.:Costume:.

I went to the library today to find the books I used to help me decide what style of makeup and costuming I wanted, to my suprise, one of the costume books is missing, perhaps a year 7-11 may have borrowed it? However, I did find the two books I used for the makeup section of my IPP, these are very useful as they allow me to use the jargon specific to makeup. This will hopefully improve the mark of my IPP as I will be correctly labeling the types of makeup and where the were applied to create my desired effect, even though the makeup and hair were quite simply done.

However my main focus today was on the costume section again. I have completed the alterations to my list of costumes that I used in my IPP performance, now all that is left to do is include pictures of them and write about my process of finding, buying, making and altering them, and also to evaluate why I used them. I think it is finally coming together! However lots of work will be completed on it this weekend!!

Next is my makeup section, I did not compile a list of makeup I used, however I took many photos and I remember what makeup I used, so this will aid in creating a list for my appendix, making my IPP easier to read and understand regarding the processes and preparation I underwent to create my desired effect.

.:Continuing On:.

Still working on my IPP, it’s getting there, but I’ll work on it on the weekend to really put a dint in it!! So, I thought I would use the mind map which my peers and I created at the beginning of our IPP, because we did not know what direction we were going in! Luckily, this gave me a lot of ideas and inspiration on where to go for the writing section of my IPP. I neatened it up using Microsoft word and I will include it in my appendix so the examiner can refer to it whilst I am speaking about it. I think this will really help the examiner understand the processes involved in creating the concepts and ideas for Animalia Carnivale.

For my costume section, there was a large amount of organisation that went into this. However I have compiled it into one list, which states what item I needed, the quantity of this item I needed, colour/size, any miscellaneous information and whether or not I was going to borrow, purchase, alter or make the costume items. I had made this list prior to the performance, thus I had to alter it slightly. But it is complete now, and I think this will also be present in my appendix for my IPP so the examiner can understand the full preparation I underwent to find these items.

Where I am going next- For the next theatre class and the weekend, I want to write about where I sourced my costuming items from, because there were quite  a number of places. I will include photographs of the costumes, however, I just need clarification whether I can have these in my actual IPP or if they need to go into the appendix section, though I think it is the earlier of the two.

 I also want to write about the makeup used and why and how I used it. This will include photos of my preparation and applying of the makeup and hairstyles which were taken on the night of the performance. Although I had intentions of my makeup being in the expressionistic style, the quick scene changes and my involvement in the production as an actor made the application of makeup within the performance quite impossible. So I decided the best path was naturalistic looking makeup, I think if I could re-do this, I would change to expressionistic makeup style so that it could emphasise my message of pollution, global warming and cruelty to animals more, perhaps with fake blood or dull colours over the base of the skin. However this will go in my evaluation, as will many other details which I have learnt and want to improve!!

.:IPP Procrastination:.

Today’s double lesson was spent on my Independent Project Portfolio. I am having real trouble with this particular project  

I am going to try and work on it out of class so that I can reach the word count, which I am really afraid that I am not going to do. The word count for the IPP is 3000 words. At the moment, I am at 750. I think I just need to hone in on my syllabus so that I work to a criteria. Hopefully this will enable me to write a few hundred words more (or thousand I am hoping!) I have not finished my introduction yet, but am getting there. I have almost finished the ‘deviser’ section of my performer/deviser section for my preparation.

Hopefully by next lesson (Wednesday 26th) I will have progressed on my theatre IPP. Hopefully!!

.:TPPP:.

We spent today’s lesson discussing the TPPP. I am a little worried about this, I know I can certainly talk for a long period of time! But 30 minutes non-stop!! Well I guess I will just have to be extra prepared. We needed some clarification on what the TPPP exactly entails, because some people think it is about the entire 2 year IB theatre course and some people think it is on 2 experiences in theatre which have made you think diferently. The IB tends to go with the latter of the two, but I think that you can incorperate other experiences that apply to your experiences that have most impacted you. I am going to need some help forumating my dot points for my oral, but I think with the help of my comprehensive theatre journal I can choose my experiences which enabled me to think about theatre in a different light, and I am completely adiment that I certainly think about theatre differently to what I thought when I first started IB theatre. I think that is what I will stress in my oral.

Well the decided date for my oral is 18th of September, smack bang in the middle of my mock exams! That is okay though because I am interested in the experiences which have most impacted my peers. Looking forward to finishing my IPP

.:Moving along:.

I was really happy with today’s double lesson of theatre, I spent the majority of my time working on my indpendent project portfolio, and it is coming along slowly but surely! I keep refering back to my syllabus and the sample we were given to how it should be structured, but I was still having a little trouble starting of my introduction. My teacher jumped on the OCC and found some vital information for me, I was lacking in the theoretical underpinning for my project, once I worked out what this was, I was on my way! Before I knew it my mental writing block was cured and I was well on my way to finishing my intoduction.

One aspect I find really interesting about writing for my portfolio is the incorperation of theatre practioners and how they influenced my decisions. I had almost fogotten how influenced I was by Artraud, Brecht, Beckett and many other practioners in devising the performance. When revising their concepts and ideals, I realised just how much I relied on their techniques to convey my message to the audience. This encouraged me to write further on the teachings and how I incoperated these for my independent project portfolio.

So, it is certainly coming along. It certainly needs some tweaking, but I am happy with what I have written so far and I feel I’ve given justice to the theatre practioners which have so heavily influenced me.

.:Working on my IPP:.

It was Ronelle’s birthday today, so there were celebrations to be had! After all, 18 certainly is a milestone However, after this,  my theatre double  consisted of  working on my Independent Project Portfolio. I am really glad I got some work done on this as I felt like I would not be able to finish it in time!! Well I’ve only written 500 of the 3000 words I need to write, but I feel I know where to go from here. I’ve split the sections up into a) introduction b) preparation c) action d) reflection e) conclusion. This really helped me figure out where I need to go and what I need to put in each section. I am still a little stuck I’ll admit, but hopefully by the end of Wednesday I’ll have it under control.

We recieved a sample, and the most important informattion I gained was that it is necessary to critique your work, so I will most definately evaluate what I did as a deviser/performer. I think it is very important to look back on your work critically because you can focus on what worked and what didn’t work, and what you can improve on next time.

I think we are deciding a date for the presentiation of our TPPPs on Thursday!

.:Discussing plays:.

Well I saved this theatre journal for a little bit later because I wanted to write about the two plays I went and on Thursday night and Friday. I saw an amatuer production of ‘Grease’ the musical and ‘Knives in Hens’ on Friday. Both were interesting plays for different reasons.

Grease- Grease is by far one of my favourite movies, so I was interested to see how they would make it into a play. It was certainly interetsing, as with every school production, the cast was very nervy (it was opening night) and there were a lot of things that went wrong, however, all in all, there were a few performers that were really good and stood out amongst the others. The girl who played the character of Rizo captured her personality and portrayed that both physically and vocally. Unfortunately the boys had no resemblance to John Travolta though! In a theatrical aspect, they used multimedia quite a lot in regards to sound, and of course for the sing-a-long music. There were basic props used, however these were used quite effectively and I think they were quite good. There was a hint of naturalistic theatre as they were eating real food and drinking real wine (cordial). The choreography was quite well done, although there was some lacking of motavation from the boys!! I think the lighting was not used effectively, at our school, we have a very basic lighting setup and this school had a much better sound and lighting setup, however we use our lighting much more effectively and symbolically where I felt they just used their lighting to…light the stage so people could see! However you do have to realise that it is a amatuer production, and they have not attended  theatre schools or universities dedicated to the arts, so it is harsh when comparing them to professional productions. Although it certainly was an interesting experience!!!

Knives in Hens: After finally getting to the Beckett theatre (yes, like Samuel Beckett-Theatre of the Absurd!!) as a result of getting lost in the city, we finally saw this production. The imediate feature about the set that I noticed when I walked in was the use of shadow, reflection and silouettes. Throughout the entire production the stage was never intensely lit, we were in a constant state of low light. This really emphasised the presences of shadows, everything had a shadow. I am bit unsure why this was, but my interpretation was that the producer wanted to either a) emphasise that what you see has another side, ie. the shadow-this comes through in the characters, or b) wanted the set to have an eerie and ominous atmosphere. I really enjoyed the ambiguity of this play, the dialogue was sometimes structured, and other times only semi-structured. There was never really a set time that the actors would use structured or un-structured words, it was just random. Now into the plot so you understand a little more of what I am talking about!! A young woman married to a far older man (a ploughman, an accepted villager) must take her seeds to be ground into flour at the miller’s house. This house is out of the village, and the miller has been used as a scapegoat for the death of his wife and daughter. The young girl takes on a journey of oppression to liberation as she becomes closer to the miller, and this directs her to murder her husband (well he was sleeping with other women in thier own barn!). She takes the miller’s place as miller at the end of the production, showing the shift in personality she has undertaken. Actor Kate Box carries this out perfectly, she becomes more fluent and comprehendible in her speech whilst the miller becomes free of his past life and profession. There was not a lot of sound used, only ominous tones when something ominous was happening!!! Also the murder of the husband was not seen on stage, instead sound effects were used.

From thinking about it on the weekend and discussing it in class on Monday, I will be able to add other people’s opinions.

.:Finally finishing my R.I:.

Well just when I thought I had finished my resserach investigation, I realised that I needed to do a whole lot of proof-reading and fixing up!! I am really glad I am almost finished, but it is interesting when reflecting back on what I have learnt-which certainly is a great deal!!!

I am really glad that I chose Vaudeville as my research investigation topic, it is so interesting and to come from knowing nothing about Vaudeville to knowing heaps and heaps! Next up is my IPP, I’ve already started but I am having real difficulties understanding the structure. I will definately read my syllabus through again and see if I can gain some more insigh from there!

.:Beginning my IPP:.

I began my IPP today. I just started off by looking in the ‘bible’ or syllabus as it is better known! This really refreshed my mind as to how to structure my IPP and what really needs to be included. As I’ve done option B, I feel as though I am going to have a lot of visual materials to support what I am saying. I asked my peers and teacher if they knew of a good IPP example which the IBO had given out, we looked on a IB theatre site which is usually really helpful to us, but there were only Option A samples there, one which had recieved 12/40 and one which had recieved 20/40. I read through the 20/40 sample and I thought it was quite good and well structured, however when looking at the examiner’s comments it became clear where the student had lost all of their marks.

The student only recieved 1/10 for the evaluation section. I think this is the most important section and was suprised that it was not really delved into :/ however the student had actually done quite well in the other sections. Although it was stated as a HL example, it only had four sections where it had been marked (like SL) whereas HL has a criterion E as I found out from reading my syllabus. Was a little bit confused over this, so my teacher is going to check up on that for me. Also, we were told that our IPP has a word limit of 3,000, which seems like a lot of words but as this is really a creative piece where it’s your own opinion, I think that will be easy to fill, just time consuming!! My most important goal for this piece of theatre is to make sure that I really get across what the message of the play was because that seemed to be a really important point stressed by my teacher, the marking teacher and the IBO syllabus. So as long as I underpin the real meaning to why we put on this performance, it should be alright!!

We are going to see an amatuer performance of ‘Grease’ the musical on Thursday, and then ‘Knive’s in Hens’ on Friday night, looking forward to both

.:Wiked:.

Very fun day yesterday! We went and saw Wiked the musical. I have already seen this, and I have written about the aspects of it in a previous blog. But as with most things, when you watch it again you always see something you’ve missed! The other theatre girls really loved it. I really enjoyed the technical aspects, the various vocal performances and the amazing choreography. However, although it was quite stunning visually, it was not my favourite theatre performance I have seen yet. Musicals are fun and exciting for the audience, but I feel they, and in particular Wiked, lack real symbolism of what the director was really trying to get across to the audience. I just feel it came through stronger in other theatre productions I have seen, maybe this was due to the intense ‘in your face’ factor created by the combined theatrical elements present in this particular performance? Maybe it was really all about appearance, because although that was what the aim of the storyline was (don’t judge a book by it’s cover), there seemed to be a lot of airy-fairy bright and colourful things. I’m not being overly skeptical, but it didn’t really delve into that heavily for me. But then I guess that is musical theatre so I’ve heard!!

Well now told you what I don’t like about Wiked, I’ll share with you what I do like about this particular performance. First of all, the lighting was quite amazing, the green theme really came through here. The gobo effects were also quite amazing, especially the illusion of the rain. I also really loved how the lights were either slowly faded out, or gone straight away. I also noticed a man on either side of the stage using spots to light the two main characters, this was effective in the OZ scenes especially as all other lighting was green!

The costumes were really exquisite, there were many costume changes which were quite fast, so I would be particuarly interested in how the costumes were designed to compensate for this. Although, I do believe I saw buttons all up the side of one dress, so I think this may have been a way they were doing the quick changes. I believe they looked most elaborate in the OZ scene, where every costume had elements of green. 

I quite enjoyed the vocal techniques used in this performance, my teacher pointed out to me that they were using an older style of singing which really came through in all of the scenes. Combined singing and choreography was really amazing, I love to see anything like this, and I think there was such alternative choreography and I really enjoyed seeing these put together.

The set design was simple however it gave it an elaborate appearance. The main focus for me was the giant dragon at the top of the set design, it was only used twice, and I feel for such an amazing puppetry piece it was quite underused. There were other elements of puppetry in this performance, such as the elaborate display of the talking head used by the Wizard of Oz to suffice to people’s expectations. Also, the lion cub scene was also a puppetry scene, the puppeteer sat under the cart which covered to operate the lion on top of the cart.

Well, I think I’ve mentioned most of what I liked about it in my other blog, so I’ll leave it at this, I definately am under the impression that no money was spared making this elaborate, but enjoyable musical!!!