Today we began the lesson by discussing the research we did on narrators. We discussed what narrators we listened to and why we like them; through doing this we established what makes a good story teller. To be a good story teller you need to:
- articulate well so you are clear and easy to understand
- vary your tone to make what you are saying more engaging
- vary you speed so the narration is not too slow or too quick
- use pauses when appropriate to create certain effects on the listener
After establishing what makes a good storyteller, we looked at the "Reduced Shakespeare Company". This company tells the entire works of Shakespeare in an easy to understand and more engaging way. As a group we agreed that we liked the way the narrator sat on the stage with a literal book but had other actors to help him tell the story. The narrator gave the important information and contributes the "crucial dialogue", whilst the other actors add movement to the piece and make it more interesting to watch.
We then read through Ollie's scene and he told us what he wanted to do with it. Ollie's narration is going to be live and not recorded now as he was inspired by the video above and decided he would also like to sit and read the scene out of a book. His scene is the final scene of the story so he thought it would be nice to end the piece by him closing the book, as if he had just read the entire story to the audience. As this scene is set in the ice palace, Ollie has decided that he wants three walls (all but behind the audience) to have an image of an ice wall projected on them. He wants to have music underneath his narration and have us do a dance section. We discussed songs to have played underneath and decided that we should have an instrumental, so the audience wouldn't get distract and listen to the lyrics instead of the narration. I came up with "Skinny Love" by Birdy as this would work well with a contemporary dance (... also as I already have a dance to this song!).
