22nd February 2016

In today's lesson the group and I worked on scene six which is the most tense scene and is the most important when it comes to positioning. The reason for this is because it's the scene where William takes a gun into school and shoots three of the other students. The reason positioning for William is so important is because he needs to be in control of the situation the entire time. Of course William is in power at all time as he's the one with the gun but to be in control of the situation he needs to be positioned so that he never has his back to any character or they could try to attack/counter his plans. The only character that William doesn't care about being positioned behind him is Chadwick.

The reason William doesn't care about Chadwick escaping is because William has the idea to kill himself after killing the others so in a way he needs someone to explain his story/reasons for killing the others. The reason why William chooses Chadwick to escape and isn't bothered about it is because out of all the students Chadwick is the only one that doesn't target/wind up William. Also Chadwick isn't the type of character to fight back and try to stop William; in a way Chadwick might sinisterly enjoy the looks of fear on the faces of the kids that've bullied him for so long.

In this scene we chose that William should show the audience the gun before he shows us. This is because it'll show why he told Lilly to not go into school tomorrow the night before. Also when we react to it it shows that he's clearly been thinking the situation through for a long time and how he's going to manage it. He knows that his main target is Bennet. That's who he really wants to kill but he's not going to hold back on anyone else that gets in his way. This is shown by 'fight or flight' by this I mean it's a situation where you'll either fight to survive or 'flight' to go along with what's happening and do nothing about it. During William's outbreak we're shown that the only character that fights is me, Nicholas. All the other character sit there scared and panic. I think that this shows a lot about my character. Not only that he thinks he can defuse the situation but because he's the most confident person out of the group.

This lesson helped me gain a deeper understanding into each charcter and what they're really like. To have made this lesson better we could've worked out if we wanted to change lighting for this specific scene. I'd of also liked to have got onto the scene with Dr Harvey as I have some good ideas to contribute for this scene. Next lesson I hope to perfect scene six and move onto the Dr Harvey scene and make a group choice/workshop who'll play Dr Harvey in the final scene.

4th February 2016

During today's lesson the group and I decided on what do early on (as our list of constitutions say we have to plan ahead for each lesson) and we decided to run through the play from the beginning and see how far we could get. We managed to get to the very final scene today but decided to leave the final scene for next lesson as it's a very tense scene and has a lot going on in it. During the rehearsal we decided to make the scene where everyone is going crazy over a wasp very dramatic and over the top. 

Also from getting deeper into the script I've realised that my character, Nicholas Chatman, isn't really phased by the other students at the school and doesn't care about them messing around during their free lessons (in the library/common room). The reason I think this is because a lot of the time during scenes there's something interesting/big going on and he sits there quietly until he's spoken to or until he needs to make an input in the conversation.

To make today's lesson better we could've possibly worked quicker through the script so we could have done the last scene or atleast read through the last scene so that we could've done more research over the weekend into it on how we wanted the scene to look and to be set out. Since making the constitutional list the group and I have worked together a lot better as we all now have guidlines to follow. Next lesson I plan on reading through the final scene, running through it and getting it basically blocked.

2nd February 2016

In today's lesson we learned about constitutions. After speaking about constitutions and learning more about them our company created our own set of constitutional "rules" to follow. Below are the ideas we've all agreed on following.

Once we'd finished deciding on what our constitutions were going to be we got on with running through the first few scenes. During the run through there was a lot of things that we wanted to change after we'd all researched more into our characters. For example we decided that Bennett needs to be more contradicting and rude to Chadwick and that William has to be creepier and more obsessive with Lilly. I decided that my character really needs to be in love with himself and have pride in everything he does. Although sometimes (especially when speaking to Lilly) he gets quite nervous and awkward. When Lilly and I are talking about keeping our relationship secret I've decided I need to be more sorry with what I'm saying. More forgiving and feel like I think I'm upsetting her. We still haven't decided on the private school we're going to base our performance on but it's likely to be one in the South East so that the group and I don't have to waste time work shopping voices and accents. Next lesson we plan to run through the second half of the script and then block how we want it to be staged as it's mostly all set in one place. I plan on working on my voice for next lesson as I'm currently finding it hard to pronounce every letter when I speak.

Character profile and my first impression on Nicholas Chatman

My name is Nicholas Chatman, I'm 18 years old and one of the oldest in my school. I currently live in Hampshire where I attend Princes Mead school sixth form. I've been going to this school since year 7 and I'll soon be attending Oxford or Cambridge university where I want to take on a degree in Psychological and Behavioural Sciences. Once graduating from university I wish to become a sports psychologist.

I'm currently undertaking a lacrosse scholarship at my school and I train everyday. I like to spend the rest of my spare time in the gym or meeting up with the new girl, Lilly. Lilly's recently moved here from Cambridge and herself and I are in a secret relationship. Although I really like Lilly I don't want to make it official as I have a lot to concentrate on in order to pass my exams and do well at lacrosse. Luckily she only lives a 10 minute walk from where I live.



My personal impression on Nicholas

My personal opinion on Nicholas after reading the script is that although he's very confident on his knowledge and always knows what he's talking about he sometimes doesn't seem to be confident around the other students. I say this because there are a lot of times during the script where he'll say something and then leave it a long time until he says another line.

On the other hand I believe Nicholas tries to get himself involved after being quiet for a long time by asking weird questions. For example at the very start of the script he buts in to the conversation with William and another character to ask 'Have you started revision yet?'

The way I'll play Nicholas is that he's confident around a few people but when all the characters are involved he's quite socially awkward. Also he seems as if he thinks he's above everyone at the school apart from Lilly so I'll keep this in mind whilst I speak to the others and tone things differently depending on who I'm talking to.