Monday 20th April

Multimedia log
 

During this lesson we started with our normal warm up and then went straight into rehearsing our scenes in the spaces we are going to perform them on the day. We spent about half an hour rehearsing in our spaces and this helped as we were able to clean up any small details that weren’t moving swiftly in our scene such as entrances and exits. Even though we weren’t able to properly rehearse it yet as some areas such as mine in reception the TV’s weren’t yet available for the performance of multimedia, we were still able to rehearse all the live action that will be performed on the day.

We then went back to rehearse the two choruses’s with our whole class and this enabled us to strengthen any physical theatre that wasn’t quite as yet as strong. This also gave us an opportunity to clarify that everyone saying line on the chorus knew who and when they were saying them.

After rehearsing through our scenes and the chorus’s we had a rough run through of the performance in which we would all move around the whole school building (starting at reception) to where each scene was being performed. At each scene one member of the group would roughly explaining to the whole class what movement and dialogue would be occurring. This was extremely useful as it meant that our whole class was able to really have a true understanding of the movement of the play. Also it helped us understand what places we need to be at before a scene to make sure the play moves swiftly.

Thursday 16th April

Historical Content

Today we started off the lesson by recording a moment of choral breathing. We did this in order to have one of the scenes with everyone silent while the breathing sounds are being played through the speakers. This will build more tension around the audience and build curiosity within the audiences’ minds.

My piece of multimedia is relevant for an audience because most speeches that are made from very important people such as presidents who are usually seen on the TV by the majority of the audience. The multimedia we are using of the video of Creon being shown on the news is relevant because the audience is use to watching speeches on TV meaning the interview will seem more the norm to the audience.

My scene is relevant to a modern audience as it has cooperated multimedia such as music to create atmosphere and a video showing the speech of Creon on the news. The multimedia helps make the Greek theatre relevant to a modern audience as it is involving everyday subjects that we today use (e.g. TV’s).

 

The multimedia used in my group is relevant to our scene because it enables the interview to be presented in a way that makes sense to the audience. If the speech wasn’t presented in an interview shown on TV, the speech wouldn’t be as believable as most people today watch important speeches made by people on TV.

 

When filming Creon’s speech the filming went quite smoothly. We recorded the whole speech in one take and while the person playing Creon performed his speech, we decided to have people in our group flashing lights towards his face so that it came across as if members of the press where taking pictures of Creon during his speech. This helped make the video more realistic and believable for when the audience is watching the speech.

 

Before recording the video of the speech we advised the member of our group playing  Creon to use some parts of the script but to analyse the script so that the speech is modernised for a current audience. We decided to keep key parts of the speech still the same, in order to still really portray the true character of Creon.

We then shared our scenes to the class...

Roseby’s group

·         Used herself and Robyn to modernise piece with narrating

·         Effective because they still kept the script similar while using characterisation to modernised piece

·         Could be developed by having all characters know they’re lines

·         Related to modern audiences because by using narrators that spoke with the humour that many TV presenters today, it gave a sensation to the audience that we were watching a typical TV show

Antonia’s group

·         Presented piece as a documentary being reported of Polyneice’s body

·         Effective as it was a good way of presenting Creons body while it still made sense to the audience

·          Could be improved if unnecessary dialogue was cut, some dialogue in the scene was unnecessary and extended the scene to a moment were it sometimes lost its flow

·         Related to modern audiences by using phrases such as “ahh the wifi’s gone” which many of us also have problems with depends on what area we are in and it also added a sense of humour

Michelle’s group

·         Creon announcing speech

·         Physical theatre being done while creon made his speech made it effective as the people performing physical theatre were demonstrating their feelings towards the speech

·         Could be improved by having the people doing the physical theatre, expressing more emotion on their faces rather than just in their physicality

·         Related to modern audiences as it used multimedia video  showing the speech which is where the majority of us watch important speeches

Eric’s group

·         Video shown on the board

·         On either side of the video the two guards wearing black shades made it very obvious and clear for the audience to understand them as guards

·         The seriousness of Antigone being caught trying to bury Polyneices was very realistic and their expressions clearly showed how fearful she was at that moment

·         Related to modern audiences by using contemporary costumes such as black shades to represent certain characters

Thiago’s group

·         Used torches effectively to build tension within the audience

·         Slamming doors also helped to build tension

·         Improved by having all characters strongly know what they are saying and who is saying it

·         Related to modern audiences by using contemporary multimedia (torches) to create atmosphere and tension

Harmony

·         Used music to create atmosphere and had two characters representing Creon’s conscience coming from either side of him through doors

·         Having the two characters playing the conscience of Creon and having them lurking around the floor to him really created this mysterious atmosphere

·         Could be improved by making sure Creon knew his objectives as in showing how confused he really is and lost about what decision he is to make next

·         Relates to modern audiences by changing use of language from script to more modern language for modern audiences to understand clearer

Monday 13th April

Multimedia log

During this lesson we started off with a warm up as usual including breathing exercises. One of the exercises we participated in was when our teachers told us to picture one of the characters in our minds from the play Antigone (this could be Creon, a guard, Ismene or others). We then got given 5 seconds to become that character in which we would have to think about what that character’s posture would look like out of the text and into action. After becoming that character we then got another 5 seconds to really over exaggerate that character with posture and see what the difference would result in. I personally chose to use Creon as my character and in the last five seconds I chose to present him and a strong man with his head high up while his face was screwed up. I chose to present Creon in this way because I believe that the play has chosen to present this character as a cold blooded heart that only really cared for power and not necessarily the people of his city, even if they are his real blood. This exercise helped develop my characterisation and understanding of the character as it made me think twice as a person playing the character of Antigone even though she has a very strong mind, would she be so strongly willing to stand up against such a powerful man?

We then moved on into looking into the chorus’s in the play and what we had in mind in order to present these as a class. For the first chorus we chose to do the movements listed below in the chorus...

 

We decided to use pre-recorded audio for this chorus so that when the audience is watching we rein act the chorus with physical theatre while the audio plays on top. We did this by getting the whole class to read the chorus at the same time. This is effective because it allows us to vary our range of the use of multimedia and I believe this will be effective because we have chosen to have the audience looking out of the windows and down into the playground while the audio plays in the room meaning that the chorus is able to be performed at a distance while still being clear. However a problem that could arise from performing this chorus could be that fact that the audience won’t be able to clearly understand our physical work as they are watching from a distance but this problem could be prevented as long as we in this particular physical theatre movement, choose to slightly over exaggerate our movements in order to make sure the audience isn’t left confused.

For our second chorus, we decided to split the lines between the classes into three groups and have each group saying certain lines. Halfway throughout the chorus roughly 7 of us shine troches towards to the audience on the line

“Burning pitch lights your way”

Another group of people also play a trickling effect of rain dropping on the line

“Next to the flowing stream of Ismenus”

I believe that this chorus was more concentrated on creating the atmosphere of sounds and light in order to give the audience that sensation of being present right in the moment the actors are performing. This piece of multimedia relates to modern audiences because it is describing a piece of theatre that was performed 2500 years ago to a modern audience by using multimedia that we use today which back then they wouldn’t have access to. The audience are able to understand the piece more because of the use of sound and what’s being physically analysed.

Rehearsal log for Antigone

Thursday 10^th April

During this lesson we started off with a group warm up. This warm up included breathing exercises and vocal warm ups in order to ensure that our voices were ready to perform. Another exercise that we all individually took part in included working independently to picture ourselves as certain characters from the play Antigone, while our teacher gave us different scenarios. One of these included being Antigone and having to go out during the night to bury Polyneices in secret, while still making sure we were not caught. I believe this exercise helped me personally because as I am Antigone in my scene currently, it enabled me to picture my same character just in a different scenario. This developed my character understanding as I was able to see how strong willed my character was and how she wasn’t ready to let anyone step in the way of what she believed in.

We then later moved on to getting together with our groups. During this time we were able to clarify what our plan was for people in our group that were absent before, during this time and we talked in more depth about how we were planning on cooperating multimedia with our piece. We decided that for our multimedia (video clip), we would have Antigone switch the TV on just before Creon is about to perform his speech and after he has explained that he will not give Polyneices a proper burial, the reporter will then ask him 4 – 5 questions based on his decisions and why he has made them. We decided to have Creon pre record his speech while having the reporter ask him questions live in order to engage the audience more as we believed that having one of the two live, will give the audience more of a sensation that they too are also there currently in the moment with the characters. Once the reporter finishes his questions, we thought of having Creon walk off to the right of the screen in the video but then proceeds walking as him himself live coming around the corner as he walks through the audience and the reporter flashes lights while asking for  pictures of Creon.

I believe this piece of multimedia will help tell the story as it has been modernised for the audience to understand. By choosing to change some of the vocabulary to a more modernised version, it will help engage the audience more as they will feel more comfortable in the aspect that the language is very familiar to them. I think that if we decided to keep the language the same as it is in the script, the audience would be more confused and would find it harder to engage, as the language isn’t the same to what they use now making it seem un familiar.  This multimedia will affect the audience in a way that will also make them curios because even though some theatres do, not the majority of theatres perform using multimedia in the way we have chosen to. By using videos pre recorded and mixing that with live feed, it gives the audience a chance to view theatre through a different perspective that they might not have before. I believe that the use of multimedia will build a type of curiosity within the audience and make them see things through a different analytical perspective.

Set Design

 

 

·         Theatre set in park

·         Set in the nature to represent that no matter what period of time, nature  one of the only things we all recognise that still almost always look similar

·         Theatre surrounded with props such as birds and trees to make theatre seem more alive

·         Seats for audience made with three trunks

·         Black stage to representing the darkness of tragedy within the play

·         Ceiling set in the sky with stars

·         Stage positioned as an arena stage; round theatre for all audience to see

·         Scenes of Antigone recorded around the play so that audience s can still be reminded of the original play set in Greek times

Multimedia

Monday 1^st April

During this lesson we got into our groups and thought of ways in which we could each create our scenes and bring them to life with the use of multi media. My scene is the opening and begins with Creon announcing that Polyneices will not be buried and Antigone being furious, instantly goes to warn her sister on his plans.

One of the first problems we first faced when being given this scene, was that we had 4 people in our group but only three in our scene (Creon,Ismene and Antigone). After discussing ways in which we could include the whole group, we decided to have one member of our group as one of the reporters at the scene when Creon is announcing that Polyneices will not be buried.

In terms of how we have roughly decided to plan out our scene we have based the whole scene in the reception where the audience will be first waiting for the play to start...

P L A N

·         Antigone runs out from the library shouting and calling for Ismene

·         Ismene squeezes through the crowd to meet Antigone at the staircase

·         Both sisters discuss for a while but the audience have no idea what they are talking about

·         Multimedia is introduced when both sisters go towards the tv and turn it on

·         The reporter will be to the side of the audience looking towards the tv to Creon as if they are both on the scene but really only Creon is

·         Creons speech will be pre- recorded on the TV and reporters’ questions will be asked live

·         After speech is finished Antigone turns tv off and tells Ismene she has a plan and they lead on to the next scene