Chasing pavements- Evaluation

Evaluation

Developing ideas

When we started the process some ideas come up what member of our group really liked. There was the idea of the 1930’s gangs in America and a solider ideas and these were developed before we had done any research. These ideas were strong and pushed forward a lot but they could have been made better by research. We did lots of research off of the song chasing pavements. We did this by looking at other Adele songs. This helped us to come up with some ideas but none of these ideas were developed further which would have given us more different paths we could have gone with our performance. Each member of the group should have taken everyone’s ideas into account and this could have developed our final idea more. If we had developed more ideas we could have work shopped more ideas and made sure we made the right decisions about the themes. We could have developed and work shopped ideas if we had a longer time period to produce our devised piece. We finally decided to go with the ideas of the 1930’s gang. Through research of the song chasing pavements we discussed how the people who were in it looked as if they were puppets being controlled when they danced so we decided to use this technique throughout our performance making it like an author is telling a story.

Devising

Throughout the devising period we worked with lots of different idea and we worked well together. We Researched lots of different themes to develop our idea this included costumes, the great depression, the dust bowl, the Wall Street crash. We tried to research in detail about all the problems in 1920’s/30’s America so we could develop our characters in the correct way. While we devised we changed ideas all the time so we could make them fit the time period correctly. The time period we decided on was very unique and different this made it more interesting for the audience to watch as it was out of the ordinary. We wanted to make sure that we used as many techniques as we could to make it look creative we included cross cutting, unison, movement, mime and lots more. When we were contributing ideas some people didn’t give as many ideas as others and if they didn’t like an idea they didn’t suggest a solution. This made it difficult to find solutions to our problems. We should have tried to block the scenes quicker so we could have polished this would have made our piece quicker and mean we didn’t leave lighting and the silhouette to last minute. We also worked on particular scenes to much which caused us to waste time in developing more scenes. One scene I think we worked on too much was the argument scene it did look effective but I think it was too long and worked on too much.

Performance

In our performance most of it went really well but there were things that we could improve on. Firstly we should have practised the blood in the short time we had to put it on in the performance as it looked like it was painted on my face rather than me actually bleeding so it ruined the effect of me being beaten up. We also could have improved on our accents as we all used similar accents even thought we were all from different parts of America this could have been by having a more country/farm tone to our voice. We found that our composite set worked nicely for us as it saved us from doing many scene changes and there were very simple to do. Even though we had easy set changes we should have had more practice with our costume changes because we didn’t realise how long they would take and during the performance we had to do some improvising to cover costumes changes.  Our stage combat also looked very effective as it looked realistic we made sure that each punch looked as if they actually hit the other person. The attack scene was very effective with the drumming as it made the atmosphere and the tension build which caused the audience to be more attentive to the action and what is going to happen. However throughout the performance it was very slick. It also made the audience think and get there head round how each of the endings have changed and we could have made this easier to understand if we added more time changes on our projection between the authors time and the time of the story he was writing. Another thing we could have done is developed Stan and Franks Character more by developing their relationship and how their friendship was so strong. One of the big questions asked by the audience was why were Stan and frank split in the attack scene this was the only way we could get Stan of to play the drums but we should have tried to make this clear to the audience. One of the movement pieces we included in our performance was stylised apart from the middle this needed to be improved as it ruined the effect that the movement piece had on the audience. We could have improved it by making the whole bit movement based rather than using stage combat as well. Even though the storyline worked it could have worked better if we had a longer time to perform it in as it was very condensed into a shorter amount of time. The audience said all our themes were hard hitting and made them think about these situations and feel sorry for the characters and what they were going through. They also said that all our ideas held together well however they though the scene changed could have flowed smoother as there were certain changed which weren’t done and had to be changed mid scene. 

Chasing pavements- Writing in role

Men are the reason for the downfall of money in New York. The crash of the stocks and the state of depression they have put the city of New York into. Why does every man think they are in charge and are so much better then every women in the country. All I want is to be equal be what I want to be in life. Not my path being chosen for me. I want change that's all i wanted I want to be different, stand out from other girls. I can stick up for myself I don't need no man to do that for me. I just need one who can love me. I just wish I listened at school maybe done what I was told then I could have got the education and make a real difference. I could have made a change in the society we live in. Made a difference to women make them treated better and getting them listened to. were allowed to vote but its doesn't mean were listened too. My mum never approved of the way I acted they way I was a school she just wanted me to be normal. Be like other girls and get on get married and do what my husband wanted be a stay at home kind of women like here. She never understood I didn't want that. Why doesn't anyone understand that some women aren't the same and want to achieve something that is worth while. However that's not going to happen i'm just going to be the same as everyone else. Nothings going to change. It's always going to be the same.

Chasing pavements- Final week

In the final week we began adding the finishing touches to our performance this was adding costume and music to the piece making sure that each of the bits of music went in the right place and faded at the right time. We also had to transfer all the music onto the same laptop and make sure the presentation worked to the right timings. 

We also had to make the fake blood that needed to be used in Tess's attack scene. We did this by mixing liquid glucose and red poster paint which made it a thick consistency which made it stick to my face easily however we need to make it look more like punch marks on my face. 

We also decided to change the ending of silhouette as it didn't look effective enough with the sheets we had available to us so we decided to just have Dan's character the author shot himself as it looked better then what we originally done.

Chasing Pavements- 26th, 27th and 29th

In the lesson on the 26th we finished the 2nd ending and began running the scenes. This was to see what the time length was and to try and work on links between the scenes and how to make them fluid this was important because if this looks sloppy this can cause the performance hard to understand and make it less slick. we then wrote the scene order of what we had so far so we knew when to come in and when scene changes needed to happen. 

In the lesson on the 27th we began polishing what we had so far and working on particular scene mostly the movement scenes to make them look as in sink as we can when the movement is in unison and look relaxed when we are dancing in my character Tess and her lover Finns dance this is to make them more relaxed with each other.

In the lesson on the 29th we fished added all the lighting ques to the lights and we added lots of different effects for example strobe when we went into slow motion in the fight scene and including different colours for example red when The Boss is attacking Tess this symbolised danger, pain and hurt. These feature help to create a better atmosphere. I then came up with the idea to have broadcaster voices to go with the newspaper articles on the presentation at the end so that the audience relised that the articles at the beginning made reference to what is going on in the performance. We recorded these and added static in between to make it look like some one is tuning into the station to listen to these articles. 

Chasing Pavements- 22nd January

In the lesson we worked on the middle ending and worked on the movement piece which is at the end of it. This was my idea to add this and make it as stylised at possible to make to look effective and not look cheesy. By adding this it stopped our performance being repetitive and including to many fight scenes. So we start this movement with Finns character at the front of the triangle with Frank and Stan behind this showed how Finn is higher up then them and is more important. They then performed a series of movements. When Finn punches Stan and Frank react and vice versa. This create the idea of a fight without having to use stage combat. After this section there is a small piece which include jumps and back roll. Finally it finishes going back to the triangle and this is when Finn shots his other 2 gang members but as he fires the shots they are towards the audience this create the style we want as a very clever piece. 

Chasing pavements- 20th january

Today we started working on the final 2 Endings for Our performance. Firstly we worked on the ending where Finn decides to leave my character Tess. We decided to set this in the warehouse just after Finn has had the argument with the gang. I come in and shout Finns name like I do for all the endings and see him on the floor i try to help him up but each time i touch him or try to reassure him he flinches or shouts at me this makes it clear to the audience that Finn (in the first ending) is loyal to his gang and stands by what they say. At the end he finally cracks and ends it. This is when the action goes straight back to the author where he is stressed about his book not being good enough and trying to improve it. We then started work on the middle ending which is where The boss decides to break us up. At the beginning we decided to use cross cutting so that it jumps between The Boss trying to play with Tess's mind and the rest of the gang member. Frank and Stan trying to keep Finn distracted by playing card. while they lay cards we involved the metaphor of only Finn having kings in the game and Stan and Frank only have lower cards as Finn has better status then them in society. In our side of the split stage The Boss is trying to make Tess believe that Finn is worth less and how he has left town. Which Tess doesn't want to believe.