I was really excited by the shadow screen because this isn't even the full size one we will be using in the theatre! This is something important to note, however, as we will have to adapt ourselves in the official tech run and be aware to space ourselves our more behind the screen.
One of the things we spoke about with Niki before she left, was the auditorium scene with Charlie Chaplin. She explained that she liked the idea that 'She' walks in and sits at the back of the auditorium - a form of ambiguity surrounding her - keeping her as whatever the audience would like her to be. This is something we also liked and definitely wanted to incorporate into the piece. Jack and I also had a quick 'play' in front of the screen with Niki. For me personally, our bodies looked a lot bigger in front of the screens than I had thought. We moved around so that I looked as small as possible and Jack as big as possible; the effects were funny but none the less effective. As we were doing this, Sarah arrived. We knew Niki had to run off, but we had a chance to experiment with the torches behind the screen; also showing Sarah how effective the screen was. Niki took the torch of Sarah's phone and started to pull it backwards and forwards, zooming in and out of her face. It completely distorted her and the movement looked smooth like a camera panning around someone. I had never seen anything like it on a shadow screen before!
After this, we tried cutting words out of paper and holding it up against the screen; this again proved very visually interesting. We had previously wanted some form of subtitles behind the screen but when we tried with coloured pen on card but the words were not visible at all; you could just see the outline shadow of the paper. Niki urged us to use the resources we had and quickly cut out some letters. We chose a running motif from Amy's interview that streams through our piece which was 'I'm going to tell you a story'. Niki then left, so Jack and I then quickly wrote the healthy and safety form we had been asked to do. Sarah continued having a play behind the screen; they tried sign language and using different angles on the hand. One thing that was difficult is the image can, within a millimeter of movement, go from a distorted image of a person, to a complete and utter blur. Although this is okay for some parts of the performance, we do need to watch that it doesn't look to messy. Jack and I then finished the healthy and safety form:
- Heat from lamp - they can get very hot so we just have to make sure that we turn the light off 5 minutes before using it. We also need to make sure we don't get to close.
- Cables - To make sure we didn't fall over the cables, we put the light on a table and pushed it to the back of the wall; this meant there was actually nothing to trip up on.
- Shadow Screen falling over - We put two chairs either side of it and were aware that the screen was light so could fall.
- Chairs - We moved all the chairs to the side of the room and made sure there was plenty of space either side of the chairs holding up the shadow screen to avoid risks of tripping.
Sarah, Jack and I then came up with the Charlie Chaplin sequence. From a previous session, in which we weren't 100% keen on recreating the Lion Cage episode I managed to find a really interesting piece of music that seemed to fit (Manufrakass, 2007). Once the intro of "Filmmusik" came in, we knew straight away that it would fit perfectly (Tigervonwhiskeypur, 2013). We needed a short, bouncy, comical piece of music that we could perform a very quick little snippet of a slapstick scene too. Jack and I got behind the screen and came up with a little sequence based from the sketch he wrote called "The Adventurer". Basically, Jack came in doing the stereotypical stance of Charlie Chaplin - the over exaggerated, side to side walk, and the way in which he tilts his bowler hat forward with his right hand - I then walked in and fell down a hole. Jack consistently did not help me up and if he did would let go and, again, I would be on the floor. I started to point my finger, clench my fists and then do a cut throat sign, comically, in anger as Jack was obviously howling in laugher.
We then had to come up for a sequence of 'She' been in her own mind; we wanted it to somewhere visually stunning, but also somewhere she could laugh and be happy to follow the narrative. Kane, for inspiration, put on a piece from the soundtrack 'Inside Out' called "Bundle of Joy" (FORZA, 2015). Immediately, he was filled with idea's and ran behind the shadow screen; he spoke about two children sat behind the screen reading a book! Words, bubbles, fish, butterflies, anything we wanted could come flying out of the book. We decided straight away that, as this was in the mind of 'She', that it would be a moment behind the screen that was full of clarity and good vision so we would use the big stage light to illuminate the shadow screen, and not torches. Sarah and Kane then tried the scene out practically. The music and lights faded in with Sarah kneeling on the floor; from an audiences perspective it looked like she was looking into the distance. Kane then came in, she looked over and watched him as he kneeled to the floor. They then both looked forward and started to sway side to side with the music. The audience can take whatever they like from this but, I personally imagined them in some sort of magical field with the pollen and grass ebbing and flowing in the wind. Sarah then spontaneously very slowly raised her hand grabbing something from the sky and proceeded to eat it. I really loved this as it showed that we were now in 'She's' imagination; anything could happen! They then got one of my books and started to pretend to pull paper cut things out of it. We could all envision that this would look very effective.
It was then time to break for lunch. Sarah ran upstairs and grabbed some spare card (actually card that is meant to go in A4 folders) and I went and purchased some sellotape and scissors from the downstairs shop. We then sat over lunch and cut out words such as 'pow', 'magic' and 'superhero' and stuck them onto coffee stirrer sticks which looked effective behind the screen! Sarah also made two butterflies, which when spun behind the screen looked particularly stunning. The mood in the group was really good and so we didn't have a break for to long as we didn't want to end up loosing the momentum we had within the rehearsal.
We then ran this scene a few more times as some of the changeovers looked sloppy; it is obviously also very important we know the choreography inside out and gives the opportunity for development. When Niki came to watch it we realized we had, unintentionally made the Charlie Chaplin sequence quite confusing; she actually thought, as an audience member, that I was 'She'! This was totally not what we were going for but I could absolutely understand why she thought this. It looked like we were trying to illustrate 'She's' repression and anger which wasn't the case at all. We then decided that instead of using an actual Charlie Chaplin sequence, that as long as it was reminiscent to the style, that it would still be fine.
Jack and I then quickly did some improv to the music. He walked to the middle of the screen again as before but this time was at a bus stop. I then walked on and made it obvious that I was a stereotypical lady from this time; I walked very femininely with an extremely straight back. When I arrived and was sorting out my skirt by brushing it with my hands, Jack took of his hat to say Hello. I then curtsied and stood back up. As I was waiting Jack then pinched me on my bottom. I turned to the side, slapped him on the cheek, pointed my finger at him, then stormed off the stage angrily. Jack then did a 'what have I done' shrug off his shoulders before the torch went off. We decided Kane would finish the narrative before the music would fade into the 'Imagination Sequence'.
After this we had a play around with, what would be the opening to our piece. As I did not have a phone with a torch, I watched as the others had a play on the screen. What I found was, that a movement that you think is at a normal speed behind the shadow screen, looks twice as fast when watching it as an audience member. This is actually something to note for everything we do behind the screen. I asked the group to really drag out the zooming and moving of the light and what formed was a really great galaxy effect. It looked like you were in space. Kane then had the idea of Jack signing in the image. He signed "Hello, My name is Jack and I am going to tell you a story". Kane then did the panning effect with the torches and it looked extremely effective. Sarah then joined in the signing, denying the audience of the conversation. The speed of Kane's light then built in speed before it went to black out. I think this will be a very effective start to our piece; although it may confuse the audience it is also gripping and introduces the key themes of the piece, denying the audience of something continually and then getting them to feel what it is like to be deaf and blind.
The others went at about 6pm as they had things to do but I stayed till at least 8:30pm cutting out the letters.
I knew as soon as I got home that I would crash so I needed to finish them there and then. The positive energy flowing from the rehearsal get me going though and I actually ended up making everything from Jelly fish to the actual name of the piece. "The Sight of Silence" I actually found when looking at it, it could be edited to make a very good poster.
Bibliography
We then had to come up for a sequence of 'She' been in her own mind; we wanted it to somewhere visually stunning, but also somewhere she could laugh and be happy to follow the narrative. Kane, for inspiration, put on a piece from the soundtrack 'Inside Out' called "Bundle of Joy" (FORZA, 2015). Immediately, he was filled with idea's and ran behind the shadow screen; he spoke about two children sat behind the screen reading a book! Words, bubbles, fish, butterflies, anything we wanted could come flying out of the book. We decided straight away that, as this was in the mind of 'She', that it would be a moment behind the screen that was full of clarity and good vision so we would use the big stage light to illuminate the shadow screen, and not torches. Sarah and Kane then tried the scene out practically. The music and lights faded in with Sarah kneeling on the floor; from an audiences perspective it looked like she was looking into the distance. Kane then came in, she looked over and watched him as he kneeled to the floor. They then both looked forward and started to sway side to side with the music. The audience can take whatever they like from this but, I personally imagined them in some sort of magical field with the pollen and grass ebbing and flowing in the wind. Sarah then spontaneously very slowly raised her hand grabbing something from the sky and proceeded to eat it. I really loved this as it showed that we were now in 'She's' imagination; anything could happen! They then got one of my books and started to pretend to pull paper cut things out of it. We could all envision that this would look very effective.
It was then time to break for lunch. Sarah ran upstairs and grabbed some spare card (actually card that is meant to go in A4 folders) and I went and purchased some sellotape and scissors from the downstairs shop. We then sat over lunch and cut out words such as 'pow', 'magic' and 'superhero' and stuck them onto coffee stirrer sticks which looked effective behind the screen! Sarah also made two butterflies, which when spun behind the screen looked particularly stunning. The mood in the group was really good and so we didn't have a break for to long as we didn't want to end up loosing the momentum we had within the rehearsal.
We then ran this scene a few more times as some of the changeovers looked sloppy; it is obviously also very important we know the choreography inside out and gives the opportunity for development. When Niki came to watch it we realized we had, unintentionally made the Charlie Chaplin sequence quite confusing; she actually thought, as an audience member, that I was 'She'! This was totally not what we were going for but I could absolutely understand why she thought this. It looked like we were trying to illustrate 'She's' repression and anger which wasn't the case at all. We then decided that instead of using an actual Charlie Chaplin sequence, that as long as it was reminiscent to the style, that it would still be fine.
Jack and I then quickly did some improv to the music. He walked to the middle of the screen again as before but this time was at a bus stop. I then walked on and made it obvious that I was a stereotypical lady from this time; I walked very femininely with an extremely straight back. When I arrived and was sorting out my skirt by brushing it with my hands, Jack took of his hat to say Hello. I then curtsied and stood back up. As I was waiting Jack then pinched me on my bottom. I turned to the side, slapped him on the cheek, pointed my finger at him, then stormed off the stage angrily. Jack then did a 'what have I done' shrug off his shoulders before the torch went off. We decided Kane would finish the narrative before the music would fade into the 'Imagination Sequence'.
After this we had a play around with, what would be the opening to our piece. As I did not have a phone with a torch, I watched as the others had a play on the screen. What I found was, that a movement that you think is at a normal speed behind the shadow screen, looks twice as fast when watching it as an audience member. This is actually something to note for everything we do behind the screen. I asked the group to really drag out the zooming and moving of the light and what formed was a really great galaxy effect. It looked like you were in space. Kane then had the idea of Jack signing in the image. He signed "Hello, My name is Jack and I am going to tell you a story". Kane then did the panning effect with the torches and it looked extremely effective. Sarah then joined in the signing, denying the audience of the conversation. The speed of Kane's light then built in speed before it went to black out. I think this will be a very effective start to our piece; although it may confuse the audience it is also gripping and introduces the key themes of the piece, denying the audience of something continually and then getting them to feel what it is like to be deaf and blind.
The others went at about 6pm as they had things to do but I stayed till at least 8:30pm cutting out the letters.
Overall, I really enjoyed today's rehearsal even if I was a bit shook up in the morning that Kane and Sarah may not turn up. I think all we needed was some routine and to actually do some longer rehearsals. I wish we could have done this from Day 1 as the commitment of an all day rehearsal, means you can really get into the nitty gritty of what you are doing and your not worried that your missing whatever it is you have planned at 6pm! I think the pressure of how many weeks it is until the show is also getting people more motivated to stay focused within the rehearsal space. All in all, possible my favourite rehearsal yet.
Bibliography
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