Drama Reflections

Sound Design

Sound has a massive effect on any performance as it is able to create different atmospheres and moods that are able to tell the audience exactly what is going on at that time in the performance. Sound is very important as it can be used in a variety of different ways and the two major parts of sound are sound effects and music. Sound can be used to show the weather that is there in the scene and sometimes also the location of where it is taking place. It can also show the time of the day and also something that could be happening off stage that is only heard by the audience. Music can be used to show a particular mood and they could have different genres to show different moods in the scenes. Music along with sound effects could also create/ build up tension in the scene by putting intense music in the scene. The music would also show what kind of play is taking place and also in what historical period. Sometimes music could also show characterisation and it could also show a whole story line.
This is our short scene from the Drama book using sound effects to build tension:

In our performance we included tension building music throughout the performance so that the tension was building up. We also has street sounds of New York back streets because the scene was set in a back street so it made it sound more realistic. I also kept tapping my hands on the boxes to show heavy footsteps and they were getting louder as they got closer to the guy. 

Costume Design

Costume Design

• What is a costume?

All clothing, under clothing, hairdressing, makeup, and accessories, such as hats, scarves, fans, canes, umbrellas, and jewellery, worn or carried by each character in a production. The design and appearance of costumes are the province of the costume designer.

• The nature of Costume Design:

• Reflect the design team’s agreed-upon interpretation of the play concept
• Exhibit a unity of style among all costume designs for a production
• Reflect the personality and nature of each character
• Provide visual information about the world of the play: Setting

• Types of Costume designs:

Character costume designs:

Decorative Costume designs:

What a person wears, and how it is worn, says a great deal about that person and the society in which he or she lives

Clothes can also be visible clues to the wearer’s emotional state

• Information provided by the clothes:

Historical Period

Age 

Gender

Socioeconomic status

Occupation

Climate and Season

Analysing the script

Interpretation of Period

Interpretation of Colour and Fabric

Practical Considerations:

Needs of the Actor

Production Venue

Budget

Construction Demands of the design

Renting Costumes

Buying costumes

Drama Set Design and Lighting Notes

Design decisions are made based on two things:

• The Text (the script/screenplay)
• The style and vision of the production. This is dictated by the director of the play/musical/film

1. What does the text say exactly about what kind of space it is and what needs to be in the space?

• Read the setting descriptions, stage directions and the lines of the characters
• Pick out the clues

1. What does the text say generally about the historical and geographical context?

• Research what the place looked like,the condition of the place where the play happens.What forces of weather may have acted on it? What was happening historically at the time? Level of technology?

Is there water damage on the walls? Are the windows broken? Are there posters for popular musicians of the time on the walls? Would the furniture be made from synthetic or natural materials? Is there damage from a war?

1. What is the mood and tone of the text? When does the mood ore tone change?
2. In other words, how do you want the audience to feel? How does this design make you feel?

What could be the abstract concepts represented in designs?

A style of design: Naturalism

Design which recreates the environment of the play’s setting as it actually would appear in real life or nature

Anachronism is the use of elements that are not technically correct for the time period in which a work is set in order to create a specific artistic effect.

The colours that could be used in this scene could be light at the start to show that the boy was happy and he was having a good time living with his grandmother. Then you could use dark red to show that the boy’s father and mother are dead and that there is only his grandmother left to take care of him. You could then have one light and the rest of the area dark to focus on the grandmother and the child and to also show that they are alone and there is no one else with them. You could then show the colour green to represent the child going into the forest and brown as well when the grandmother says that they will starve. Then the colour orange could show on the boy only when it says that she gave him the bow and arrow that belonged to his father to show pride and that he is now taking his position. 

Set Design: Bugsy Malone

Train Surfing Unit Reflection

This term we have been focusing on the social divide in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil and how there is a big difference between the lives of the poor and the rich. We have learnt many skills such as marking the moment and cross cutting that we included in our final performance to make it stand out. For our final project we worked in groups of 4 and we had to use all the different scenes that we had performed before about a train surfer in Brazil as well as using our own ideas and imagination to make a 3 minute performance that showed what life of a poor Brazilian looks like. 

For our performance we decided that we would have the main character who is Carlos been stolen from his mother when he was a baby because the mother was part of a gang and she took money from them. The gang leader sends his people who work for him to get the baby because the mother doesn’t have the money anymore. Before the scene we had the scene in present tense and we had Carlos who is already grown up come back to the uncle who is the leader of the gang to give him drugs that he got from somewhere. When he arrives his mother walks in front of him and they see each other but Carlos get’s taken away by the other gang member. Since Carlos wants to know who the lady is, he goes and runs towards the mother who is arguing with the uncle and asks who she is. The scene then goes to the scene where the baby is stolen. In the scene after the baby was stolen, it goes to the part where the baby is delivered to the uncle and he doesn’t know what to do with the baby but know’s what he will name him. The two gang members keep asking him questions and they get out of the area and freeze frame. We all then do thought tracking and say what we think about what happened just then. It then goes to a scene where Carlos has grown up to a little boy and goes to the uncle saying he did something and then we fast forward and he is grown up to an even older boy and says that I will keep making you proud. Then it goes back to the present scene where Carlos sees the mother and the gang leader (uncle) doesn’t like what he did and hits him down to the floor. The mother keeps asking for the baby back, and the uncle get’s really angry and decides to shoot him if she doesn’t stop and he ends up killing Carlos in the end. 

We deciding to set our performance like this to show the kinds of things that happen to families in Brazil and what the gang members are like and to what extent they could reach. Our initial vision for our performance did match our final product because from the start we had the idea of the baby being stolen from the mother and how the baby see’s the mother and grows up. Also the characters that we had remained the same from the initial to the final product and we all improved in our roles and made it look more realistic. The one thing that we added was me being part of the gang in the scene where the baby was being stolen. We also added the part where Carlos was going to be killed in the end as we never thought of that at the start.

I believe that theatre could be a catalyst for positive social change as you could show a realistic image of how people in different countries see things. With theatre you would be able to connect with the audience and they would introduce them to issues, different ideas and people in the world by the characters in the scenes. In the performance, the audience would sometimes be able to relate to it or would have seen something like it before and with this they would think about the problems and look for solutions to it. Theatre does have a big impact on the society and it would easily be used for change in the world. Theatre has changed a lot over the course of these many years and it has already had a great impact on peoples life as they can see it happening right in front of their eyes so clearly. It is used for people to understand the problems and they would try for a solution. In theatre they show the issues of people who are treated in bad ways and they also show ways of action that are taken against it. They explore the different ways of action and it shows the audience that they could take that action. The words and dialogue that the people in the performance use can increase the awareness of what happens. Since there is an increase in awareness it can be used for development as well as it would show people in the poorest of places like how we portrayed in our performance and people would understand that they need help. This creates possibility for so many people to help out and make the society a better place.

Throughout the process of this performance, the main skill that I have developed is collaboration as for the performance we worked together as a group to create a perfect final piece.We had to cooperate well and make sure that we practiced out in our own time and also remember props to make sure that the final performance would look good and realistic. We also had to be serious as a group so that the performance looked realistic and we didn’t just play around the whole time. Another skill that I developed was keeping focus and always being concentrated without being distracted. Since all groups would be performing in the same class, sometimes in other groups people would be messing around and not being serious and sometimes interrupt the performance or be very loud. In this situation we couldn’t get distracted by them and we always had to be engaged into the performance and interested or the performance in the end wouldn’t look good. With this performance in particular I was able to see issues that people face in other parts of the world and how hard it is for them to live in the poor conditions. I was able to develop my knowledge further about slums and poor areas in Brazil and this helped me picture an image in Geography as we were learning about slums and poor areas. This performance also helped me develop my decision making skills to decide which scenes that we should include in the performance as well as what we have to say during the performance. This whole performance was based on true and real life examples of people in Brazil and it made me think about how people live in these parts of the world and what kinds of problems they are facing and this will also make me realise if any problems are happening in front of me as well. Overall, I have been able to improve on many of my skills with this realistic performance of portraying the social divide in Brazil and the people living there.

The things that I enjoyed about this performance is that we were able to show other peers in a realistic way of how life is of a poor boy in Brazil. I also like how we used the drama techniques which made our performance look better as well as making it stand out. I really liked the whole idea of our group and how it worked out really well in the final performance. I think are group did a really good job overall and the only way we would be able to improve is by always staying in character and always sounding the same and never going off and maybe by adding a small scene but otherwise we used the drama techniques such as marking the moment and cross cutting very well to show a realistic picture of the social divide in Brazil.

Teenager and Uncle Argument

Uncle shouting at Teenager for coming late:
In this lesson, we were continuing the scene of the teenager helping the train surfer that got injured. This time the teenage was on his way back home from helping the injured train surfer and had spent all his money and was also late. His uncle was waiting at home and started to get really impatient and angry. This scene shows that the uncle is not happy with what the teenager is doing and does not listen to him anymore and he starts shouting at him.

Train Surfers: Marking The Moment

Marking the Moment- Train Surfer Still Image:

In the last lesson, we looked at a technique in Drama known as marking the moment where we had to highlight the most important part of a scene that we were acting out. Marking the moment can also be known as grabbing the audience's attention to one particular part of a scene. To mark the moment you can use other skills in Drama such as freeze frames or even just having a moment of silence to show that all the attention has gone towards that one particular area/part. For the past few lessons, we have been learning about the social divide in Brazil and how the slums and rich parts of Brazil are. In the last lesson we had, we had to recreate a scene of Train Surfers in Brazil. Train Surfers are the poor people of Brazil who don't have any ways to entertain themselves or anything worth living for so they decide to have fun and risk their lives by going on top of trains and try to avoid the electric wires, which is one of the main causes of death in Brazil. Sometimes they also do it because of peer pressure or because they want to join a gang. Our scene included the police, the gang members, people walking by and a poor person from the slums who wanted to join the gang and had never done train surfing before. In our scene the gang members told the new person to do train surfing with them and he decided to go with them. He got really scared and did not want to do the train surfing anymore. Before they arrived at the train station, the gang members jumped off which was what they were supposed to do but the new person was to scared to. As he arrived at the train station, the police was there to get him and they started rushing towards the train. The police told him to get on the ground and off the train. Then it came to marking the moment and he said that he was going to touch the wires and kill  himself. To mark the moment in the scene we made Yasin increase his voice and he started speaking really loudly saying that he would kill himself if the police did not leave him which grabbed all the audiences attention towards him. The police were speaking over him and kept telling him to get on the ground and leave the wire which built up the tension and it looked very realistic like the scene was happening in real life. Yasin was not only speaking loud but he was also speaking like he was really scared and did not want to die at that point. We also had JP and Amelie who were the gang members as well as the people who walked by the train and stopped there in shock as the did not want to see Yasin die. Their facial expressions showed that they were really shocked and that they had never seen that happen in front of their eyes before. The facial expressions of Aslesha and I showed that we were really serious and angry and we did not want him to kill himself at that point. Yasin also looked very afraid which showed on his face and had never experienced something like that ever before. The police at the part of the scene where they were arriving at the train station showed that they really wanted to catch the train surfer which was Yasin because usually the others would always get away with it and just escape very easily. In the last lesson we also did cross-cutting where we showed a scene from before where Yasin was going to meet the gang to get into it and he said that he would do anything and the gang members accepted him in. When he went outside he told his friends and his friends were happy because they never got in but they also told him about train surfing and he got really shocked an just stood there in silence. I think that we were able to use marking the moment very well in the lesson and it would be a really good technique to use in future performances as it is really effective. 

Photos Depicting Social Divide

Still Image 1- Poor:

Our first still image shows the poor side of the social divide in Rio De Janeiro and how the poor people in the slums have to live. There are four different characters in this still image and they each show different people in the slums. Aslesha is a mother in the slums who is washing the clothes out on the street with the water that they have to walk really far to get and she is doing it out on the streets. Tye is there begging and hoping for money as he is really poor and he needs money for food and is really depressed. Then there is Claudio who is a small child who is resting out on the streets but is also crying because he is really afraid and does not know what is happening around him and is also really hungry. Then there is me who is smoking as there is a lot of use of drugs, cigarettes and alcohol in Brazil and a lot of the poor people are addicted to it and do it out on the streets. I think that our still image was quite effective because it showed a lot of the different kinds of people in the slums and poor areas of Rio de Janeiro and what they do on the streets and how poor they actually are. We also used different levels as there was me standing, Claudio on the floor, Tye squatting and Aslesha kneeling and washing the clothes. It also looked quite realistic because if you would go out into the slums of Rio De Janeiro you would see the people doing things like we portrayed in the picture. I think to improve this still image next time we could use more space and not all be in a straight line and we could have Tye in the front and maybe me standing on one side and Claudio could use an object and be under it to show that, that is his shelter.

Still Image 2- Rich:

This still image shows the Rich side of the social divide in Rio De Janeiro where people have a lot of money compared to the poor and usually do not care about spending it. In this still image Claudio is a surfer and he has a really expensive surf board that he is using and he is really famous as well. Then there is Tye on the beach taking photos of Claudio while he is surfing because Claudio is famous and that's what usually happens. Then there is me sitting on a table working on a laptop which most business men do and sit in restaurants/coffee shops and do their work. Then there is Aslesha using her phone to take a photo of herself and the beach. I think that this still image of ours was quite effective because it showed what the rich people in Brazil are like and how much money they have. It also shows that on the other side of Rio de Janeiro people spend money on anything they want like surfing and having a photographer for themselves as well as using the latest technology like phones for taking the photos and laptops for work. I also think that we used different levels and the space that we had very well because Aslesha was standing, Claudio was on the bench pretending like he was on a surfboard at the beach, Tye is on the sand in the beach taking photos of Claudio and it looks quite realistic and I'm sitting and working on my laptop. I think that we could have shown more facial expressions so when I'm doing the work I could look more stressed, Aslesha could have like a big smile to show she was taking a photo of herself and Claudio could have also been smiling as he was getting his photo taken. Our body language was quite good as well because it is clear what everyone in the group is doing.

Still Image 3- Rich and Poor:

Our last still image shows the rich and the poor side of the social divide in Rio De Janeiro where the two sides meet each other and how the rich people do not really like the poor people and they try avoid giving money to them. In this picture I am there in the front driving a car and next to me is Aslesha who is begging for me money and knocking on the window of the car. I am just ignoring her and not giving her any money because they would keep begging if that happened. In the back is Tye who is rich and he is being robbed by Claudio who is trying to steal money from him to get food for himself and to provide for his family. I think that in this photo we used a lot of different facial expressions like Tye where he is scared and it shows on his face and Claudio is really angry and he is trying to get the money from him. Also I'm looking a bit shocked because I didn't expect to see Aslesha at the window. We also were able to show exactly what it looks like on the streets of Rio De Janeiro when the poor and the rich collide with each other and how the poor people really don't have money and are really depressed and angry when the rich people don't give to them even though they have a lot, so they end up stealing from them. We also used all different levels in this still image as we were standing, sitting or even lying on the floor and we were also able to use the space that we had very well. In my opinion this was our best still image as it is really realistic and we were able to show different levels, use of space, body language and facial expressions to show the reality of when the poor and rich meet in Rio De Janeiro.