Monday, May 31, 2010

Exam Revsion Homework #3 - Devised Scenes

DUE BEFORE EXAM WEEK!

On your end-of-year drama exam, you will be asked to write about your work in class this year. One important area of work in our class this term was on "devised" scenes. Please write a 15-20 minute essay answering the following question.

Next year, you will need to submit one piece of "devised" group work as IGCSE coursework. You may decide that for this piece of coursework you want to further develop one of your scenes from this year including your pair-work "picture scene," your group-work "picture-scene" or your group-work "history scene". If you were to develop one of these three scenes into a coursework piece, what would you do? Try to be as detailed as possible in your answer.

11 comments:

  1. The one I liked the most out of the three is “Picture group”, I think it was the most well thought one. If I were to improve on this one I would think better about blocking, also wear appropriate clothing, makeup etc.
    The next one I would work on would be picture pair one, and I would make it longer, because I think that this one is too short. Also make sure we know our lines.
    The one that could be done is history one, I would rewrite the script, make a better cast without argumentative people who just complain and go with principles. Also, since we never did it, it would be good to actually do it at least once, so the history one is the one which needs the most working done.

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  2. I actually dont really know which one I should choose but to develop more I think our picture group is really good to do! Maybe having a real painting and know our lines and know where we are talking about.
    We should have what I already said a real painting and a screwdriver and not real guns off course but a bit that they look real and maybe a bit of blood (ketchup or something to make it real) on the shirt. Or something like a criminal pack that you don't really see the heads and stuff!
    Also I would have arranged better is the stage readings because it would be awesome if we did it more better than we did.

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  3. I would chose the Picture pair with Sam because I think that I had the most fun with that one due to the oddness and originality with it. I would use makeup for the black eye and maybe if I didn't have braces I would have been able to cover up a tooth. I would bring in a toy dog or something for the little girl to stroke because I think that would just add to the wierdness which is always fun. The principle would wear a dress suit with ugly headmistress high heels, and a really tight bun that effects the way her brain works and glasses. She would have no makeup just to emphasize how strict she was and maybe I would add a bit more to the scene and make it longer .

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  4. If I would have to develop one of those three scenes into a coursework piece I would probably have to choose our group-work ‘history scene’. This was the scene I had with Onur and Anne-mieke. This was the scene where we acted ou the assassination of Abraham Lincoln who was murdered in a theatre by an angered revolutionary, John Wilkes Booth. If we would use this scene as coursework we would probably first have to extend the script making perhaps the progress of Booth planning to kill Booth.

    For the stage props it would be pretty effective if we could put a kind of wall in-between the booth where Abraham and his wife was in and the wall being the door, and Booth on the other side sometimes maybe listening in to what they are saying, taking a peek, walking back and forth. In our scene we had Booth hide behind a curtain but this wasn’t that good since we couldn’t hear anne-mieke say her lines so clearly because she was so far back. We could also have more interruptions of abraham’s wife thinking that she heard someone whispering by the door. She could have a few times checking, but never seeing anyone because Booth would be hiding behind the door.

    The end as well needs to be a bit more dramatic, even though it did look quite dramatic in our original scene. We could lengthen the process of having Booth pointing his pistol at Abraham, the president of course trying to persuade Booth that this is a bad idea. This might not of actually happened in real life, but who knows, maybe it did. Then as Abraham dies his wife needs to become so emotional, almost crying. Booth would have to jump off something showing that he jumped down from the balcony and limp across. But this needs to be expressed more drastically since he must of really hurt his leg, so if anne-mieke should play it she needs to express her pain to the audience more.

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  5. I would pick the picture-pair scene I did with Siri, as it was something different and fun.

    First off the setting and scenery would have to be changed into a better office looking place. A proper desk, with files, papers, books, a principil tag on the front of the desk, pens, pencils and a proper spinny-chair.

    I'd have Siri with plaits in her hair, and a big black eye ( dont with make-up of course) and she would have odd socks, really cute sneakers and really cute dress. The principal would wear a suit with a skirt, and high heels that are kind of ugly. Her hair would be tied up really tightly and she would wear ugly specs and no make-up. So she would look really really strict.

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  6. All those scenes were really fun to perform. Some were odd and the others were fun. I think though if I were to choose one of the three I would choose the History Group scene that we worked on for a very short period of time that turned our pretty well. It is the one of the Execution of Mary of Scots. It is a very fun scene to play and I would very much like to do it again, but since one of our members is not going to be here any more it is going to be a problem as we need a new member of the group. If we all wanted to work on it we would need to work a lot on costuming, as it was terrible, set, blocking and props. I think I brought in an amazing axe, but well I don’t know where it went. Anyway, we really need to work on props. It is a vital part of the play. Costuming was terrible, we need to work on the executioners clothing, the queen’s and of course her cousin. The servants could just be wearing a plain piece of clothing. This will really make the play effective. Blocking would be helpful to as last time we played this scene, we didn’t know where we were going to stand and we all piled up on each other. Next time will be different. Everyone will have assigned places and they will stick to them. It will be very helpful with the filming and staging.

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  7. I would probably like to develop my group scene with Anne Mieke and Mike. I would firstly think about costuming as this would really help the scene. I would wear a suit at the start then during the night scene I’d wear black clothes. I think more props would also help such as a painting, screwdriver and fake blood. This would improve the atmosphere tension.

    We all need to improve on our lines and blocking. We’d also need to know where to stand and what to do at that moment. This would take a lot of time most probably. We would have to really concentrate on this before anything else can happen. We’d need to think about how we would say certain lines.

    If all of this was done then our scene would look a lot better than before.

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  8. I would use the group scene of the Execution of Mary Scott's as i felt it was a strong piece we all had worked on and it has become great success working on it.

    in order to completely complete this scene there would be definitely more props and proper costumes used for this scene.. I would also want to use great make up to fully complete the look and this would make the scene look so much better than what it already is.

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  10. out of the three i think i liked the 'picture group' the best. it was the most fun and was practiced well. maybe make up and better costumes
    could have inproved it.
    the one that needs inproving the most is the history one. i dont think the script was written
    very well and maybe if it is re-written and everyone is ok with their part it will work well if we re did it
    by mike

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  11. Exam Revision #3:

    I would me and Christina's 'picture pair' scene called 'The Picture'. It would need quite a lot of improvement though.

    First of all, we would definitely have to change the stage layout. When we were doing it in class, it was really hard to make the audience know that there were two separate rooms becuase all we did was to put a table and some teacups to show where the kitchen was, although as you can imagine it didn't look like a kitchen at all. We would need a more old-fashioned table to play chess on, more old-fashioned chairs, and a more realistic picture frame (the one we used was made out of cardboard). We would have to find a good way of hanging it from the ceiling, but that's not the biggest of our problems. For the kitchen, we would use a counter or two, with a kettle and a teacup set, so the audience would actually know that it is a kitchen.

    Another really important thing that we would need to focus more on would be out costumes. Christina, being the old lady, would wear a really old-fashioned dress like old ladies wear, and she would wear glasses, and we would somehow make her hair gray. For me, being the old man, I would wear pants that are pulled really high up with one of those shoulder belts, and I would wear a shirt with squares on it that is tucked in. Since my pants would be pulled so high up, you would be able to see my shins, so I would wear really weird formal shoes with socks pulled up.

    We don't really need to change the acting, because we were both fine at acting like old people and I think we were very believable. But of course, it's better to be more believable!

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