Single 10.11.15

during todays lesson we looked at our character profiles for the childrens adults in the show. we all showed our character profiles to the rest of the class and then gave feedback to eachother and said how we could improve. in my profile i had coveredthe following subheadings: name, age, likes, dislikes, hometown, occupation, hobbies, children, wife, children. i think that where this made me think deeper into the character of Ass' Dad.

after this we carried on looking at adults scenes.

Single 05.11.15

In today's lesson we started of by carrying on from where we last looked at in the script in the previous lesson, we ran from this point all the was to the end of scene one whilst stopping at points we thought we could improve and alter a little. Once we had done all of this our teacher then made us go back to the very beginning of the play but instead of acting normally be as over the top as possible. This helped us because it then gave us a new way to look at our characters and also a different way that we could possibly play our character in future preferences or scenes. We did this until the end of the lesson. 

Single 03.11.15 - Character Profile

NAME: Jimmy Atkinson Jr
AGE: 8 in 39 days
FAMILY: Daddy (Jimmy Atinson Sr), Mummy (Darcey Atkinson), Sister (Esther-Mae Atkinson)
LIKES: Donkeys, X-Box, Horse and Carriages
DISLIKES: Esther-Mae, The Yellow Bus, Mushrooms, Brussel Sprouts
BEST FRIENDS: My Doggy Tooth, The Boy With The Lisp

Single 23.10.15

in tdays lesson we carried on looking at the adults section, this time however instead of performing an exercise to help looking into the context, we did an exersize to help us think about how our character would move and how their body languae would change in different situations. what we did was perform the scene but without any dialogue, but instead we would all be silent and just show how we feel through our boddy language. this help me personally because i hadnt really thought about my haracter in that way before then so now i have i can apply that to when we are doing the adults scene with dialogue also.

Single 22.10.15

in todays lesson we ran the adults scene once again to get a better understanding of the layout as we didnt get much time to do that in the last lesson. once we did this we performed and exercise to look a lot close at the context of the adults section. this involved us running the adults scene again but clapping when we wanted to pause the speech and acting and when we did we had to state what our character would have been thinking at that point and once we had said what we thought our character would think we clapped again to start the acting again. in my eyes i think that this exercise helped our group quite a lot as it let us look and think a lot deeper into our character and the context behind our characters, not only this but it gave other ideas of how their character might think about eachother because of their views.

Single 20.10.15

to begin this lesson we sat down and read through the whole of the adult section in characters just without staging it for the first time. we decided to do this as we had not even had a look at the adult section and we thought it would be silly to go staight into the adult section when we didnt actually know any of the context towards it. once we had done this and got all questions out of the way we started looking at it from the beginning of the adults section but staging it also. we started with  row of chairs at the front to signify some sort of buffet table where people would keep on going up to get food and drinks. however, we ended up realising that this wasnt such a great idea as eventhough we were all moving we would all still end up in one straight line and it started to look very basic and unchoreographed. so we then looke at how we could change it so that it could do the same job but stop us from standing in one line, so we then came up with the idea of using 3 square tables, one for alcohol, one for mince pies, and the other for party. we chose alcohol and mince pies for two main sections as during the adult section those 2 things get mentioned quite considerably. this heled because it endec up with the group moving round and then it didnt end up looking too static as everyone is scattered around. once we had all figured out which table was which we ran the adults scene for as long as we could until we ran out of times.

Single 16.10.15

we started this lesson by doing a show and tell with an object that we bought in from home so that it gave us an idea of what its like being a 7/8 year olds is like again. i decided to bring in a plant pot because from my memory people always used to bring in the silliest objects for show and tell and i thought that it was random but not too randm and i could easily back it up to why i had brought it in for show and tell. i said that it was my favourite plant pot at everyone in my family house hold had their own plant plot and they all got to choose what they wanted to put in that very plant pot.

once we had all shown our items to eachother and our teacher we picked our scripts back up and and as we had already read the beginning of act two up to where the adults come in we ended up getting up to that point again but staging it also.

Single 15.10.15

in todays lesson we looked at more characterisation skills. at the very start of the lesson our teacher got us to all sit on the floor surrounding her as she sat on a chair infront of us as if it was story time and made us listen to her reading the story as if we were at primary school and we were 7/8.  once we had done this our teacher got us to play the game "mums and dads", i was paired with cel for this and so we practiced playing the game in the character we were set. most of us found this rather difficult for the start of it due to the fact we had to think about how our characer not only acted in themselves but also how they acted pretending to be someone else, but afer a while we got the hang of. this helped my rather a lot in my eyes as it made me look a lot deeper into my character and msde me think a lot more in depth about ass and what his background would be like.

Single 09.10.15

in todays lesson we ended up changing our blocking system so that instead of there being just one focus point there is now three, we did this so that we could get already into place three times quicker to make sure that we arent going miss our que or a line that could be key. once we had all figured this out we ran the whole of act one with this staging.

Single 08.10.15

during todays lesson we got through the first 19 pages of the script without using our scripts. we also decide that whenever your character is speaking we have to move to one of three lighting points which will be the main focus, we did this for two reasons, one because it means it will be easier for the audience to see where the main focus on the stage is and two it gives the next people who are speaking a chance to get to another focus point ready for their lines so there isnt any gap between lines and it runs well. another decision that we came to today was that all character should remain on stage unless it is key for them to walk off.

after this our teacher told us to write a diary entry describing our average day at school as our character. mine was:
 
                    Dear Diary,
my day started with the sunflower bus coming to pick me up from my house and when i got to school thingy threw a stone at me but he said it was an accident so it was ok. i then went to the yellow room because my daddy says im special. in there we read a book and i written my mummy and daddy a christmas card and i put a horse and carriage on it because thats my daddys favourite. i like horses because theyre big and fast but i prefer dogs because they are the prettierest, idont like cats because mine bites my legs when i walk past him all of the time in the house where i live. oh and i also finished painting my donkey head because am a donkey and i am going to get an oscar or an enemy said my mummy whilst watching her pro, pro, prog her tv.

we did this to get in our character properly and also to get a lot better understanding of them. also it made us think about what our character would get up to out of the script.

Single 06.10.15

in this lesson we started with our teacher getting us to line up in what we thought was the order of authority in our characters in the eyes of the audience. in this line we found out that on the right was mary (lorna) as the most authorative and ass (myself) on the far left as the least. after this we were told to make the line again but in the eyes of our character themselves, once we were told this i felt that i should have moved all the way to the top as ass is extremely confident and doesnt really care what anybody thinks about him hence why he is always shouting.

after this we picked the script back up from the last day where we left it and continued to add movement and staging to the parts we were looking at.

Single 01.10.15 & 02.10.15

on the 1st we watched the rest of the dvd, however, once we had watched it all the way through we noticed that the film was extremely different to our script. we also carried on looking at our scripts once we had watched the whole film. on the 2nd day we started to stage the first scene completely and looked at the first song again.

Single 29.09.15

Cast List:

-  Mary = Lorna                  -  Ass = Charlie       
-  Wise Gold = Hope          -  Gabriel = Rhiannon   
-  Narrator = Ollie M          - Shepherd = Kat
-  Star = Lewis                   -  Wise Frank = Oliver K 
-  Herod = Robert              -  Innkeeper = James         
-  Angel = Cel

Firstly, we watched a part of the DVD, of the play, to get a better understanding of our parts. We then read through the entire script as a group. Any questions we then had about the piece were answered, however, as a lot of editing had to be done to the script, we quickly ran out of time this lesson to get any further.

Single 25.09.15

in todays lesson we were told that this was going to be the last lesson before we found out the cast list. so in this lesson we were given a scene from act two, where the actors played the parents of the children they played in the previous act. after we read we read through this scene given to us in a group we switched the roles around so we could try something different and to also allow our teacher to think about the roles she would be choosing later on that day. however when we started to look at the script not many people were looking at the stage directions so it took us quite a while to get into it.

Single 24.09.15

in this lesson we were split into group and told to improvise a scene of children getting ready for the nativity play. my group decided to go with the idea of auditioning for the roles in the nativity and in this audition show the main stereotypes of different types of 7/8 year olds you come across (eg;the bully, naughty,shy, exited and stupid). once both group were ready we performed our little piece and after the rest of the class, year 13s and our teacher gave us feedback on our performance. we figured out through our feedback that one thing we had to work on was our voices to elp show our age as we didnt really do that very well.

Single 22.09.15

today we looked at one specific scene and our teacher got us to workship on this scene . we were told to get our scripts and in a group stage a specific widget of the script that miss gave to us. whilst the group performed the others sat down and watched and at the end we all gave feedback, after we had done this miss swapped some people so that different people were working with others and we carried on to repeat this to see how other people played the role differently to how you just did.

Single 18.09.15

in todays lesson we were told that the play that we we going to be performing around the christmas time was going to be the 'The Flint Street Nativy' which was written by Tim Firth. the play is based on a class at the Flint Street School and is a group of 7 and 8 year olds and them leading up to the nativit that they are going to be showing to their parents. in the original script that kids are played by adults, however they have to act convincingly to show their age, so actors will have to think about what a 7/8 year old does and how they act.

when we started to look at the script our teacher got us to sit in a circle and she just gave us random roles to look through the first half of the script, after we had read it through we then got up off the chairs and started to add movement to the first half. we also started to look at a musical number that is at the very start.