New idea for showcase

Last lesson we had to come up with a completely new and original idea. We brainstormed various ideas but decided to take an idea about the 9 11 attacks. Our idea was that the 9 11 attacks sent New York into disarray with the whole town being crime infested, with rioters, thieves, murderers and drug addicts. Everybody wants the Presidents head for not protecting their country from the terrorist attacks. Gangs and groups fight between themselves as the once magical city of New York sinks to the floor turning into a post apocolyptic death trap. However, within the violence and savagness of New York a highly trained police force strive for justice and to protect the President, sadly, the task they are given is impossible. Outnumbered, they struggle to cope with the crime rates and injustice. But the worst is yet to come.

Techniques: We decided that we could use a range of theatrical techniques such as: Monologues, Contemporary dance, Split screen, Freeze frames and split roles.

More ideas for showcase

I'm liking the Victorian aspect so far, I feel that there is so much we can do with this topic and we can go anyway with it. Ideally, whatever group im in, we should try to complete a scene without any deaths, dying gets very boring eventually and is an easy way to end things. Instead we could have an arrest or some dramatic ending of escape for whatever story we are doing. Hopefully we can incorporate some kind of contempary dance as well to a story of the becoming of the Grim Reaper or a twist (see what I did there!) on a Charles Dickens novel.

Contempary Dance/Movement

Todays lesson began with the whoile class watching a scene of the 6th formers performance "What If." We focused on how they used movement to create some very powerful effects to the song "We Are Broken." by Paramore. 

Our task was to create a scene using stylisic movement to the same song within our groups. As a group we decided to stay on the topic of Victorian England and our Sweeney Todd/Jack Ripper characters from last Thursday. 

We felt that a backing story of why Sweeney Todd became so bloodthirsty would fit the bill perfectly, so we read into the story of Sweeney Todd. Our piece begins with Sweeney walking along happily with his wife and child. When the intro to the music is over The Judge storms on, followed  by his two masked assistants. Sweeney and The Judge confront each other, before his wife and child are taken away from him. Sweeney tries to fight back, but The Judge is too powerful and pushes him down onto the floor.

The distraught Sweeney seeks solace in a homeless man, "Mr Somes." Who he befriends as his assistant at the local barbers. Mr Somes lures various people into the shop, even those who try to move on. We used a slow feel to the luring in of the first character, with Mr Somes slowly spinning the victim around.

After Sweeney has killed his victim The Judge, followed by one of his assistants, is approached by Mr Somes. The assistant blocks Mr Somes off at first but The Judge tells him to back down where he is eventually led into Sweeneys barbers. The Judge is greeted by an empty room at first until Sweeney appears from around the corner. The Judge is startled and tries to make a run for it, however Mr Somes blocks his way. The three of them struggle with each other before The Judge is tied to the chair. Sweeney takes his revenge upon The Judge, who lays there motionless, with a cascade of blood rolling down his neck. Sweeney's rage takes over as he stabs The Judge and throws him to the floor.

Showcase idea 3

I feel as I have already thought up two darker, more serious ideas a little sketch in the showcase may be necessary. A comedy idea may include a spoof of a popular movie like Lord of the Rings or something. Alternatively, a more original idea could be drunk rockstars waking up in the morning after a heavy night of drinking and so on. I know its not much but is a good start considering this idea was first thought up on the geography trip.
#AldasSnow

Another idea for a showcase could possibly be a good old vampire story. was watching some vampire investigation thing on Nat Geo so I thought a story of 16th century vampire hunters could be confronted by a vampire digging up a grave but never really get enough evidence and are cast out as mad men. Just a little something !!!

Showcase Ideas

My first idea is one similar to what my group performed on Thursday. The story where the alcoholic re tells his story to a councelling group and the story is acted out by other actors. I feel that if we could make it a bit deeper, realistic and a lot less violent this piece would be reasonably successful. It used a range of techniques such as monologues, slow motion, physical theatre and maybe we could incorporate some sort of freeze frame. Ideally I would like to use lighting and music to really create a depressing atmosphere. Possibly Things We Lost in the Fire, referring to the death of the alcoholics brother, being killed by a gun fire. Alternatively we could use Winter, by Daughter as the harssh atmosphere really portrays a harsh winters evening.

In fact, we could just remake Avatar!

Positive Influence

I believe that all professional actors have the ability to influence me positively as they all have a wide range of skills and are all of a high enough standard to be able to act for a living. I personally believe that I can learn a lot from all professional actors.

However, one particular actor, who I feel has influenced me greatest is Benedict Cumberbatch. I feel his quirky twist on BBC’s Sherlock is utterly fantastic. He has an incredible ability to play such an intelligent, stubborn and comical character and to recall information like we all expect Sherlock to be able to do, but convince us that he is Sherlock Holmes and a legendary detective. The way he struts around, oozing confidence and charisma with every gesture, witty comments and sarcastic poses make him look completely at home in his role, which I admire. Not to mention the fact that he shoots a scene naked, this indicates to me that he has no fear and is prepared to do anything for the love of acting. This forced me to respect him as I could never picture myself doing such a thing in front of a whole crew.

My admiration of Benedict Cumberbatch further increased when I saw him play roles in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and War Horse, where he drops his quirky, charismatic Sherlock act and evolves into two far more mature and serious characters with much more grief stricken looks, where emotion seeps out of every line in his face. Incredibly, he also managed to provide the motion capture for Necromancer, a goblin, in The Hobbit plus the movement of Smaug the Dragon. This, I felt gave him an edge of quirkiness, by playing the role of an animal and not a human. In Star Trek Into Darkness he drops his charming and endearing characters for a far more nasty, sophisticated villain. Cumberbatch also holds a rich theatre career, most notably starring in Danny Boyles Frankenstein at the Royal National Theatre.  Overall he is a very versatile and incredible actor, able to play many characters with what seems like ease. 

I believe I can use these skills Cumberbatch has shown for my performance of Lord of the Flies. By watching his every single gesture and action he has more than certainly helped me understand that by being so confident and by having absolute faith in your abilities and character portrayal, that you can completely lose yourself and act without any pressure as you are no longer yourself, merely portraying a character. I want to be able to portray a variety of characters with ease, but realise an incredible amount of practice, studying and ability is required.

The raw emotion and seriousness he can show through  his eyes has definitely got me practicing in front of the mirror every day so I can grasp how I react to certain places in the play, but more importantly how I should look at certain points and lines in the play, to feel the emotion my character is feeling in the real world, actually making myself feel what my character feels. I am able to use what I have learnt from Cumberbatch’s expressions in Lord of The Flies. For example, making sure I look furious every time Jack Merridew sniggers or snaps at my character.

His posh, well spoken accent is a great example of the accent I wanted to try and use in Lord of The Flies for my private school boy character of “Simon.” I feel that by watching Cumberbatch closely, I can improve the use of my facial expressions and physical actions, like posture (is my character confident or shy) or arm action when I am speaking as my character, but more importantly my facial expressions and posture when I am not speaking, what I do when not speaking is just important as speaking. He has more than certainly inspired me to carry on acting and pursue it as a potential career, and hopefully now to have a real good go at playing a confident or darker, evil character. But my main priority is that I can play the character assigned to me to the best of my ability and make the audience come out thinking, "Wow, that Kyle was good." Comments like that would definitely make all the work worth it, and give me courage to continue on.