Chasing pavements- 15+19th january

Today in the lesson Me and Kyle began planning our scene where we first meet and trying to gain depth in our characters by deciding on our characters past and who they are. I decided that my Character Tess's full name was Teresa Jones and she is a very strong Character I also decided that she became a waitress because she left school early as she never did what she was told to do. When really she wanted to become a teacher and make a difference in society. Once me and Kyle finished planning our characters and different things we could have in common like both being born in Oklahoma. In the scene we get to know each of our characters and where Tess and Finn fall in love. This is where we need to build the emotion and audience attachment to the characters so after every ending the audience has sympathy for them and doesn't want them to get hurt. We wanted to make this romantic with awkward pauses, smiles and laughs to make to look more realistic. We also decided to have a lighting change when Tess and Finn kiss so that the audience understand that this is significant and it means something.  
While we did worked on this the rest of the group worked on the monologue that introduces all of the gang members at the beginning. We wanted this to include information on the dust bowl, the wall street crash and how there wasn't much work around in the 1930's. This is the first time we see the gang so it needs to show to the audience that these guys are not to be messed around with. We also decided to add Dan's character to speak while the monologue is taking place to show the audience that Dan is the author and this is all just a story that he is making up. When the character stand on stage for this monologue we have set it so the characters Finn and The Boss stand behind Stan and Frank to show they are more important and then The Author being higher up on his blocks. This shows the hierarchy in the gang right at the beginning and who is in charge.

Chasing pavements-13th january

At the beginning of the lesson we began by looking at the beginning of the devised piece For the record which was about the Hillsborough disaster. Once we watched it we counted all the different techniques that they had included in the first 10 minutes. The included techniques such as movement, monologues and projection. They all joint together to make a great effect. We then got into our groups and started working on the last bit of our attack scene trying to include different techniques as we could so we decided to start working on the drumming piece so we could make our movement as much to the beat as possible. My idea was to have Kyle's character Finn shouting over the top of the movement piece acting like toms thoughts in his head as his character is very disturbing and nasty so we want him to come across as going a bit psychotic. We however did not add this in on the day as we forgot and decided to add it to the scene on a later date. We then decided to use fake blood when I am hit behind the blocks to make it more realistic when i'm reveled to the audience. I think we need to improve on the way Tom moves me behind the blocks because it looks quite messy and doesn't look very realistic.

Chasing pavements- 12 January

Today in the lesson we began by looking at the style of our piece and if it was a person what would the person be like. We started by discussing how our style was very different and smart in how  it worked however also remained very slick in everything we have done. We then went on to say the personality of our performance/person. We decided their personality would be very sinister and would be very over come by power but not in a good way.Then we started by running over the argument scene so that we could show a work of progress at the end of the lesson. While doing this we worked on the slow motion and how to improve the stage combat. We needed to make sure that the punches thrown where close to the face. Then we began working on the abuse scene we then decided to not make it so my character was thought of to be rapped but I had the idea that we could make it an attack where my character Tess could be murdered as I thought that making the scene as a murder we could make it less disturbing for the audience but more interesting to watch. We also started looking at lighting in this scene and decided to go with darker setting with red lights these signified danger and the colour of blood which shows that Toms character The Boss has blood on his hands. 

Chasing pavements- 9th january

Today we started the lesson by getting into small groups and discussing a part of the grading criteria and what we thought it meant. The unit that it was is Performance work shop and how we respond to a stimulus. We then discussed in our group what was the difference between pass merit and distinction was and how we show this. We decided we show our response to our  stimulus is in our notes and spider diagrams that we did and to get a distinction you needed to show a range of ideas in depth and how they can be developed and explain why we didn't use them ideas for our piece. After we completed this task we split of into groups and started working on our piece again. 
We then began working on the scene which is one of the 3 endings in which my character Tess gets abused by other gang members. We discussed all the different types of movements we could do and decided whether to make the scene realistic or stylised. We decided that it would look naturalistic. I thought it would be best to make it look more realistic so that the audience would understand of the pain of my character and how it feels to be beaten and pushed about.  We also though we could have live music over the top to make it more dramatic and make the audience feel for my character as each time I get hit there will be a load sound which makes it sound more threatening and dangerous. It also helps to make the tension rise and fall. 

Chasing pavements- 6th january

Today we decided to make a change to the speak easy scene after my research on women as we first decided to make my character Tess a single women at a bar when she first meets fin. We decided to change this after research as I believed Tess to be an independent women who wants to work for her own money rather then be a mother looking after the kids at home. So this made us change her character into a waitress so that she could meet Finn and fall in love with him. This also helped us to see how women were very disrespected with the way that men spoke to them.

Women in 1930s

In the 1930's, the roles of men and women varied greatly. From the workplace to the home, the expectancies were different. Their behaviors were night and day. The views of both genders were also very different. 

A lot of women in the 1930’s were employed. They didn't have very good jobs though. Most of the women who did have jobs were in working in factories or other low paying jobs. They also had to get a full education just to be equal with a man who only graduated from elementary school. Women could do the same job as a man and work just as hard but would still only get about half as much of a pay as a male. Even though women could be just as good at there job or sometimes even better at their job they would never be payed the same amount. Women and men were not treated equally in the workplace.

In the 1930’s did not seem very equal for men and women. The roles of what they are expected to do in their jobs and in society were not the same. Everything from how they were treated in the workplace to how they were expected to act and look was just completely different. A woman’s life seemed to be just more difficult than a mans life. A woman's life and a man’s life in the 1930’s was very stereotypical. And very different. Widows and single women had to fight to survive just as much as the men in this time period. Widows had a hard time keeping their families together and support them while still maintaining the proper role of a woman in the time.In order to support their families at times, some women went in search of paid employment. Single women had less to worry about seeing as they typically had no children, however, in order to support themselves they still needed to have a decent paying job.

https://sites.google.com/site/genderrolesofthe1930s/

The 1930s have been called a "golden age for spinsters." In the 1920s and the 1930s some women, especially college-educated women, chose to remain single. These women expected to find spiritual and emotional—perhaps sexual—fulfillment from other women. The decision to remain single was often part of a commitment to a career in social reform, academic life, or a profession. In spite of the discrimination women faced in the tight labor market, the Depression provided opportunities for these young women to become self-reliant.

Though some historians have argued that "feminism died" during the Depression, the economic emergency of the 1930s led to substantial political gains for women. The expansion of social welfare services in the New Deal, a field dominated by women, led to the appointment of more women in high government positions than ever before. As feminists, these women used their government posts to work on behalf of other women.

http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?query=&prodId=UHIC&displayGroupName=Reference&limiter=&disableHighlighting=true&displayGroups=&sortBy=&zid=&search_within_results=&action=2&catId=&activityType=&documentId=GALE%7CCX3468301237&source=Bookmark&u=sand55832&jsid=ff1c546a17b62d2d1ce4007351b97724

Chasing Pavements- Female fashion

In the 1930's all the females outfits tend to be long but not floor length and tight at the waist. A lot of them also contain spots, stripes or brighter blocked colours. All of them would either wear dresses or a skirt and a top there were no trousers in the 1930's as the women were very feminine. none of them wear flat shoes they mostly wear small heels. Some of them would also wear hats or have a hair piece. In the picture I found most women had the hair in curls and roles and twists. There hair was also mostly short.

Chasing pavements- 16th december

We worked on the argument between Kyle and the gang. Within this we wanted to make it as naturalistic as possible with some bits being stylised, We did this by making most of it conversation using a rang of tones and voice to create tension. We also used stage combat to create fear and make the audience understand how serious this gang is. We then also added slow motion into the stage combat to make the scene look effective. We need to improve on the stage combat as some times it not as close to the person when they hit which makes it look unrealistic were going to do this by watching more videos on stage combat and how it works best and how to do it best this is to make it look the best that it can.

Chasing Pavements- 11th+15th december

Over the next 2 lessons we worked on the scene where we meet my character tess for the first time which we have included a dance scene. We started of by choosing the right music as we wanted to fit it in the time era of late 1920's early 30's. So we needed to pick the right music so that it make the piece more realistic. When we started the dance piece we did this by improvisation where me and Dan.m started to create it by getting a feel for the music and started adding twists and turns and lifts. We then swapped for Dan for Kyle and tought him the dance. After this we decided to add more lifts and make them look more interesting. We had to work for a while on this as we had to make sure the lifts were safe and they looked professional other wise it would just make the scene look messy. We wanted the dance bit within the scene look like it was in our heads. We could improve on the dance by making the lifts smoother and making it look more intermate as we get closer and make it look like we really are in love. After we choreographed the dance we staged the scene before  the dance where the gang enters the speak  easy. withing the scene we make sure that we have the author narrating some of it so it looks like he is writing the book. This speech needs to be improved as it doesn't sound like a professional book being written it sounds immature and we need to make our piece sophisticated.