My Production Journey - Production Diaries (Year 1, Term 1)

Candidate Declaration - I confirm that the attached portfolio is all my own work* and does not include any work completed by anyone other than myself.

Monday 11th September - Improvisation

Today was our first actual day at college and we were in the theatre all day. We started out with a quick game of cat and mouse. Everyone links arms with one other person and someone is the cat and the mouse. The mouse has to run from the cat and link onto someone to be safe, whoever wasn't linked in that duo now is the mouse and has to run. This was fun, we did this to get our bodies warmed up and ready to start the lesson. We then moved on to looking into the importance of improvisation and how it is used throughout the acting world. The main reason this was introduced straight away is to prepare us for our first performance at The Globe Theatre in Stockton, as it is a promenade performance, meaning the audience is able to interact with us, so we have to be able to keep up an act with them in character. To start, we looked into a technique called 'yes and' to allow us to follow the main rule of improvisation - always agree to keep the story line going. We then did whole group improvisation pieces, which allowed us to work together as a team to create a bigger picture. For the afternoon, we created expectations and rules for each other within different environments (class, rehearsals, shows, etc.) so that we are all on the same page with boundaries.

Tuesday 12th September - Singing

Today we were working with Tom on vocal exercises. We started of the day by sitting down and going over different things to do with the voice, for example what is good/bad for your singing voice, different terminology (pitch, tempo, etc.) and much more. We did this so that everyone had a similar amount of knowledge and to educate us on how to sing safely. Then we started an exercise where we had to walk at different paces around the room, jumping and touching the floor. We did this so that our bodies were warmed up and we were more awake so that we were prepared for the lesson. After this exercise was done, we went into warming our face up for singing, face massages, sirens, etc. We did this to keep our voices safe whilst singing. Then we started our singing exercises which included 1,2,3,4,5 and when the saints go marching in, etc. This prepared us for the next part which was learning the songs for our Christmas production of Peter Pan. Tom introduced us to the songs we are going to be singing in the production and taught us some of the lines so that we can start preparing ourselves in advance as it is a musical and that makes me and many others feel nervous.

Wednesday 13th September -  Horrible Deaths

We started the day by doing a warm up game where everyone stands in a circle and people have to match each others emotions. Kelly gave one person a slip of paper with a line and an emotion of how to act it in the middle of the circle and the other person in the circle has to match the emotion and lines with the other person. We did this so that we can match energy and emotions when needed. After this, Kelly set us a task to get into small groups. From here we did our task of the day based all around the Globe and horrible histories. My group was me and 4 others and everyone got given a slip of paper with a crazy real life death on it. From here, we had to create one last death which was a lie and didn't actually happen and everyone else had to guess who the liar was. We did this so that Kelly could see how creative we could get for our Halloween performance and to give her some ideas, yet we also did this so that we could see who could put the best act on, and what is believable and what isn't. To end the day, after we did this we picked our favourite death and created a freeze frame / still image of it just as a fun little ending. We also did this though to see how accurate we could be with a creative death. Ours was beating someone to death with their own wooden leg and we used props!

Thursday 14th September - Research

Today we were once again with Tom as Kelly was sick and we started by doing a few warm ups. We did this to get us prepared for the day. We then moved on to looking into the different themes for our Halloween performance at the globe. Tom showed us some horrible history videos for inspiration on what we were doing, including live performances of how they put a creative twist on things that happened in the past to keep the audience entertained. Then we got into groups and started creating ideas of things we could include in our performance. We did this so that when Kelly was back she had a general idea of what we wanted to include in our performance as it is the only one where we have creative freedom in the year. This was also helpful as it gave us the first step into performance mode and being the first step into starting the project.

Monday 18th September - The Globe Research

We started off today with a quick exercise to get us moving and into a creative mood. The exercise we did was an improvisation game of tug of war, we had to act as if we were in a tug of war competition in small groups. This including a warm up, a team strategy, team motivation and acting as if we were actually doing a competition. Yet we also acted as fans in the stands watching the other groups, eating snacks, cheering them on silently. Our group 'won' the competition. This was good as it got everyone working as a team and acting as a group instead of an individual which is useful for the Halloween production. Then, Kelly introduced us to the theme that we are doing for our first project of the year - an immersive (promenade) piece at the Globe Theatre in Stockton. We got given themes of what we are thinking about performing, these include: The Titanic, Jack the Ripper, The Great Fire of London, Children in the Mines, etc. We then together in smaller groups picked a certain theme (mine was children in the mines) and did research on the given theme. This is helpful as it allowed us to start thinking about the characters we can develop and use.

Tuesday 19th September - Musical Theatre

Today we were with Tom again and we focused on some musical theatre side of acting. We originally started with a warm up of running around the room to get ourselves energetic and ready for what we were doing. We then listened to one of the songs from 'Shrek the Musical' and named the characters we could hear in it. We did this so we could give ourselves characters later on. I was Ginge (the gingerbread man). Once we all had our characters, Tom introduced us to the dance part of it, which i found entertaining cause i enjoy dance. He kept it simple so it was at a good level for everyone to do. We then had to act as if we were that character, using our facial expressions and body language within the acting and dancing to the song. After this, we once again focused on singing Peter Pan songs, learning new ones and learning harmony. We are doing this so that later towards the show harmonising becomes easier and we are well prepared for the show. 

Wednesday 20th September -  Detective Improvisation

Today we started off by doing an exercise called wink wink murder. Everyone sits in a circle and a detective steps out the room and everyone decides a murderer. If the murderer winks at you, you must die in a creative way and the detective has to figure out who the murderer is. We did this so that Kelly could see how creative we can be with our deaths and so that it got us prepared for our next task. Our task was an improvisation piece with a detective a murderer and innocents. We had to take slips of paper one person being a murderer, the rest of us being innocents with information about our character. We got another slip of paper with a motive on (everyone got this) and we had to act like our character with the motive and make it difficult for the detective to find out who it was. I was a person on a healthy eating journey who was also a psychopath. We did this so that Kelly could see how we acted under pressure and how we would react to being asked questions in character. It really helped improve my acting as it allowed me to stay in my character and keep up my act whilst being interrogated and it was overall a good exercise.

Thursday 21st September - Research And Creating Storylines

Today we started by playing a few warm up games, we played ninja, which is where you stand in a circle and you can either step away or attack someone, if you hit them between their wrist and elbow they are out. We play this to get us warmed up as it is a high concentration game which moves fast, also preparing us for the day. We also played the bus game. It stars with one person being the bus driver, then everyone else gets on the bus doing a different emotion each time. As more people get on the bus everyone has to copy her emotion inside the bus - including the bus driver. We did this as it allows us to bounce from different emotions and match other people which is a skill we need. After we had done all of this, we went back into looking into the research at the globe except this time a worker from the Globe called Josh came to talk to us to get a general idea of what we were doing and he gave us some ideas too. On this day i went around different groups trying to link children to different things, and created notes on the story of Lottie, which gave our group the main idea we had of having a child lurer, manipulating children. This is helpful as it allows us to know what to focus on when we are trying to bring our topic to life. This allowed me to start looking into creating a storyline and how to link everything together with characters and real life story. 

Monday 25th September - Gibberish And Script Work

Today we started off by learning a new game that's all about concentration. Everyone goes in a circle and one person goes in the middle and points at you. You have to say bing, the person next to you says bong, the person after says the person on their left's name. This goes around in a circle but the person in the middle can transfer it to a different part whenever they want and you have to start where the other person left it. We did this so that we could get focused and be in sync with each other, it was an exercise about listening to one another and staying focused. After this we went onto the first task of the day where we got into partners and had to have conversations in gibberish. We did this so that we could see if we could understand what the other person was saying purely from concentrating on them and their body language. We did this many times with many different activities. This was difficult but it was a useful task as it shows that words aren't always needed to understand what is going on in a scene if you concentrate enough. We then moved onto a simple game of the conga in many different sizes with random people around the room. Kelly was smart by doing this, as she gradually made the conga smaller until it was two people and then whoever you were with you worked with for script work. She did this to get everyone working with different people that we haven't chose ourselves. From here we picked a script we liked the most and decided who the people were in the script, their relationship, what's happening in the moment, etc. Then we got our script up on its feet and went over it with one another. The whole point of this was to start listening to each other and get us working on new things.

Tuesday 26th September - Musical Theatre And Singing

Today we were working with Tom on musical theatre again with the same piece as last week but this time we included our own voices within the piece. We started with a quick warm up as running around the room to music to get our bodies all ready for the day. After this, we did our vocal exercises so that we wouldn't hurt our voice with what we were doing. We then started on the piece again, learning the song and casting people as roles. I got a different role this time, i was the 'big bad wolf' and i had to sing a line in the group piece. From here, we put it on its feet including the choreography and the dancing. The entire point of this piece is to allow Kelly to see how we act with musical theatre but to also give us a taste of what we are going to be doing with 'Peter Pan' at Christmas, as it is a musical piece. After this, we went over some more of the Peter Pan songs with Tom so that we have a general idea of how the songs go before Christmas auditions, so we can start preparing in advance.

Wednesday 27th September - Preforming Script Work

Today we spent the day going over the same script work we did on Monday, preparing to and then showing everyone what we have done. We spent around 30 minutes going over what we had done, giving ourselves more preparation time to make sure we are happy with what we have got. After this, we all created an audience and watched everyone's pieces being performed. As we did this, after every piece we gave positive and negative feedback for the performances to give something that went well and something to improve on. We did this entire thing so that Kelly had a general idea of how everyone performs and could take notes, but also so that everyone else could have a chance to perform their work and get given notes on how to improve and what they did well for future use, for example auditions.

Thursday 28th September - The Globe Tour

Today we went on a tour of 'The Globe Theatre' in Stockton. It was a great opportunity for us. We went around the globe as a class looking at different sections of the Globe which we will be performing in for our Halloween piece. As we got to each section, we were able to sit and look around the area, share our ideas with one another and write down what we think would work best in each area. We looked at the stage, bar rooms, wings, dressing rooms, etc. and we also got to learnt new facts about the Globe with every section we went into. It was a great experience as it gave us a better idea of what we wanted to do after being able to see the area we have to work with and it allowed us to picture everything better. It also gave us a general idea of where we wanted to put everything and how the tour was going to play out. I enjoyed this day as it was something new that i have never seen before, as this was my first time in the theatre.

Monday 2nd October - Diction And Enrichment

Today we focused on our pronunciation of words and the way we are speaking when acting. We started of with a few warm up games. We played 'kitty needs a corner' where everyone stands in a circle and one person in the middle goes to someone kitty needs a corner and then that person has to swap with another person in the circle and get there before the person in the middle does. It was a game about concentration because anyone could swap at any time. We did this to be focused. We also played 'hug tag' which is tag, but to be safe from being tagged u could hug another person for 10 seconds. We did this to get our bodies moving but also so that we could be more comfortable with one another as we are still at the beginning of the year. After this we went into our diction exercises of tongue twisters. We at first found a space and had to repeat tongue twisters back to Morgan, and work on our pronunciation when saying the twisters. After this, we got into small groups and each group got a tongue twister to work on, and then performed them to everyone else and they had to repeat it. We did this so that we could make sure we were pronouncing everything correctly, trying to leave behind the Teesside slang when we spoke, as we need proper English within our acting. After this, we had enrichment and we all signed up for an enrichment activity to do. I chose script writing, dance and self care. We did this so that we are all doing an activity within the college. During this time, we also wrote down what we would like to go for in the Halloween auditions, so that everyone had an idea of a character they wanted to go for.

Tuesday 3rd October - Stage Combat

Today we were focusing on a different side of acting today for our 'Peter Pan' production in December. We were looking at stage acting and how we can perform it safely without injuring anyone. We started the day by doing a few warm up races, for example we got into two teams and had to piggy back another person to the end of the room and the first team to be done wins. We did this to get our minds creative and to warm our bodies up for the day as we would be doing a lot of movement. We then moved onto the combat, we started off by learning four moves. We learnt a punch, an uppercut, a foot stamp and hair pulling. We got taught to do this really safely following strict rules: communication is key, always maintain eye contact, concentration and distance. We had to follow these to ensure that nobody actually got hurt within the stage combat. We learnt these moves because we will be doing combat in our production and we need to be able to know how to do them. Once we were confident in knowing these moves, we started looking into a blocked piece of stage combat with the idea of Peter Pan in our heads. We had pirates, lost boys, brave girls, captain hook and peter pan. From here, we created a blocked piece of stage combat with everyone fighting to help peter pan and the lost boys free. We did this so we had a general idea of what we would be doing very soon in the future.

Wednesday 4th October - Improvisation And Monologues

Today the focus was creating a monologue for our auditions for our Halloween piece at 'The Globe.' To get us into a creative mood, we got into groups of 6 and got given a prompt. From this prompt we had 10 minutes to come up with an improvised piece together based around it, which we then performed to the whole class. We did this so that we had gotten into a creative mood to be able to come up with something on the spot, and so that Kelly could get a general idea of what we could create in a small time limit. We then moved onto creating a monologue for our audition. We had our characters picked on the Monday and today we wrote the monologues. We did this so that we could be creative with our own piece but also so that Kelly knows we understand the character we are going for and that the research done previously is all correct. 

Thursday 5th October - Auditions!

Today we spent the day auditioning for the roles that we wanted to go for in our Halloween production. It was a fun yet stressful day as we had to make sure that our monologues we had wrote the previous day were ready to be performed at a standard that suited us best. I was quite scared when it come to the build up to the audition but when i was actually doing it i felt okay. Everyone did their auditions and once the audition was done we did some improvisation games and exercises such as ninja, improv in a night club, splat, etc. whilst we waited for everyone else so we still had something to do that calmed us down and allowed us to enjoy the rest of the day without thinking of what we had just done. I enjoyed this day as it was my first audition within the college and my first audition for the year and it made me feel like everything was more real.

Monday 9th October - Lonely Hearts

Today we started the day by doing a few warm up games such as splat and 13. We did this so that we were ready for the day and concentrated because we had a long day ahead. After we were all done with the warm ups, we split with the second years so it was just the first years and Kelly. We started an activity called ‘Lonely Hearts’ which we will be looking at for a couple of weeks. To get started, we all sat in a circle and picked a piece of paper from random with a character on it from a real newspaper looking for love. These were all massively different characters with different age ranges and names. My character was called Marie and she was in her 40s. This week was introducing us to the characters and asking questions such as who is the person closest to our character, what education does the character have, etc. The reason we are doing this task is to get us out of our own head and putting ourselves in the characters shoes which will help prepare us for roles in the future as it is helping getting us used to learning the character we are given instead of staying in our comfort zones and only going to an extent we are personally comfortable with. 

Tuesday 10th October - The Ripper Victim's Song

Today we were with Tom and we were learning how to create music. We started the day with a quick warm up with the Level 2s and Abi, doing our stretches and making our bodies ready for the day and then we got started. We learnt what you need in music to compose a song, such as tempo, rhythm, etc. and what each of these things are. We did this so that everyone was at the same page and everyone knew what was going on no matter what level of music experience we have. After this, we did exercises that included learning a rhythm and sticking to it. For example, we had to stomp our feet, clap our hands, etc. in a beat of 4/4. We did this so we had a general idea of what a beat was and the difference in the different types. From this point, we split off into little groups and had a go at creating a piece of music to the lyrics for the ripper victim's song for our Halloween production. This was so that Tom could have some ideas for the actual song for the show but also just so we could have a try at it. We did this entire thing today because being able to compose music is another thing that people look for when hiring people on projects whether it be a musical, tv show or even music video as it is another thing you’re able to do that other people may not.

Wednesday 11th October - Script day

Today we started the day by playing a few games such as wink murder, bus game, etc. We did this to get us warmed up for the day and so our minds were ready to work whilst we waited for Kelly. After this, we got into the same groups from when we did tounge twisters previously and we went over our tounge twisters from before. We did this to see if our diction had improved from when we originally looked at them. After this, Kelly gave us the scripts for the globe! We were able to look through the first draft of the script see what characters we got. I got my monologue and a role as a newspaper Victorian child. From this point, we started to learn our lines as even though it was the first draft we were told the script wouldn't change much, so we got to work right away to ensure we knew the lines for the production. Everyone was very excited and got the roles they wanted, so we all looked through it together and congratulated each other on the roles. 

Thursday 12th October - Showing Josh And Learning Lines

Today we all split off into our groups based on the script we were given yesterday and we started thinking of ideas for what to do and learning our lines. My group started by doing a quick verbal run through of it so we had a general idea of what we wanted to create and what was happening in our given scenes. We then proceeded to talk through how we wanted it to happen for example how the characters reacted to each other, how we wanted people to enter, etc. Once we had a general idea of what we wanted to do, we got it on its feet and created a piece of acting using improvisation. Due to the fact our scene is mainly interactive with the audience and facial expression, we managed to create our scene quite quickly, so when we were done we polished it up and kept going over it. After we were happy with it, we showed our piece to Josh and Kelly so that Josh had a general idea of what we were doing and to ensure they both were happy with it. After it was shown, we all split off to go learn our lines individually, so we could go to a different part of the college and sit with different people helping each other out and getting our monologues learnt. This was fun, as i got to hear everyone's different scenes and interpretations of their characters, some being really creepy.

Monday 16th October - Lonely Hearts And Introduction To Final Scene for Halloween

Today was a really fun day. We started by doing a quick warm up of splat with the second years to get us motivated for the day, but we quickly split with them to focus once again on the Lonely Hearts activity we started the week before. Today was great with the activity, as we got into our character and we weren't ourselves for this part. Kelly explained to us that we were going to be our character going to meet up with everyone else at a gathering night, we would be having a few drinks (metaphorically) dancing, interacting, etc and she wanted us to be fully in character. Before we started, she had us think about how our character would stand, walk, talk, etc. to make sure we would fully be in the moment. We then all left the theatre and entered again but fully in character, not ourselves at all. We did this so that we could understand what it is like to be a character and fully in the moment, leaving our comfort zones and being a completely different person. When in the character and the room, we had to mix with different people who our character enjoyed talking to, we did a quiz, and we went around and tried to find someone our character would be interested in getting to know more. It was a really fun activity and very useful as it allowed me to push myself a bit further with my posture and how i would act if i was truly that person. After this activity, we joined the second years again and we did a small run through of the Halloween show, just to see how it would play out. It went quite well and this was the first time we got to see everyone do their roles in the continuous pattern it would be in the show. After this, we got introduced to our final scene for our production - the execution scene. It was really fun and creative to make, and it took awhile to block it out and figure out who was doing what, but by the end we were happy with what was created. We did this so that everyone would be included in the ending of the show and together to creep everyone out at the end.

Tuesday 17th October - Singing

Today we were with Tom and we were focusing on vocal work once again. We started the day by doing a warm up with Abi and the Level 2s to get our minds focused and our bodies warm for the day. We then started our vocal warmup exercises we do, such as when the saints, duke of york, etc and the main one being 1,2,3,4,5. The reason this is the main one is we learnt a new thing in breath control with this today, we learnt to cut off and quickly take a new breath as we didn't stop after the last number, so for example instead of 1,2,3,4,5, break it would be 1,2,3,4,5,5,5,5. An extended version really. We had to go as long as we could without taking a new breath then quickly cut it off and take a new breath in between when it fits. This was all about a focus of breath control and learning how to manage it better with proper technique. After this we split with the Level 2s and we went back to focusing on our Peter Pan production songs. Again, we are focusing on Peter Pan songs early as we are doing a musical and not everyone focuses on singing, so we are preparing in advance so everyone feels more comfortable when auditions come around, which will be soon.

Wednesday 18th October - Learning Lines And Final Scene Blocking

We spent today going over lines and the final scene of our Halloween production. Before we did this however, we were given a list of things from Kelly to see if we had sorted them out or not. This included costume, props and any music wanted in the scene. So, we all split off into our groups and i sat down with my group and my notepad and wrote down everyone's name and whether they had their props and costume sorted. We knew we didn't need any music, so this is all we had to focus on. Everyone in my group had everything prepared which was good as it meant we could focus on preparing our scene and lines. The only thing i was missing from my character was Jack the ripper newspapers, which i would sort out very shortly. We then went over our scene a couple of times, ensuring everything was still as we planned before then we split off to go learn our lines individually once again. This day was fun, as it was all about going off and helping one another to make sure everyone was prepared. After the first part of the morning doing this, we moved on to looking at our execution scene once more with Morgan in, as he is the one who wrote the ending. We showed him what we created on Monday and he gave feedback, changing parts which could be improved and crediting us where it was good. We spent the rest of the day going over this until everyone was happy with it. In my opinion, it turned out really good. We did this entire day to ensure we are prepared for when we get into the space at the globe, as we need to know our lines and what we are all doing as a team otherwise the show wouldn't work.

Thursday 19th October - Full Run Through!

Today we spent the day doing a full run through of the show to see how it is going to play out. It was a long day but worth it in the end. It included a lot of waiting around but it was good, because in this time it allowed us to see what was going on at different points in the show but also allowed us to go over anything we needed polishing personally. For me, when i wasn't acting i first went down to print the newspapers i needed for my props, as it gave me time to find the articles i needed. I also took this time to go over the extra lines i had been given and made sure i knew what was going on. During this full run through, it allowed me to find out where i would be when it came to the nursery rhymes we were including, and we also made a nursery rhyme for it. Me and Ash when not performing went to another room and composed a tune for a Mary Ann Cotton nursery rhyme which fit in nicely with the scene, we also went over the other ones we are going to be doing. It was a long day of hard work but it was worth it in the end as we got to see how everything would play out and catch up on doing other things we needed to do for the show.

SHOW WEEK!!