activity where we all sat in a small circle and one person sat in the middle working on a crossword trying to remain in the small circle of attention and not getting distracted by anything going on around them such as people moving places, tapping, humming or wearing wigs. The second exercise we did had me go out the room and then come back in and sit at a table with Cameron while everyone stood around the table in a circle. I wasn't informed of what the task was but fairly quickly I caught on that it must have been something Cameron had to do cause we just started having a conversation about my days off and what I did. There were a few odd conversation changes as it turned out he was tasked with getting me to say three specific words, which he successfully managed to do. I think I did pretty well in staying in the medium circle of attention with the only thing me picking up on outside of the conversation being that I noticed a few people behind Cameron fidgeting in place. Then for the large circle a group of people were selected to again go backstage. While the rest of us scattered set and props around the stage and also hide a knife somewhere among the set. We then sat around the border of the stage and the group re-entered and were told they had to find the knife. While they were searching they had to try and block out a bunch of false clues and destractions that the rest of us were shouting out. Eventually they did find the knife hidden under a rostra.

We then continued with our rehearsals for our Frankenstein scenes but today chloe suggested that we try a run-through of the scene with different objectives and see how that changes the scene in order to give us a better idea of how our character objectives can change a scene.

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Today we explored the theory of sense memory which involves using your senses to recall certain feelings and emotions from your own experiences to give a more convincing performance. The activity we did for this was to listen to, smell and taste different things and jot down what they reminded us of and any notable emotions that they brought to the surface. For some of these I struggled to tie them to any memory's, especially the tasting ones. However for the thing we listened to I managed to get some pretty good emotions to come out from them, notably the Boris Johnson covid 19 announcement which despite me not having much to say about how I felt when the announcement was first broadcast I found myself now getting quite angry because of hindsight and knowing how terribly the virus was handled and all the ways rules were broken by important figures such as Boris Johnson.

We then went on to do more rehersing of our Frankenstein scenes but this time just starting with us saying our lines while passing the ball back and forth. This was to try and help us develop the rhythm of the scene and how snappy soke of the lines might be. This also helped us solidify our memorisation of our lines so that that wouldn't be something we'd be thinking about on stage and we could then learn to say our lines in the way a proper conversation would be had rather than just plain reciting them.

Today we started talking about accents and proper articulation for our Frankenstein characters and how we could use that to give a more periodically accurate performance. One of the exercises we did for this, had follow a link and listen to a man read a short story in the desired accent. The story would cover all the sounds in the English language and would help actors get an idea of how different words are pronounced in the accent. After spending some time developing our accents and applying them to our scenes when doing a few scrip read through, we then went out on stage and were told to walk around stage with our eyes closed so we'd all be jumbled up and not know where other people were. We then stopped and chloe went round picking people to say the first line of the story in accent and the rest of us would have to guess who was talking. For this exercise I don't think I did so well as usually I can't jump right into accents if I haven't learnt them for very long so when it came my turn to speak I don't believe I gave the best my accent could have been and it was very obvious I was the one talking. However, I am usually quite good at accents so I hope to keep developing this one and use it in my performance.