My skills can offer the group.

When we were put into groups we had to thinks about what we could contribute in a group performance. I feel i am a very strong actor and would be able to support other people on stage. I also looked through the PLTS's and thought about which ones i suited i felt i was deffinatly a team worker because i can possitivly contribute to the group identify problems and find solutions. I also think i am a creative thinker and can use this in many ways such as helping write scrips make posters and things like that.

Health and Safety

Before we performed our group performance we had to look at health and safety. We were given handouts from our teacher they were both extracts from books. One was Desighning for the Theatre by Francis Reid The first paragragh is on Fire regulations which mainly talks about how the metirials we use are the biggest fire hazard. However our piece doesnt have anything that could be a hazard exept a wooden guitar. The second paragragh states "the floor is liable to have snaking cables, various levels and even opening and closing holes" which is very helpfull if your using them however we arent but it does however help us know that while keeping the stage area safe we can use it in interesting ways. The third paragragh is on stability and it talk about the set not just been definatly safe but making shore the actors are confident in the safety of the set they should be able to feel safe and balanced on the set. It then goes on to talk about movement which essentially is the same thing that we can move about the stage safely with a good balance. This isn't a problem for us as we are always on one flat level. Next it speaks of Costume freadom which says "a set that allows freedom of movement is not enough: that freedom must be extended to the costumes" which we had done rather well in normal clothing. We were also given another handout from a book Practical theatre edited by Salley Mackey. The first page spoke about the legal requirements and legislation applicable to performing art. However we didn't have to worry about this as our piece isn't a proffesional production. It also gives a list of the things you have to asses and take into consideration when doing a live performance. However some of them didn't really apply to us here are the ones that did.
.Means of acces and escape-we have a fire exit in the drama studio at the back bihind were the audience will be
.Sight lines- we have made shore that the audience are going to be seated  and in rows so they can see right.
.The staging arrangements-we are going to make shore our stage is a decent distance away from the audience because some scenes move forward allot.
It then goes on to talk about the safety of the audience and states "The safety of the audience is paramount" which made me think allot more about how we arrange the audience  this is another reason we moved the set back allot more.

Performance review

After looking back at my performance and workshop on our DVD recording and i was really happy with how it went. The spacing of the piece that we had around the stage was extremely good as we spread it out well the physical theatre piece worked well and we were able to move around freely in the space. The group performed well as a team all remembering lines so we all new our ques however i could of projected my voice allot better and made my lines have more effect.

Review of my performance in the group

After our performance of our T.I.E pieces we were given hand outs to review how we worked throught the unit as a group by looking though the two PLTS'S of effective participator and group worker. Throughout the unit we had to discuss and resolve problems myself i reccomended that we take a look at one of our scenes thurther so we sat down and had a meeting on it. i did notice other members in my group disscusing in detail about weather to use a guitar in the piece of music or not. Also when we were doing physical theatre at first i wasn't comfrtable with it as i hadn't done it before however another area of effective participator is to present a persuasive case for action and Fran really did this when she showed me it wasn't all about dance. Another branch of efective participator is to propose practical ways forward once as a group we noticed that our second scene wasn't working so we once again sat together and broke the scene down piece by piece which made it allot easier to sort out. Also as an effective participator i had to try and identify improvements. And after our first run though i reado through our review notes and noticed that our piece laked allot of stuff that teaches the audiences so i said we needed to add some. People in my group also noticed that our physical theatre piece wasnt that good she then took it away and improved it. The handouts also mentioned that to be an effective participator you have to influence others, and balance diverse views. I did in the piece by not trying to make one parent more angry or mean than the other as i thought the views of parents divorcing was biased into the mother usualy been the victim. Due to the fact that the piece was to influence others to see how the children can be victims in divorce. I also had to look at myself throught the ideas of been a team worker in my group i thought that our group worked very well together as a team during and planning the performance. One part of been a team worker is to collaborate with other towards common goals. I did this when writing the script as wel all felt that if we crowded around one computer as actors in the company and edited my origional script because we wanted to make the lines more accurate to the characters. Also i looked at where i reached agreements, managing discussions to achieve results. At one point we wanted our peice to have our song we made performed live at the end but the person who was going to do it was very talented but lacked confidence which meant i had to sit with him and support him to reach an a greement for him to do it.tobe a team worker occationally  you have to adapt behaveiour to suit different roles and situations, including leadership roles. I did this near to the deadline day when i felt asif the group were starting to overehearse our piece and i had to dapt in too ways one in leadership when telling the group we were rehearsing too much and i had to calm down as the lack of rest was stressing me out and i was getting frustrated. I also noticed how another group member had become allot more sensible and egar to rehearse which i noticed and decided to try and do myself. Also i had to show fairness and consideration to others. Which i did when a group member who was our director in the company i tried to be fair and listen to all her instructions. As a team worker the handout also said i had to take responsibility i did this right at the begging of the process when i decided i wanted to be the playwrite in the company and make the first draft. Another group member took responsibility when he personally went home and mixed the music for the piece together. The final thing i had to review about myself as a team worked was weather i had provide constructive support and feedback to others. I did this with the first draft of the poster that was made on colour schemes and arrangments because i thought it should have been darker. 

Reviews

Abi's group: What makes it a good piece of T.I.E. ?
at first i didn't feel as if i was learning anything to be honest but when it got to the kind of talk show part i thought that was very good and help full to make you learn something as it got the audience involved.
Did they work well as a group?
I thought overall the group worked well together they seemed to know there lines and were aware of space and what people were doing around them because of this the pace of the drama was good. However Abi was a very very key role in all parts of the play even tho the people around her performed well and took allot of pressure off her.
What conventions did they use to engage the audience?
They used the storyteller thing very well and it was interesting to watch how it made the story flow they also used the forum theatre in an interesting way which was very different and interesting to see.

Imogen's group: What makes this a good piece of T.I.E. ?
I think the way Beth's character spoke of her life with anarecsia and what she went through you learnt allot about it and how people deal with it.
Did they work well as a group? it seemed like they all new there lines very well and supported eachover well on stage the pace was good and worked well.
What conventions did they use to engage the audience? they had allot of moments when they spoke to the audience and the board that was i think the mirror that had writing on it was unusual but creative and worked well.

First review

We had Mrs Woffinden watch our first few scenes of our piece and gave us feedback about how we could improve each scene. She said that scene 1 was very well rhearsed and powerfull. I was really happy with her saying it was powerfull as we tried our best to make the audience connect with the play. She mentioned to us that the use of Sebs monolouge was very good and our freezeframes and transitons between them really helped the pace of the drama I found this brilliant because the pace of a performance is always one of the most important things. She said that Scene 2 was great due to an effective use of physical theatre that showed the highs and lows of the parents relationship however if someone speaks during the drama there must be a certain pause so its clear what was said. She said our one problem was that the piece wasnt informative enough and we had to go back and do more research and try to add that into our drama.

Drama rehearsals

The first thing we did in the morning was have a meeting within the group about how we thought we could improve what we had done so far. We took minuits throught the meeting and found that seb didn't feel comfortable speaking through the physical theatre parts and said as an alternative he would make a music track to fit all the different changes of emotion. However so he could do this we had to time the piece so he could get the music changes just right. Personally i liked the idea of giving it music in the background as it would be origional and hopefully interesting to watch. Next we decided that the best thing to do was to move forward in the play and start a new scene. At first our idea was to do a scene while the troubled couple are in a counceling session after been convinced by there son. However the fact we only have three actors in the group made it very difficult as seb who plays the child would have to become the counceler and we didnt like that. Also throughout the scene it was very compact and there wasnt much movement movement in the scene we tried adding thought tracking but nothing seemed to work. So we changed the scene into the child trying to talk to the parent so we could play around with it been more open because personally i think that open drama thats more spaced out is allot better. The piece is only short so we decided that it would be good if we left the piece on a cliff hanger so we could address how they felt that it ended . our last scene was my faveruite as it had the song we wrote in music in it. there were no complecations in this scene and were proud that we had the play finished. After this in the last few lessons we simply perfected everything we had done and got it as smooth as possible.

Worm Collector

The Worm Collector
12 February 2010  to 13 February 2010
Courtyard Theatre
Mark has been making a film, armed with a digital camera, an arsenal of willing family members and an unusual subject matter. Mark wants to know who has the best scar, even the tiny ones count because its not just about size but about how you get them that determines whether you’re a winner or not.

But sometimes it’s the scars we can’t see that leave the most damage, and victory may come with a very high price.

Innovative filmed sequences and a powerful live performance bring to life a story that manages to be funny, heartfelt and heartbreaking at the same time. With a shocking twist in the tale, The Worm Collector burrows into the head of a teenage boy who makes the simple mistake of taking matters into his own hands.

Drama

After all the research in our lessons and at home like looking at our roles in the group and also looking at all the aspects of hoe to make drama and using different drama conventions we finally began to make our piece of T.I.E. Following our calendar we had to make shore our script was done i wanted to try my hand at this so i volenteered to write out the first draft. I feel i did relativaly well at this as seen as it was the first draft i got to really bring the charecters of our divorce piece there words. However i already did have an idea what feel the cahrecters should have as we had done some hot-seating on the actors. After the script was written my group members read it and gave me some feedback we then together perfected it. After this we started out on the acual play our first scene was a simple argument we then however looked through ur play and agreed it was too natural so we looked through the drama conventions we had researched. We noticed we could turn the argumen into physical theatre i felt this was a great idea so we went through some different ideas and filmed them to dicide what worked we left it at this for the holidays. Upon our return a fellow member of the group had worked on creating some extra ideas that she videos which were really really good . So i went through it with her and rehersed it untill it was smooth and memorized.   

Music

Throughout rehersing our song we made allot of creative changes. As we started off with the song been sung to just a gutar this however we felt wasn't intresting enough so we encoperated another group members ability to play the cornet for more effect we also added a piano which would play chords in the background. we played it a few times in this method as i wasn't very expirienced in music and whilst playing the piano i wasn't able to keep in time so they changed it to just the guitar and cornet i personally thought it sounded really good like that. However my group decided they would change the guitar for a piano which still sounded good. Once again i tried to get involved by doing the beat in the background with a tamborine but still couldnt keep in time. I was rather dissapointed a wasn't able to contribute in performing i was however infulencial in writing the music which i am happy with.

March 1st

We continued to talk about our roles in the group in a more serious way we decided not just on our own but talked about each overs roles i was said to be a director or an actor however all the people in the group were said to be those. As homework we were told to make a table on all our different skills for everyone in the group looking at over peoples i learnt that i need to be allot more orginised and sensible. Allot of my feedback was about how i need to orginise myself i mis allot of homework and this doesn't help me progress with my work. At the end of the day my group was given a rather large calander to plan what dates everything must be done within planing and things like that. We set dates for the script, learnt lines and rehersals to make shore all was done. 

Feubary 28th

In music Mr Truscot talked to us about starting to write a song to link to our T.I.E peice we decided to write lyrics then put the melody over it. First we had to write some ideas on words for the lyrics. Since our piece was on divorce we came up with words like sadness, unfair, leaving, parents and things like that. We came up with a few lyrics.

Febuary 15th

In music we spoke about what skills we bring into our group. I felt that my biggest impact was my ability to make allot of creative ideas in order to make all our different pieces of work that little bit more interesting. I also have a ability to work well in groups and will follow instructions. i could however improve on the way i manage my emotions like if i cant do something well i will be annoyed with myself which sometimes is not productive.

We also showed some pieces of music that we thought suted the image of a sunrise and a man stood in darkness for them both i thought that classical music can inspire different effects and could be very usefull i didnt now much cassical music though and couldnt name any.

Then we were given a short tune to play and a few people were on xylophone some on glockenspiel and some on keyboard the different groups played at different times and some were told to play faster or slower but was very different in each way and changed the sound allot.

February 14th - music

Today we learned more different ways to create music firstly the group were asked to collect a percussion instrument i took a tamborine. We then all were told to close our eyes and start playing what we wanted when we wanted i found it rather surprising how it all turned out to sound good. It sounded good as someone set a tone and beat for us all to follow. We then did it again but were told to use a different tune however this seemed to be more difficult as this made us think more about what we were doing and therefore over thought it. After this we were given a short time to make 3 musical ideas in any way we like then draw out a graphic score for it. After this we were told to make it lauder then faster and slow it down to a stop. 

February 8th - music

We were presented with a picture of a sunrise and then asked to use chord's and musical techniques to fit the mood of the picture. We then did the same with a man standing in the shadows i was able to use the keyboards different effects to make different moods. We were then told to find a piece of music to suite the pictures in our opinions.

January 11th - music

Today we learned a new technique in which is a way to create musical ideas you would write down a phone number. we drew out a treble clef and a stave then put a note anywere after this you would go up or down as many places as the next number in the phone number said excluding the number 0. Once finished we played our short tune after this we were able to change the notes to hopefully make it sound better.

February 8th - drama

We have been doing about hot seating and role on the wall as these are two ways which will be able more in touch with your character in any piece of drama.
We witnessed some hot seating during lesson firstly with miss woffenden and then with me. i found hot seating rather difficult as you have to be very good at thinking on the spot. After we had finished i had to give feedback all i could think was about how weird it became whilst been hot seated as you went into the little world that you have created for your character. The rest of the group told us what was good about our performance like how fast thinking is very important and how the questions you ask the performer can make the hot seating less or more effective. We discussed how you feel whilst hot seating some one for me you felt very tense as you had no idea how the person would react to the question you were asking. This is a very effective drama convention as it helps bring more information out about the character. Also if the person been hot seated is unable to answer a question it gives them an area to research about there character.
We also did role on the wall this is were you draw an outline of a person and on the inside you put the persons feelings, personality and thing of that nature on the outside you put what over people think of them. I thought of some questions and answers for my character in the performance (the husband and father in a struggling relationship).
1.Why did you come to counselling today?
even if things are going wrong we have a son so we have to try our best to make it work .
2.What happened between you and your wife?
things changed i don't feel i did but the way she treated me has defiantly changed i work and bring in money but she doesn't seem to care.
3.How does your relationship with your son work?
I feel i try my best for my son but unfortunately all the work i have to do to make money for the family i still try my best though.
4.How long have you been married?
14 years.
5.How often do you fight? what about?
we fight very often and its mostly about money and me not been around its all centred around work as i do and she doesn't.
6.Do you know how your son feels?
No but i imagine he is ok or he would of said something.
7.Have you got allot of time with your family?
Like i said i have a little bit of time but still I'm unable to spend time with them as I'm too busy working.
8.How is work for you? Does your wife work?
Work for me is very stress full but my family still don't seem to notice this and no my wife doesn't work when she easily could.
9.How does that make you feel?
Very unappreciated as they don't notice what i go through or make an attempt to help me by working and bringing in extra money.
10.Is there anything you wish you could change?
I wish that she would just care enough to work and make my life just a little bit easier.