Essential Dark Presentation

performing in partsRhys Hillocks

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reflection on levels of tension

this lesson , we have been focusing on the 7 levels of tension.the first level of tension . the first level of tension is little to no tension which basically means that your body is in a sleepy like state and you are making little to no movement throughout your entire body.level 2 is still relaxed but this time there is more movement.the movements however are still with little to no effort and they are very slow and sluggish and it makes a person look like they are rather tired or cant be bothered to do anything .level 3 is neutral and how everyone is in there day to day life.level 4 is when someone is more alert and there not very very tense and there body is mostly relaxed but there body does hold a little bit of tension than level 3.levels 5,6 and seven are more escalated than 1,2,3 and four and in most cases, in movies it is usually seen as overly excited,overly angry or just to be simplified, i huge amount of tension and emotion being displayed. what i have done well is that i was able to level 1,2,3,4 but the other levels i was not fully confident in them because i didnt know i was doing too much or too little so those levels i kind of brushed away and i stuck to the levels that i knew i could do. i do feel like that i should learn how to use the other levels just in case i have to play a character where anger and aggression were mandatory to use within the play.

reflection on voice

todays lesson was our first voice lesson that happens evry thursday.i dont have that much experience in only training voice in an acting lesson because i usually focus on everything so having the oppurtunity to focus on only one thing in acting,i think it helped me and it gave me a different perspective of acting and i learnt alot more. i learnt how to speak in different tones and levels and still be able to be heard by the audience for example: me whispering ,i would be heard just as much if i was shuting but im not strainig my voice to do so.we were also working on tounge twisters and acted in different scenarios for each one for example: one of them we would be acting like we are doing a presentation and another one we are whispering to our friend whilst saying it.i feel like that lesson went well and i got alot of useful information that would be alot of help in the near future.what i do feel like i could have done to improve on that i wasnt 100 percent focused in that lesson and i think it was because i was not used to this performing arts training so for me it was something to get used to and get familiar with

spoken word

for homwork, i was supposed to make a spoken word about any political related thing currently happening in the world.mine was about black culture and what black people had to deal with in this world.its called culture and this is rough draft of it:im black and im proud im told im ratchet and loud im constantly teared down when im around even when im tryna embrace my god given crown. the love it carries all around cant just be found you have to dig deep down in the ground i feel like my draft is good so far but i do feel like i should be more focused on it and also not stress out about it aswell because i made most of it on a bus ride home so from now on,if i want to add more to the spoken word,then ill try to do it when im in a relaxed state of mind instead of stressed out.

how i used the levels of tension in a improvised scene.

after learning about the 7 levels of tension and having a good understanding of how they are used in film and theatre and how they can be used aswell, the class was split into groups of 3 and made a one minute performance using the 7 levels of tension but the theme of the improve had to be based on the song playing in the back ground. one of the songs was by 50 cent so my group desided to make the seen gang related and to be set in hood-like enviroment like the bronx or detroit.i was playing a gang member who met there opposition in there area.the start of it the level of tension that i had shown was around 2,3,4 and then when my character met the opposition,my body language changed and the level of tension was now around 5,6,7. at the end of the improve, i was shot and bleed to death so then my level of tension dropped from 5,6,7 to 1 almost instantly whereas the other 2 people in the improve, there tension had remained the same or it went down a little bit but there was still alot of tension with them because one of them was playing a regular citizen who witnessed a murder in broard daylight.i feel like i di pretty well in the inprove in terms of using all levels of tension in the performance at least ones but i do feel like i should have made it more clear what levels of tension i was using at a particular time because i kind of blended them together so my intention and emotion , body language was not clear at all times and even i knew at the momnt that i rushed some parts aswell and i was not clear throughout the whole duration of it.

dance assesment

our dance lesson is on fridays and the 2nd lesson, we were put into duets or solos to make a dance piece with 4 moves to be the base.our teacher said that we can manipulate the moves in any sort of way to fit your dance as long as they are included in the dance.for this lesson my partner and i picked the song 'dead to me' by Ghetts and the dance was 1 minute and 3 seconds long on the first day of choreographing it.in terms of the musicality and the flow and the counts,we did ok for most of the piece but looking back at the recording, we noticed that at the end,we were not on count and we sort of lost the flow of the dance so in our free time,we would send eachother the counts for the song and make it make sence to us. as we were doing more work on the dnace,we realised that the choreo didnt really match what we wanted to do so we changed the song to 'redrum' by 21 Savage and the musicality was alot more easier for us to edit and clean and to add more of

reflection on duologue

in this weeks lesson we have been given our duologue but this duologue was not for the assesment but it was to train us for the actual assessment. the play was about a person keeping a secret for as long as possible from someone close to them but then they could deal with them asking over and over again so they then eventually gave in and told the secret. for me, i chose that the secret would be something gang related so with that being the secret, i wanted to make sure that when my character did not to say the secret but did anyway,i have to make sure that my face and my voice is portraying that as good as possible.one thing that i feel like i done really well was that i got imput from my class mates and used there ideas as inspiration for my mock duologue because i couldnt think of alot of ideas to do for this perfromance. the ideas i used were thinking of the scenery and what the room was and what time of the day it was and what and what day in the year it was.the scene that we chose was my bedroom with a bed and chair and desk and the time of the day was sunset so around 6 to 9 pm.the time of the year was mid summer time and the specific date that me andf my partner chose was the 28th of june.i chose to think of a specific date because i wanted to be precise with all of the details that i can possibly be precise on and i wanted to make sure that the audience understood the story as much as possible.the one thing that o feel like i did well is that i made it clear that the scenery was a bed room and i made it clear that the secret was a very serious one because the method i used to tell the other character my secret was by pretending to write on a piece of paper what the secret is so that i wont have to say it out loud.i also did this because i feel ike this is a more convincing way to the audience to let them know that the situation was alot serious then the other character thought it was.

reflection on duologue

the 3rd week,we were still working on the mock duologue and i was starting to get more comfortable with the script and the scene even more and i was starting to understand more on what to do and i was gradually adding more in the scene for example:.shaking my hand to show that im nervous and to add effect on the severity of the secret that im about to tell .playing with my clothes aswell to add more of an effect .cracking my fingers aswell .walking up and down throughout the scene at a quick pace .doing them all at the same time at a fast pace but also make it subtle so that the audience would think that im almost having a panic attack but im trying to compose myself. i think i did good because i was able to add in alot of the small gestures in the performance that i was planning to use and i think that i made it somewhat convincing that i had a huge secret to tell andi was not ready to say it just yet.what ifeel like i should have done better and what would have made the piece look better was eye contact because i made it seem like a monologue

stanislavski techniques

one of the techniques that stanislavski is famous for making is naturalism and realism.breaking the 4th wall is apart of realism and breaking the 4th wall is when you are still in character during a play and then you interact with the audience by tlaking to them or even including the audience in the play or when it comes to on screen like deadpool,he takes a moment through the film and has a whole conversation with the audience as he is in a whole fight scene.realism is when an actor is performing as realistic as possible so its basically the opposite or pantomimes.pantos are very overly dramatic and are mainly targeted for children and are usually family friendly whereas theatre shows or films that incorparate realism, the scenarios are more realistic and believable and usually the audience are able to connect to the characters even more because they are looking at a fake situation that look real

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stanislavski

naturalism is another stanislavski technique and it is mistaken for realism and even though they both still have alot of similarities,they are still 2 different things.realism is about how realistc you are acting and the aim is to make the acting look as authentic and as believable as possible and it is used alot in modern day acting and has been used for a while as well whereas for naturalism,it is used for modern day acting but naturalism is mainly about how you are acting based on how you grew up and where you grew up in and what you enherited from either the people they grew up with or what they enherit from there enviroment.

stanislavski

given curcumstances is the information of the character and there backstory for example:in the duologue, my characters name was sammy and his background was very troubled.in VeraVeraVera,sammy was a boxer and has had a long history in fighting people inside the ring and outside the ring.because he has gotten into alot of fights he has run into trouble with the school and the school board and has even been kicked out of school a couple times due to his conflicting past.his friend who he has had a secret crush on who would see him get into alot of fights in the ring and somtimes out of the ring.her name is charlie and she is very protective over sammy and doesnt want to see him get in situations that he is in too much pain. i think even giving a character with little to no background story,they should be given one because i think that it would add more to the story and it could make a change to the story that could actually benifit the storyline even more and it can help out the other storylines aswell.

stanislavski

emotional memory is when an actor uses there past experience to influence them to feel the emotions needed for a scene or the whole performance for example:if an actor needs to feel like they are going through alot, sometimes an actor would use a traumatic memory from there past so that when they are performing, there emotions and intentions look very authentic andit doesnt seem like the actor are putting on a show because they real feelings are being shown.this acting method is very good because i think that it levels up acting to a different level and it makes acting look alot more realistic and it gives the audience a relatable perspective of the entire show and those performances usually get awards because realism is alot harder to do and it requires alot of skill.

alexander techniques

alexander techniques are mainly body awarness,breath control and and vocal techniques. body awareness: the alexander technique when it comes to the body is to be aware or what your body is doing and where it is so for example:when it comes to blocking a scene in a performance,we need to be aware of what you are doing whilst you are on stage and it is also about what you need to be aware about when it comes to what your intention is so that your body language aswell as your body awareness. breath control: breath control is very important because it will help you get your lines out as smoothly as possible because if you run out of breth but the character that you are playing is supposed to be very energetic,it juxtaposes the whole point of the character but if you are out of breath because your charactetr just stopped running,then your heavy breathing would have made more sense then a energetic person heavy breathing all the time. vocal techniques: vocals work with breath control so if your breathing isnt helping you in terms of saying your lines in a play then it would be harder to act on stage.

duologue reflection

on wednesday on the 4th week of college, we were given our scripts that we were going to use for the actuall assesment.the script i was given was called veraveravera. this show has 2 main characters named charlie and sammy and this was set in the mid 1900s. charlie is a girl who is 16 years old who is just a regular school girl who is in school living life.sammy is also a 16 year old but his backstory is alot more troubled.he is a boxer and because of that occupation ,he fights very fuequently in the ring but unfortunatly outside of the ring aswell.he has ran into trouble with his school board and has even been kicked outside of school a few times due to him being a danger to people in school.the section of the story ,sammy seems to be heated about a very recent situation that he had with someone called jamie jones.he has had a problem with jamie because he has been violent towards charlie that had annoyed sammy alot to the point that he has been in a few physical altercations with him.in this part of the script, he was trying to get over the fact that he had a problem with jamie again.the situation was about jamie kicking sammy in the legs whilst playing football.sammy ebing a quick tempered person, he escalated the situation to the point where he had aranged a figth to happen the coming night behind a place called Scratchers Field.charlie didnt want to see sammy fight let alone them fighting anyways so she tried to talk it out with him and was almost forcing him to reconsider this fight.sammy takes it the wrong way and he thought charlie was defending jamie and didnt want him to get hurt rather then him getting hurt.with that happening this particular part of the script ended on a cliffhanger amd the scene ended with alot of tension in th air and left the enviroment to be uncomfortable.

duologue reflection

the first time me and my partner had read the script,we were very surprised with the amount of cursing there was in the script and how much agression there was with each character especially mine.i did fnd all of the swearing overwhelming because i do not curse as much as sammy so it was a different experiance to act like someone who is aggressive almost all of the time but i decided that i was going to look at some videos of boxers preparing themself to fight in the ring so that i can see the different gesture that they might do and habbits they might all have in common and then used that and tried to encorparate as much as i can in the performance so that it didnt just seem like i was putting on a show and it actually looks like we are having a real life situation,i also watched street fights on twitter because i wanted to fully embody my character and make it seem as realistic as i possibly can make it.

what i feel like i did well in terms of understanding the character that im playing but i do feel like i should have been more dedicated from the start of the rehearsal process because i feel like that if i was more dedicated to it then i would have thought of some more ideas that would have elavated the performance alot more.

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duologue reflection

the day after we were giving out scripts, i immediatly started thinking about what i was going to look like when im on stage so i chose to wear a slim fit shirt and a zip up sleeveless coat and some baggy joggers so that it was clear that i was an athlete.i feel like in terms of learning the script i was doing very well becasue i was already starting to pick up on some of the line in the script and my intentions and emotions were gradually coming in but i do feel like i should have done alot more because i wasnt experimenting with emotions as much as i should have .

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dance reflection

after changing the song choice for the assesment,i had alot of ideas that i wanted to add for the dance for example doing slow motion and isolation,popping,animation and jumps aswell to finish off. at this point the dance was now a minute and 10 seconds long which is a 7 second improvement but we still had alot of work to do in terms of learning the counts and making sure that we are in sync with eachother thruoghout the whole dance.we also decided to make sure we wore red aswell since we are dancing to REDrum.

reflection

with 2 weeks until our assesement, we were starting to learn more of our lines and we have now got to the point that we now know most of our lines.we hwave decided on how the set was going to look like and how ill enter the scene and how ill leave the scene.every run that we done i added more aggression gradually so that i can hold on to the realism instead of just jumping in to just straight aggression and then make it look irregular and improper.

what i feel like i did good was that i was very consistent with this rehearsal and i feel like every run was better then the last but i would say that i was still holding myself back alot and i could have done alot more than i did

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spoken word

with my spoken word poem,i made some final edits to it and i was working with a partner on what parts should i add more pronounciation to for dramatic effects and what parts should be more quiet and what aprts should be quicker and which parts should be slower.after getting advise from my partner i started using my body in the speach so that i can add some more depth for the poem.i feel like i should have added more action because my poem is surrounded by physical things such as hair and culture.

dance evaluation

today is our dance assessement and a few hours before we added more choreo to finalise it and went over it to make sure the counts and the dnacing matched and luckily it did.the dance overall was 1 minute and 41 seconds long. i feel like our rehearsal was very useful because we were able to find some mistakes that we were making and we were able to iron them out so that they would not be noticable on camera.i feel like the start of the dance was very good because for the first 30 seconds of the dance, it was us taking turns to freestyle to the song and even though we were juxaposing eachother,i think it created a nice piece of art because it was our interpretation of the song and they both worked together because we were moving at the same pace and we took great advantage of levels and made that work with what we were doing.i was doing alot of popping,animation and waving whereas my partner was doing alot of waves and hiphop but the way we did it showed 2 different vibes but the vibes worked very well together and in a way they blended with the song in there own way. the choreography was ok at the start.we were not in amazing sync with eachother and some parts we were either going a little bit faster than one another or a little bit quicker than one another. midway through our musicalitly was also ok but it was the same issue we had at the start of the choreo.near the end it was a bit messy but i would say that we were on count and we were in sync to an extent.the ending where i did a 360 kick and my parner did a cartwheel,i feel like they workked very well together especially since we did it on count annd landed on count aswell.over all i think we did good and we showed that we put in alot of hard work in the piece but i do feel like we should have been rehearsing for alot longer and found time out of our day to do so just so the dance was fully embedded in our brain.

spoken word evaluation

today we were presenting our poems to eachother but it was our mock assesment. i still treated it like it was the actual thing but i was more relaxed because i knew i was not going to be graded on it.i was the 4th person to go and present my poem so i was looking at the 3 poeple who went before me to see if there was anything that they had done that i could add on to my performance and i even looked at everyone who went after me to see if they did anything that interested me. when i started off saying my poem,i think the start of it was strong and i wanted it to be strong so that i set the tone of the whole poem. i feel like i had a huge renge in tone and i was using pauses hear and there to add a dramatic effect.overall i feell ike the good thing that i had done was that i used pauses,i changed the otne in my voice and i actually seemed like i meant what i was tlaking about but what i feel like i should have done was add more character because what i was talking about was personal to alot of popeople because some of the things i was talking about alot of people could relate to what im saying so if i added more to what i said then it would have been alot more believable what i was talking about.i took some notes from some of my classmates to see what i can add to my performance to make it seem more powerful andi took there advise and experimented with it to level up my performance so that for the real thing, my poem would be alot more impactful to the viewer.

duologue evaluation

today was the day of our assesement and before it began,hours before, i found my partner to go through the whole scene to see if there were any final touches that we would need to add to the performance. after practicing,i was doing stretches and vocal warm ups and rnadom movements to mentally and physically prepare myself for the performance.we were the second person to go so even thoughi got a different script from the other duo, i still took notes to see if there was anything that they did that i could add to my performance that would level up the performance even more.after they finished i then set the stage up and then got all of my props together to get myself fully prepared for the performance.the start of it was pretty strong but it was a bit bumpy aswell because i didnt fully think about my volume and tone of my voice at the beginning.during the performance i started to feel a bit nervous so i used that so that i would purposely stutter on stage so that it would look like im so angry that words cant describe how i felt so i also adding shaking in my leg and cracking my fingers to imply that it looks like im full of adrenaline and im ready to fight.the one mistake that happened was that we completely forgot 5 lines in the script but luckily we used that time to mind our own business.charlie was reading her book and sammy was tring to cool down before talking to charlie again and i think that we did a good job in doing so but we could have done a bit more because the body language wasnt as good as it could have been on my part.overall i do feel like we did good and we portrayed the characters well but i feel like i should have added more to my character and i could have been more aggressive as i showed at the end of the scene.