In this lesson, we were put into pairs and a group of three. I was in the group of three with Toby and Dan. We wanted to devise a police interview scene with one of the rioters. Dan and I played the roles of police officers, whilst Toby was a rioter that had been arrested. We didn't have a lot of time to devise this scene, so when we performed it to the rest of the class a lot of it was improvised.
Dan and I asked Toby questions, such as "where we you between eight and ten last night?". Also, when Toby's character denied being at the riot at all, we provided "cctv stills" of him at the scene with his friends and a "close-up" of him too. We tried to make this scene as realistic as possible with the sort of questions that would actually be asked in this scenario. I was influenced by the police dramas that my mum watches (such as "Lewis" and "Broadchurch". I thought about the police characters body language when they interview and tried to incorporate this into our scene. Therefore I made sure I leant forward a little bit (as opposed to slouching back) to show I had authority and to show that I mean business. The aim of these mini-scenes were to show the attitudes of the rioters and the difficult job that the police had to do.
These mini-scenes we created will be put into our bigger piece at some point.
17/09/15 - Interviewing police
Our homework from the previous lesson was to watch "The Riots in their own words Part 2: The Police" on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qktOvVNXwc). This homework was set so we got a better understanding of the riots, and so we got an idea of what it must have been like for the police. This then allowed us to work on our next devised interview scene. We were put into pairs again this lesson (but there wasn't a group of three, as Rhiannon wasn't there for this lesson), and I went with Toby.
For our mini-scene, Toby was a mentally scared police officer, suffering with PTSD, whilst I was a psychiatrist. Yet again, we weren't given much time, so when we performed to the rest of the class, a lot of it was improvised. I asked Toby for his version of events, how he was feeling today, if he wanted to return to work, and many more questions.
When we watched the other groups perform I particularly payed close attention to the psychiatrists (as this was the character I was playing). I really liked the way Dan left long pauses and he used minimal movement. I have decided to incorporate this minimalistic approach in movement and I will leave gaps as I felt this was very effective. By leaving gaps, the audience had time to think and it allowed the severity of the police officers experience to sink in further.
These mini-scenes will also form a part of the overall London Riots Devised Piece at some point.
