Unit 6 & 7 - National theatre connections assignment 2024

 

Task 1

Check blogger from 9th of January to 21st of March.

Task 2 

For this task, it was difficult because I wanted to do something that would go with my character. Sam is a very sporty character and so is his mates. So Me ,Oli ,Delroy and Aidan decide to-do a sporty warm up for this task. We ran the idea with Kelly and she said it was fine. We had ideas like boxing and running and even a little bit of judo, However we came to the agreement that we would do 2 different sports over 2 different days. We also split into Groups of two, my group being Delroy and me was based around football because Delroy used to play football and knows some drills and my uncle runs a football camp so I could lend some of his equipment. The other group sport was Rugby. Oli does Rugby so he has all the drills already drilled in him ! Me and Delroy talked for ages about what drills we could do and what equipment we could get. After we sourced the equipment that we could get our hands on. The first Drill we had planned as a simple game all about team work, everyone would be split into two teams and they would decide who would be on attacker and defences. How the game works is the Defences will pass the ball around in the circle as the Attackers get into the middle and try to take the ball. the defences must work together to make sure the attacker in the middle does not take the ball. The second drill that we did was getting everyone into a circle and we started to teach them how to pass probably and safely. Then for our third and final drill we played another teams again  all about rection time. we split everyone into teams of 4 and we gave them all numbers. then we called the teams up two at a time Infront of 4 balls, they then squatted over these balls getting ready to grab it but they cant grab it until I say ball but I can say other body parts and then would haft to but there hand on that part of the body. I can happily say that it was a massive success and everyone loved doing the task, it also help the team a little more because it teaches them how to work together on stage. Moving on too Wednesday, we had Oli and Aidan's Rugby drill for the second half of this task. Aidan had some trouble getting to collage on time so I help him out with his drill. His first drill was all about warm up our body for the 2 games that takes a lot of body movement. Its start by getting everyone into 4 different corners and they warm up 4 different parts of the body ( head ,arms ,legs and ankles) then we moved onto the movement excises where when oli said down we had to go down onto the floor and do a plank then come back up. Everyone seemed to enjoy the warm up. We then moved onto the games which wear Rugby bull dogs, this is a game were there three player in the middle and everyone else is at one side. The people in the middle need to catch all the plays and the other player need to make it to the other side. Only thing different is too catch some on you need to grab them by the waisted instead off just tapping them. The final game is the shoe game, how you play is everyone get split into two teams that have the same amount of players. the everyone pick a number between how many people are on the team on both sides. Then a number would be called out between the number of player on each team so like 3 or 4 for example. The two player on each side who number has just been called out would have to run and try and get the ball back to there team however if they get tap by the other player then you need to drop the ball and you can get it back ones the other play has picked it up and you have tapped him, our twist on it was we Sayed 2 number at a time and allowed rugby passes which we should them how to do. Everyone loved playing the games and they loved all the Team . Looking back at all the work me and the lads have but in I can say I'm very proud of my self and of the other for the work we all but into it. The video of me and Delroy warm up can be seen below this message. 

Task 3

Task 3 is all about getting myself into the role of Sam. It was very important from the start that I had to have a great understanding of my character so my performances of Sam can be as realistic as possible. The first steps I took to get into my character was by doing this task with Kelly, After we all found out our role's in Shout, Kelly sat us down and and got us into our school groups ( cool boys ,cool girls and freaks and geeks) when she asked questions on my character, It helped me create my vison of Sam.  Some of these questions were " what's the backstory of my name ". Sam's dads best friend died when he was younger so he gave me his name when I was born which was Sammy but I like to be called Sam instead. Another great question she asked was " what was my home life like " Sam's mum and dad are divorced and they don't care about him much. He feel's ignored and Feels like he's got no one to turn too for support. His only support was from his dead grandad. 

The next task was to complete a character breakdown sheet. The sheet contained questions for us to answer to give us greater depths into our character. Some of the questions on the sheet were taking about his socially life and his friends. Sam is a very extrovert person who loves going out partying with his friends, wearing some jeans and a Polo Shirt he would often try and make small talk to some girl down at the club or try to be the centre on attention. The sheet also ask more questions like about his dreams and accomplishment's. Sam biggest dream is to be one day be apart of the running team for the Olympics, he is getting closer and closer to that dream by winner a national running competition. the Last section is all about his strengths and weakness, Sam is very physically fit person and his friendship group all do sports so his strengths are being in good shape and running. His weakness is his anxiety, after his grandpa dearth he had really no one to turn too so he just bottles up his emotions. I do go into a lot more detail on the blogger named character breakdown for shout with all the questions and info about Sam to help me get into his mindset.

The final thing I did for this task was acting like him in improvised scenes. Other member of the cast decide to run a class for this task so I acted like Sam would in these classes. In totally I did 3 improvised classes. The first one being with the therapy Teacher, I messed around and did not take the task very seriously so because of this me and the boys wear sent outside of class. She brought us back into the class to-do a warm up activity but we still just messed around again. Then we had a Yoga class but it was just me and the mean girls, we "try our hardest" to-do the positions but again we just messed about also leading to an argument with one of the teachers which we all record. The final class we did was a detention class wear the cool girl and cool boys got sent there because the girls got caught vaping in the toilets and the boys kick a rugby ball through a window, I had a little flirty with one of the girls until a teacher came in and took Tristian away saying it was only Me and Tom that broke the window. I think all this helped me become my character Sam because it teaches me how he would act on stage and during a scene were he is not the centre of attention.

Task 4 

The National theatre is the most Famous theatre in the world, the theatre was found in 1963 by a actor called Laurance's Olivier  who was one of the biggest sliver screen actors in world, the National theatre was held at the Old Vic theatre from 1963 to 1976 when the official building had been built. The National theatre build has a totally of 3 theatre in side, Olivier theatre (named after the founder) that holds over 1,160 seats ,Lyttleton theatre that holds 890 seats and the Dorfman theatre 400 seats. over the 48 years it has been open they performed every genre from Shakespeare (  first every play performed for NT was Hamlet directed by Laurence's Olivier) to modem plays ( The Crucible, The ocean at the end of the lane and the curious incident with the god at night time) and finally musicals ( witch's ,guys and dolls and Hades town). They also had famous modern actor performed there like  David Tennant , Maggie smith and Alan Rickman. The connection project that was set up by the National theatre in 1995 and how it works is acting company all over the country will be giving a script that has never been done before, they will then perform there piece in front of a director with the chance of them going through into the next rounds and even maybe perform in London if they are the best. I think the connection project is a great idea because it give young actor a chance of a life time to performed on the National theatre stage. One of there most famous play that was a connection script was DNA. Lastly the National theatre now even have a streaming service so you can watch there plays and musical productions online. 

Task 5

Task 6

Now moving on to the evaluation, my main objectives for my role as Sam was to understand him completely as a person ( what is he like ,how does he talk , how does his interact with others) ,understanding what challenges my character is going through ( anxiety and home problems) and how does my character act in school / on stage. These were the goals that I set for myself to complete for my character Sam.

Lets start with my emotional engagement, Sam is know in the story as one of the popular boys so he know to be cheeky to his mates and being a bully to the freaks and geeks. However near the end of the show he also stand up and say he has problems too and it’s a really emotional and funny moment because he opening up about his trouble for the first time but he also taking about biting his toenail. I think I performed my character emotions really well, With Sam cheekiness I always reacted to one of the cool girls insults too Viv and in any classroom scene I would always act bored or be messing around with one of the other cool boys. Finally with the opening up scene at the end of the play, I acted a little scared at first but confident because of the accepting claps from the cool girl who stood up before me. After saying about the toenails and seeing everyone reaction I play it off reassuring that everyone that its all clear up but subtext I was very embarrassed.

Now moving onto voice and vocal, I think I did a very good Job with my lines with same because of the warm up task Kelly sent us to do we were able to have better diction. This task was to record ourselves doing a vocal warm up and a tong twister every day for a week, this help me as an actor and my performances of Sam.  We also did some work with our volume because we don’t have mics in our theatre so we do need to speak out load so everyone can hear us.  So every day we did a vocal warm up including saying a letter in one breath as loud as we could to the other side of the room or the theatre along with the normal activates.

My movement and physicality on stage, these where very important to my character because I need to show to the audience that the very second the show started that I was one of the cool boys. I started this off with the way that I was walking, I had the idea of showing that at the start of the play I had a straight back and had the perfect look because he was known as being perfect but by the end when he opens up about his problems he more relax and more slouch to show he not trying to hide anything anymore. My movement was very fast because I was a sporty kid and I was either playing ball on or messing around with some off the cool boys or girls.

On to my part in ensemble Dynamics, every show needs an ensemble because with out one it would be a rubbish show. Especially this show because with in every scene there was the main story that was going on with Dana and Viv and all of the leading character but there were also sub story that was going on with every scene that the audience could follow along with as well. So I interacted with the ensemble to create the sub story’s the first way being with one of the cool boys named Nav as me and him clearly show throughout the play that we are both best friend in the group and in really life. I also interacted with each group of students differently to create the sub story’s. like with the cool boys there where my mates so I am messing around with them or I’m just chilling with them and so on. With the cool girls I act more flirty with them , with the student I act mean to a few but not all of them and with the Freak and Geeks I will be seen taking the piss out of them and Dana until the end where we all become friends and accepting of each other.

For costume and Props, I did not have many props during the show but I did have a few, the first one being the rugby at the very start of the show when me and the cool boys are messing around with it in the slow motion part of the scene and during some scene where we were not listing to the teacher we would mess around with it, the other prop that I used was the book for the first panic attack scene. I loved using this prop because of the many different use it had during that scene from being a book then to the options that Dana has to finally becoming a wave. Its  created such a cool atmosphere to the environment for that scene. Same with the snake puppet scene where we did the dance around Dana creating that message of anxiety. For costume, me and the Lads talk about many different idea for what we should wear going down from well dress clothing to Chavy clothing but we has the idea of all being the same. We went for the idea of Tristan who is really the leader of our group is going to be in a full rugby kit and his best friend Tom who is in half Kit and joggers. For Sam and Nav we went for the same look just different colour which was cool because it kind showed we where a duo type thing.

For artistic choice I did have a few, the first one being that I would always be trying to flirt with any of the cool girls and try to be like a movie hero thing. Then in every class room or assembly scene I would always be taking or falling asleep just to show how disrespectful my character Sam could be some times. Finally the last choice that I made was that in the cool boys group I was the group punching bag, this is shown at the very start of the play in the slow motion scene. This was all a part of what I did to achieve the goal I set for myself at the beginning of this journey.

Now that I covered every part of my performances lets looks at my strengths, I think my strongest point was definitely  my interaction with the ensemble. How I interacted with the other cast member was great I thought, of course depending on what part of the school they were apart off is how I interacted with them. I also think that my emotions throughout the play was again really good as I reacted in all of the right ways during every scene. Lastly I think that my vocal work was good again because I said all my lines loudly and clearly

Now on to my weakness of the show, I think the biggest one for me was my artistic choice. Looking back on it now I think I could of added a lot more detail and little things to my character, I also think I could try to use more props with my character even if that a bag or something to give my character Sam more detail. The woman from the National Theatre gave us some note as a whole group which I like to mention. She said that some of the big scene  just need to have a little bit more reaction and emotions which them just to make it more powerful. She also mention that some times lines get lost at the end of a breath so just to take that into consideration. Then finally the last note she had for us was about movement and blocking because of the way that we played our tables and chairs it got into the way of some of the actors coming on and off stage.

So now its time to set another personal goal, Looking at my last one which where to play a character I have not played before I think I have done that really well because it was the first time playing a character like Sam. Now the goal I set for myself heading into the end of year show is to use more emotion,  just try to stretch myself in as many ways as possible. Then I would also say try to put more Artistic choice into my net character whatever it may be so it can be like the original idea but still have my twist on it. Finally I would say to also work on a bit more diction and pronunciation trust to get rid for that Tees side accent.