THE SEA ASSESSMENT WEEK

Assessment Week Work
B0471 Acting Level 3 Year 1
The Sea Sophia Hinchliff
Monday 10am – 11am: As a full group, discuss all the characters you have begun to develop.  What possible plot lines could develop?  Which pairs of characters would work well together? Why? The full group will choose partnerships. This must only be based on characters on not on whether the actors want to work together.
In our self-directed lesson today we all sat together in a circle and discussed our characters briefly as a refresher to our character to everybody else. As group we all made comparisons between every body’s character in order to develop possible relationships and plot lines. We were contrasting characters together to see if it would work, for example; we used Liam’s character who is football mad, likes to go out, seems quite arrogant and moody and contrasted it with Jenny’s character who is really friendly and opinionated and loves art and animals. We felt that two characters who were not too similar would work together as it would create contrast and possible conflict which will be interesting to the audience rather than having two characters who are similar and very alike. We all continued to compare and as a group the majority chose the pairs who we all felt would work well together and produce good plot lines and relationships. I felt Michelle and Greta’s character would work really well together as they have some similarities and I feel they can bounce off each other, Michelle’s character is really bitchy, rude, nasty, full of herself and bad natured and Greta’s character is very laid back and does not care much for her life, she takes drugs and goes out all the night and has no consideration for other people, however she is not a bitch but I feel these two characters will create great storylines and possibly some contrast, as Greta’s character could become annoyed by Michelle’s two faced nature and it could create arguments and clashes. Also I feel Izzy and Bella’s character will create a good plot line, as they could be sisters who are completely different from each other. Bella’s character is very ditzy and in her own little world and is not interested in following cliques or spreading rumours about people, she seems quite relaxed. In contrast Izzy’s character is very bitter, spreads rumours about people, has a troubled past and does not get along with girls. The group felt this would be good as two sisters who are complete opposites and maybe do not see eye to eye. I am really happy with my chosen partner as our characters link in lots of different ways, ways that I did not expect at all!
Monday 11am – 5pm: When do you think you could have first met the character you have been paired with? Improvise the time when you first met. This should be at least a 20 minute long improvisation during which you do not go out of character. Discuss the improvisation with your partner. What have you learned about your character and your relationship?
My partner is Sophie, whose character has a life threatening illness and has a life expectancy of 30 years old. She is extremely motivated and has a troubled child hood. She always looks on the bright side of life and wants to live each day as if it were her last; she has a very positive aura and is well liked by others. Sophie and me were discussing in detail about our characters and their backgrounds. My character, Summer, comes from an Irish traveller background and her Father is from a big family in Manchester. Sophie’s character is originally from Manchester- this is a massive link as our characters share the similar backgrounds and this is a definite starting point for our relationships and plot lines. Our characters also share an emotional link, as Summer’s father passed away 3 years ago when she was 18. And Sophie’s character has never met her father. This is another extremely strong link and will create empathy and a connection between the two characters. We came up with a way of them meeting as Sophie’s character is arriving in Brighton to perform a motivational speech at a conference in Brighton for people with similar conditions as herself and Summer is going to the same place to film that speech for a project she has been set at University for her film degree. They would meet during Sophie’s character is giving her speech and Summer filming her. So the first scene went straight into the speech. Afterwards, Summer approaches Sophie’s character asking her if she can ask her a few questions for her film project. The two characters would then get talking about their lives and they would both identify the link they have with Manchester. This leads to similarities they share with each other, which allows the characters to open more to each other. Sophie and I feel this improvisation was a great starting point for the two characters and will open up many doors to their relationship. My character is very mysterious at first and appears to be quite in their own world and different. This contrasts really well with Sophie’s character and as they get to know each other more my character would probably open up about the passing of her father which will then lead to another link they share and this will create empathy between the two characters. I feel our characters contrast really well together and will portray a great relationship and storyline to the audience.
Tuesday 9am – 12.45pm: Discuss with your partner 1 important event in your characters’ relationship. For example: if you think they are now married, the proposal; if they are work colleagues, the time one got a promotion and the other didn’t; etc. Improvise this event. This should be at least a 20 minute long improvisation during which you do not go out of character. Discuss the improvisation with your partner. What have you learned about your character and your relationship?
My partner Sophie and I discussed our characters backgrounds in todays lesson in regards to yesterday when we found out that both our characters have a Manchester background/family and that both our characters have lost their fathers. We feel this is a great link and is definitely an important part in our characters relationship. Our improvisation went really well. We used Sophie’s character Kelly’s heart problems as a way to create a starting point for our two characters. My character, Summer loves to film everything and wants to become a successful film director one day. We came up with the idea in our improv that Kelly would be giving a motivational speech about her heart condition and Summer will be filming this conference as part of her film project. This I felt works very well and gives an opening into the characters lives in a different way. We then went on to Summer confronting Kelly after the conference in order to ask her a few questions and film her for her project, kind of like a hot seat interview but less formal. Summer asked Kelly a range of questions about her heart condition, how she deals with knowing her life expectancy is not very long and where she is from….this question sparks up another link between the two as Kelly is from Manchester, and Summers fathers side of the family are all from Manchester, so the two characters instantly have something they can both relate to in order to create a friendship between the two of them. Today I have learned that my character is very strongly linked to Kelly and that their relationship will be unique and special, they can both empathise with eachother about the loss of their fathers and will have respect for each other. My character loves to film everything so today I came up with the idea to use a video camera as a prop in our scene and film everything, so our whole scene is sort of like a documentary. I feel this is really interesting to watch as an audience will be watching a performance, which is being filmed by an actor in the performance who wants to make films. Although I will not actually be filming, I will just be acting like I am filming!
Wednesday 13.45 – 5pm: As a full group, discuss all the developing relationships. Where do you think there is room for conflict and therefore drama to develop between the different pairs? The full group should decide on partnerships between two pairs, to make a full group of 4. Improvise the first time your full group meets. This should be at least a 20 minute long improvisation during which you do not go out of character. Discuss the improvisation with your group. What ideas do you have for the development of drama in your group?
Sophie and I chose to work with Bella and Izzy today as we all notice a strong connection between the characters and feel there will be some conflict between the characters and relationships. Izzy’s character, Chrissy is very bitchy, nasty, spreads rumours, does not get on well with other girls and likes to cause trouble, this will definitely cause conflict between all the characters, especially Bella’s character Hope, who is a very laid back, calm hippy and has a very relaxing aura to her. We have decided as a group that Hope and Chrissy will work really well together as sisters, Hope being the older sister who tries to get Chrissy to have a different outlook on life and be a better person, and Chrissy being the annoying, selfish and rude little sister who embarrasses Hope all the time because she is so distructive. We improvised a meeting point, using the same meeting point as Summer and Kelly but developing it more so Chrissy and Hope can come into the scene dramatically. Hope brings Chrissy along to the motivational speech in order to help her become a better person and appreciate her life, but Chrissy does not see the point and begins to get bored and acts inappropriately whislt Kelly is giving her speech. Summer is filming Kelly whilst this is happening and our two characters will transfer into a freezeframe whilst Hope and Chrissy are having conflict between each other, it works really well as we are all establishing our characters to the audience. We then improvised what we spoke about in yesterdays lesson about me giving Kelly a hot seat interview about her illness for my film project, during this Chrissy and Hope will be miming their conversation on one side of the stage, so we are using cross cutting skills but still all being on the stage at the same time. I feel our improve went really well and we did not break character, even when we started to run out of ideas we just went with it and it all fell into place, we improvised a few times, improving on what we did the first time, but during our improv we always stayed in character.