All That Glitters

this is the script that i wrote for the collaborative piece in the last post. hope you enjoy

All that glitters

Midas’ living room. Two chairs and a table are the only props in the space.

Silenus enters and moves around the space like a dance. It becomes apparent that she is looking for something.

Midas enters and sees Silenus in his house.

Midas – what the hells going on here. Who are you? What are you doing in my house?

Silenus – hi there, you must be Midas right?… The name’s Silenus. I work at the D.A’s office. Look my boss sent me round here to find you, said he needs to have a word with you about something.

Midas - Well that still doesn’t give you any reason to snoop around, by all rights I should through you out… ok. Stay there, fix you a drink?

Silenus – yeah, I’ll have brandy.

Moves to drinks cabinet. Pours the drink.

Silenus – thanks, (takes a sip) like I say I’m not sure what its about but…

Dionysus enters stage right

Midas – and who the hell are you?

Dionysus – thanks Silenus, ill take it from here. You can wait in the car if you like. (Silenus leaves. To Midas extends hand) the names Dionysus. I’m the new D.A.

Midas  - oh so you’re the new D.A. what d’ya want then?

Dionysus - Firstly id like to say thank you for the hospitality you’ve shown to my colleague I knew you were the right man. (goes and fixes a drink) I have a proposition for you.

Midas – go ahead I’m listening.

Dionysus –(sits on edge of table upstage right) I know you’re a pretty big player in town and I think we can help each other out. I hold a lot of sway over some certain groups in the town. I can be a very powerful friend to have for someone in your business. All I need is to be able to count on your support when my re-election comes around.

Midas – that’s seems like something I’d be able to do. But your part is a little vague. You wanna be more specific? 

Dionysus – (get up walk stage right) not really, vague is good. It covers a multitude of sins. The one thing I can promise you is things will nearly always go your way from now on. (turns back to midas) Everything you touch will turn to gold… so to speak…

Midas – if I do this I will want some assurances from now on.

Dionysus – I can’t argue with that. I feel I should warn you though. I’ve made plenty of enemies getting where I am today. You join my team and I can guarantee to you that you take those enemies on as well.

Midas – enemies I can deal with. Made plenty myself in my time. If you’re gonna make me richer by all means you can count me in. 

Dionysus exits stage right. Blackout

Act 2

Midas and his wife (Demodike) are in their lounge.

Midas – would you look at this. (reads from note) … if you go ahead with this deal you’ll end p sleeping with the fishes before the month is out.

Wife – that’s awful dear.

Midas – its worse than awful, and it not the only one.  It’s the third death threat this month. I’m getting worried now.

Wife – well, I phoned Dionysus he’ll be over soon maybe he can sort this mess out… after all he got you into it.

Midas - … apparently its not bad enough that they burned the factory down. Thankfully no one was hurt. I dunno how much more of this I can take.

Wife – whatever happens you cant let them see its getting to you. Stop panicing and wait until Dionysus gets here.

Dionysus enters stage right

Dionysus – what the hell’s going on then?

Midas – I don’t know how much more I can take. This has got ridiculous.

Wife – he’s been receiving death threats, they burned the factory down. We cant let this go on any more.  You’ve got to undo some of the deals you’ve made.

Dionysus – it not as simple as that dollface. Once a deal’s been made it cant exactly be undone. I can talk to some people. But I did warn you about this.

Midas – I had no idea what you meant.

Dionysus – you didn’t think. You got too greedy, chuck, it was always gonna happen.

Midas – are you gonna help me?

Dionysus – leave it with me. I’ll talk to my people. But I can’t make any promises. You got a phone?

Wife – thank you, it’s in the other room. Anything you can do has gotta be better than this.

Dionysus leaves stage left

Midas – god, I hope he can do something about this.

Wife – I’ve told you there’s no point panicking. Either the man can fix it or he can’t. then we start worrying.

Beat

Midas – I used to be a lion in this jungle, now this mess has turned me into a frightened ally cat. (Goes and gets himself another drink to calm his nerves.)

Dionysus returns

Midas – (expectantly) so what’s going on have you fixed it?

Dionysus – ok its done, they won’t be bothering you anymore. But ya see what happens when you get carried away. Got yourself wrapped up in the nastiness.

Midas – thanks so much.

Dionysus – but just so you know. This, here, is it now. I got no more favours left to give. So consider it my parting gift.

Midas – that’s fine. Think I’ll be laying low for a while now anyways.

Freeze frame lights dim.

Dionysus (voice over) - This story is nothing new. Happens all the time. People jump for something that looks too good to be true. When that happens, it usually is. Midas let Greed get the better of him. Guess it goes to show, be careful what you wish for ‘coz not all that glitters is gold.

  

    

collaoborative practice: part 2

My apologies about the delay of this blog’s updating. I’ve had everything written out a word document and totally failed to upload it.

After a couple of weeks doing similar workshops to the one mentioned in my last post, our group was given a week to create a 10 minute piece, based on one of three titles (riots, money, trends) during one of the workshops we looked at the links between money and power and gods I.e. how we now create our own gods in the media.

Using the idea of gods and money, I did some research into Greek mythology to see what sort of stories could be useful. After having read the book The complete encyclopaedia of Greek mythology (Houtzager,G 2006 (4^th edition). Rebo international. The Netherlands) I learnt more about King Midas and his golden touch. I looked at the different characters involved in the story and their relationships with each other.

 I then approached the group with the idea and got some feedback. We decided to alter the date in which the piece was set opting for something ultimately more modern. The costume designers liked the 40’s era as the clothing of this period was more interesting to design. So I went back with this new era and thought about what was going on in the 40’s, recalling that this was the time of film noir. I had a think about. I watched the film The Big Sleep (1946) with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall to get a flavour of the dialogue used in this era before setting down to write a script. (hopefully, I will remember to attach it.)

Once we had a script we set out to get it blocked and learn the lines. During which time I also set out to find some music for the piece. I had a look around at some smooth jazz as that seemed to me, to be the most popular music of the 40’s in Hollywood. After having a look through some of my own collection I discovered a really nice John Coltrane track called You Leave me Breathless (now although the song is technically from 1958, I think it encapsulates the sound that I was after, so some artist licence was used) here is a link to the song on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4h--YEm8Hk

While the rehearsals were going on, our props team had been working on finding adequate props for the era for example a table; chairs, books etc. and our costume team had created their designs and were working hard on getting them finished in time for the performance. We also had the hair and makeup team creating designs for wigs for the two female characters and makeup designs for them. With our technical rehearsal time we got into the theatre and working with the technical theatre students in our group we managed to plot all the lighting and sound for the piece and got to carry out a few dress rehearsals too.

On the day of the show everything was in place; all the props had been sourced and stored together, the costumes were made, lines were learnt, tech was set and hair and make up was done. For the most part the show went well, the only problem was a major technical mistake occurring where the music didn’t come in at the start of the piece and the stage manager didn’t inform the cast what was going on. But other than that everything ran smoothly and I was happy with it.

Evaluation: I would like to be able to say I got lots of experience with this unit, and I guess to some degree I can. I acted as a director for the group, providing the original idea and directing the action as well as working as primary liaison between the disciplines within our group; an experience, which I enjoyed. It allowed me to gain an understanding of how that would work in a professional atmosphere. I enjoyed the pressure of working to the tight deadline we had been set but at the same time, wish I had delegated some of the workload a little better as I felt that there was no time to note down the process by which I was directing. The main point of the unit was to understand what its like to work with other disciplines and with respect to that however, I didn’t learn much that I hadn’t already gleamed from last year’s devised piece (unit 4). I would like to point out as a footnote that although the main aim was group work, the experience I gained directing the piece was invaluable to my personal development and learning as its something I wish to pursue in life.     

      

collaborative practice workshop

What we did:

After being split into groups we were assigned a workshop. The first workshop we had was: ‘using ‘heroes’ as a theme create a short piece clearly conveying a character to a target audience. ‘ The first point of call was getting the group to know each other quickly.  After this had been done we worked out what each other’s disciplines were. This gave us a list. like this:

Pip: Props design

Holli: Costume design

Tyrone: Acting

Robyn: Tech

Charley: Musical theatre

Rachael: Musical theatre

Kelsey: Hair and make-up

Paul: Acting

Joe: Tech 

We then talked about who or what we could have for our hero. This took place in the form of a round table discussion. The job of director within our group fell to me and I began making some notes on the discussion. Out of the carnage emerged the idea of using David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust as he was a hero and was very musical, theatrical, he used make up and inserting costumes. So now we had a hero, we had to decide on a target audience. We setteled on doing a children’s tv show.

            From here we decided what each of us could do. We found videos for the designers to use. Then tasks were delegated using each of our skills.

Pip and Holli – design costumes and scenery.

Robyn and Joe – arrange some lights for our show.

Charley and Rachael – devise a dance as the backing dancers.

Tyrone – learn the dance and help devise it.

Kelsey – make up and hair for Ziggy.

Paul – write a song for Ziggy and the ‘ziggettes’ to dance to.

We decided to take an hour from here to design, script, write etc what needed to be done and then take lunch and meet back in the studio at 1pm and work on what need to be sorted out. When we got back everyone work very well with each other making sure that all the costumes and make up were done in time and that we got rehearsal time. 

What was good what was bad about the process:

            I think the process worked out pretty well all told. I had worked with everyone (with the exception of Kelsey) in the group on one show or another (Pip and Holli - Unit 4, Robyn and Joe – Unit 3, Charley and Rachael – Spring Awakening and Tyrone – more or less everyday.) so taking the role as director I knew how people worked and was able to give people jobs and know that they would be accomplished within the timescale required. And having picked a very specific character it made sure that everyone in the group had something to do with their discipline so they would get to have a valid input to the group. There wasn’t really any miscommunication between the group we all knew what was going on during every stage of the development of the piece. 

What research informed this practice:

On the actual day of this workshop there wasn’t any time to carry out research into devising practice, as we had to create something to show in 3 hours. Therefore I used research I had previously carried out in unit 4 (a devising unit) to inform how the piece should be devised. One of the things I used for my performance was viewpoints, looking at how the tempo, duration, gesture and special relationship of the performers could shape the piece. I also thought about how other theatre companies worked for example forced entertainment I read an article on how they put together the show ‘the travels’ (2002) they ran ideas until they got bored of them and then tried something else. The problem for us trying this was our timescale. We only had three hours to put something together so we really didn’t have the luxury of trying something then scrapping it and trying something new. We had to make a decision and run with it. Given more time I would have liked to try other ideas for the performance.

The research that we carried out again wasn’t too In depth. For the most part our research for the character of Ziggy was basically visual. We looked at images and I watched a YouTube video of David Bowie performing as Ziggy Stardust to see how he moved and his speech patterns etc. but the deadline we were working to really didn’t allow for much more research to be carried out.

   

The Last Week.

this week has been the last week of our unit. Claire has returned and viewed the videos that we made, she has then asked us to expand upon them. the group i worked in had made one film  http://youtu.be/Sb7M0MZNCH0

Claire wanted to see a live element to this piece and more group involvment. so we went home and created two more videos.
http://youtu.be/aeV0UktX4Fw
http://youtu.be/B2nk8Ss_bXk

as a group we decided that the performance would take the form of a film showing with the 'director'  Warren Sarross. and that the artists he had made documentaries abouthad all agreed to turn up and give a  live performance in support of him. hopefully i will be able to post the video later for your viewing pleasure...

Transmedia Week: Friday

friday was here and we were ready for the performance. so far i may have seemed a little cryptic in my explaination of the show. the reason for this is that i would like to walk you through it as i go to hopefully simplify it; as it sounds a little complex when explained (but really it isnt).

firstly we explain to audience members that they need to download SCVNGR http://www.scvngr.com/ and a QR code reader for their smart phone.
once they have these they need to 'check in' to Northbrook college on SCVNGR which is a marked location.
once checked in there is the option to see what is going on at this location, it turns out that there is a challange to complete. the challange here is to get a picture of you hugging a hoodie and upload it.
after you have uploaded you picture a message turns up telling you to ask one of the hoodies for a map. which you do.
you now follow the map to the marked out locations each marked location has an art installation created by the groups (the installation will have relevance to thier video)
somewhere on this installation will be the QR for their video. from this point you scan the code and watch the group's video then move on to the next group.

see simple :-/

Transmedia week: wednesday and thursday

when we continued our work we split into groups and using the previously formulated hashtag (#lostgen) we came up with ideas of videos from the ideas that had been tweeted in. our group had a few ideas of what we could do for our videos. so we discussed what would be the most effective to get our message across. we then began filming. on thursday we finished editing the films and made the posters for our show containing QR codes for our videos which had been uploaded to youtube.

above is our QR code. if you scan a QR code into a smart phone it will take you to a wedsite/video etc... this code takes you to our video on youtube. http://youtu.be/kzygivV_RMo so now we were more or less ready. we had our videos, our artwork and our QR codes. Below is the artwork

Transmedia week: monday

last week we had the opportunity to work with Mark Ashmore of Future Artists http://www.futureartists.co.uk/ he works primarily in the field of transmedia. which essentially is telling a story over a range of different platforms (eg twitter, facebook, film, live performance etc...) the idea has been about for a while but the term for it has only really appeared in the last few years.

Mark showed us some of the work from one of the pioneers of transmedia story telling; Lance Weiler  http://lanceweiler.com/ he incorperated twitter and location based programmes with live and pre-recorded performance.

after we had a discussion about what we understood of transmedia we started looking into working a short show we would be performing on the friday. The subect we would be looking into was to be 'Lost Generation: setting the record straight.' Mark set up a hashtag on twitter #lostgen and during the original discussion we used the hashtag to tweet in some of the ideas that were emerging.  with these ideas we would start to formulate how our shows were going to pan out.

business minded

after working with Claire we had a session with Lisa Holloway http://uk.linkedin.com/in/lisaholloway the point of this lesson was to explain to us the usefulness of networking and increase the prominance of our product, us. we worked on what we would need to include on our CV's and how best to make them relevant to not only us, but to this day and age. this workshop was most useful as i had no idea at the time what to include in my cv, or how and where to promote myself. once i have finished my CV i will be posting it here...

more further research - cyber theatre

i have found another company that looks particularly interesting they are called 'the studio for electrionic theatre' and have created the notion of 'cyber theatre' http://www.setlab.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9&Itemid=10 which looks to be very interesting. the basics of this digital performance are that when the performer moves, their movements control the audio/visual sceneograpy, giving the illusion of human and machine working in harmoy.

further research

after these workshops i carried out some more research into theatre companies that use video in theire shows in interesting ways. the following is what i discovered.

Il Pixel Rosso - a brighton based theatre company comprised of a film director and a performer their latest show 'and the birds fell from the sky' used video goggles to create a unique immersive performance.  http://totaltheatrereview.com/reviews/and-birds-fell-sky

Blast theory - another local immersive theatre company have been creating work for well over a decade now. one of their performaces last year included video elements but also the use of mobile phones. 'A Machine to see with,' http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/bt/work_amachinetoseewith.html

Claire and Periplum

during the first few workshops we have worked with Claire Raftery of Periplum theatre company.

http://www.periplum.co.uk/

the company is based in brighton and performs a range of site specific productions all over the world. Claire Worked with us from the point of view of a director showing us what directors may be looking for when workshopping actors. she also explained to us about how Periplum was using technology with their perfomances and what ways we could do this. one of the activites we carried out was in pairs recording a very short ( under a minute) film and then portraying something that may give the audience more understanding, contrast or baffle in exactly the same space. then give our audience the films on mobile devices and watch the filmed and live perfomance at the same time. i found this activity particularly interesting because i like working with film and found it to be an interesting method of adding another level to the story. when we had finished working with claire in the first few weeks she left us a challange of making a film for her upon her return. one of the other performers and i have created the following film.

http://youtu.be/Sb7M0MZNCH0

i hope claire enjoys it upon her return.

introduction to unit 6

well im using my already existing blog as a working platform for my acting 'career' and more importantly an assessment point for my unit 6, which is based on professional working. a unit has been tilted towards using technology, using technology not only in performances but also giving some form of professional place to sell our product to the public/industry ie. PAUL SAUNDERS - ACTOR!!!

the unit will consist of our group working with professionals in a workshop format to learn as much as we can about the skills we will need to survive in the industry. we will then create an online page showing the work we have done. sort of like a logbook/workbook but using digital media instead of pens and paper. (save the penguins and all that :) ) 

heeeerrrreeeee'sssss pauly...

so its been a long time. (about 4 months if im right in thinking.) in the time i have been back at home from our universtiy break and spent my whole summer, bar a few glorious days, working. so the blog took a bit of a backseat. well im back now and already a month into university. the work has been piling up and ive been stupid enought to let it. WELL NO MORE said the man optimistically. not sure if ill be able to keep it up but here goes., this will be a day of blogging the last months activities (each sort of section will be a different post in an attempt for clarity.) so lets begin.

end of first blog week...

right... ok! so forgot to update yesterday... so a quick summary of yesterdays evens: Commedia Dell'Arte good day all in all re-cap of characters base stances and walks. then the best part of the day,  Acrobatics, falls and slapstick. great fun however woke up particularly stiff in the morning.

Friday's events more research and discussions of the ideas we have... looks like we finally have a source to work from, with defiantly seemed to lift the general mood. then in the afternoon we devised some pieces from random sources that we had brought in for 2/3 minute performances then analysed what was good about them.  a productive and uplifting day.

Adios for now

...And the beat goes on...

second day with designers. much better than yesterday. not so many ideas bounced around but just more of an enjoyable day. looking at costume and how we can incorporate ideas into the costume so that it doesn't have to be just worn but can become part of the set etc...  e.g: looking at 'coping mechanisms' turning that into literal mechanisms like the inside of clocks, cogs, machinery and the like... so a really interesting look into another perspective...  all in all not too bad! Commedia Dell'Arte tomorrow...  until next time, good day to you!

memory: or lack thereof...

most of the updates will be concerned with the memory piece as i am working on that more often than not. today was an interesting one... working with set designers, prop designers and costume designers for this collaborative piece... a plentiful amount of good ideas thrown about... and then discarded!! which i personally found quite discouraging... I'm not used to this method of devising and am finding it difficult to engage with. when i create an idea i like to nurture it, not pass it by and move on... so am opening up new ways of thinking however challenging it may be. Another problem with today was that no matter how good an idea was, if it wasn't agreed upon by the whole group it was cast asunder. so only three ideas have stayed from a whole days work... them being: the use of silks, mirrors and a 'memory box' (whatever that may be.) think that's about all for the update. Caio..

first blog

well folks, this is my first blog. I'm used to various other methods of E-pimping-myself-out but not this... so am interested in what it can do... I'm at the start of some interesting projects at the moment (all centered at Northbrook college, Worthing, Sussex or S.T.A.C)  firstly i should point out that im on the foundation Degree course in acting. the projects are as follows 1. the musical of spring awakening in which i am playing all of the adult male characters (9 in total) so far i have had three rehearsals with the rest of the cast. 2. i am working on a piece of Commedia Dell'Arte which will be a public performance at the Brighton Dome for international Commedia Dell'Arte day. and lastly 3. i am involved in a devised piece based on the concept of 'memory' so many exciting projects on the go will try an keep them all updated as much as possible...