Wednesday 14th July 2010: Portsmouth Live TV

Today was an odd one.

We started the day working on our Record Unit. We began making our documentary, as my group had planned thoroughly at the end of last Wednesday. Jacob and I wrote up a list of social networking sites to get screenshots of their login pages for the beginning of our documentary. We had to log onto Miss Hoad's user to put it in a file on the Curriculum for both Jacob and Ryan to access on their users.

At 12pm Mr Castle drove the minibus to take us to Portsmouth Live TV. We had a quick lunch in Subway and ran through the pouring down rain to get into the Portsmouth Live TV building.

Once everyone was in the small building the Project Manager, Neville Stiles explained to us what the company was, what they did and just general information about the company itself. They currently only exist online and broadcast programs about the local area to the local area. They started in 2009 and cover the whole PO postcode area. They get most of their income through advertising and everything made by them is with excellent quality things but on a very cheap scale, making it easier to create more than other companies like theirs. In the future, they hope to the branch out to create a Brighton Live TV, Southampton Live TV, Bournemouth Live TV, etc.

After talking with Neville Stiles we spoke with the Managing Director, Thomas Haas, who has worked with BBC and Living TV and also as a war photographer and camera man.

He explained to us that they use 'Final Cut Pro' for editing their work and that they use Ofcom guidelines, even though there is no requirement of online television to do so.

He explained how they have set up their broadcasting and their own software. He spoke about all of the technical stuff that was a little farfetched for me on some parts.

I found it a really interesting visit, despite a few little parts being a tad boring, and I may try doing some work experience with them over the summer. :]

Wednesday 7th July 2010

We started with the group evaluations for our pieces of Theatre in Education. We focused most of our thoughts on the negatives, which Miss Hoad didn't like, so she made us divide a page into things that had gone well or badly. We then discovered that although there were quite a few bad things in the performance there were also quite a few good things, such as the planning, narration, the acting (which was also a bad point as Nikki came out of character a lot), and the improvisation. I then went through the evaluations that the Year 7 students had completed and I was really surprised when I found that over 70% of them rated the performance good. They also gave us some really helpful suggestions about things that need improvement.

We then had to each write our own evaluation on our performance, including data about the responses from the Year 7's.

Until lunchtime we were all putting our Performance portfolios together; improving TiE reasearch, annotating scripts, notes and props, printing out blogs, etc.

After lunch we started to think about the Record Unit documentaries. We divided the two theatre company groups into four smaller groups, which would be more manageable and would give everyone something to do. The groups are:

Elastic Bandits:

Group 1 - Heather, Nathan, Ryan and Jake

Group 2 - Hannah and Nikki

Constellation:

Group 1 - Ben, Cloudia and Hugh

Group 2 - Michael, Lewis and Sophie

We seperated into our small groups and began planning how we would like our documentary too look. We thought about narration, scripts, who would do what and the basic gist of it.

We're going to be rushed next week as we are going to Portsmouth Live TV from 12 - 3 and we have two weeks to finish our documentaries. I'm coming in at 8am next week, along with some other people to try and get as much done as possible.

Wednesday 30th June 2010 - Doomsday!

There was a lot to do today... and most people only just seemed to realise that. We started off the day by going over the Performance Unit folders to see what needs to be added, as that project needs to be finished and wrapped up as soon as possible. We then started with our Theatre in Education people. I had so much paperwork to do, like finishing off my scripts, the groups scripts, talking to Mrs Ball about the class, organising everything to take down there, photocopying, rehearsals, and so much more!

Nathan made the 'bully' comments for the year seven's to read out during the performance.

Hannah and Nikki practiced the fight scene (not enough as it turned out when I watched it just before the actual performance)

Nikki also spent a lot of time online, printed a picture of her and Jake off to make a photoframe prop for Jacob's bedroom.

Ryan worked on the backdrop and music

Jake practiced the fight scene and... wandered around trying to find something to do all day.

When it actually came to performance time we had a lot of technical trouble, with the backdrop and the music not working, which in result made the impact of some of our most important scenes less dramatic. We were forced to just continue on with the performance, which made us remember about what Annabel had said to us a few weeks ago when she first came in "don't rely on technology so much like all TiE groups who will likely be traveling from school to school only being able to use what they take with them". Ryan, the tech guy of the group, was really annoyed at the lack of tech and felt that he had let the group down (and Nikki's hateful comments weren't helpful either). The performance itself went really well, even without the technology. The year seven's liked the 'bullying' scene and the 'fight' scene and I felt that I did really well to introduce the piece and who we are. I also allocated some of the year seven's to be 'bullies' and called them down from the audience and motivated them to do what I wanted them to do well I thought. They responded well to my questions, although they were quite personal questions, such as 'Have you ever been bullied or been a bully?'. Afterward I thought that I could have gotten them to be more open by answering the question myself to break down the awkward barrier between us all. They were quite a difficult group to work with - most of which were bullies but they didn't realise it and we noticed it a lot from where we were standing. Following the performance, the questions and the evaluation sheets Mrs Ball kept the year seven's in the Dance Studio so that they could have a discussion about the issues within the group.

Next week we have to put together our Perforamance Unit folders, print out the blogs, analyse the evaluations... AND make a start on our Record Unit. According to Miss Hoad we will be storyboarding and planning and hopefully have everything uploaded to the Curriculum area so that we can make our own documentary.

The week after we're heading off to Portsmouth Live TV for half the day, which we're all a bit worried about as it will take a huge chunk out of our work time on our documentaries.

Wednesday 23rd June 2010

Today we took up Annabel's offer to let us go to the Ashcroft Arts Centre and use their Dance Studio for rehearsal. We had a little bit of a problem with the minibuses so we ended up having to get the bus to Fareham. It was £46.80 for the 12 of us as we all had to go as adults, even though Miss Hoad had her teachers badge with her to prove that we were all students... but the annoying bus driver didn't believe us.

We divided the space into two and we each set up our props, including tables, chairs, things from our bags, cameras and computers. We had some good and bad rehearsal time - when we first got there no-one was really in the mood for doing anything so I had to try and motivate my group into doing the work, as I don't want this performance to fail. We rehearsed the play numerous times and, much to their annoyance, made Nikki and Hannah rehearse the fight scene over and over and over again.

I think that I've really come out of my shell in this unit and took charge of the group, even though they really haven't wanted to work I've tried to push them and when they can't be pushed into doing the work I've just got on with my own, and more paperwork to make everything more clear for me, the rest of the group and anyone else who would loo

k at my folder. I really hope that our performance doesn't crash as burn after all the hard work that we've put into it.

Next week we really need to get everything ready for the performances, as we're performing next week! There is still lots and lots of work that needs to be done, but hopefully it will all work.

I really want this performance to go well (fingers crossed)!

Wednesday 16th June 2010

We started off the day differently this week, by seeing who was up-t0-date with their blogs... Ben and Sophie were the only two to complete their blogging about the week before. Miss Hoad decided to get us all motivated for blogging next week by giving out sweets to those who had done their work.

Miss Hoad explained to us briefly about what our blogs are to include, with things like:

• what I have done today
• what I have learned
• strengths and weaknesses
• what I (and my group) need to do next

Today we really needed to crack down and rehearse our performance pieces. We had Annabel coming in at 10am to view our work so far and to help with what we had and what we should do next.

After each group had performed we all explained what was and wasn't successful about our work. After break Annabel gave each group half an hour of help, suggesting things that we could change, or get rid of.

Both groups used technology and we realised that we were all relying on it way more than neccessary. It was easier to let go of the technology... for most people.

Annabel found our first scene

very powerful but then felt that the intensity dragged and got lost very quickly when it moved into the second scene. She suggested, and made, the play more physical, with stylised theatre and audience interaction. She taught Hannah and Nikki a choreographed fight scene that we added "Foo Fighters - All My Life" to for more impact.

By the end of the day things were looking up, with our play finally coming together properly.

We now have two weeks (roughly 12 hours) left until we have to perform to a 'lucky' group of year seven's (:

Next week we have to rehearse, rehearse, rehearse!

Wedneday 19th May 2010

Today was another productive day (we seem to be having a lot of them lately). Ben was really good today, organising his group and getting them to do the work - Miss Hoad was really proud of him.

We started by reviewing our company names and logos and created our own headed paper, which was a fairly simple process, but Ryan seemed to spend most of the day on this task, creating his own version of it (which was crappier than the chosen version that we had been using all day). We then thought about some questions for our Theatre in Education project and started to answer those questions in an essay like thing.

Once we had completed our essay's we all completed a questionnaire on safe internet use, that Miss Hoad had found on the 'Think U Know' website. We then used Miss White's Year 7 class to complete the questionnaire too, as they are our target audience and we will be presenting our final Theatre in Education performance piece. We split the class in two and each company took one half and talked with each other about Cyber Safety. Once back in our diploma room E1 I analysed the results for our company and although we did it most of us were surprise to hear that most of them had a Facebook account since Year 5, even though you are supposed to be 13 years old to sign up. And a few of them had actually met up with people that they had met over the internet, which shocked us.

We briefly looked at the websites: www.thinkuknow.co.uk/

and http://clickcleverclicksafe.direct.gov.uk/index.html

and we also watched the video 'Matt Thought He Knew'.

We used the information from the year seven's and discussed as a group what cyber safety means to us. Using the information from both the year seven's and us we began planning our Theatre in Education performance pieces.

We filmed our discussions and planning and will use the footage in our documentaries for our RECORD unit, that we will begin creating after our performance on 30th June 2010.

Next week we have a visit from Annabel, from the Ashcroft Arts Centre to talk about Theatre in Education. Hopefully, she'll be of help (fingers crossed).

Wednesday 12th May 2010

Today we started the day with our FS Maths exam, that Miss Hoad had forgotten about so our day plans were in desperate need of change.

Once our exam was finished and we had calmed down we started of with our presentations on 'Documentary' that we had prepared last week. We then had a visit from Mr Stapleton from Brune Park who was checking up on us and Miss Hoad's teaching. Our presentations were coming along fairly well but I still need to slow down my voice and stop talking at 70mph. Miss Hoad has made us stop our flaws in presentations by making us more aware of our physical presence when doing it; the giggling, the hands-in-pockets, the eye contact, the rushing...

We then moved on to creating names and logos for our production companies. The other group is called 'Constellation' and ours is called 'Elastic Bandits'. Our logo is based around a superhero teddy bear who is flying with a cape on in front of the world, this is held together with elastic bands. We discussed the meanings behind our name with Miss Hoad and explained to her about the hidden meaning of our name, that it was funny and cheeky but with a serious undertone.

We then began to start thinking about our documentaries and began to give our roles to people within our group. I then had to leave at lunch to run a drama workshop at Wicor Primary School with some year 4 students for my Bronze Arts Award portfolio. It went really well, and there are some really good actors/actresses in that group.

At the end of the day Ryan apparently demonstrated to everyone else how to use the tripods and camcorders that we will be using a lot over the upcoming weeks.