Devising Ideas

As a whole we all looked at the the most interesting and common themes that we got from everybodies research, which we found at croydon library this being; change, crime and attitudes towards disabilities.

We then set off in groups, Raph, Hannah and I looked at the idea of contrasting good and bad. This being someone that looks bad on the outside but in the inside they're good and a kind person, which symbolizes 'Don't judge a book by it's cover.' The contrast of good and bad also represented people who had disabilities and how we judge them without actually knowing there talents, interests and so on.
But thinking ahead we wanted to be more diverse and thought it would be better to get rid of the good and bad person, but to have the cave represent the contrasting. An object being so dull and dark on the outside but as you walk in and get deeper in the cave it becomes more beautiful and bright, this is where the crystals also come in.

After sharing our ideas with the class we moved onto a different task, we was now put into different groups and each group was given a different area in the crystal centre, with the areas we where given we had to think of performance ideas.
Raph, Cassie and I was given the loft trap



To devise this piece we thought it would be a good idea to gain more ideas by actually using the loft at Brit.
At first there wasn't really any discussion and all three of us where lost for ideas, to over come this we decided to actually get up on our feet and each stand on a different level on the loft which worked.
The scene we came up with was mainly around a different individual being inspected by doctors, wondering what she/he is, if she/he is human, why does he/she look that way and just really confused in all.
On each level there would be a different inspection happening, the higher the level gets the deeper the concern and the more tense the investigation gets, for example; level 1 - doctors making he/she cough, looking inside their mouth or even tapping their knee. Level 2 - picking her up, playing with their limbs, tugging at her. Level 3 - opening her/his eye lids, pinching her/his, smelling him/her.
Too add more of a dramatic edge to the scene we also wanted to use a soundscape by either hitting the bars with an object or our hands or using our feet.

Negatives;

As a group we could of worked more as a team and came up with more ideas by pushing one another and not doubting ourselves. We could of also added more detail into our ideas by looking at it from a directors point of view.

Teaching it to the class

When teaching the piece Raph, Cassie and I created to the class, it was difficult as no one was listening and we didn't think of detail as much so it was hard giving directions to the class. It was also a challenge as Hannah, Alex and Saffron had a simaliar idea to ours by using 'giving birth' and the doctors, so we had to re think about our scene and change parts of it to make it different to the second scene.
The first part of the scene was giving birth but we changed this and decided to be more abstract by using the beeping heart monitor as a stimulus by getting everybody to stomp there feet like a heart beat. This idea then changed because it was hard to stamp your feet and walk in neutral, we changed this by giving each person a number, these numbers being 1 or 2. 1s would walk back and 2s would walk forward and each person would repeat the word 'beep beep', this would create the zig zag effect that is on a heart monitor, 'Other' then runs straight through zig zag, which represented a different birth.
We then made a swift transition from the person at the end of the line walking off and everybody following still in a line then into a circle. When in the circle 'Other' is in the middle and everybody else changes into a doctor. When doing this part I found it dull and boring as their was no character given to anybody to act and no sound apart from their feet. So I thought it would be a good idea for everybody to be doctors either writing down something about daisy, scratching their chin, or just showing any sign of interest, when doing these actions everybody will also say 'hmmm'.
After that a lift happened with 'Other' and everybody moved into a open semi circle shape, Cassie then gave everybody a number; 1 - laugh, 2 - revolted (errr), 3 - amazed (aww) or 4 - interested (eyes widen and scratching chin). We decided to do this in cannon starting with ones, to give it more of an affect and tension to the scene.
The final part to the scene was the doctor checks on the chairs, this was the most challenging part as the atmosphere from then just went dull and no effort was put in. Will soon changed this and everything was back up to scratch.