Wednesday 28th April: Workshop at Brune Park & Parents Evening

Today we went to Brune Park, after we finally managed to get a minibus and a driver to get us there. We had a workshop with Tina Gardiner and two of her degree students, PJ and Bobby, from the Guildford School of Acting (GSA). They started with some drama exercises, a few of which didn't go down very well (such as the exercise when they were to act like a fairy). We were soon put into groups and began the workshop that we were all there for.

In our groups we were to think of a short story, or freeze frame, to create to show to the rest of the group at the end of the day. After we had come up with our ideas each group had to nominate someone to collect props for their group from a huge pile of junk at the front of the very large hall. Ben was our nominee and he got so much random stuff that we had to somehow use in our amazing idea. Other groups were more successful at getting what they wanted than ours but we dealt with what we had.

At the end of the day we all had to perform our stories to the rest of the large group. There were junkies dying in alleyways, mermaids answering their 'shell' phones, immensely stupid astronauts getting their rockets repossessed, an intense self image performance, crazy people with telephones strapped to their heads who are convinced that the Germans are attacking and pirates on a sinking ship

Although the day began off rather rubbish, with everyone from Portchester Community School not wanting to go to Brune Park in the morning, it was a really good, creative day. We all enjoyed the workshop and want to do it again, but it's a shame that we didn't do it at the beginning of our Artefact Unit - hopefully next years Diploma group will be able to do it before instead of after their unit of work.

...

Later that evening we had parents evening and mine went fairly well, I just need to be more confident.

Wednesday 24th March

Today was our first meeting together after 2 weeks of work experience. We were a tad behind as we had not met up throughout work experience.

Our plan for the day was to pull the project together and to finish making the artefacts. We started the day by working out which parts of the project we had achieved and what we still had to do to make the work decent looking. There were quite a lot of print-outs and plastic wallets used up today and some of the projects were beginning to take shape - finally!

Common problems were:

• research copied and pasted from the internet with no thought given to what it meant for their artefacts
  
• research nothing to do with their artefact
• no planning of what they actually wanted to make
• no photo diary
  
• artefact not finished
• no evaluation of their work

The end of next wednesday is the final deadline of the project... hopefully it will all be done by then (fingers crossed).

Work Experience

Throughout work experience we didn't have to go to Diploma days over the two weeks, which then lead to us being two weeks behind on the Artefact Unit.

On Thursday 11th March most of us (except from Ben and Lewis due to work experience commitments and no Nikki or Nathan for unknown reasons) met at the Ashcroft Arts Centre to see a performance by the Spike Theatre Company, 'On Top of the World'. The show was amazing. It followed the journey of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay as they attempted to conquer Everest. The show was hilarious and very creative, as it involved the audience throughout the whole of the play. They used a variety of props to create the set, mainly involving ladders, but also using white clothes, elastic, ropes, cotton wool and bags. They used projections, puppetry and recorded voiceovers to make the show even more fun and it gave it an even more creative feel. One scene was especially funny, where two actors mimed the actions whilst the third actor made sound effects into a microphone. Sometimes he would make the sound effects out of time for a comedic effect.

It was really funny and I'd love to see it again.

Wednesday 3rd March - Paper Birds

Today was a weird, busy one. At 9am some year 9 students from Portsmouth schools, Priory and Mayfield, came over, for a Diploma taster day. Because they were in this morning we didn't have to come in to school until 11am. When we came in the year 9 students had created some good props and were really good at making things in such a good time. They spent the afternoon writing up a presentation on their process and production, whilst we were in the Gymnasium taking part in a workshop.

At 1pm the Brookfield crew arrived at our school and so did our workshop guest Ellen, who is a designer for the Paper Birds Theatre Company. She asked us to think about how we may create an atmosphere, character background or location with just props that can be easily moved on and off of the stage.

She then talked to us about the idea of creating a set in a suitcase, creating a character's whole world in just one small box. They would walk on to the stage with a suitcase, open it up and their world would be created. With this thought in our minds we had a go at creating some suitcases of our own that would create a set. We would first create a story line with four scenes and then we were to design four different suitcases that contained these worlds.

After we had all designed our suitcases we had to present our ideas to the rest of the group... we really need to work on our presentation skills but other than that our designs were good.

...

That evening we travelled by minibus, thanks to Miss Flux who drove us, to the Ashcroft Arts Centre in Fareham to see the Paper Birds production of 'In a Thousand Pieces'. The performance followed the story of three young eastern European girls who had been promised new, exciting lives in the UK but they are then sold into the sex trade. The story was very strong and was a very graphic piece of theatre. It was a real shock for us all as we didn't know what it was about before we went into the theatre. The way the play was performed was very interesting, as it involved 3 actresses playing the same character. A tape recorder of 'her voice' with recordings of her speaking was repeated throughout the play, giving it a real impact. It was really shocking.