Single Performing Arts Lesson (16th October 2015)

During our single lesson we decided to work on 'Act 2' (Stopping before we became parents). After we had a run through Miss Cordell thought it was necessary to work on a  specific scene. So we dedicated the rest of our time on 'slow motion' as we try to escape from Peter Crouch (the stick insect) being projected onto the board (looking like Godzilla).
We went from the children in line singing the carols (when Peter Crouch first appears) and choreographed the slow motion section deciding who tries to push past who to get out the back first.

Single Performing Arts Lesson (15th October 2015)

In today's lesson we split off into groups (Olly K and Katya) (Lewis and I) (Lorna, Rhiannon and Ollie M) (Charlie and Cerys) and (James and Hope) and we told to device a scene in our groups of our characters in the play being their own parents rather than playing the adults as ourselves.
Lewis and I came up with the idea of us starting out as our characters deciding to play a game, so playing the part of our characters starting to play 'Question of Sport' game. Then we changed the concept of the story when Lewis asks me if i want to play another game, then we move into the idea of playing as our parents.
I begin mimicking my dad (always on his phone) and Lewis becomes his 'Uncle Ted' pretending to be a scientist. Ryan then begins to copy Lewis (as 7 year olds would do) pretending to be his 'Uncle Ted'.
We then finished off the piece as we were at the start, back playing 'Question of Sport'. Ending with the line from the play 'Your sitting on Ally Mccoist'

Double Performing Arts Lesson (14th October)

In this lesson we picked up where we left from on 7th October with our newspaper articles.
Charlie, Olly and I continued to write our script. However we brainstormed different ideas to tell our story and we decided to scrap the idea of a police interrogation and incorporate flash backs into the ideas of a news report.
After we decided the story line and the script we moved onto the 5 techniques from last week we were given to include in our story telling (Narration, props, movement, music/sound fx and multimedia. .

Narration- Charlie opened the scene as a news reported broadcasting the story.

Props- Charlie used a pad of paper to give the idea of him reading a news story. Also After the flashback where Olly and Charlie became the girls included in the fight, I placed charlie (supposedly beaten) on the table as if it's a hospital bed.

Movement- After the news report Charlie and Olly became the girls who triggered the fight showing Charlie getting beaten up and me (Charlies father) watching in horror.

Music/sound fx- We used an illusion of an Electrocardiograph Machine to give the illusion that charlie is in hospital.

Multimedia- During the news report we projected images and videos from the fight on the back wall as if it would be in a news report studio.


Once we all completed and performed our news report to the rest of class we split into 3 groups (Olly and Rhiannon) (James and I) (and Lewis, Lorna and Charlie) and began to plan for our next topic 'Greek Mythology'.
James and I were given 'The Odyssey' and began to think of ideas to begin planning a script for the next lesson.

Single Performing Arts Lesson (13th October 2015)

During this lesson we were put into groups as our characters (E.G- Lorna, Myself and Olly Marshall as Ryan, Jenny Bennett and Tim in 'The Flintstreet Nativity') and were asked to devise a piece from the play that isn't massively described. (E-G Lewis and James created their piece based on the idea of the innkeeper pulling Stars tooth out, although it is mentioned in the story line they elaborated the idea.) Therefore Lorna Olly and I decided to elaborated on the ideas of the paintings from the children in the class.

Although our piece was good in my opinion i believe it would have been a better piece if we had explored our characters more because we kept it very much the same as the play (E.G - Ryan (Herod) is playing question of sport like he is in the play.) However overall I believe our piece was well devised.

Fantastic Mr Fox (Breakdown)

Characters                                                                       Story Line

Mr Fox                                                                                                               Introduction to the farmers

Mrs Fox                                                                                                                Introduction to the foxes

Fox Cubs                                                                                                                                The shooting

Boggis                                                                                                                    Repairing Mr Foxes tail

Bunce                                                                                                                           Digging Mr Fox out

Bean                                                                                                                        Bean ordering diggers

The Woman                                                                                                                               "The Race"

Rat                                                                                                                                   Deciding to camp

Badger                                                                                                                         Starving out the fox

Weasel                                                                                                                                  "The big idea"

Mole                                                                                                            Raiding Boggis's chicken farm

Narrator                                                                                                                  "A surprise for Mr Fox"

                         introduction to badger

Raiding Bunce's storehouse

"Badger has doubts"

Raiding Bean's cider cellar

Introduction to the Rat

"The Woman"

"The great feast"

"Still waiting"

Boggis, Bunce and Bean

Double Performing Arts Lesson (9th October 2015)

In today's lesson we received the cast list for Fantastic Mr Fox. I was cased as Boggis and the weasel.
Before we were cast we were asked to list all the necessary characters in the book and ways we could interact with a child audience.
For this we came up with featured: Props, asking the audience questions and having a narrator. The best idea for this was having a narrator; this character would have so many opportunities to interact with the audience and talk to them it would be a great way to engage their attention. We thought with props, we could have something like rubber chickens and as Mr Fox is stealing some, he realises he can't carry them all so he has to hand some to the audience members.
After this we split into groups and sent to devise a piece from the story of Fantastic Mr Fox. Olly, Myself and Lewis created a scene of the farmers Boggis Bunce and Bean, and Charlie, Lorna, Rhiannon and James's piece was based on Mr fox (played by Charlie) and his family (Felicity Fox played by Rhiannon and the two baby Fox's James and Lorna) discovering their hole is being attacked by the farmers.

So after we performed our piece Miss McSherry produced a cast list in order for us to begin to get a feel for our  characters-

Narrator- Olly
Mr Fox- Charlie 
Mrs Fox (Felicity)- Rhiannon 
Fox Cubs- James and Lorna
Boggis- Rob
Bunce- Lorna 
Bean- Lewis
Rat- Lorna
Weasel- Rob
Rabbit- Lewis 
Badger- Olly

Single Performing Arts Lesson (8th October 2015) and (9th October 2015)

8th October
During this lesson we went over Act one Scene one again improving the scene (E.G- background, stage area) and Miss Cordell gave us the idea that we'd have a single spotlight brighter than all of the other lights so that who ever is the centre of attention at the time, they'd be standing centre stage with the light beaming on them. However we found that with a few people talking at one time trying to stand together was too crowded and looked odd.


9th October
For this lesson we continued working on act 1 scene 1 and decided to re-think the spotlight idea and decided to have 3 spotlights so if people are having a conversation then they can stand in different spotlights, therefore it wont be crowded in one spotlight.
This was good for people getting ready for their scene after the current one because they didn't have to go for one light so people don't get confused who is in the conversation it is clear who is involved in the scene and who is switching to the next scene making it easier for people to keep track of the story line.

Double Performing Arts Lesson (7th October 2015)

In today's lesson we were using the newspaper articles we collected for homework. My article was about the glass bridge collapsing in China. We split into two groups and chose a story for each group. 

My group consisted of Olly, Charlie and me. Charlies story was about Tom Cleverley's house being broken into and Olly's was about a girls street fight.

We decided to use Olly's story about a mass brawl of girls with baseball bats in London. We were working on technique and were given 5 techniques to include in our story telling: Narration, props, music/sound fx, multimedia and movement.

For our story telling idea we decided to brainstorm ideas for a scene. We came up with a police interrogation scenario questioning friends and family about the girls involved with Charlie being the police officer, Olly being a brother of one of the girls involved and me being a boyfriend of another girl.

We also discussed a news report scenario with the three of us reporting the incident live on TV.

During our planning time we were undecided on which idea to choose so we decided to mix both ideas together starting with a report and swapping the scenario straight to a police station.

Once we planned our scene we began to write our script for the story writing unit and next lesson we are performing our ideas to the rest of the class 

Single Performing Arts Lesson (6th October 2015)

Today we began the lesson getting into the character mind set for our Christmas production 'The Flint street Nativity'. We discussed hierarchy in a primary school classroom. I think we did this because it will give us a better understand of the tone and the way we talk to the other children in the classroom during our production (e.g- you wouldn't talk down to someone who is higher up than yourself).

After that we discussed ways other children in the classroom would describe the character in the classroom.

 For this activity we wrote our characters names on paper and walked around the room writing comments on the names on people interpretations of the specific characters. This would help our performance because it gives us a better understanding of our own characters and the way they would behave.

With this in mind we then carried on rehearsing hopefully with more understanding of the sorts of people our characters are. This helps to begin to piece the play together in the sense of stage presence, (e.g- the way we speak, walk, act, etc...) Personally this helped me with my own character the way he speaks and acts during his game of "Question of Sport".

Double Performing Arts Lesson (5th October 2015)

Today we performed our human trafficking piece to the year 13 class. I feel it went really well however Miss Cordell gave us tips on how to improve our performance (such as 'purpose' moving with purpose across the stage bringing it to life.)
Our piece was devised with the purpose of showing human trafficking for real exploring different aspects in the eyes of different people who have been trafficked

(e.g- child soldiers).
Our piece was based on a circus theme, with monologues from
Rhiannon (trafficked child), Charlie (trafficker) and Lewis and Oliver (Twins who were stolen from South Africa) telling there stories of how they found themselves in the situations of trafficking.
I believe we effectively reached our aims with the purpose of opening peoples minds to the idea and brutality of human trafficking because the piece contrasted between pain and suffering to the ideas of normal civilisation.


Once we completed our Human trafficking piece we moved onto our next topic which was 'Child theater'. We discussed as a group different ideas and ways of performing (e.g- Pantomimes, plays, stories).

We created spider diagrams with different ideas for this topic.

Also we had a discussion on different stories we will base our production over, We discussed authors such as 'Dr Seuss', 'Disney' and 'Roald Dahl' and we came up with ideas like 'we're going on a bear hunt', 'Peter Pan', 'The Twits' and 'Fantastic Mr Fox', However at first we were unsure on which decision to go on. So after long discussions we rounded our choices down to three 'Grinch', 'Peter Pan' and 'Fantastic Mr Fox'.
After long discussions we ruled out 'Grinch' and 'Peter Pan' therefore our chosen piece for this topic is 'Fantastic Mr Fox'. Now we've chosen our piece we will now have to plan an approach for the planning of a 'Children theater production' for Roald Dahl's 'Fantastic Mr Fox'.