When we first heard of our stimulus, "Chasing Pavements", we began making a mind map of the ideas that came to mind. The ideas we initially came up with were rather broad and could be interpreted in different ways - this was a good thing though as it opened up more different ways in which we could go with our piece. The main vague ideas we decided to experiment with were as follows: time (linked with the idea of "chasing" and running), options / different pathways ("pavements" and different roads to take in life), games ("chasing" and playing tag), violence ("chasing" has connotations of danger), death (all the different routes in life end up in one place), "Burying your brother in the pavement" (a play by Jack Thorne) and relationships (the couple in the music video were lovers). We did have other ideas (such as poverty / suffering, rejection / ageism, and running away from home) but decided that the ones mentioned previously were our favourites as they gave us more inspiration.
When we had established which ideas we thought we could get the most out of, we decided to do some research into them. The main ideas we researched were domestic abuse (from the ideas of relationships and violence), abortion (from the ideas of options / decisions, time, death and youth) and child soldiers (from the ideas of violence [war], "Burying your brother in the pavement" [due to children and death] and games [children and youth]).
- The first idea we developed was the idea that involved abortions. We discussed creating a movement piece to portray a couple making love (this scene would include the ideas of relationships and childlike naivety) and would result in the couple becoming pregnant (thus giving us the opportunity to explore the ideas of options / decisions and death [of the foetus]). I researched abortions at this point, so if we decided to use this idea, we knew more about the topic, thus allowing us to make an accurate piece designed to make the audience think.
- The second idea we experimented with was domestic violence (inspired by the ideas of violence [as "chasing" has connotations of danger]) and relationships). Katya researched domestic violence so we could make our piece very factual. The techniques we experimented with during this scene were soundscapes, narration, physical theatre and slow motion.
- The third idea we developed into a short scene was war and how it effects everyone (inspired by the ideas of violence, "Burying your brother in the pavement" and games). For this scene we used the following techniques: freeze frames, cross cutting, stop-start motion, physical theatre and abstract theatre.
To ensure we made most of all of our rehearsals we tried not to waste time, so did some individual work outside of lessons and then brought this work into the next lesson. This individual work included research, making of props, staging ideas and character development ideas. In the earlier stages of the rehearsal process, we didn't use a rehearsal schedule and instead got done whatever we felt we needed to do at that time - the reason we didn't apply a rehearsal schedule earlier was because we hadn't fully established what we wanted in out piece, so the schedule would have been changed too many times. However, later on in the rehearsal process we did enforce a rehearsal schedule - this schedule kept us focussed and ensured we achieved everything we needed to with time to do several full runs of the piece and time to polish sections at the end.
Overall, I feel we worked really well as a group. We tried to incorporate everyone's ideas throughout the entire process of putting our piece together - from the initial ideas to the finished product. Moreover, we also split the individual work load equally so we all had work to do at home, rather than just one person doing everything. As well as splitting the work load equally, we tried to split the work so everyone had the opportunity to try everything - for example, we all had a go at doing some script-writing and also some prop-making too. Thankfully, there were no arguments in our group or severe differences in opinion - mainly because we get on well anyway, but also as we all share the same opinion on abortions and the issues we raised and explored in our piece. As we get on so well as a group, there was no awkwardness between us, thus allowing us to get very close to each other in the movement sections especially.
Below is an overview of how our piece went and what we would do differently next time:
- What went well:
One aspect of our piece that went well was our transitions: they went smoothly, thus making our whole piece cleaner and more seamless. Also, everyone remembered their lines and showed good characterisation (due to strong facial expressions and convincing body language) thus helping the audience understand our piece better. The audience clearly felt uncomfortable during our game show scenes and they didn't know how to react; this suggested that they were effected by our piece and thought the way we presented the controversial topic of abortion was very shocking. This was our aim, as it made the audience really think about the issues we presented. Our use of props seemed to be really effective - a cyclical structure was formed by us bringing the book from the beginning into our final scene, the coat hangers made the audience feel really uncomfortable, and mine and Kat's accessories in the first scene symbolised our mental age and naivety. - What could have been better:
Unfortunately we had a few technical difficulties during our piece to do with the sound. Although I had written a cue list for when we needed which tracks, some tracks were played at the wrong times as we hadn't practised our piece with someone else doing the sound for us (as we had always done the music ourselves). To avoid this from happening in a piece in the future, we shall always do a rehearsal with the person who will be doing our sound for us in the actual performance. Also, we shall have all of the tracks in the right order and on one phone in one album (rather than having the tracks on two different phones). Thankfully, the only issue with sound was during the behind the scenes section of the game show - backstage there would be a lot of noise anyway, so this wasn't too much of a problem as it could have been (for example, it would have been worse if our music stopped during one of our movement sections). - What we would do differently next time:
Next time, we would ensure we do extra rehearsals with somebody else doing our sound for us. Moreover, if we were to do this piece again, we might put more scripted scenes in rather than a lot of movement sections (although the movement sections were effective and worked well in our piece, the piece did become very movement-based). Furthermore, we could have made a questionnaire for our audience to fill out after our piece so we could get feedback on our entire piece so we would know what to do to improve. In our rehearsal schedule, we could have included peer-assessment; we could have asked another group to watch us perform certain scenes and give us feedback on what they thought of it and what they thought needed altering.
