Design:

My room is my office. Since I mostly use my room to mostly study and research necessary things. In this collage I mostly used pictures from magazines in order to represent what I have in my room, such as books computers, desk and posters. The only colour paper I used was green at the top left corner to represent my bed and soft materials to represent the pillow. I kept the collage simple and mostly posted simple pictures to, in order for the representation that I only study. In addition I avoided using large amount of pictures and left several spaces so to create the focus I have in this collage is fairly minimum, which empathize the idea of office. I also tried to represent my room by putting the pictures in place like I have in real life. In order to keep the balance and not having one large section or portion of the picture empty, I place large pictures at the corner or the side. Then have small pictures spread out at the middle to cover the remaining areas.

This task was for the preparation of the stage design at the end and this task of recreating or designing our rooms with collage helped me understand how I should set the areas with what types of things.

We as a class learned a psychical drama from a person named Neil Farrelly. Who teaches drama with implying physical movements or acting. In order to master ourselves in becoming good and experienced, we did some for the first 2 lessons activities regarding to psychical work which was intense by making time limits so to come up with several ideas quickly and creatively. At the end of the second lesson we were told to have some ideas about psychical act representation so to perform and show grade 8 and 10 our work. Our group (Me, Olle, Leo, Kent, Kento) made a scene where the storyline is Kento (aka Average Joe) attempts to get a ball from either Le0, Me, Kent. Kento gets rejected in a row and at the end sits down in front of us. Olle’s job was the narrator who explained the characters and drawing the actions of Kento. One of the significant aspect of our play was the motionless of characters, and only moving in certain times but not as much.

After we finished psychical drama, we continuing in working the devised theatre. At the start the class had been showed a picture where we use that as our base of idea. The picture was a refugee girl and we had to implement the concept into our scene. My group (Me, Kento, Leo, Joshua, Solon) we made a scene about a father (Solon) and daughter (Kento) arriving at the camp leaded by guard #1 (Joshua). The father comforts the daughter and discuss about what to do after this, soon after that a refugee (Me) gets beaten up by guard #1 and guard #2 (Leo). The father approaches to me, then I warned him to get away from the camp. Soon after that the father and daughter tries to escape the camp at night, however the father was captured and killed. The daughter became unconscious after getting beaten up and taken out of the camp. The scene ends by the daughter grabbing to the fence like the picture and waits for the father forever.

In this devised theatre task we learned about how we could create our scene creatively by only a picture as our base of guide.

The next technique that I’ve obtained is movement. Movement is one of the most important factor for most drama techniques. Furthermore the specific characteristic of movement can create the a specific scene and making it further creative for the character. In general there many types of movement of position of the body.

The approach that we took to master movement. We split into partners, for me it was Kento. The task was, choosing a specific word, that can have an representation to a mood. One of the few selection we chose was isolation for starters. We each had our arms crossed and faced back each other. Second task we conducted was we split into groups (Me, Kento, Moe, Lea, Mee-lin) and made a 4 scene regarding to the human life, specifically birth, childhood, adult and death. In order to add the concept of movement, we implemented the techniques from dancing for a unique procedure to tell the story. The third task was to create a scene using full different movement to tell the story, we made a group again (Me, Kento, Olle, Solon) and were given a sheet which lists various types of movement. We came up with an idea of a genre connecting to kidnap and a cult ritual. The scene begins by Kento and Solon walking through the dark streets, then me and Olle as the kidnappers putting our hoody jacket to hide our faces follow them. Soon after that Olle kidnaps Kento and I restrained Solon, took them away to our hide out. The last scene is about using Kento’s unconscious body as an sacrifice to one of our (Me and Olle) ritual with me ready to stab me with a knife and Olle saying out a code. So the full scene ends by me stabing Kento.

Gaining more knowledge about movement, helped me about how many types, options of approaching in order to create a specific play or scene.

The new technique that I’ve learned is symbol. Symbol means an object of any sort identifying as a particular meaning or message. Though there for each object there can be multiple messages and can be used in variety of ways. Such as a ring, several message can be related to money and wealth, or others can connect to love even a memory of something important.

The way we approached to gain better knowledge of symbol. Was by splitting into group of pairs, we each got a large paper with a specific drawing that can identify with several different ideas. My partner was with Kento, and the drawing we had was a ring. We first listed down some general ideas, such as what could the ring mean. After we listed several message, we wrote several ideas of story where we can implement the representation of the ring, then write a brief scenario. Next we presented to the class about our ideas. After that we made a group with another pair, for us it was Kent and Solon, with a light bulb drawing.

The next task we conducted, were discussing with each other a created two scene. The first scene was implementing the idea of the ring. We have the scene started off by me as being the priest, having a man (Kent) and woman (Solon) marry, then later there will be a time change which they both argue over something. Next Kent approaches to me (Priest)  and asks a solution to their marriage, I give him the advice and the switches to the last scene. The last scene turns out to be a fight again, however when Solon (Woman) attempts to punch Kent (Man). However when Kent blocks it he sees the ring, which was a sign of commitment to Solon. They both stop and tries to build up their relationship once again. The second scene is almost the same idea with a different prop, the beginning starts by Solon going through a tunnel and sees a light. I take part at the light, with having my jacket backwards. The light shows a man (Kent again) with a ring who seems to be Solon’s future husband.

One of the feed back we got was, changing or adapting the scene to a different scenario, such as making the ring as a mark of something for example an organization. So to have an more original story line.

In the past two weeks we learned about language in drama. Language is about the sentences and words used to create the drama, scene, conflict. It is also used to create a realistic environment, which to entertain the scene of the play toward the audience. One of the simple examples are a scene of a adult and child. In reality an adult such as the parents uses simple and soft words to the child. However when it comes to a conversation with an different adult their use of words change significantly making the child hard to acknowledge what their are talking about.

In order to approach and learn more about language we played several scenes which requires various use of words. The first one was a scene about a child and their parents. The mother and child is waiting for the father who is late at the cinema. In my group (Me, Kento, Joshua) we made a scenario about the father being late who is cheating, and the mother finds out. There is a conflict in this scene between the mother and father about it and the child watches them both. Before the fathers arrive late, the mother talks in soft language to comfort the child. After the father arrives at the cinema, they both have a talk with them which leads to an intense mood of The second scene is about a priest which is late for a ritual of a king or queen, our scene starts by the priest 1 (Me) hurrying to the King (Kento), then the priest 1 sees priest 2 (Joshua) who is upset. As soon as the priest 1 arrives to the king he tries to explain about his delay and forgiveness in a formal language. The scene ends by the execution of priest 1. 

As said before the technique of using or adjusting language is used in variety of playing media. Such as in movies or theatre to create a realistic setting. Learning the techniques of language helped me understand the main concept of this idea. Furthermore the need to implement several acting skills.  

Last week what we learned in Drama was Focus and Space. These two elements are related in a way to stretch the scene of drama and create various situation. Focus is about a situation where the actors wants the audience to mainly focus on themselves or the others in order to draw the story. One of the examples are having two scenes which is related to the plot of the play. One of the scenes starts and gives an brief idea of the story to the audience. As soon as after the first scene ends the control of the plot directly given to the second scene, during the time where the second is being played the first cannot interfere. However the another way of using this element is by changing the place of time. For example the main scene or focus is a fight between gangs. At first the audience is concentrated on that scene only, then the place switches to a different scene though it has to be related to the first. Such as people listening to the fight. Next again the place begins to be larger like in a police station. Space is an important element to support focus, space can act like a setting, such as if a the first scene is in a room of an apartment complex then the second is in the hallway. The appropriate use of space for these two scenes are, one positioned in either side of the stage and other is positioned slightly next, opposite to the first.

In order to practice and mastering the techniques, we mainly did activities. For focus and space we made ourselves into groups and planned scene implying different situations in the plot. These exercises gave a clear idea on how to use both focus and space well.