Jessica

After this shortfall of production we were named the ‘procrustinators’, not something I am usually labeled, so we decided to work hard to prove that we really are worth more than that.

During this time the yr 12 ensemble was performed as their final assessment. As well as this 6 girls from our class performed their solos. The yr 11 girls all lifted under the pressure, and performed at their best. As for the year 12s, they were absolutely inspirational. We were so flabbergasted by their performance, and knew that we had to improve our ensemble after seeing theirs.

So our ensemble group decided that we need to push ourselves, so we scraped the idea we had (not completely) and went with the new idea of using a narrator as a non-naturalistic technique (along with our placards). We now have a start which we didn’t have before and the beginning of a first scene. Heather is the narrator and explains the nature of the TV in different places around the world. Maddi is a French lady who despises football, Leah is a little child who only wants to watch Hi-5, and I am a bogan absolutely disguised by the performance of Carlton. We then move into the 1900’s scene in which Leah, Maddi and I are painting a car in pain as we have poor pay, and Heather is the manager pushing us along as the car is for the queen.

After todays lesson I feel better about our ideas and production of the performance. Thanks to Mr. Cash we can now complete a dramatic performance rather than a comic one.

Well done to Jess, Jaqui, Nadia, Laura and Felicity for their ensemble performance at Creative Arts.

Things slowly began to go downhill from here.

In one week we did not have one full rehearsal until the Friday where Mr. Cash was to decided which group were going to perform in creative arts. Heather was the first to get sick out of our ensemble group, but then Leah over the following two days. I too came down with a cold, and Maddi after me. This caused a slow to our progress, and as we were all a little crabby from the lack of sleep we’d been getting from our sickness, and were too tired to actually come up with something beneficial.

We also discovered over this week that none of us were really comic actors, we don’t have the quick whit like some of our classmates, and realised that our performance really wasn’t as comic as we first thought. From here we began to over think our ideas and no scene would come out smoothly. Our whole group began to stress and realise that we were not going to be in creative arts for our performance.

Heather and I now know that we can be comic if the script is given to us, but we are more dramatic actors in producing a script ourselves. We decided to just keep going and deal with the hilarity of our performance a little further down the track. We quickly added another scene on the Friday so Mr. Cash could see some new material, even though it wasn’t too smooth.

The scene we added consisted of walkie talkies as the technology involved. A captain was in a ship waiting for advice from the main land, yet the walkie talkies fail and the message to not push the red button comes across as ‘do push red button’. This scene ends with Leah explaining that the outcome from the red button was not covered in the budget.

After the end of our ensemble was produced, we began to have disagreements over future scenes, as we all have different ideas and passions for technology. We began to develop another scene of the 1980’s where Leah and Maddi are the central characters. In this time frame the Boom box was a big craze, so we incorporated that into the script as well as an ipod, to show the contrast from different time frames. Maddi would be from the 1980’s and on the wrong ‘floor’, so she ran into Leah with her Boom Box. Maddi and Leah are each fascinated by the others contraption, and the contrast is evident with the lack of knowledge for each others technology.

 While this scene was being constructed,Heather and I continued to develop ideas for other scenes with some minor disagreements. We settled on the idea of a tattoo parlour and a ‘bimbo’ walking in looking for breast implants, little does she know that she is really in a tattoo parlour. The tattoo artist doesn’t understand what sort of tattoo she is interested in, and is so laid back that he does not care. The bimbo then realises that she is in a tattoo parlour, but doesn’t care. The idea here is to show contrast between the two characters and also to stereotype the characters.

In this scene we had problems with the language and timing of movements. I was to play the Bimbo, and Maddi the tattoo artist. Maddi had some struggles in actually acting like a man, seeing as she is really proper. Heather however tried to show Maddi, so we decided that maybe Heather should be in the scene. Moving around the characters I was moved out of the scene and Heather was to be the Bimbo and Maddi still the tattoo artist. Another reason I was moved out of the scene was because I’d already been in 5/5 scenes and needed a break.

I haven’t blogged in awhile.. so i thought its about time i should. I have been very busy lately, but we have been keeping an ensemble book of our process.

Our ensemble started off full steam ahead, as our group’s acting skills complemented each other such as Maddi being a creative script writer, Heather setting the scene on the performance area, and Leah for her humour. Our First lesson was filled with brainstorming and ideas from all ends, as we were excited to have a bit more freedom than the rigid structure of a solo with only yourself. We were excited to be doing a comic structure (except for Maddi :P).

We decided in the first lesson that it would be best if we kept an ensemble book with all our thoughts and research, as it is easier to access in class time. Maddi was kind enough to get the book for us, and Leah to decorate it :].

After the second lesson we settled on the idea of demonstrating the changes of technology over the centuries, with mini-scenes beginning from the 1920’s. This basis allowed us to set our scenes in a clear order and sophisticatedly. We started to develop scenes from the 1990’s, as MSN was big in that decade, we decided to use that idea, and play on the audiences experiences with the parents and the kids. Me and Heather were the parents in this scene and discovered that it is harder than we first thought to come up with sophisticated language from the top of our heads that doesn’t drag, never the less, we completed this scene and moved on to the 2000’s. This would be a scene with Heather as a little child and me and ‘Santa’. Heather stereotypes and kid, and what all children really want for Christmas.

 So our ensemble was developing smoothly after 3 lessons.