24th November 2015

In today's lesson we started thinking about how we're going to show the Suffragette that ran in front of the horse in this scene. Firstly we watched War Horse online to see how they created a horse. Once doing this we decided to have 2 horses as it seems more realistic as Emily Davison was hit by the kings horse as well as others competing and there was a problem of having too many legs to create just one. Once we'd created the start of this we then add some physical theatre by using lifts on Ellie who plays Emily. We first done this quite well but what we were doing was quite dangerous so the group and I went over it a few times so that we had trust in each other.
My ideas that I contributed this lesson was that we should recreate the audio of the race that Emily Davison died during and play that over the top of this scene. This idea wasn't used because the audio back then wasn't clear enough for us to hear, as we wasn't going to use this I came up with another idea to get sound effects of a horse race and then screams to play over the top of our scene so it seems more realistic.
To make today's lesson better we could've added music over the top of the physical piece instead of the sound effects. Next lesson I plan on finishing off this scene and getting more research done for other scenes.

23rd November 2015

In today's lesson the group and I added Tom to the opening to our performance as he wasn't in. Once we had done this we started to perfect this, to do this we showed our teacher the movement peice and got given detailed feedback. After spending all lesson perfecting this we then showed it to the other group and got given more feedback. Now we've perfected the opening I plan on filming it next lesson to show the progress we've made since last time we done it.
Along with filming next lesson I plan on starting the Suffragette scene and getting a lot done on that. To make today's lesson better we could've worked quicker to get through the opening or used more techniques in the opening instead of just doing the movement piece as it could make the piece look more effective and mean more to the audience. I'll be doing some extra research into movement pieces to help us with our next Suffragette scene as I think we'll be using some movement again during this scene. 

19th November 2015

In today's lesson the group and I worked on an opening scene. In this scene we wanted to use movement but not make it too similar to our Human Trafficking scene. After all pitching ideas together last lesson we finally started to create and workshop different ideas together in the opening. The first thing we done once the movement piece was made was try it to each song. At first we tried it to The Sound Of Silence- Simon & Garfunkel and we really liked this but I thought it'd be a good idea to try out the 2 songs I had suggested in the earlier lessons. These songs were Take Me To Church-Hozier and I Need- Maverick Sabre. The group and I listened to these two songs and decided that we liked the instrumental to Take Me To Church and we liked the lyrics to I Need. This led to us work shopping the opening with both songs and we finally decided to use I Need by Maverick Sabre which was one of the songs I suggested. Here is how the opening currently looks:

To make things better in this lesson I believe we could've tried something else to open up the piece such as projection or quality dialogue which we could've gradually worked on. This could've left more of an impact on the audience because then they'd know the full meaning of our show before we've started to perform. The reason why this may have not worked though is because as a group we decided to not give anything away to the audience until the end where they'll realise the performance is all about Womens Rights but they'll see that the main character of every scene is a man which shows that men still have more rights than women.

Next lesson I plan on showing Tom his role in the opening as he wasn't in todays lesson and then polishing the opening with him in it.

17th November 2015

In this lesson we managed to get quite a lot done. I contributed many ideas and helped out quite a lot within the group. Firstly in this lesson we discussed how we're going to open the peice, what we should wear and how people will be recognised as the main character. My first idea was to use a watch as the symbolic object which the main character of each scene will wear, the reason I think it should be a watch is because during our peice we show things from different time periods. My other idea that links with this is that before each scene we have the main character turn the time on the watch and then have a projection of a clock going round on a screen. I also thought that in our Suffragette scene we should show the video of the woman getting hit by the horse. During the lesson we also created the monologue for our Suffragette scene, this will be a work in proggress as we want to crete quality dialogue. Later on in the lesson when we decided to start thinking of a movement peice for the opening, I contributed the songs 'Take me to church' and 'I need'. The first song we used for the opening was 'The sound of silence' then we tried it with 'I Need' by Maverick Sabre which worked out better so my idea was used.
Next lesson I plan on making the Suffragette scene and finishing it. The idea I'll give for that is to make our own flyers and posters. To make today's lesson better we could have started blocking the Suffragette scene and got further into making the movement for the opening scene as today we only got slightly into it.

Suffragette Research

Since I know next lesson will be based on Suffragettes I done some research into some of the things that the they'd do when protesting. The reason I done this is because the group and I originally had the ideas that the Suffragette scene would start with a protest and the women would be handing out badges and leaflets to the audience and putting up posters. I found these two pictures of a badge that the Suffragettes would've worn and given out and a magazine that the Suffragettes and feminists would've read around them times.
I've also looked online to find an influential film for this scene and use a trailer or TV program in which I could use ideas from for this scene.

10th November 2015

During this lesson I watched the group perform their 'forced marriage' scene as I wasn't in when this piece was constructed. Then we ran through our Human Trafficking scene and had photographs taken. We also spent some time talking about costume and decided that we're all going to wear blacks and then have a small item of clothing we can change into to show that we are a different character to who we were before. The ideas I gave this lesson was that we should use different colour lighting depending on what scene we're doing. Another idea I gave this lesson which I think could be very powerful and useful would be when I am guiding Ellie to each man that each of them slowly take off her clothes until I catch her and she's all in black. The reason I think this is poweful and would have a big impact on the audience is because it shows that throughout her life as a slave she'll be treated badly by men until she comes back to me and is left with nothing (shown by her wearing all black and no costume left).
 Next lesson I plan on making the projection for our performance, this will help as the audience won't get confused between our scene changes. This lesson we could have improved things by choosing what colours we're going to use for each scene and/or start working on our next scene which is the suffragette scene.

5th November 2015

In today's lesson we started to work on our 'forced marriage' scene. For this we had to decide characters and think about how we can base it around the male and how he can be our main character which after a long debate was sorted. Next it was onto how we could start this scene, I had the idea that the scene could start with 2 men talking on the phone about arranging a marriage for their children. Then the group and I faced a problem, as we only have two females in our group we had to find a way of having two mothers and a wife. The way this was solved was by me coming up with the idea that the main male characters mother has recently died and therefore calls his friend living in England and tells him to get his daughter to marry his son; of course the Englishman accepts as it means he will gain wealth and high status in the foreign country.
The Englishman tells his daughter they're going on holiday and then throughout the holiday manipulates and mentally abuses her into getting married to this boy. That is so far the storyline I have come up with, In the beginning I had the idea that the phone call between the friends could be about the loss of the boys mother and then the two friends get onto the topic of needing a new 'family'.
Today I believe to improve what we could've done was speed up with contributing ideas so that we could actually start blocking the scene. An alternative to today's lesson could've included making the transition from the Human Trafficking scene to the Suffragettes scene and/or start blocking the Suffragette scene. Next lesson I plan on making a start on blocking the Forced Marriage scene and to hopefully get a strong outline of how it'll look.

3rd November 2015

After being indecisive last lesson about what scene to work on today I went home and done some research into our topic that night and found a film trailer which is all about human trafficking. The reason this could be helpful to my group is because we could use some of the ideas and techniques given off in the film and transform them so they our suitable for our own piece. The trailer I found is for the film 'Trade' which was released in 2007 about a family in New Mexico. Today's lesson was all about everyone showing research and topics that we'd all found in order to put our next scene together. Here is the trailer I found.

2nd November 2015

In todays lesson the group and I went over our movement piece as we had forgot quite a lot of it over half term. In the lesson we changed a few parts to make the scene more touching to the audience. This was done by being more aggressive towards our victims and changing some timings on each part of movement so that it fit in better with the music (Radioactive- Imagine Dragons). During the second half of the lesson we decided to try and think what scene we were going to move onto next. We came to an agreement of doing the Suffragettes scene after this one. 
Today I developed my character by making him seem more sinister by breaking up Ellie and Freya and saying 'Use a slave to catch a slave' without looking at them. Not only does this make me seem like an evil character and make the audience dislike me but it shows the disrespect I show the women that work for me.
Other things we could've done today was maybe add some more dialogue into our movement piece or make it a bit longer, doing this could give a bigger impact on the audience as they would be able to witness the abuse that women get from men once they're trafficked in a more naturalistic way. This would've been done by stage combat or using a strobe light to slightly sensor what was going on.
Next lesson I plan on working on either the Suffragette scene or come up with a brainstorm for other scenes.