2. HOW EFFECTIVELY ARE YOU
PERSONALLY EXPLORING AND
DEVELOPING YOUR ROLE(S)?
29.10.12
When starting the unit and having the idea of the robbery devised piece we
created characters by spontaneous improvisation. I played a creepy detective so
as research into my character I watched the 'Spice Girls Movie' as the detective/
press was something I thought I could base my character, however I thought my
character needed a feistier edge to him so i watched 'Life on Mars' a police
detective show set in the early 70s. One of the characters 'Gene Hunt' had
characteristics such as the edge to his voice; his frostiness and short
tempered rudeness are all characteristics I would like to apply to my character.
To get used to the movement of our characters we used a Brechtian technique of stepping in and out of character to get used to the physicality of our chosen characters, this helped us find the difference between the way we moved and stood to our characters.
However after changing the play we felt it would be good to create different
characters. The group did this by using spontaneous improvisation, we started
an exercise by two people standing blankly on stage whilst someone had to mould
them into a shape, then the two people on stage had to start a scene from the
positions they were in. When coming up with an idea to devise one of the scenes on someone having an infection i researched possible embarrassing infections one might have, i came up with infected tattoos and/or piercings, mould growing on someone or a bad smell they don't notice on them.
12.11.12
I have recently been watching a lot of British comedy sketch shows such as 'Little Britain', 'The Office', 'School Of Comedy', 'The Catherine Tate Show' and a few others. These are all shows that have the same comic humour that we want to create and most have caricatures that we could base our characters on. The fact that most of them only include 3-5 minute sketches forces them to make stand out characters to make the sketches stand out and force everything to be over the top and farcical.
26.11.12
We started the lesson with a warm up. We set up a bus stop and each one of us had to walk into the empty chair next to a person already waiting at 'the bus stop'. Neither of the two know what character the other will be but you have to improvise a scene together spontaneously. The aim of this game was to generate characters and think of possible story lines to include in our devised piece.
Wanting to focus on the scene between Hazel and Taylor we started with hot seating Hazels character 'Tracey'. As a group we decided her character would be good if she was posh and naive. We all asked her questions about her personal life and her relationship with her new friend at school Stacey who Taylor plays. However, when hot seating Hazel she felt uncomfortable in the role and felt stuck with what lines to come up with so i suggested we looked at a clip from 'Made In Chelsea' to get a better understanding of the character she was trying to play and what accent and mannerisms she should have. The clip we had a look at was 2 girls in an interview which then led me to coming up with a decision to have both Hazel and Taylor being hot seated at the same time to make her feel more comfortable and work on the characters relationship with each other. Although this idea was working for Taylor and her coming up with ideas for her character Hazel still felt stuck with coming up with lines spontaneously so Pia suggested the rest of us who were over looking the hot seating and asking questions should each take it in turns to play Hazels character to give her possible ideas to use and see what our take on the character we had in mind would be like. Pia, Elizabeth and I each came up with a very different take on the character which i think helped Hazel with confidence in the role and that even though we had all spoken about the same character the interpretation of it could be completely different.
10.12.12
I've tried to improve my character in the scene with me playing Jeffrey by watching The Catherine Tate Show and Friday Night Dinner. Catherine Tate plays a grandma who's physicality i would like to replicate, she moves very hunched and slowly, taking little steps with her arms out and bent to the side hanging in the air a lot, i think these are the things that stereotype old people and straight away people recognise and assosiate with old people. This is also something that is important as its a piece using short scenes the audience has to recognise and understand who the characters is very quickly.
The other programme i looked at (Friday Night Dinner) had a character called 'Jim' in it. He was a very creepy character who acted like a well aged man yet he was in his 40s. I wanted to add in his element of ceepyness to the character i was playing 'Jeffrey'. I added the way he nervously talked to my character. I also added in the nervous way his eyes moved from side to side awkwardly to make him seem awkward and quite a closed off character, which i also thought made the character seem older, making it easier for the audience to establish the character.
