Wednesday 20th January

Today was a peculiar day as a large majority of us had a GCSE Science: Physics exam at 8.50 so we had to have our usual morning talk without them, which Miss Hoad then repeated to them when they returned to the classroom once the test had finished.

We were given a sheet which we were to write our day plan on (which wasn't completely followed as the day stretched on). Once we had finished talking as a group we went onto the Apple Macs and created our new blogs on 'Blogger' which we found was much easier to use and much more efficient than the previously used software 'Wix' that everyone had been using beforehand.

In the second hour of the day we met up with Mrs Murphy and Mrs Harris, from Administration, Mr Sutton who is in charge of Adult Education, the Nursery and Health & Safety and Mr Beadell who is in charge of the Performing Arts project that I mentioned in my previous blog. Because we were all working sufficiently on our blogs and because Miss Hoad was having doubts about the scale of the Performing Arts Festival project she had the meeting with all four of the guests, instead of all of the Diploma students and her.

After break we moved onto our second task of the day, which would last up until lunch time, to do research on our artefact unit. We were to research the use of theatrical props, how objects are made and what different resources are used. eg. masquerade masks for Romeo and Juliet... made out of cardboard or plastic? These are the sort of decisions we must consider. We also needed to create a photo diary of the process of making our props and costumes, for evidence and a record on what we have done.

In the last half hour of the day Nikki began to sort out the make-up for our Genie of the Lamp (played by Michael Liggit), for Wishy Washy (played by Lewis Benfield) and for our drag queen, Widow Twanky (played by Ben Knight) before we rummaged through the bin bags that contained all of the costumes and dressed them in their correct costume. Once Ben Knight was dressed and his make-up and wig were perfected we took photos of him for our photo diary which will hopefully be in my next post.

Once the bell rang for the end of the school day our Abanaza (played by Alex Cusack) and Won Ton (played by Luke Davis) came into the classroom and we sorted out their costumes and make up (making them look BEAUTIFUL!!). Once everyone was ready we made our way down to the school hall to film the scenes which included Abanaza, Wishy Washy, Won Ton and Widow Twanky (although Widow Twanky was unneeded throughout the half hour of filming that we managed to get done, but she... or he? looked stunning anyway!).

Artefact: New Beginnings :)

13th January 2010

Today we were originally going to travel to the Ashcroft Arts Centre to take part in a workshop with the Head of Design from Guildford School of Acting, but unfortunately the weather stopped us getting there and, starting an hour late, we had a normal diploma day.

We took the opportunity to start our new Artefact Unit where we would be researching and creating props and costumes for the English department in our school to help make the studying of Shakespeare, for KS3 students, a little more... fun.

We were given a detailed brief to start the day and went through it slowly and carefully to ensure that everyone understood it thoroughly. Once that task was completed we sorted out the groups and to do that we put all of our names into a coconut bowl and Miss Hoad drew the names out, putting three students into each of the four groups, to see if we could work with different people - rather than the comfortable groups that we fit into on every task. The groups are;

Romeo and Juliet - Jake, Nikki and Sophie

Macbeth - Ryan, Michael and Hugh

A Midsummer Night's Dream - Ben, Heather and Cloudia

The Tempest - Hannah, Lewis and Nathan

For period three and four we researched our allocated plays by visiting the English department book cupboard (which later led to Miss Hoad getting in trouble for taking us in there) and to the LRC to find resources about Shakespearian theatre and prop making. Once we got back to our classroom we broke off into our groups and began to think about props and costumes that could be made, such as; wings, crowns and tiaras, costumes, scenery... Once we had thought about our props and costumes we met with Miss Page, Deputy Subject Leader for English, to discuss our basic ideas for our assigned play to see if she approved of the ideas and to see if she had any others in mind. She seemed very interested in our ideas and suggested a few ideas to help us improve our designs and final products.

In the afternoon Mr Beadell met with us to discuss a separate project that I had had a meeting with him about. The school was thinking of changing the annual Performing Arts Festival that is hosted by the school. They would change it to Sunday 18th July for the local community to take part, involving workshops and performances for them to take part in. They wanted the Diploma students to organise the whole day.

It seemed like a massive project.

We decided that next week we will meet with Mrs Harris and Mrs Murphy from the Administration Office and Mr Sutton, who is responsible for the Adult Education, Nursery and Health & Safety, so that we can talk with them about the day.

Scene: Slumdog Millionaire

On Wednesday 21 October the Creative and Media Diploma and Media and Film students from Portchester Community School took part in the National Schools Film Week, to see 'Slumdog Millionaire', which was put on at our local cinema (Odeon in Port Solent), free of charge.

We all met outside of the cinema in the morning and watched 'Slumdog Millionaire' (with subtitles!) with the other students from our school and children from other schools (which we did not know the names of...). As we were let into the cinema first we managed to snag the Premier seats, which then led to angry glares from the other children who had to suffer with sitting in normal seats.

Before the film began we were meant to recieve a talk from two people in the film business, but unfortunately one of the men did not arrive and his partner needed him to give the talk. So, without hearing about the film and its highlights from professionals we got on and watched the film.

Although I had seen sections of 'Slumdog Millionaire' when it was broadcasted on television various times it was not as magnificent and eye-opening as it was watching the whole film on the big screen. You hear about some of the horrible conditions that people live in in India on the news but some of the scenes in 'Slumdog Millionaire' were atrocious. How children fight for survival every day of their lives, rummaging through rubbish tips for food and resources. It's disgusting to think that we live with so much and take it for granted and they live with so little, sometimes nothing!

The story-line was magical and more effective than any other film that I had seen before. I found it enchanting how every question, or so, it would show a flashback from his past to tell how he knew the answer. Watching how he grew up and his struggle to achieve in the world was outstanding. You truly feel for Jamal Malik, in both childhood and adulthood. His brother Salim, on the other hand, is disliked throughout most of the film when he betrays Jamal and makes him feel small and weak, but Salim is also kind to his brother and helps him.

It is a truly moving performance and I am glad that this film has won so many awards since it was released.

Once the film had finished we made our way back to school and arrived just in time normal lunch. Once lunch was over we made our way into our classroom and updated our blogs, commenting on the morning we had just experienced. When individuals had finished their blogs they were to move onto their individual jobs for the pantomime performance.

Once school was over there was normal rehearsals that night.

Scene: Mayflower Theatre... AGAIN!!

On 7 October all Creative and Media students visited the Mayflower Theatre for a tour of the theatre and a talk from some of the people that work there about the business in media, how hard it was and they also gave us some ideas for advertising our pantomime. Unfortunately, we were not able to have a tour of the theatre, as the cast of 'The Sound of Music' needed an emergency rehearsal with the children in the play all day. The set was closed for everyone, apart from the cast.

We were put into mixed groups, children from all three schools intermixed with each other in the two groups and we went off in different directions for our talks of the day. The first one I experienced was a talk with Lorelei Reddin from the Southern Daily Echo, who explained the pressures that come with being a reviewer and the basic formulae of her reviews. She told us that she sometimes had to write her reviews within ten minutes of the end of the show for the newspaper the following day. She explained that she goes with friends to most of the shows that she reviews and takes their opinions, as well as others, into account, as well as her own, when she reviews shows.

She got the students to write reviews of their own about Quadrophenia within the time that she is given and she was to take them in at the end, read them through and declare a winner who would win tickets to a production that would be shown at the Mayflower Theatre soon (or currently).

The second talk that we were given was from the Press Officer for the Mayflower Theatre. She told us about different parts of the theatre and showed us pictures - old and new - and told us how old it was. (Pretty much basic information about the theatre, which is always good in a pub quiz!) She also gave us many ideas for the pantomime, such as promotion ideas that we would not have usually thought of when planning ideas for promotion.

It was a very interesting visit, and although we were not able to view the Mayflower Theatre behind the scenes we learnt lots of interesting facts about the media business and the theatre.

Scene: Pantomime 2

Since our last Wednesday meeting on "Aladdin" we have ran through the play (it taking three after school meetings) and found costumes and props for our characters and scenes .

I have begun to work on music, changing the melodies for songs that have been written for the play and finding songs for other scenes which will be needed for the pantomime. Hugh Seckington and I are managing the music for the pantomime and we have already found various songs and plotted out where to put them and the effects which we will have to use on them to make them fit in with the pantomime. We have gone to Ryan Lee (who is in charge of sound effects for the pantomime) and told him what parts we needed sound effects on and what they would have to be.

We have also begun to sort out a time schedule for when we will teach the actors the lyrics to the songs which they will have to sing on stage, during the performance. We have started recording our work on a software on the Apple Mac's called "Garageband" in the music room at our school. We decided to change the melodies for the songs that were given along with the script (originally written by Stuart Ardern) as when we ran through it with Ben Knight (as he can read music and Hugh cannot) I found it hard to sing it as there were so many flats and sharps among the songs that it was near impossible to sing. Ben also found it very hard to play the music on the keyboard so we altered and changed it to make it easier.

Scene: Pantomime 1

On Wednesday 7 September all Portchester Community School students who are taking part in the Creative and Media Diploma began to sort out their pantomime - "Aladdin".

We were each given a seperate brief which had been made specifically for our different jobs to do with the pantomime. I worked in two groups, with the people who I was working with (I'm working on two seperate parts of the project so I needed to work in two seperate groups). I went through the script with Hugh Seckington, writing down when music needed to be put in and what music. We noted this down and a copy of this is in each of our folders.

I then moved on to working with Lewis Benfield about possible marketing ideas, we came up with things such as; posting information on marketing websites (twitter, facebook, myspace, bebo, ect.), posters around Portchester, school website, tell family and friends, advert in assembly, and other ideas. We decided that we are going to take various pictures and recordings of the cast and rehearsal times to put on posters, websites and tickets etc.

We then met up with the rest of the group (including actors, dancers and crew from the rest of the school). As we did not have a person to play the Empress I volunteered to play the part and we decided that it worked very well because I am tall and Harry (who was originally the Emperor) is small. Since then, Jacob Rogers has taken over the role of the Emperor.... to my utter disappointment!

We stayed until 5pm working on the pantomime, running through as much of the script as we could whilst acting it out on the stage in the main hall of the school. We got a third way through the play and it was beginning to take place. Our actors were beginning to mold themselves in their characters.

Scene: Aspex Gallery and Portsmouth Museum

On Wednesday 23 September, Brookfield and Portchester students all made their way to Gunwarf Quays, via train, and arrived at Portsmouth Harbour train station just before 10am.

Once we'd arrived in Gunwarf we made our way hastily to the Aspex Gallery, which is among the Vulcan Building just off the centre of the Gunwarf Quays so it actracts many visitors from the main shopping centre.

When we got to Aspex Gallery we met Education Co-ordinator; Amy Lloyd who was working with us the whole time that we were there, in the morning. First of all, we all took part in an activity in small groups where we were to answer questions to do with art galleries and museums, after most of us admitting that we didn't go to them very often, if at all, the task would turn out to be quite hard but almost all questions were answered right. The questions were to do with funds, money, staff/employees, visitors, exhibits and artists. We all got a vast majority of the questions right, learning lots about the art gallery business and how it worked and we were then led to the main exhibition.

The main exhibition was called 'Witch Hunt' by Delaine Le Bas, and is an art work piece which is truly close to her heart - as she grew up with this type of life and experienced the pain and annoyance which is portrayed in her artwork. Delaine grew up as a gypsy and recieved the controversial attitude which is given to them by the rest of the community.

The artwork consists of paints and paintbrushes left on dust sheets along the walls, that have just been discarded as if someone were writing something and fled from something they heard - suspecting it to be someone who is going to hurt them in some way. There are also papers and news articles placed in a random, scattered fashion with the words "BULLSHIT!" written across the data. The news articles are biased against gypsies and it is blantantly shown in the articles.

There is scruffy writing, in paint, on walls, clothes and hanging plastic sheets saying frightening things about gypsies, such as; "Mother told me not to go into the woods to play with the gypsies". This is written on what looks like a home that they have created in their new location, made out of various materials that they have found.

There are discarded dolls around the 'homes' of the gypsies, which gives the idea that they have left in a hurry - possiby being chased out of town by the locals, who did not like their way of living. There are silhouettes of the witches that were not burnt at the stake, but were thrown in rivers, hung and left in cold, open fields,

Delaine's artwork 'Witch Hunt' deals with crucial issues of racism, sexism, bigotry, mis-representation, hypocrisy, transisitional displacement, homelessness and the horrors that millions of people have to face everyday in the world we live in. Her views on these subjects are obviously very strong and touch a few raw nerves in her but the artwork is, although bizarre and confusing, utterly beautiful.

Portsmouth Gallery

After visiting the Aspex Gallery and having lunch around Gunwarf Quays, we met up near the centre and made our way to Portsmouth Museum. Thinking that it would be an ordinary museum, with lots of interesting things with a few activities available for children in different sections of the museum. I was rather disappointed with the museum. I was delighted with the outside of it (being posh and well looked after) but the inside was much less impressive than I thought it woud be. There were very few exhibits and even they were disappointing - not containing much information or containing interesting objects to look at.

Their activities available for children (and other customers) were disappointing and were not fun looking at all! Although the museum was very cutural (having a whole exhibit for the Portsmouth football club) and was probably the most entertaining exhibit there, because of having a foosball table, a video-camera and recordings of old football matches where they have actually won!!