Devising- Evaluation

Devising process

Group work

I found through out the devising process that how we worked as a group could have been better in my way but there was things that our group that did go well. Our group was very good when it came to making decisions as we all have similar ideas and what we like this mean that we managed to do this quickly so when it came to putting ideas together it would be easier but because of other problems we slowed down so this was a benefit as it means that we were just able to get everything done. We all worked together well as we were all able to bring ideas and share them openly this was important so that we all had a contribution to our devising piece and we were all able to include what we thought was best to the piece. Use being open with ideas meant that we are able to trial ideas and see which best suits the piece we decided we were looking for at the begging. We were also good at solving problems as we managed to make the theme of our piece fit to our style which we wanted to be disjointed and make the audience think what it is about after they have walked away and make an impression on the audience. This is why us solving this problem with having lots of different scenes with the same theme was a good idea as the audience had to work out what linked them together. 

However within our group we found it hard to keep on track with timing as we had members of the group who were unreliable and weren't there for lots of lessons due to other commitments. which at point made it hard as they may have needed to bring in something for the scene or we may have wanted their opinion on things. This therefore put delays on some of the scenes we were doing and we would have to changed our schedule. I also found that people in our group misunderstood how other people worked so we needed to understand each other to fit more as we needed to gain respect for others. The best way to improve this would have been more open with each other and be less in need for conflict and to understand each other. We also need to have more focus as this would keep everyone on track with what they are doing and will cause the process be quicker. The communication also could have been better and this would have stopped things such as when I was dropped and it could also mean that we spread out responsibilities equally rather then us all just guessing what we can bring to the group 

blocking

When we were blocking out piece we made sure that we had good and reliable research which supported each of our scenes this was to make sure that everything we made was as near to the truth as possible and helping in making people understand what humanity in crisis is and womens rights roles in this. Another good thing when we were blocking was that each of us were able to give relevant and suitable ideas relating to our research so having lots of ideas made it easier to develop a scene as all these ideas can be mixed to make the best idea we could have. Another thing that made our blocking easier was that we made scripts so we could have quality dialogue in scenes such as soldiers and refugees this is so that we can make it more captivating to an older audience and allows us to add in lots of facts so that it is as realistic as possible.

Although we could have improved with our blocking in the sense of our time keeping as our blocking needed to be done quicker so we had more time to polish at the end this could have been done by making  time table of where we want to be after each week and then reviewing at the end of the week making sure that we are on track. This can then make sure we get blocked a few weeks before the performance and we can use all our media more before hand. When we were blocking we also need to make sure that if we don't like what we are putting together then the person who doesn't like it needs to give a suggestion to replace it. This is because this slows down time as we then all have to make suggestions that will then be better and they are usually similar and hard for the person to like.

polishing

When it came to polishing we didn't have a lot of time to do it in as we took a long time to block what we were doing. However one issue we did come across was with the lighting this was because the lights we had originally planed to use were not working so we had to change the colours around that we were using. This meant that it took a little longer then needed to set up the lighting as we had to get as close to what we originally wanted as possible. We also found that doing our sound was last minute as the person assigned with this job didn't do it which meant we had to download and transfer it on the day of the performance. One things that could have been better was having more runs with our tech will polishing as we found that we only used it in the performance. 

Although I found that when we put in the transitions during polishing the scenes run smoothly and it looked effective with our change of costume and changes of scenes.

performance

I found that our overall performance was a success as each of our scenes went according to plane in the acting sense and it looked very effective with the lights and music we used. However we did have trouble with the sound on the commentary the projections and this was due to the speaker that this was attached too turned off so when it was played it didn't come out which meant that some of the parts to our piece become a bit disjointed as it cause other music to be delayed and made some of it to become a bit boring. This could have been improved by having more runs with our forms of media so we could have picked up the problem with the speaker. I thought that one thing that went well were the transitions between the scenes were smooth and they had enough time in order for us to change our costumes and it not looked rushed. I also think the position of the projection needed to change because i began to notice that when there was projection showing that very little people were looking at it so this part could have been missed and this is a crucial part to making sense to our refugee scene as it set the scene. So i believe that we should have had it above the opposite head of the audience so that it was directly in front of them so it was scene

overall I think our performance was a success and the audience who came to see it enjoyed it.

Devising- Thursday 10th December

In today's lesson we started by adding Tom into the transitions and doing what we could as we didn't have Theo. With this we managed to put everything into it place and make it look right. Once we had done this we finalised everything we needed and made sure that we had everything we needed to go and that each costume was different as some people had chosen the same thing for 2 characters. We however didn't have the hall for this lesson so where unable to set up lighting or do any of our lifts as the ceiling was low in room we were in. We felt like we were ready but all we needed now was to add the media on Monday.

Devising- character profile and writing in role- suffragettes

Name	Emily Wilding Davison
Age	40
Nationality	English
Current residence	Epsom, England
Occupation	Women’s rights activist used to be a teacher
Talents/ skills	Knowledgeable and experience, clinical judgement
Relationships in scene	No Relationships apart from with friends within the suffragettes such as Emmeline Pankhurst and Richard Pankhurst
Short term goals and why	She wants to get as many people on her side as she can because this means the more people she has the higher chance of getting what she wants.
Long term goals and why	She wants women to be treated as an equal to men because she believed that every women had the right to be an individual and not the man’s other part
Strengths	She has will power, courage and determination to win what she is fighting for
Weaknesses	She wasn’t strong enough to win a battle with a horse
Introvert/ extrovert	Extrovert

writing in role after death 

I never know how much it would hurt to run in front of a horse. Well I soon found out it bloody well did. I never meant to kill myself like everyone seems to think I did all I was doing was getting my point across. I wasn't trying to pull down Anmer I just tried to attach a scarf to his bridle. The poor rider, Jones, the fear in his face as I lept out was a picture that will haunt me. Never did I know that it would lead to him killing himself later on. I will never regret what I done it got the attention it deserved people began to understand it got our name heard. Although I wish I was around to see what rights we finally got. The pride that I have from being in such a force that managed to stay so strong. I was jailed 9 times and force fed 49 but I'm a fighter they weren't going to break me. I knew we could do it. I was loyal to the cause because I knew it had reason and had a chance to get the women what they needed.

Devising- Wednesday 9th December

Today we got together to look at the suffragettes scene and decided we would start it with a freeze frame of me and Freya linking arms sitting down as if we are protesting with Tom Pulling us apart then Dom and Dan throwing stuff at us this set the scene of what this is about. It then went on to the voting scene where Kai who is speaking his monologue is moves Tom towards the middle where he starts being the MP and Dan and Dom come out the freeze frame to create this scene where they disagree with the change that Tom proposes we then moved onto the part where the women are over powered and we did this by doing a lift where we are picked up spun placed down like we are being pushed out the way and ignored. Then when we become more powerful we push the men to there seats. Freya and I stayed in the middle until we are taken back to our chairs and force fed. This is where we are ready to go into the lifts. When the commentary from the race end I run into the middle and lifted. We decided that we would no longer try to be horses as it didn't look effective so we will have everyone running in. 

Devising- Tuesday 8th December

 Before today's we found out we would be missing Theo from our group until our performance day and we know this would have some major set backs for our group as we had a lot to do for the performance to be ready. So in the lesson as we were missing Tom as well we decided we would start by sorting out the rest of costume props and lighting which i had already started in my free time. I designed a table for our costume so it was easy to work out what everyone was wearing for each scene and which prop they would need if any. With our costume we wanted it to be easy to put on over our blacks and be different for each scene to show that you are a different character. Such as for the scenes where I play 2 different lady from the same ethnicity I wear 2 different head scarfs as this represents them as a individual character. This also help the audience to understand that we are not the same person through out. We then started looking at lighting by grabbing one of the lights and looking at the combination of colours. I had decided before that for suffragettes I wanted yellow, human trafficking red and  refugees green. So we officially decided that we wanted:

opening: blue, green and red mix

soldiers: blue and amber mix

arranged marriage: red and blue mix

human trafficking; red

suffragettes: green, amber and red mix

refugees: green

scene changes- all colours (neural mix)

We then got the chance to put our performance into the space that we were performing into which allowed as to stretch everything so that it looked right in the space we had. This is because it is a lot larger then what we have got used to. We decided that we had to move something in closer and somethings further apart. 

Devising- Monday 7th December

In today's lessons we decided to show both groups works and spoke about how we could work on them. One of the things we worked on was the transitions between scenes so they are smooth and make the piece look slick. So we decided that when we do our transition for each costume we will get changed when the music begins. Then once we are all done we all pause in a neutral position until the music stops and we go straight into the next scene. 
When we got to the suffragettes scene we also decided that this didn't have enough power to it as we had put it after a powerful scene so the tension was lost and the audience would have become bored so we decided to have extra time to put this together and allowed us to make it look better. 
To make our piece good we need to make sure that all the transitions are polished and we are able to know what we are doing.

Devising- Character profile and writing in role- Refugees

Name	Aysal Ali
Age	21
Nationality	Syrian
Current residence	Calais refugee camp
Occupation	Teacher
Talents/ skills	Good English,
Relationships in scene	Sister – Maya Ali they have a very close relationship and Maya acts like a mother to Aysal as she is very nervous in her new environment after they have been forced away from their home. The rest of her family has been left behind in Syria
Short term goals	Too survive the nights she has spent in the camp without being attacked because men do not see women on the same level as them
Long term goals and why	Get to the UK and spend a peaceful life her becoming a teacher again this is because off the horror of living in Syria where there are constant bombing and war.
Strengths	She is knowledgeable and know what is going in the world she is street smart but unable to put this into practice.
Weaknesses	Unable to defend herself and she scared of what is out in the world and prefers her own company so struggle to cope in big crowded situations.
Introvert/ extrovert	introvert

All I want is to get to the UK with Maya to get away from this cruel place to some where in which I can be safe that I can live my life without the fear of people coming to get me or waking up to a gun at my door. I want nothing more but to feel at home and that will be where i'm able to be myself. I miss my mother and father dearly and wish they could have come with us but I know then it would have been harder for us all as it is hard enough for just Maya and I to escape the horror. I think about them every day and being reunited and thats what gets me through it. Just ignoring how every corner I turn there is a new danger always someone who is larking to stop me achieving my dreams. I used to be a teacher you know. Sharing my knowledge with everyone but here i am no one. I'm sad lonely and treated like i'm nothing just for being a women I hurt so much but I cannot fight my corner because i have no chance of surviving this. It feels like an endless pit of despair which I will never get out off. With everyturn my life gets lower and lower and it is impossible to get out.

Devising- Thursday 3rd December

In today's lesson we started by using the script i had created:

 

We went through this then added into it the little scenes and added Tom into the bits we had done the day before such as the guards at the beginning and how he needed to create his character.
Once we did this we moved onto the suffragettes scene where we had Tom write a monologue and we were going to add small scenes into it. We started by reading through the script and working out where different scenes could do we decided that we could add a scene within the bit about voting and when the women go from being less powerful to very powerful. We also wanted to show the women begin chained and force fed with tubes and finally the lifts to show the force of the horse.
After this we decided the order of the scenes in the order below we decided this was the best way to go as we managed to split the similar pieces equally such as movement pieces, ethnical pieces and our monologue scenes. This made it so there was a good flow in tension and context so it keeps our audience captivated. 

Devising- Tuesday 1st December

In today's lesson we started by putting together a time table as we only had a couple of lessons to go and we have a lot to do it included:
1/12/15- refugees
3/12/15- Finish refugees- start suffragettes
7/12/15- Run everything
8/12/15- transitions
10/12/15- Run and polish

once we done this we started making talking about how we wanted our scene to look we wanted to have a sound scape at some point to set the atmosphere we also wanted our audience to feel like they are in the camp by the guards standing at either end and circling the audience and shining their torches on the audience. 
We then created an order in which the scene. 
Starting with the signs which included phrases

Freya	Ellie
I am a Doctor	I am a Teacher
The jungle is not for us	The jungle is for animals
They are non-people	The forgotten women of Calais
Where are our human rights	Where are our human rights

then the guards to start shouting and demanding us back to our camp
Dan then saves the girl who he doesn't know
the girls then tell Dan about the back ground about why they are their and what happens in the camp including stories such as men trying to get into the ladies tents an how they have to sleep 6 to a tent and how the guards are corrupt stopping them from taking a shower. 
we started to put this together but Dan found it hard to make up what he was saying on the spot so i decided to make a script for the next lesson to allow us to make sure that the dialogue for this scene is of good quality.