I found that my group all took part in developing the script and organizing the structure of the play to make it the best we could, all of the members of the group showed excellent facial expression and movements as well as using the stage to express their feelings to the audience. This was achieved as our main aim was to prove the audience how families were in the Falkland’s war I trust this got through to viewers. Our other aim to make the audience believe they were in the play themselves watching while the Falkland’s war was happening in first person. we did this by our determination in our writing and our performance, as our feedback the viewers told me that the plot was excellent our voice movement and overall acting was very good they also said that they never saw that angry or ever herd me shout that loud and that they said I portrayed the father character exceptionally well also they told me all the members of my group were incredibly excellent. The directing was done in the group as we all participated there were no leaders we split the task in the 5 parts meaning everyone was doing something.
Our main objective was to show the audience how by going to war can ruin a family and how dreadful the war is this was especially done by our facial expressions
Movement and voice we used the themes of anger and sadness to get our message across.
My character ‘the dad’ is an old ill-tempered aged man that is a widower and has two children. He sits in his chair and orders people around to do everyday jobs for him I was inspired for the part while watching the Jackson 5 movie when Joe Jackson the father of Michael Jackson showed little love for his children before watching the Jackson 5 movie I didn’t know how to be a awful father but after seeing Joe Jackson horrible attitude towards his children, it actually really helped me to understand my character more. Another way I built my character and got used to being the father was by my mood board and being hot seated in class. Hot seating helped me very much because while in the sat I felt like I was the character and I was acting like the dad this helped me understand the character more which made me really comfortable to be the character . I did plenty research to help with my role like watching many movies when fathers have a big role in like pursuit of happiness this helped me understand how will smith showed his love for his child and this helped with me caring for my daughter rose in the play. Other research I did was looking on various websites what the fashion was for the early 1980s this helped out loads as I look more like a father in the 1980s I found out that they wore black trouser green or blue shirts and mainly wore braces. I was a main character but not in all of the scenes like the Falkland’s war scene I wasn’t in that. It was nick, Henry, rose and Samantha
At the start of the play their was a closeness between the family but as the devised piece continued we separate due to the war and the situations that occurred while Henry and nick were at the war.
I feel that the performance went well as the audience gave us a warm welcoming and an excellent applause at the end I believe the audience enjoyed because everyone was quite and their no one talking while the play was going on which mean they were concentrating watching us act. We were in the time provided meaning our group did not go over it ran extremely smooth everyone remembered their lines not forgetting anything. Which helped the play flow better, we only had a one set change which meant not much time was being wasted on blackout and prolonged silences, the lighting worked extremely well as it corresponded with the scene. The reason our performance turned out to be successful was because of our practice before the actual day we did this by meeting up most lunchtimes and helping each other learn lines and sorting the stage out.
The set props and costumes were appropriate with the characters like how nick wore glasses when he was younger then as became older they changed from bigger to smaller showing how the times changed. Our group also used a radio to show the year we were in by having songs that occurred in that year like e.g. bohemian rhapsody. The special effects fitted amazingly as when we had the music of the planes flying over in the war scene, this made the scene feel more natural and made the viewers feel like they were in first hand viewing this added a certain atmosphere to it, that even helped our group as actors to become more engrossed in the scene and more conviction.
We began our plot development with a stimulus; It was the idea of war then we did a brainstorm and found many idea what to do so then we went home and found out a lot about the different wars that took place in the last 50 years and after we shared all of our research decided to do the Falkland’s war because we had found the most research for that war and it physically felt good to do that war. We decided to do a family copping without a mother and how they struggle with one person in the family being nick the son and how he does everyday house hold jobs. While we were decided the ending we thought the death of a character but thought it would have been hard to construct that so we choose to do the fight between nick and his father which was quite intense.
There were many directing strategies that we came up with but only used some like freeze frames and mimes. These strategies really helped us with the final piece as they got us ready for the day. We were very conscious of pace and used it as a tool in itself to show the groups shared emotions. We began with a quick manor portraying through many short scenes put closely together. The pace then dropped. Additionally, we approached use of space in a resourceful way. we cautiously considered each characters position and thought about how physical distance could hint at character relationship.
In conclusion I believe the devised piece went extremely well I was happy with the props lighting and the applause from the audience the whole group were really organized and ready for task in hand and helped with script writing which made everything so much easier for everyone their contribution was outstanding I believe the only downside for me on my part was again my movement I should have had movement other than that I play the whole play was a huge success
