Double - jatb part 4

Once Jack reaches the top of the bean stalk, he can see a massive castle in the distance. He's unsure on how to get there so he asks a stranger who is waiting for a sky bus. When Jack asks on how to get to the castle, the stranger warns him about how dangerous the castle is because it has a big giant. The stranger then asks Jack if he is new there. When Jack says yes the stranger cheers and call on other residents on the sky and they sing and dance him a song based on the sky.

The song is from the first Shrek film and we tried to make that but rather funny and hope that younger children would get the refrance. When rehearsing and performing the song, I tried to be melodramatic as I could as it needs to be as over the top as it can because the audience can feel this strong energy coming from the song and dance and therefore finding it a bit funny.

Double - jatb part 3

At the end of the market scene, Jack trades the beans for his cow, his best friend. When he gets in he is told off by his mother and is forced to clean up and go to bed, as he slept the beanstalk began to grow. When he woke up it was ready for him to climb. Before Jack climbs it, we get the audience to say 'climb that stalk' as a type of chant. This is a good use of interaction with the audience as it gets them engaged with the story and also makes them feel involved with Jack. 

Double - Jatb park 2

For when Jack had to take his best friend (the cow) into the market, I was thinking of how people would approach you in busy market places and also what kind of objects that they sell. As this is a fairy tale, I thought that whatever my object may be, it should be magical, so it would seem normal. The market that I thought of in which I thought would be a good idea to use as a type of stimuli is the market place in Camden, located in London. I thought of it as its a very busy area and also there is a huge divers culture there. Many different objects and valuables are bought or sold there in a day. It was ther perfect location to try and recreate.

Just after the market place scene, the bean man and Jack exchange some dialogue which results in Jack taking the magical beans (which he doesn't think are real once he gets home). However once Jack decides to take the beans, we came up with a dance to show the excitement of Jack, all because of his magical beans.

Double - Jack and the Beanstalk (Jatb) part 1

Our last and final story is Jack and the Beanstalk. For this story I am the narrator and also I am random characters that appear in and out of the story. When narrating this story in my head I had a Morgan Freeman type of narrating style which I think tried to add American accents and a deep voice to. Eventually as a group we decided that it would be easier and more replicant to narrate in an American accent. It was decide as the we wanted the dialogue to be as clear as possible for the young children. 

For the introduction we set the scene by having people doing farming activities. For example Freya's character was picking fruit from trees and handing it to people. As originally the narration was going to be pre recorded, I thought of a character that I could have played whilst the narration was going on. I thought of a 50 year old man who was plowing his potato field on a hot and sweaty day. By doing a repeating motion and pulling the right facial expressions, I believe that the audience would have understood who the character was. 

Double - Childrens Theatre resech

Is one of the very few drama companies that produce and perform for children. Polka Theatre was originally opened in 1979 (36 years ago). It has as many as 90,000 child audiences that come to see the performances per year, in many cases introducing many children to the world of theatre.

“Polka strives to stir the emotions, spark the imagination and, most of all, entertain.”.

- http://www.polkatheatre.com/editorial/about-us (Polka Theatre’s website)

The theatre company seem very dedicated and very determined to interest young children so that hopefully one day those children can be performing on a stage. It’s rather interesting to see how many children go to the theatre in a year and also how many children can be inspired by the theatre that they see at Polka.

In the theatre there are two performing spaces, the main theatre and also the adventure theatre. The Adventure theatre is there so that younger children (3– 6) have a pleasant introduction to theatre and also that they feel comfy watching the performers.

“Our mission is to spark the imagination and fuel a sense of discovery in children from every background. We do this through thrilling world-class theatre and a creative programme of learning, in a welcoming and stimulating environment.”

This goes to show that Polka have such a huge determination and a huge goal to interest the younger generations and I think that it’s good to see that there are companies that exist today that allow children to be interested at such young ages. Personally I think this because I didn’t go to anything like this when I was younger and I believe that the more successful the company is then the more they are allowing younger people to become intrigued with the industry.

Double - Goldilocks part 4

One way we made this appealing to the audiene is by changing the narrator half way through and turned it into  game show styled scene in which the audiene have to guess what size the bed is, wheater it is too high, too low or just right. To make it appealing to the audience I would put on an a cheesey american accent and try to be as over the top as possible. I would also ask members of the audience what bed they think is behind the sheet which would keep them engaged with the piece. The purpsose of having this small scene inbetween is because it's different to what we have done in our other two stories and it could make the audience feel as if they are apart of the story meaning that we are breaking the fourthwall.

Double - Goldilocks part 3

So far I think that as a team we have worked very well together and we have remained focused throughout the whole task. It has been challenging as it is very difficult to plan out silhouettes and we may not have remained fully focused but we all have always paid attention to what we are doing and we have always discussed and shared our ideas together.

Double - Goldilocks part 2

As a group we decided that Freya should be the narrator as it means that the children will then get some sort of guidance throughout the story telling and understand what's coming on. We have also changed where we are going to perform this piece. Originally we were going to perform in three different primary schools, however it then meant that it would be a challenge for us to move the sheet around so we have decided that we will perform it at our secondary school and will invite two of the nearest primary schools to see it.

Double - Goldilocks Part 1

In last weeks lesson we finally finished the rehearsals of Goldilocks and three bears. We done this by using silhouette which would be engaging for audience as they are very young and it is a different technique of storytelling.by using silhouette which would be engaging for audience as they are very young and it is a different technique of storytelling. I am doing the silhouette of the first mother bear  in which Carl stands behind me and then I clench my fist and put them up at the side of my head so it looks like it is thr Bears ears.  And then I form a bed in which I tuck up into a small ball and I am placed near the sheet as it then looks like I am a really low down mattress.

Double - Little Red Riding Hood part 4

After the scene in which we meet the wolf we then the audience see me as the old granny in bed in her cottage. To play this character I slightly squinted my eyes so it was harder to see and also walked a lot slower to show that my character is rather vulnerable to what happens later on in the scene. I thought that I should also act a bit clumsy in this scene as it means that the audience can call out to my character to not open the door or to not talk to the wolf.

Double - Research into Silhouette for Goldilocks

This is some research i have done into silhouette dances.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1rx0eN29gs

Double - Little Red Riding Hood part 3

After the introduction we then run into groups and make ourselves some trees, we do this by balancing someone on our backs and also by wearing a black sack wih paintings of leaves on them. Then "Mr Wolf" is introduced by him sneaking behind the trees, giving that aerie kind of look to him. An instrumental version of "Mr Grinch" is used and we have adapted some lyrics to the song. We decided to use this song to sing for the wolf as it is a child friendly song and it can be sang in a slapstick and/or melodramatic way, therefore making the audience engaged even more, keeping their excitement as full as possible. After the song ends we get back into a tree like pose and Red then interacts with the audience, she asks them what way to go and in the background we can see Mr Wolf lurking about, looking up to no good. As red asks what way to go and starts walking off one way, the wolf out paces her in the background and then by pointing in the opposite direction, this will cause our audience to shout out what way she should go, this is also another way to keep the audience engaged and a way to have their full attention. Shortly after she meets Mr wolf (he is planning to eat her but he misses as she crouches down to pick up some flowers) and we see that he is mean and sends Red on a long route to her grannies house. Shortly after the Narrator gets the audience to “boo” at the wolf so that it is a clear way to show that the wolf is the bad character in the story for anyone that didn’t quite realise it.

Double - Little Red Riding Hood part 2

The narrator tells the audience where she is aiming to go (her grandma’s house) and we then interact with the audience when she asks people where her basket (we all point at the basket that the narrator is holding). Shortly after we adapted and re wrote lyrics to the main theme song from "The Wizard of OZ". This will create an energetic mood for the children as the more mellow dramatic you tend to be, the more engaged they will be, so by doing this in a very over the top way it would mean that we get the best audience response. The purpose of doing this song/version of the wizard of oz is so that the audience feel that "Little Red" is portrayed as the good and innocent character through the story.

Double - Little Red Riding Hood part 1

In our Story telling, we are telling the tales of Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the three bears and Jack and the Beanstalk. We have now finished now the story of Little Red Riding Hood which was challenging however I believe that we have managed to pull it off. The story starts off with a narrator telling the audience about Little Red Riding Hood, as he describes her, she acts out the action that he says e.g. "She was friends with the animals, they would say hello", and then someone would be an animal of their choice (one that's found in a forest) and then whoever is closest to her, they would say "Hello" to her. I feel that by doing an exercise of just doing what we think a certain object would do helped as it then meant we didn’t really mind crawling on the floor looking a bit weird.

Double - Research into Little Red Riding Hood

                                                                     FILM

This is one way in which the story of little red riding hood is told. Even though it is not telling the full story of little red riding hood, it has the characters that are involved with the story and some of the events that occur are also related to the story of Little Red Riding Hood. The way it is told is very different as each of the characters are interviewed and questioned in which it shows us different stories within the actual story however they all link together. The film can be accessed on Netflix. The use of them singing in the film makes it friendlier for children and also the songs that they sing are fairly catchy for younger people so it might engage them even more.

This is a song in which a goat sings about being prepared and shows red all the types of horns he has in a comedic and melodramatic way.

                                                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dNAbb7vKjY

This is another way in which Little Red Riding Hood is told. It is told through the way of some sort of puppetry which can be very attracting for a younger audience (ages 5 to 6). The use of puppets is a good idea as it allows children to visually see a character and therefore imagine the characters in certain scenery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOVxx2Ak0Jw

Combination of Exercises for Story Telling

In our last lesson for Double (6th March) our target for the lesson was to combine all of our techniques that we have used and gained from the past few lessons and to put them to action. We were told that we had 4 different types of audiences (Infants, young teenagers, Adults in a pub, and sixth form students). And to add to the challenge we were only allowed to use our voices. Personally I found it quite challenging for the infants as when I usually talk to someone who is an infant I like to try and adapt to their level so they find things more engaging.  Talking to younger teenagers and people that are in sixth form however I found a lot easier as it's more relate-able and is something that I do on a daily basis and therefore I found that less of a challenge. Then we were told that we had to keep a plain voice and really express our movement which I found very difficult as I tend to find that when I empathise my body language I tend to adapt my voice with my body movement.

Vowel Pronunciation Exercises for Story Telling

At the beginning of the lesson we were focusing on pronouncing vowels and we were doing them frenetically.  We were put into a line and each person would pronounce a vowel (A, E, I, O, U). Once we had pronounced them in order at a faster pace we then tried to do a “tongue twister”, but still pronouncing them in the correct way. Broke it down into sections so “Susie saw Sylvester” “stack silver saucers” “side by side”. Eventually we all were put into groups of 3 and were given 10 seconds to decide how we would say this tongue twister and then the other groups would try and guess what the emotions were. We then attempted the “red lorry, yellow lorry”. Even though it’s a lot shorter than the other “twister” , it more easier to get your words muddled up as “yellow” and “lorry” makes your tongue go rather lazy and wants to make you pronounce it as “lolly”. We then watched clip from cbeebies in which the presenter spoke to us (the audience- aimed at 4 to 8 years old?) in a soft tone and read a story. By doing this it allowed us to have an idea on the tone we should talk to the children we will be doing the story telling unit with. Then afterwards we had to try and make up a story (improvised) by walking around the room but having to pronounce the words correctly and make it in the correct tone (as if we was talking to the younger ages).

Movement exercises for Story Telling

In this lesson (3^rd March) we were focused on Body Movement in storytelling. We were walking around the room and we were given animals/ objects to move as. For example we were walking around the room and when someone said be a cloud we would come up with our own interpretation on how a cloud would move as a cloud. The purpose of this type of exercise is so that instead of thinking how a specific object or human/animal would move, you move in the way you think it would move (interpretations). Personally I believe that it is rather easy as I didn’t feel judged or embarrassed about the way I was moving. To me I just instantly try and move like something you would associate with a certain object or animal/person. For example if someone said to be a cloud, I would straight away move like the wind that surrounds the clouds, (not literally) pushing birds or being snow or rain that falls from the cloud and how it falls in the sky. Towards the end of the class, we were split into separate groups and within the small groups of 3 or 4 one person was given an object they had to be, Tom was given a cloud that couldn’t fit in with other clouds. So with about 5 minutes to come up with a piece we started it off with a lift and to show that Tom is a cloud and is also the main focus. He then falls back and is caught and put down. Then I, Ashley and Dom huddled closely together to represent a different cloud. Tom moved to our cloud and bounced off all of the “sides” it was supposed to have. Then after we shows how the cloud was different, we showed our audience that it was in fact a snow cloud and we all then became the snow and showed the movement of how the snow would fall and then settle on the floor.

Body Movement and Eye Contact