Rent week 9

This week we got the script for Act 1 and we all began to annotate the parts we were in. This week we also made an ideas board for Rent. I decided that I would take pictures of various locations in New York so that the cast would understand where roughly I think the setting of the show would take place. I also put words up to give the feel of the type of lifestyle that the characters live.

26th November

Today we regained trust within the group because of the drop that happened yesterday. We talked through what we thought went wrong and when we eventually got to what actually went wrong and decided that we should try it again and slow it down so we can trust each other again. This helped but I feel like we need to less careless so this can be prevented. This is all we got done all lesson due to a lot of arguments being resolved.

24th November

In today's lesson we started by watching the video of Emily Davidson being trampled on by the horse

https://youtu.be/h0Z-sUMpyqE

This then inspired us to to a lift to show Emily Davidson (Ellie) being trampled on a horse with her being lifted up and down to show how she was being hit by the horse and being trampled on by the others horses. She then gets swung back and fourth to also symbolize this. At the end if the lesson we dropped Ellie which I think was mine and Kai's fault for counting differently to everyone else. I think this lift could work if we got it right.

Rent week 8

This week we did "without you". This is the scene where Angel dies and the couples on the show start to fall apart and split up. I think that this is good because it's emotional and isn't over the top. This has 3 movement pieces. It starts with Maureen and Joanne showing them splitting up. It then shows me and Carl setting up a hospital bed and Angel walking in slowly dying of aids. We then show Mimi and Roger arguing an struggling. I really like this song and I think it shows time passing really well and  shows all the couples slowly falling apart. The simple movement makes it understandable but not too force to the audience and not over the top to the audience what has happened.

19th November

Today we finished off our human trafficking scene.

https://youtu.be/xne8A9oHS1k

I think that we just need to clean and polish it now but that should come with doing it a couple of times so we know it properly. I like that our piece creates an immediate impact on our piece making the message of our piece much stronger and making the piece more understanding for the audience.

17th November

Today we split into two groups. Whilst most of us worked on the opening number which would introduce the audience to our whole piece so that they would have a vague idea what the piece was about. We then had the idea of projecting a clock onto the floor to show how the time keeps on changing to almost show a timeline of events. We decided to choose the song "I need" because it was a song that not only fitted with our theme, it fitted the type of movement piece we had planned out.
I think that today went well as we got through a lot once we had started but we need to actually just get on and do something rather than discussing what we are going to do.

Opening number

This is our opening number test we have been working on

https://youtu.be/xne8A9oHS1k

I think it's a good opening scene when everybody knows fully what they're doing with it and it looks much neater.

Suffragette research

Here is some research that I have done for suffragettes this week that could influence our puiece:

http://www.thesuffragettes.org/history/key-events/

Some events of the suffragettes for our monologue about some of the events of the suffragettes.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/jun/01/suffragette-emily-davison-knocked-down-kings-horse-video

Emily Davison getting hit by the King's horse in the Epsom derby to raise awareness to the suffragette cause. We could do a stylized movement piece with the horse hitting one the girls in our group.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/the-role-of-british-women-in-the-twentieth-century/suffragettes/

This a brief history so we have some detail on our piece so that we can have some accurate facts about the suffragettes and that we'll be able to make it more realistic. I think that al it of this can be incorporated into our piece so that we can have an accurate story to it and that we should now have a basic idea to be able to progress in the lessons ahead.

Rent week 7

This week we incorporated Lorna into our show. I felt like this was the first time that I saw he piece called me together as we have had the full cast for the first time. I felt things like La vie boheme really came together as its a group number. I also went through my Alexi Darling pieces and I felt like I definitely became more confident I I think that I may have to make the numbers up as I won't be able to remember all the phone numbers all at once

10th November 2015

Today we ran through our human trafficking scene and had some photogrpahs taken for next years sixth form prospectus. We then decided that we would wear all blacks for our costume and only have an accessory to change to shoiw that we are different charecters. We aslo decided that we would use a different colour lighting for each scene and then have a neutral colour for in-between scenes. We also thought it would be a good idea to have Ellie slowly be stripped down until she is just in black showing that there's no costume left. I like the idea of this because it shows her losing her innocence and slowly turning into what the dominant male want her to be like. He wants her to be used and not loved like she though she would be.

Rent week 6

This week we started on working "without you" where the couples fight and Angel die. I think that this looks good and think it's simple and effective. I think that the couples slowly breaking up is very effective. I think that I need ti work on the timing on when I bring on the pillows and blanket. We then worked on all the scenes that we have done so far in Act 1 and I think it went quite well but I think that I need to work on "Will I?". We then went and worked on separate scenes. I worked on my Alexi Darling parts where I just need to work on the phone numbers.

I feel like we got a lot done but I need to work more on "Will I?" to get the notes right and make sure it doesn't sound like i'm struggling or straining. I feel like that with "Rent" I know what I'm doing, I just need to work on learning the words.

5th November

Today we worked on our forced marriage scene. We decided to make it about forced marriages rather than arranged marriage as it's more of the parents not letting them marry who they want rather than a back-up plan. We thought of starting with the two fathers (showing male dominance) on the phone setting up a marriage for a son and daughter. We then faced the problem of only having two females when the piece we had needed three. We then decided that the daughter's mother would be dead and that the dad could use this against the daughter of and when she decides to rebel. We decided that the daughter's father could tell the daughter that they are going on holiday but then mentally abuses her to marry the son of the other man.


I like the idea because it's a way to get around the problem that we have with only having limited girls and the fact that we can use this against the daughter in the marriage making it more brutal and manipulative towards her. I think to improve, our group needs to be more forward thinking and get more ideas out when we are together as we only have three lessons a week and limited time till the performance.

3rd November

Today we all showed what research we had done outside of the lesson. I presented my research about human trafficking that was on my blog to see if we could incorporate any ideas into the piece that we already had. I fell that even though this was a productive lesson, we need to actually need to get up and do things much quicker rather than just sit and talk about things.

2nd November

Today the group re-visited a movement piece that we did before half term and changed a few parts to improve it. We made our movements towards the victims much more aggressive than before. We then went over it and changed some timings to make sure it fitted in with the music. I really like this piece and I feel like that we shouldn't make it any longer as I feel like it could drag the piece out and the audience could get easily bored. One thing we could of did e is put a bit of stylised November in our piece but we may be able to incorporate that into another scene of our play.