Devising (12) - Developing ideas

Completing Rob's Scene:   We spent the last two lessons completing Rob's scene and trying to come up with ideas. We ran all of Rob's scene with the narration and worked out how we were going to show him committing suicide. We didn't want him to stand on a table and almost act it out, as we felt this might be disrespectful but also look a bit basic. Therefore we decided to use the laces that we had been tying together throughout the entire scene. Rob shall now sit on the edge of the table and we shall use puppetry to get him to hold the laces and lay backwards over the top of the table. The fact that Lewis, Ollie and I each played the central role (of victim) in a different scene was then symbolic for our ending - the use of puppetry (with us three dictating Rob's actions) is symbolic as it represents how our past can dictate our future.

Domestic Violence Scene Discussion:   We were still struggling on this scene so we decided to leave it until later. We have got a couple of ideas in mind from previous lessons but are really not inspired from it at the moment. We did, however, come up with ideas for Lewis's scene so we decided to complete move on from this scene for now and see what happens when we return to it.

Lewis's Scene Discussion:   We initially thought that we wanted Lewis's scene to be either about losing a loved one or the influence of drugs. We weren't very inspired by the death idea (and thought it would be too typical) so we decided on the idea of drugs. To ensure we weren't steering away from our stimulus, we decided that we wanted to show more of the after-effects and how things can haunt you. This idea then lead to discussing rehabs and celebrities that have been through them. We discussed many celebrities that have been through rehab, including Russell Brand, Amy Winehouse and Macaulay Culkin. We did a bit of research into Macaulay Culkin to get an idea of what he has to deal with - we soon realised that paparazzi are everywhere and are relentless. We discussed how the paparazzi jump to conclusions, follow people's every movement and how they often bend the truth slightly or exaggerate to sell more papers. We then discussed how the paparazzi stalk people and basically haunt them - so not only are people haunted by their past but also by their present. The questions asked by reporters and paparazzi can also haunt them - especially if someone has been very sheltered in rehab and protected by the outside world; whatever the paparazzi says about current affairs will probably be the first the person has heard of it. We thought about this, and used our research into Macaulay Culkin to help come up with questions that the paparazzi would ask. We thought that we could make a sound scape of these questions, to which Lewis would walk out from behind the curtains and we would all move about him in a frantic manner. We could also use flashes of light now and again (but not a strobe as this is too patterned and organised) to represent cameras flashing whilst we move frantically during the sound scape. We recorded us saying the following questions overlapping:

• What will you do now?
• Is it true your parents won't talk to you?
• How has your use of pills impacted your career?
• How will you recover from this financially?
• How do you feel about the studio cancelling your contract?
• Did you know your girlfriend is seeing someone else?
• Do you regret that Instagram picture?
• When will you return to twitter?
• Why was your rehab extended? 

Obviously, Lewis shall not be playing Macaulay Culkin, as it were, and instead shall just be playing a character who has gone through rehab. We are not focussing on the rehab section, and instead are purely focussing on the idea of overcoming such a hard time and how that in itself haunts you, but then the added pressure of media interrogation haunts you too.