Floor plan and other location pictures Fort Amhurst devising

Above is the scenes in order from start to finish. The final plan that we formulated. 

Changes to Carl's Movement piece

After completing Carl's movement piece. We decided to perform it to the rest of the class who weren't actually involved in the scene yet due to not being present. After watching our idea they were really interested and pleased with the way the movement correlated with the music. They did propose quite a few ideas to adapt the piece in some ways. For example around the middle of the scene we all put our hands up as if to trap Carl. To show the audience that Carl is trapped in his own head. It was a cool concept but we ended up taking it further. By reaching in and holding down a part of Carl's body. We felt this would make the scene more intense. And more physical.  We also added quite a few scenes including a synchronised dance/movement scene. And a puppeteer scene. 

I was very fond of the puppeteer scene. Because it's showing Carl's schizophrenic character being influenced by all the different personalities inside the institution. 

Risk Assessment Fort Amhurst Devised

Risk Assessment- Fort Amhurst

Production: 13

Date: 29/06/2016

Company: Revolution Arts-The Howard School.

Completed by: Dan Smith ( Student at the Howard school sixth form) 

Hazard:Trips and falling over in the space of the tunnel areas.

Involvement: 15 cast and Crew for each performance along with 15-20 audience members within the two performances.

Likeliness: Highly unlikely due to the walk through the tunnels being slow safe and controlled.

Severity: mild/medium. If a fall was to occurr it's quite a dangerous place to fall. As the floor terrain is very uneven and cave like. The walls are also very sharp and bits of chalk stick out here and there. Also to call the emergency services in the unlikely case of a severe accident from falling. We would have to navigate out of the tunnels to contact emergency services.

Causes of action to avoid incident: Crew members kept hold of walkie talkies throughout which also radioed through to the owner of the location fort amhurst who knows all the emergency exits. 

Cast were well rehearsed and understood the spacing well

Pathways lighted in the correct manner to help guide the audience safely. 

Any hazard were either warned at the start. Or clearly displayed.

Hazard: structural failiure

Involvement: 15 cast and crew. 15-20 audience members. 

Likeliness: quite unlikely however the tunnels are old so may be a slight chanc 

Severity: severe if a hazard was to develop 

Actions taken to prevent: Cast did not utilise the walls or ceiling for safety reasons. 

Hazard: Fire

Involved: 15 cast and crew. And 15-20 audience members. 

Likeliness: Highly Unlikely

Severity: medium

Actions to prevent events: Fire extinguishers around areas. Emergency areas well lit

Hazard: Lighting and epilepsy

Likeliness: Unlikely

Severity: Medium

Actions to prevent events: At the start of the tour lighting and strobe lighting was initially warned and audience members were asked if anybody suffered from epilepsy before entering the tunnels to watch the performance.  

Micheal and Charles scene Devised

In my scene with Dom. We ended up putting a little twist on it. While the audience is thinking all along that I am a psychotic killer. They soon learn that I am just a normal man who has lied to get out of going to jail. But since being in the mental institute being ploughed with medication he starts to  Believe he is insane. So during the scene when Dom is actually revealing that my character is not insane, and only feels it because of the medication, My character starts to freak out of fear that he will be transferred to a prison. 

During the scene my character is very non communicative. Until Dom starts reading facts about my characters murder and family history. At this point my character comes to terms with the fact he is being discovered and his lies are coming out. 

So at the end of the scene when Dom has worked Michael up into an angry stupor. Michael goes to attack Dom with the pen Dom is actually using to write notes with. I feel this would make the audience feel uneasy that I'm not actually crazy. I'm just a killer who has been let to roam a mental institute and they are all stuck in with me. 

Fortunately for the audience I am dragged away at the end by the doctors away from Dom. Whilst I shout threats at him about killing him and his family. I feel my scene would have had a creepy effect on the audience. Having them realise that half the people in the institute aren't actually crazy. Just natural born killers. 

7 Devils. Devised piece

The 7 Devils piece was the final piece i was in. In the final performance. I feel it was the most powerful movement piece we actually performed. We were all scattered around the room in chairs. There were 7 of us in total (7 patients). The room had a balcony like hole in the wall which we shined a light on. This is where Dan Mckay and Freya stood ( The Doctors ). This gave an eerie effect. Also due to the fact the audience scattered themselves around the room. Some even between patients. 

The music we used for the piece was ( 7 Devils- by Florence and the machine. The music was very powerful and eerie sounding which helped deliver what the physical movement was showing. It was showing all of us going through a relaxation movement. But showed all our inner demons coming out. We were trying to show that we were trapped and locked inside our twisted minds. I feel that the music seriously helped get across the audience what was being shown. 

At the start of the movement piece. Before any movement. There was a small clip being played at the front that we were all staring at. A relaxation clip showing a doctor talking about relaxing advice. At the end of the clip we began doing slight rapid movements for example grabbing our faces or reaching out forward. We were all doing this in sync. Then we slowly moved around to different chairs around the audience. We done this to make things extra creepy. At first the doctors said the patients wouldn't move. Which probably made the audience feel relieved and inclined to stand anywhere. This delivered effect when we all started getting up and moving. Around the audience. 

By the end of the movement piece we are all in different chairs to our original ones. The reason this was my favourite piece. Was because of the 1: location- I felt that doing it in this large creepy room which was on a different floor to the other rooms really gave massive effect: I also felt extremely in character and really put myself in the position of the character I was playing. Portraying exactly how I would be feeling or behaving if I was really there. 

I was told by audience members after that this was their favourite scene. Due to the unexpected outcome of the movement. Also I was told that obviously the venue itself is quite haunted and paranormal. The music and scenario of what we were actually doing did put some people on the edge. Feeling a bu strange. We wanted this exact reaction from this piece and we got it. 

Transitions 39 steps

Transitions throughout the performance are quick. And kept to a minimum. We only really every brought on one different object to display a different scene or location. For example when Hanny and Pamela are coming up to do the Fence scene. Tom was late to the stage with the fence. This wasn't supposed to happen. And when he eventually ran out with the fence. He tripped over and kicked one of the legs off. Which managed to get an earthquake of laughter from the audience. We all found this absolutely hilarious because Tom ended up having to stand onstage holding the fence. The performance was so funny we ended up making a transition a comedy sketch in itself.

Another thing we did was use the same object for different scenes. We just quickly moved it around. The table at the start of the performance was a Sherrifs desk. Placed in the middle of the stage. It was then later moved over to the other side of the stage during a quick scene change to be the table in the hotel reception. Soon after this scene it was again pushed up stage right. To become a bed. 

I can't really remember any other transitions in our act that we performed. Although we managed to make a car out of four chairs which was very amusing. We stylised very well because when the car was turned on. We all started bouncing around as if we were in an old car. Winding up and down the windows making squeaking noises. This was a good transition. It was mad funny in the end of the scene when Toby and Tom end d up just stacking the chairs up on top of each other and walking off. 

The simplicity of our transitions had an increasingly good impact on the play itself. There was always something to watch and find amusing. Even through transitions 

Pace and Energy

For 39 steps due to it being in the style of vaudeville. It had to be very fast paced to deliver the comedic value of the performance. Not to mention there were only 4 of us acting and there was about 8 different parts. So some of the characters had to multi role, which again was true to the style. We made the performance very quick paced because it doesn't give the audience a chance to get bored. There was always something going on. Someone doing movement or talking. This meant that we could not slow down. Because it would completely go against the style of the performance. 

Saying this however during the comedic parts of the performance. Slow movement was used. For example. During Toby and Toms scene when they are playing the elderly characters. They slowly stumble on stage pulling funny facial expressions. This had a better effect on the audienc because it was really slow. Also during Toby's speech when he was talkin quite slowly and stumbling over his lines. The audience cracked a lot of laughs. 

This is how we knew we had delivered the play well. We got a great reception from the audience. Even I had trouble holding back my laughter at some points because it was just overwhelmingly funny. Also the pace between scenes were short and snappy. There want really any scenery or back drops. Only occasionally a different chair or a fence was brought out to symbolise a different scenery. Costume changes were snappy and fast. We couldn't at all drop the energy. We ended up delivering an incredibly funny piece. And if lines were forgotten or somethin went wrong onstage (which happened) we quickly improvised with even more comedy. The audience didn't even know any mistakes were made.

Hannay Voice

For my Hannay voice I have to be very posh and well spoken. Despite being accused of murder and quite common. Hannay likes to make himself presentable and smart and cares about how smart he looks. He likes to match this with his strong English voice. Pronouncing words right. 

Hannay has to project a lot well. I spent a few lessons practicing projecting. Especially with the scene with my monologue. I have to deliver to the audience and people at the back need to hear me clearly. So I practiced speaking posh loudly and it's starting to come along well. 

The tone of Hannays voice is very laid back sounding. Quite calm and collected, however when he gets angry or gets quite upfront. He tends to get a bit deeper in his tone, especially in the scene with Pamela in the apartment. When they both start argueing. Hannay gets quite agressive. The posh sounding tone remains. But he projects alot more. 

Vaudeville research

Vaudeville was the most popular form of American entertainment from its rise in the 1880s through its demise in the 1930s. It played much the same a role in people's lives that radio and later television would for later generations. Indeed, many early radio, television and film stars began as vaudeville performers: Bob hope, Edgar Bergen, Abbott and Costello, the Marks Brothers, Bert Lahr and Ray Bolger (the latter two being best known today as the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz). Every medium-to-large size city had its own vaudeville theatre, and performers on the vaudeville circuit preformed for a national audience by traveling constantly from town to town. With its national circuits, its reliance on train transportation and the telegraph, plus its production of a mode of performance with interchangeable parts, Vaudeville was the first truly modern form of popular entertainment.

Vaudeville was variety entertainment, consisting of a highly diverse series of very short acts, or "turns." The acts ranged from singing groups to animal acts, from comedians to contortionists, from magic tricks to short musical plays. A typical vaudeville bill consisted of approximately 13 acts, most of which were typically 6-15 minutes long. Many of the modes of performance developed in vaudeville had a profound effect on popular culture that continues into the present day. For example, many of the ethnic stereotypes prevalent in television and film -- Jewish, Irish, Italian, African American -- derive from the ethnic caricatures that were a mainstay of Vaudeville comedy. The comedian Frank Bush, whose act is recreated for Virtual Vaudeville, exemplifies this brand of ethnic humor.

Vaudeville appealed to a broad cross-spectrum of the public, representing every class and ethnic group. The wealthiest patrons could purchase exclusive box seats or seats in the parterre, while working class spectators could purchase inexpensive seats in the galleries. Vaudeville had something for everyone, and particular acts in the vaudeville lineup appealed differently to different groups in the audience. Irish comics and tenors, for instance, found a ready audience among the "lace curtain" Irish in the audience while WASP mothers out shopping with a child might prefer the circus-like entertainment of an animal act or juggling.

Variety entertainment emerged gradually throughout the nineteenth century, starting in circus sideshows, concert saloons, burlesque theatres, minstrel shows, and dime museum performances. These early forms of variety theatre had an unsavory reputation associated with rough-house behavior and prostitution and appealed mainly to working class men.

Fence Scene 39 steps.

We got quite creative when it came to the fence scene, the fence scene is when Hannay has just escaped from the police. Carrying also Pamela. The lead female role who is chained to Hannay by a pain of hand cuffs, previous to the fence scene while Hannay and Pamela are escaping through the marshlands Hanny is very eager and pumped because he has escaped the police. Despite on the run he is calm and collective. Often still flirtatious and confident with Pamela. This infuriates Pamela and she shows a lot of anger and hate towards the over confident Hannay, she often threatens to scream. Because she is chained to Hannay who is convicted of murder. As soon as Pamela and Hannay reach the fence, they begin to climb over it. However. Hannay decides to pass under the fence, while Pamela continues to climb over, during this they bother appear to become stuck. Being one of the more comedic scenes me and Freya have made it funny as we keep changing positions. And accidently pulling each other in all sorts of directions. At the end of the scene when we both finally manage to get over I fail to realise the handcuffs are stuck under my leg. I then walk off while me and Freya (Pamela) are still bickering and I end up dragging her along the floor. We wanted to make this funny and show the audience how such a simple thing can be hilarious. 

To Make this scene work we actually had to get our own bit of fence. We managed to find some old wood which was previously used for a different show and create a big enough fence. The fence couldn't be too big/small however because I am tall and Freya is small, so we had to get a bit technical by sawing off some of the fence and sanding it down. Which was a lot of fun. We did this because the fence scene is important and starts to show Pamela and Hannays relationship start to blossom 

39 steps Hannay

During our lessons for our production of the comedy 39 steps, both groups leading roles of (Hannay) had to sit down together and discuss personality traits. In act 1 Ashley Clayton is performing in the role of Hannay, and in Act 2, I (Dan Smith) am performing as the role of Hannay. Me and ashley understood that if we didn't gather the same characteristics/ personality traits in each other, the audience won't understand that we have split the play and will think we are putting on a different one. While me and ashley were doing this, the other characters from both acts, were also comparing characteristics. 

We decided that hannay should be very gentleman like, but very shrewd in how he stands and behaves, we want his body language to be very smart like, with a good posture, however because he is being hunted by the police on murder charges, he is quite fritters and nervous when present onstage, for example constantly looking around, or nervously sorting out his tie. Me and Ashley also wanted Hannay to be very over confident around the women in the play, being very flirtatious and cocky even when they are showing no interest, its these characteristics that are going to help the audience understand what we are doing.

Mike Costume ideas and makeup

For Mikeys Makeup and costume ik really want to show the audience what the hospital has made him become, i want to make his eyes appear red, using specific makeup, this will help to get across why people think Mikey is insane. I also want his hair to be unique, scattered all over the place much like his personality. For costumes i believe we are all going to be purchasing white outfits closer to the performance date, this will then be able to make us easily identified as mental patients. There isn only so far we can go with how we look, make up wise, our acting really needs to be powerful and defined, to help the audience understand why we are insane, and why we behave the way we do.

Carls Movement Piece

So far i feel that this piece is one of the most powerful pieces, Carls character is a schizophrenic, and the whole piece is showing the horrors that go on in a schizophrenics head, i had the opportunity to pick the music, i wanted to aim towards a mysterious progressive piece that backs the piece with eerie and haunting music, i picked Save Me by avenged sevenfold, which is a progressive metal song about how life is cruel one of the lyrics, ' Where the endings are the same as every other, we are only here to die', this lyric is one of the main reasons as to why i picked the song, it brings around and empowers how Carl is really feeling inside, 'Trapped in a vile world', he can't escape, the voices in his head keep him under control.

Now i have explained the music i will explain the piece, before anything happens, we see Carl sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, shortly after a a projected video is played on the wall, it shows (Theo), a doctor, explaining schizophrenia, the cause, and how to deal with a schiztophrenic. He ends with saying 'Never look a schizophrenic in the eye.".  carl is initially sat on a chair, he is then lifted and spun around, the people involved in the movement piece whisper at Carl, these are the voices of the other patients in the asylum (showing the voices in his head), we can see he gets aggravated by this, by now he is standing, hew tries to escape but people are surrounding him, engulfing him, he feels trapped, tries his best to get out, but is thrown back to the middle, we are doing this to display that carl isn't in control of his actions or his emotions, his head is a massive whirlpool of confusion, which has lead to his intense insanity. We then had a really good idea, which goes along perfectly with the drums in the eerie music where we all get into a sort of production line on our knees, and do a puppeteer like movement, doing various movements like holding our heads and throwing our arms around.

Carl essentially is one of the patients, because he has been in the hospital for years, all the voices in his head, are of the voices of the other patients in the asylum, he has spent the most time being a patient and has become influenced and controlled by other personalities, we show this in the piece during the puppeteer piece, we all end up individually taking control of carls movements, like a puppet, and making him do actions and movements that display all of the different characters personalities in the hospital.

We really like this piece alot because the musical and movement power really go together well, it will also help the audience to understand what it really feels like,to be trapped and controlled by voices and things that don't even exist.

Script beginning ideas dan and dom sene

In this scene Mikey is being spoken to by a newly qualifying psychiatric doctor (Dom) who is questioning Mikey and finding out intricate things In his personality and the way he behaves. Below is what we have started

From the script so far we can see that Mikey has been living for a while believing he is mentally unstable because his doctors tell him he is every day. Also one of the reasons Mikey thinks he's insane is because he's regularly injected with tranquilliser which is extremely strong. Excessive use of the drug has made mikeys condition far worse than it originally was. Resulting in Mikeys behaviour becoming extremely agressive off the medication and so has become addicted to being tranquilized. He claims to the mental hospital that they give it to him because it stops him killing people. 

From the script we can see dom getting frustrated and angry that Mikey is not insane. And the drugs he is on is Making him believe that he's ridiculously insane. 

Dom gets more and more wound up especially after studying a psychology degree, knowing that Mikey is just taking the easy way out. He isn't in fact insane at all. He is probably in fact a manic depressive who uses the use of medicinal drugs to short term cure his unhappiness. I feel we should show some emotion in Mikey as Dom gets to the bottom of Mikeys troubles. I feel Mikey should then try to reveal the truth to Dom about what they are actually doing to them in the asylum. But before he can finish he is injected with a strong dose of tranquilizer which knocks Mikey unconscious

I really think this will eventually have a reverse effect on the audience, at first they all see Mikey to be a psychotic killer, but it is soon revealed that his unhealthy childhood and upbringing, years of neglect, has resulted in  him craving attention and medicine in an asylum, this is the reason he dent want to be conformed to a jail, its quite sad to be honest because its not all Mikey's fault, i want the audience to feel sorry for Mikey, he is also trapped in a confused world and doesn't understand.

After Mikey gets back up he has forgotten everything once more, Dom should try to talk to him but to no success. This is where Dom should start finding things suspicious in my opinion.

character profile Micheal ellington

Name: Micheal Ellington
Nickname: Mikey
Age: 27
Date of birth: 1948
Hometown: Rochester
Ethnicity: White British
Hair colour: Brown
Eye Colour: Brown, (Has been seen wearing red contact lenses.)
Family members: Martha Ellington (mother), John Ellington (farther). Both passed away in the year 1960 (fatal car accident), Mikey has no other siblings.
School attended: Roosevelt Secondry school, until 1961, where he was permanently excluded.

Mikey was taken to an orphanage with other parentless children, he hated it, and was seen often bullying other orphans about their parents loss, despite the fact he lost his parents, he would then try fostering with other families, he was turned away from every family because he threatened the parents in every foster family, telling them that death was going to find them also.

Mikey at the age of 18 was trailed for the murder of parents of a family who earlier tried to foster him, claiming that they killed his parents. He mysteriously vanished for nearly 8 years until the police captured Mikey who was now 26, he was trialled again and quickly admitted to killing three more people, during his courtroom prosecution, Mikey claimed that he was being told to kill by voices in his head, and after tests by 4 different doctors, Mikey was found to be mentally unfit for a prison and was sent to a local asylum.

Pillowman evaluation

On the 20th may we performed pillowman in the afternoon. I felt the performance went well. But I also feel it didn't go as smoothly as we would have once hoped. Despite working at the play for quite some time We ended up having to cut quite a lot of the performance out because we had major problems with line learning, there was a lot of lines. It came down to us even cutting out acts from the piece. Despite all this I feel that I played my part very well. I was performing in the role of tupolski. A troubled alcoholic who is very sarcastic and dry personality wise. I feel I delivered the part right because I got a few laughs on the comedy sides of the play. But also came down like a ton of bricks when I needed to show the agressive side. For example in the first scene I was very laid back showing Tupolski to be quite a chilled out police officer. Then he looses his temper within a matter of seconds. I feel I showed this well and displayed the two different sides of the character quite clearly

Actual Finalised Decision.

After weeks and weeks of discussing ideas and workshopping ideas, ironically we have actually gone with one of the first ideas that was initially brought to the table, which was the mental hospital idea, we have put a little spin on it however because of other ideas. We had the idea of Fort Amherst being a mental asylum. Within the asylum are various different mental patients, each suffering with different health issues. From audience perspective, they will be following the tour which is going around the Fort. It is lead by doctors who are showing round a psychiatric doctor, who is evaluating the patients and hospital. During the tour, the audience will learn the dark secrets behind the mental hospital, what horrors lie behind the doors, and how the doctors themselves don't treat the patients right. At the end, we had the creepy idea of the Doctors, (who are showing people around), actually turn out to be mental patients also, we feel this will be a creepy unexpected end to the tour, and will have a good effect on the audience.

We have had the ideas of the doctors being a bit physically forceful and mentally neglecting, towards the patients, for examp[le, in a workshop scene, we had Freya, who's character was a 5 year old trapped inside a 20 year olds body. She was constantly asking to play, The doctors started getting annoyed with her and ended up threatening her with the electric chair.

Along in the next workshop idea, we had a crazed man who thought he was the second coming of Jesus. And had about 5 mental patients praying in their own individual ways. After the doctors enter and explain the the psychiatric what each character is behaving like, The man who thinks he is jesus gets extremely weird with the doctors, demanding that he is the second coming, and that they are disturbing a house of peace.

The good thing about the idea and fort amherst, is that they link extremely well. There are lots of different tunnels with different characteristics, for example, one looks like a church, one looks like a big isolation room, we can study each room, and bring different ideas for each one, i feel this way we can come up with a really clever cut piece, that flows well and will be dynamic

Character ideas and workshops

We have started to come up with character ideas, We are all going to be mental patients, i decided i wanted to lean towards a psychotic murderer, because i know i would be able to portray the character well and look absolutely crazy while doing it, i want to really bring fear to the audience through how i play the character. In workshops so far, i have not been able to display my full potential with the character. I want to get a character profile down also to help me understand why my character is the way he is, and why he behaves in certain ways.

I had the idea of having my character constantly paranoid, hearing voices, telling him repetitively to kill, i feel this will make my character appear eerie and odd

Ideas and final decisions. Devising

After our previous lessons we decided to put all of our ideas into a piece of paper, we then all voted ideas which we liked. To help us narrow down to one specific idea. Fortunately every group picked three ideas. They were "the tour of the fort", "no power with the Jordan character" and finally the "reality dinner idea" I chose all three of these when voting because they can all be put together. I can see al three ideas working well with each other. I was a little disappointed that the evacuation idea and the ghost tour didn't fall through. The reason I didn't vote for those. Was because they had not been explained thoroughly. Therefore I could not visualise us actually putting them on. The reason we couldn't really explain the ideas very well was because everyone who came up with an idea. Became attached to the idea. And wouldn't really take on board anyone else's ideas. So we were at a bit of a standstill for a while. Thankfully now we have 3 ideas which we all appreciate and can work with. We need to be very careful though because the ideas together sound like a horror like movie. We need to not make it look like a movie because it will look quite unprofessional and will be especially hard to put on.

After further discussions I have sided with the Jordan future idea, simply because I feel that it will have an interesting effect on the audience. We all eventually came up with the idea that it's going to be a normal tour around the tunnels. However during the tour there is a disturbance outside. Which one of the tour guides checks out. He doesn't return and we carry on to proceed through the tunnel to various places we can exit. However all the doors are locked. Also in the tunnel the audience will be told that technology does not work in the tunnels. Eerily we were going to have a phone just sitting on the floor ringing. Which then lead into a computer room with lines of laptops displaying the same face of Jordan. I really love the creepy aspect to this performance and feel we can really bounce creative ideas off it. 

Again we need to be careful we don't make it too movie like. So In the next few lessons I want to bring about the idea that after seeing the computer room. The audience then move into another room to watch an actual performance. I feel this will slide it more to the performing side rather than movie like.

I am going to carry on pressing on about the reality celebration idea. Because I like suspense. And I feel it will be a good idea to have the audience think they are coming to a celebration for finishing our drama unit. But it turns out to be something else. I think it will get the audience to think on their feet.

Location ideas, sight specific

We all came up with good ideas for location, here are some of our ideas

Chatham dockyard: good location especially for the evac boat idea
Fort Amhurst: Great for war location.
Orchard on lower rainham road: a more open location
Berengrave nature reserve: again an open spaced location
Upnor Castle: a cute small castle in a small village.

I personally liked Fort amhurst and the dockyard, and when it came to voting, both options got the most votes, Fort Amhurst just scraping the win.

After voting fort amhurst, the teacher asked us to come up with ideas that we could potentially use, we discussed alot of these in the next lesson, i say discuss, it was more of a full scale debate/arguement. Which lead to members of the class walking out, I think the problem was, people were so fixed on their own ideas and what they want out of the piece, that nobody really listened to anyones ideas, and what they could potentially become, it was quite sad really because excellent ideas were sort of just being buried.
I dont want us to fight and fight, to then be stuck with a generic idea that half the class doesnt approve of, i cant find a solutuion yet to this, we dont have much time left to come up with an idea, and everyone is acting childish, hopefully in the next lesson, not so outgoing people can voice their ideas, and we can actually stand a good chance of putting on a half decent performance.

With my idea, i have sort of just stuck with my guns with the original idea, but when i brought the idea to the table, half the class wasnt listening/ interested, and the other half didnt hear it out or think of possibilities of the idea, in order for us to move forward, find a location and story, people need to start utilising their ears.

Next lesson we all need to again bring ideas to the table, hopefully all ideas will be taken into consideration.

Sight Specific First idea

In the lesson we had the class split in half, and each group had to come up with a small idea of a piece to go with a picture idea we had been given, i thought despite out group taking quite a while to come up with any sort of idea, we actually got a really eerie openeing to something that could potentially be a great piece. Our picture looked like a Boat house, quite a modern one aswell. We had the idea that 3 men were seeking refuge in this boat house, hiding from something that is going on outside, which remained a mystery because we didnt have time to go into detail, also it left an eerie effect because the audience didnt know why they are hiding. In the scene, 2 of the characters have gone out to get supplies but end up being gone for a week, by this point, the man left in the boathouse has gone a bit crazy, all of a sudden people start to turn up, each one asking where the evacuation boat is, and when its going to turn up. This gives the audience the idea that something is actually going on in the outside world, wether that be a corrupt government, nuclear war, apocalypse, world war. Right at the end, the two characters walk back in, and join the group now in the boathouse.

I really liked this idea because i feel we used perfect lighting and sound, We used Red lights, and we had the room dark, which gave off thsat sort of danger feel, also we had the theme music from 28 days later in the background which was also my idea, i felt this piece could have really had a good storyline behind it, but i feel the other classmates watching our piece didnt see the bigger picture of what it could potentially be.

Milo diary entry 1

1st January 2009: 

I've just arrived at this young offenders institute. I think it's a mental place. But I'm not fucking mental so I don't know why I'm here. Everyone wears white and we just look stupid as hell. It seems I'm the only person in here with a brain. Everyone else seems to enjoy being here. I've already threatened to kill one of the members of staff because he told me to take off my rings. Idiot. Oh and the reason for being here. I killed my parents. Because they annoyed me. Everyday of my life. My friends told me it was a good idea and said I'd feel better if I just silenced them so I did. I cut their lips off first and made them swallow razors because it'd shut them up. It was a good day. But now I'm in this shithole...

Milo diary entry

17th April 2009

I hate everyone. Today I spent or should I say 'wasted' the whole day waiting outside for the three biggest idiots in the world to put together a ridiculous so called performance. Which by the way I absolutely fucking hate. My character is Gwendoline, I want to kill her she's so annoying. How can you play the part of someone you want to kill slowly. I'll tell you who I hate the most. Rose. She's so full of crap, she sits there all day pretending she enjoys being in this crap place. She's just full of pills and fake, that's what she is fake. If I was in a room with just her and no one else I would deck her. The only person I can put up with in this place is Kinsey. He doesn't try to hide what he did. He isn't trying to make things right. He did what he did. I'm the same. Except for the fact that I enjoyed killing my parents. No regrets. The screams fueled me with power... Did I mention how much I hate George? Especially today when he lectured Kinsey.  All because he thinks that being a director and putting in a show is going

To get the world to forgive him for murdering a child.. Prick. I haven really got round to know much about Allan yet. He doesn't like George it seems. Which is a good thing because George is an idiot. Tomorrow if we don't get through this stupid play. I will most likely assault one of them.. 

Milos relationship with Kinsey and other characters

In the first half of the play in act 1. Not all characters are onstage. In fact Kinsey and Milo are offstage until the entrance on page 18. During this time it says that George and Kinsey are outside waiting for the entire time. This clearly showed me that milo can put up with Kinsey. Which means there must be some kind of understanding between the two characters. Despite attacking Kinsey during milos crazy outburst. Both milo and Kinsey at the end of the play both decide to continue on with the performance. Which also establishes a small friendship. 

Kinsey is really the only friend milo has. His relationship with the other characters is really poor. He tends to personally dig at each character throughout the play and I think he just doesn't like anyone or wants to be a part of anything. 

Jamie bulger case and the killers

Criminals George and Kinsey:

Sentences:

The pair were found guilty on 24 November 1993, making them the youngest convicted murderers in modern English history. They were sentenced to custody until they reached adulthood, initially until the age of 18, and were released under new identities and on a lifelong licence in June 2001. In 2010, Venables was sent to prison for violating the terms of his licence of release, and was released on parole again in 2013.

The case has prompted widespread debate on the issue of how to handle young offenders when they are sentenced or released from custody.

Murder: cctv evidence from the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle taken on 12 February 1993 showed Thompson and Venables casually observing children, apparently selecting a target. The boys were playing truant from school, which they did regularly. Throughout the day, Thompson and Venables were seen stealing various items including sweets, a troll doll, some batteries and a can of blue paint, some of which were later found at the murder scene. One of the boys later revealed that they were planning to find a child to abduct, lead him to the busy road alongside the mall, and push him into the path of oncoming traffic.

The two boys brutally murdered James near a railway that same day. 

It's quite obscure because the characters George and Kinsey are very different. Kinsey accepts what he has done. Even says in the script that he isn't ever going to leave. And George is in denial. Never wants to talk about the incident and just assumes that after performing the play they will just be forgiven. George just wants to move on and doesn't want anything to do with Kinsey. We can see that the two characters are meant to represent John venebles and Robert Thompson because one of them (Robert) is not too bothered about what happend. And (John) gets very squirmy and unhappy when it's brought up in conversation. When goerge says "I don't want to talk about Worthing" we can also tell that they are representing the child killers. In the script George is talking to Kinsey about the murder and how he was only 11 years old. 

Character name change

Changes to the script: in the normal script. The character Irene was given to me. I'm a boy. The character Irene was a girl, a tall ugly Scottish girl. When I was given that part I obviously couldn't act as a girl. So I changed the name to milo. I kept all the characters background the same and stuck to the script. I just had to change my name so it suited better. The only downside there was. Was all the other characters having to change in the script whenever they say my name to say milo instead of Irene. Which is difficult because Natrually you just read and learn what is written infront of you. So it was quite hard to adapt to but we managed to work around it. 

Relationships with characters

Milos relationship with Allan is quite bleak. Seeing as Allan is new I don't think milo has too much of a problem with him. Apart from maybe not liking him because he received a better part than milo got. And milo has been there longer.

Milo absolutely hates rose with a passion, there is always a lot of tension in the room when rose and milo are together. Throughout the play, Rose often makes digs personally at milo. And milo responds with threats of violence. Probably not a good idea to keep these two characters in the same room for too long.

From the other character notes we can see that milo is feared quite a lot by the other characters. Most of the characters just don't understand why he's the way he is. I don't think they understand milos up brining and how painful/difficult it was. Kinsey says that milo and him have something in common and that's 'they don't like the play' so they can relate to something in a sense.

Milo doesn't really even care for specs. He never digs at specs or attacks specs. Meaning specs is either really really dodgy and needs to be avoided. Or milo just doesn't feel the need to bully him. I think specs has a brutal past that even haunts milo 

Anger management team report 2008 (when I'll was 14)

Milo is an outgoing opinionated young man. He is forced by his parents to attend our sessions due to his intense anger problems. He's normally dragged in shouting and thumping around. He tends to resort to violence. A few weeks ago he was struggling more than usual and beat one of our team members. He spent four days in hospital. Luckily milo got away with it due to the problems he had. His patience levels were low and he barely spoke to us. And when he did. He just described how he would hurt and kill people he hated. Gory details also. We tried transferring him to specialists but they would not have him. Milo is staying with us for three more weeks. His anger and violence is starting to get out of hand and its threatening the members of staff. 

Police report profile milo

Police Report

Name: Milo 

Age: 19

Occupation: unemployed

Sex: male

Country of birth: Scotland 

Reason for imprisonment: killing two adults and a child in their home. Happened when the killer was 15 police think the reason was a painful childhood led to the killings. 

Improsonment time: Life

Conditions: attends anger management, ADHD. 

Interests: (when questioned by police) shooting at ducks or pigeons with pellet guns. And sacrificing ants with magnifying glasses. 

During the interview with the police after Milo was taken into custody, he showed no remorse or guilt. He just sat smirking when the descriptions were read out of the killings. Also answered back the judge in court. Pleaded guilty with a grin on his face. 

Tuesday 29th March milos home life

After doing a bit more research into my character I think I know the seriousness of what milo has done. Close to the end of the play. Kinsey is telling milo small details about what we have all done to be in the institute. Although he doesn't reveal everything each character does he dropped a massive hint about milo. He mentions how milo can't go back to his family because there is not much left of them. Which indicates that milo must have committed murders to his family members. This can also tell us that milo had a rough childhood. I also got this idea from the quote by Kinsey. Because who wants to kill their parents these days? Also in the script it announces who milos character is. Saying he's a well built Scottish teenager quite ugly. This appearance would not have helped. Milo also mentions while talking about his

Character Gwendoline that she wouldn't have lasted two minutes on his estate. She would have just been killed for her name. This indicates that where milo lived there was a lot of violence and corruption. Crime rate was possible higher and hate was bred. Which lead to milos murders 

Friday 12th February 2016 pillowman

This was the last lesson before the half term break so again in the lesson we once more ran the performance. We had learned a few lines but needed prompting throughout, also the teacher watched and gave us a lot of constructive criticism and advice, a few of us were slipping out of character and perhaps not performing the characters full emotions. Which is vital to the performance and effect it has on the audience. So our plan is to learn our lines over the half term. Or as many as we can. Because this seems to be the main concern at the minute. 

When we get back from half term I feel we need to do lots more full runthroughs. And keep trying to show our characters full emotions. I'm going to look over my research into my character Tupolski. And really give it my all when it comes to me acting the part. I need to look aswell as act the part, so I can really bring across my character to the audience.

Friday 5th February 2016 pillowman

In this lesson we decided to run through the whole play, it ran really well and showed that we all have a great understanding of our characters. However it didn't run through as smoothly as we would have wanted to. And took longer than it should because we spent a lot of time looking at our scripts. Stumbling over lines, coming out of character a little also.

To improve this we need to spend some time looking into learning out lines, because everything else about the play is good, it's all there we just need to perfect our lines. What we also need to do as part of the assessment is build the other groups pillowman. We have looked at the design ideas from the other group for their pillowman. And it should be easy to build. Apart from these little things I feel we are ready to perform. Lines are a big problem at the minute. Because there is a lot of them! 

Milos entrance

From the moment milo walks in. As I have explained/annotated on the script. He gets very defensive when questioned. And has a very short temper. Tending to lash out on every individual member in the group. Bringing up their pasts 

Friday 22nd January 2016

In this lesson we thought about how we could portray katurians stories throughout the play, perhaps by using puppets or a projection on the wall, we thought this would be a cool way of telling the stories so the audience could see why the stories play such a massive role in the reason why katurian and his brother are under arrest/interrogation. 

Although these ideas are good It would be very difficult maybe even impossible to project the stories or tell them through puppets. Due to the fact that the play only has 4 characters so we have a massive load of lines to learn each, also we have quite little time before we perform now so we need to really focus on lines and scenes a bit more 

Friday 15th January 2016

In this lesson we focused on the Death in act 3. We really wanted to make it gruesome and quite horrific in a way for the audience in the way we stage it and have lights/sounds 

At the moment of katurians death, Tupolski gives him a ten second countdown as promised.. We then see tupolskis brutality when he shoots katurian in the back of the head after only six seconds. This also shows tupolskis agressive and heartless. Character. 

With regards to lighting we want to set it so that the audience sort of know what is about to happen, by having a dimmed red sort of lighting throughout act 3, then after the shot is fired I want to lighting to go to a blackout. To show a death has occurred. After the death I want it to remain blackout for a while. Then slowly I want clear coloured lights brought up over Tupolski and Ariel talking/arguing by Katurians dead body

8th January 2016

In today's lesson we decided to spend more time looking into our own characters, in the previous week to this lesson, we liked at the relationships between each character, we found that Tupolski is a very strong hard to break character, and Ariel not so much. We found Ariel easy to crack, due to a troubled past.

However now I want to focus on my character tupolski, throughout the interview between the convict and investigators, tupolski is very secretive with how he goes about his work, he never reveals any information about his personal life showing professionalism. This is the reason why I think he is always made number one on cases, because he doesn't let the convict break him and bring out the worst in him. 

Tupolski is also seen to be very smart, the way he goes around explaining things to Katurian in big lengthy monologues. For instance when he tells Katurian the story of the little deaf Chinese kid, whilst telling katurian the ridiculously lengthy and pointless story, katurian is clearly confused. 

I think we see katurians fear of tupolski at this point because tupolski forces Katurian to tell him that his story is good and better than any of the stories Katurian came up with. We can see tupolski is well trained in his job 

Friday 1st January 2016

In today's lesson we researched mainly into the relationships of the main characters, for instance I looked into tupolski and ariels relationship. And Carl/meg. Looked into the relationship between their characters. I noticed that tupolski is very dominant throughout the entire performance. 

In fact from the very beginning to the end, Tupolski apears to get worse to Ariel as the play goes on, in the beginning Ariel is put in his place many times by Tupolski, for example Tupolski reminds Ariel that he is number one on the case, so Ariel is technically an assistant, we also see Tupolski taking control in act 1 also when katurian and Ariel are both on the floor after having a bit of a misunderstanding with each other. It's at this moment when Tupolski steps in and tells them both to sit down.

We see toward the end that Ariel really doesn't like Tupolski, In act 3, katurian finds out alot about Ariels problematic childhood and humiliated him for it, we see Ariel getting extremely worked up and angry with him. Ariel then tries to get Tupolski to stop katurian from intimidating him, but Tupolski joins In. 

In a fuming rage after the case when Katurian is killed by Tupolski, Ariel threatens to report Tupolski to the officials, and says "this has happened before", from this we see that Tupolski has previously intimidated Ariel and brought up his childhood which is a painful topic for Ariel to talk about. Ariel also suggests that he should be the number one on the next case, Tupolski laughs because in his head he knows that he dealt with the Murders quickly and efficiently, Ariel would have probably killed Katurian, because Ariel is weak and has also murdered before, he murdered his father showing us that he would probably loose his patience with any convict. 

The characters clearly not hate each other, have split personalities and cannot work together.

Monday 28th January 2016

We didnt officially have a lesson today, however we all came together as a class in our frees, Michael and katurian have a lengthy scene at the start of the second act, which the two wanted to work on, so during this free period they looked into their characters and how they wanted to interact, (the characters are brothers, both convicted killers), as they practiced their scene me and Dom gave constructive advice to show the characters relationships with each other. Also while they ran through, I decided to research into anger management and what effects this has on somebody's life. It helped me to understand why Ariel and Tupolski are so cruel and heartless when it comes to their jobs.

Anger management: 

Anger management is the process of learning to recognize signs that you're becoming angry, and taking action to calm down and deal with the situation in a positive way. We see this a lot in the performance from both characters, however in different ways, we find that Ariel was abused as a child by his farther. He is very embarrassed about this fact and is very touchy when the subject is brought up. Even tupolski ridicules Ariel for his "problematic childhood", even when katurian nearer to the end of the play humiliates Ariel, tupolski doesn't even intervene, completely driving Ariel to an agressive stupor. The odd thing is we never find out why tupolski has anger management, he's very concealed through his personality in the performance.

It is important that we researched into anger management, because in order to play the characters well. We need to learn how people with anger management find it impossible to control anger. This extra lesson in our free periods has really given us a better insight to how the play is written and how it displays our individual characters sporadic personalities. 

18th December 2015 pillowman

In this lesson we finished off the setting of the first scene, we looked in this lesson into the way me and Ariel (the other officer) approach the table, we wanted to establish personalities through the way we walk, Ariel was going to be loose and agressive looking. With his tie half done and shirt untucked. And we wanted tupolski to look incredibly smart with lengthy strides and good posture, this will instantly assert a more professional approach to tupolski over Ariel. We were very happy because it looked quite professional now, after all we had spent a lot of time planning it, seeing how our decisions would effect the audience and us performers. 

In the first act we also need to display personalities through our body language and the way we speak. Tupolski has a quite a broad temper so is quite controlled, sitting down next to katurian, working effectively with him, finding out information. Ariel on the other hand is loosing his temper after everything katurian is saying, which shows the audience he must have had a rough past or something wrong with him that has caused him to be so aggressive.

The speech from tupolski to katurian shows me that I have to be very shrewd with the way I play the part, Tupolskis speech is very controlled but professional, he shows small bursts of sarcasm. Intimidating katurian. I will be able to work well with this character because I have a good idea of how to play it. 

Friday 11th December 2015 pillowman

Due to the fact we had done read through in the previous lesson. We decided to focus o the opening scene. This scene is possibly one of the most important ones in the play, because it introduces where the characters are and the situation, we had the idea of having katurian in the middle with a white spotlight on him. With a bad over his head, the audience would be sat in the gallery theatre seats. (An isle of slowly sloping stairs runs through the middle of the audience. Separating them. We thought about having a very oxymoron effect in the first scene, it's supposed to look very dark and quite scary, but we had the idea of putting in quite an uptempo classical piece, we thought this would bring a cool sort of eerie effect on the audience watching, this would properly set the mood for the performance. Because it is quite disturbing. On the murder case are two police investigators. Two of extremely different personalities. (Not the best team). We had the idea of both policemen walking down through the audience, I was thinking it would be a good idea to put us in suits, so as we walk down, the audience can establish who we are and have a basic understanding of our job. 

For the stage plan. We are going to have a single table in the middle, katurian will sit behind this, facing the audience. And the two investigators will sit down next to each side of katurian, giving an intense feel, the rest of the stage is going to be quiet, and quite bland. To keep the attention focuses on the main characters and to show that katurian is unable to leave. 

Friday December 4th pillowman

A week prior to this lesson we were told to order scripts for 'the pillowman', when we all turned up to lesson we began doing readtheoughs of the script, mainly to get a feel for what the play was about and how we would go around performing as the characters, we had already been assigned parts previous to the lesson also, as we had auditioned to get the parts. Luckily I got the part I was going for which was Tupolski, the number one on the case which a convicted murderer is being interviewed for, at first I thought the play was quite standard, a usual police interview, however after studying the lines that were being said more in detail. I started to see how twisted the play is. I noticed that my character Tupolski. Is an alcoholic, as he says this in the second act, however he is very professional about his work, forcing information out of the convict "katurian" through sarcasm and quite a strict piercing vocabulary.

13th January

We have now finished our other unit, our devsing piece, now we have started looking at various plays we can put on. We are interested in doing two because of the amount of people in our group, we've looked at a wide variety of different styles of plays from different points in time. From students in a strict school, to 7 year olds in the countryside 

18th January Mr Webb

Today we actually looked at a really old play set in Liverpool. And it was actually made into a film quite a while back. And I've seen the film so I understood the script a lot better and what was happening. I really like this play because it shows children of around 7-11 years of age who live in the depths of Liverpool and only know concrete. And on one day they go on a school trip to a castle alongside the beach. It's quite an emotional script because the children have never seen the sea before. One child even mistakes it to a big lake 

Progress for rent

Lines are all learnt and I have all my costume except for an apron for the restaurant man. My lines are learnt. All I need to do now is work out when my costume changes are, the good thing is during the performance I stay in the same clothes but sort of change one item to sigify somebody else. For instance I wear a beanie when I'm a poor street person. Then when I'm the drug dealer I wear a coat. When I'm the priest I have a notebook. When I'm the restaurant man I also have a notepad. And I just take away the beanie when I'm the posh man and have my hair done back to look smarter. 

I feel like we need to run Santa Fe a few more times. Just to get the dance to a T. And know when to come in when we all sing. I've spent a lot of evenings concentrating on line learning and feel like we just need to do a runthrough or two to make sure it flows ok.  

Restaurant man

The restaurant man is around 26 year old. He makes his living off working at the restaurant which is 3 blocks from his flat. He barely makes a living and he gets a lot of trouble at work. He has been a waiter for 5 years and hopes to keep the job. 

So when I'm acting in the role of the restaurant man I need to be desperate when asking for the cash when the group of people forget to pay. I need to show annoyance in his voice to show how he's sick of being walked all over because his living and lifestyle depends on his job