Outside rehearsal with Katie / exits&entrances & full run through evaluation

We have now rehearsed outside.Its very exciting to be working outside seeing as its an unusual working and performing environment.On the first lesson we just had a go at staging it and working out where will we wait before we come on. There will be some things we will have to over come when working out side like the weather and projection but it will look great . We made a map to make our exits and entrances easier to remember and learn.




We have now completed a full run through . After all the problems we were thinking of like ,hearing ques and finding our way around in the dark has been solved.For example there are little lamps to light our paths around the back of the wings. And waiting areas so we can hear ques. There was one very big problem which we have manged to solve . The Mud ! We have had to put big bits of cardboard down so there is  a clear path for us to walk on. The next problem we will have to face is the speakers and mics.

Today I fell my solo " stay with me" is the best I have ever done.I worked very hard on my projection and I am proud to say I was impressed with how I manged to sing, especially outside with back ground noise and a bigger area for my voice to travel.

Ofsted Lesson Hot Seating

Hot  Seating
During this lesson we thought it would be a good idea to work on characterisation and our characters super objective. A super objective is the main goal a charater has or wants to reach throughout the play . The Witches super objective is to regain her youth and beauty. The ingreedience the baker needs to find throughout Into The Woods does lift the curse of his family being barren but it also makes the Witch young and beautiful again.
To work on how we portrayed our characters we used a acting skill and game called hot seating. Hot seating is where you sit in a chair as your character and your peers have to ask you questions about yourself and background. You then have to answer as your character .

This is a really great method to get you thinking about your character. It helps you to understand how to portray your persona which makes for an all around good performance by you if you know and become your character to the best you can. Also by your class mates asking you questions you didn't necessary think about it helps you develop and think about new characterisation improvements and changes . 

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=google+image

Homework Breif

1. The Witch is effect by the context of the play becuase she is a villan, and is a stop character in all fairy tales. She has a stereotypical persona and is expected to live up to the classic mean , curel, scary enchanteress.
2.Our play Into The Woods fits in perfectly with the musical genre becuase it has equal dialouge and musical numbers.It also has the pridictable stoy line of a problem that the good characters have to overcome by defiting something evil.
3.Persoanly I would say the scene I am last confident on is scene 4. Therefore I think that will be the dialouge I will rehearse the most.
4.I would say that I am always a supportive member of any cast and will help anyone with songs or lines if they need honest advice.
5.I would most definatly say I have developed alot of confidence skills. Since joning college I would have never had any cofidenced singing in front of anyone , but once I had to audition within a week of stsrating college I thoght it was great practise to get used to being put on the spot and to be challenged.
6.I would say I've approached the tone and pitch of the character (Witch) appropreatly. I think the Witch has a high voice which sounds very cakerly. I thought I would go full out with the sterotyipical witch as the audience will relate to this kind of stop charatcter and this will make the performance for them a more fun, understanding and humours performance . I would say the Witches movements and gestuers are slow and entrancing. She will have some harsh moves especially when she arguing with Rapunzel but even then in the song Stay With Me she is trying to be seducing and hyipnotic.
7. I can say very confidently that my attendence has been very good. I always make an effort to be on time to rehersals . Stay at out of hours rehearsals for as long as I can . I know I always bring 100% of my energy to every performcance. My attitude is you either go full out or there is not point doing it . I think its very important to give everything your best shot, you should show people your potenical and positive attitude.
8.I would say im doing well on learning my lines considering i have 2 songs to learn alongside dialouge. I just need to rehearse and practice scene 4 as i am lacking some confidence in knowing that section of the play.
9.  I always keep notes on how im doing becuase i think its important to understand what went well in  a rehearsal and what i need  to come away thinking about improving. To show how we have blocked certian scenes i will be soon be uploading photos of the notes i have made around me lines. I think this is a good idea to show because is shows that i am paying close attenchion to what im thinking and developing about my character.Also it shows im analysing key elements of the performance for example, ques, entrances and exits , gestures, stage directions and personal staging notes.

Vocal Techiques

Todays lesson

Vocal techiques Into The Woods

• projection
• Range
• Scales
• arpeggios
• Diction
• Breath control
• Proounceation - "The way is clear,the light is good".
• Internation - note bashing -breath control-tuning "FEST,I,VAL The 'val' part of the song goes high and is held on a long note.
• Dynamics
• Tiempo
• pace
• Articulation
• Legato-smooth
• Staccato- harsh
• Also along side all theses skills we need to foucus on characterization and emotion in the song.

Singing Skills

Singing Skills

Warm up's

Good posture; to reach high notes and to reach the full capacity of your voice its good to keep a straight posture. Having a good air flow is the best way you can control your breathing therefore making the best sound.

Taking a deep breath; If you are tense at all while breathing, it will resound in the muscles of your vocal folds. You need to breathe normally, but keep your shoulders low and your chest relaxed. Concentrate on breathing lower staying loose throughout your core .A good technique is to place a hand on your stomach to remind yourself that the diaphragm is the muscle that will be giving you the best sound. Hold an "s" sound (like a hiss) when you exhale to control the amount of air that you can exhale.

The Jaw;It's important to release your jaw. Any tension at all will keep you from your best sound. A good way to warm up is by massaging your checks with the heel of each hand. Push in and down right below your cheekbone and rotate in a clockwise motion. Your jaw should open without you even thinking about it and be forced to relax.

Tongue exercises; To Work on lip and tongue trills is another important exercise. Another common method to warming up apart from scales are trills. They relax the lip and tongue, engage breathing, and eliminate tension. For lip trills, you should create a raspberry sound by loosely placing your lips together. Try with different consonant sounds, like "h" and "b." Go slowly up and down your range.

Vocal Anatomy

Vocal Skills
Vocal Terminology

Vocal system;;the voice is produced of sound made by a human using the vocal folds for talking, reading, singing, laughing, crying, screaming etc. The human voice is a part of human sound production in which the vocal folds (vocal cords) are the main sound source. The human voice can be divided into three parts; the lungs, the vocal folds within the larynx, and the articulators.
Pharynx; is your throat. Your voice box and vocal chords are located there. Its purpose is to send air into our lungs and pass food into our digestive system. And because of our vocal cords it allows us to communicate through sound.

Larynx;The Larynx is a nerve in the throat that produces sound. The larynx is connected to nerves in the spinal cord that send messages to the brain. The brain sends messages to these nerves that then make the Larynx contract and extract in different ways forming different sounds, pitches and tones.

Esophagus;The esophagus is a muscular tube connecting the throat (pharynx) to the stomach. The esophagus is 8 inches long, and is lined by tissue called mucosa. The esophagus runs behind the windpipe (trachea) and heart, and in front of the spine .Before entering the stomach, the esophagus passes through the diaphragm.

Phonation; Phonation is the process by which energy from the lungs in the form of air pressure is converted into audible vibrations to make sounds.

Trachea;The trachea (or windpipe) is a wide, hollow tube that connects the larynx to the bronchi of the lungs. It is a vital part of the body’s airway and has the most important function of providing air flow to and from the lungs for respiration.

Interval singing

Interval Singing
Today we learnt about the tuning of our notes-interval. We learnt how to sing the scales using numbers. And control our range and breathing. In addition to that we learnt to push our voices from, our diaphragm and not our head voice. An interval is the note on the scale that you sing. If you reach a 4 on the scale your interval is in the minor fourth.
Head Voice
The higher part of your singing voice is called head voice because most people feel the vibrations in their head or skull while singing in head voice.
Octave Range
An Octave Range is where you can reach the basic notes up to the count of 8.

characterisation Witch And research on Into The Woods

The witch
Into The Woods


The musical intertwines the plots of several The Brothers Grim Fairy Tale and follows them to explore the consequences of the characters' wishes and quests. The main characters are taken from "Little Red Riding Hood", "Jack And The Beanstalk", "Rapunzel ", and "Cinderella", as well as several others. The musical is tied together by an original story involving a childless baker and his wife and their quest to begin a family, their interaction with a Witch who has placed a curse on them, and their interaction with other storybook characters during their journey.
The Musical is a Broadway production that premiered in 1987 with music written by Stephen Sondheim and is based on the book written by James Lapine.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6a/Into_the_Woods_poster.jpg/240px-Into_the_Woods_poster.jpg 

In the musical's junior version I play 'The Witch'. She is the villain from Rapunzel. When a poor man breaks into her vegetable garden to steel greens for his maternal wife who has an urgent need for greens , she catches him. She curses him for breaking into her garden. The curse is that his family is to be barren and she demands to have the baby his wife will give birth too. She takes the baby and imprisons her in a door less and stair less tower.The only way to get to her is to climb up her long golden hair. However in 'Into The Woods' the witch has a transformation into who she really is, a good witch, but once Rapunzel is set free she wont accept what the witch did to her. Therefore the with looses her powers of cursing.
Personally i think the witch's disposition is grumpy and mean. After all a stereotypical witch is. But i think certain events in her life have made her this way for example, as a young women she was cursed and turned into a witch, witch's can't have children (hence her wanting to take the baker's child away) , she wants to bring back her youth and beauty and the baker stole from her. Underneath the witch's cruel exterior i think there is a kind, damaged women who had everything taken from her and she just envoys that everyone has never been cursed. So to make her self fell better she inflicts pain on others so they know what its like to be her therefore she is not in pain and fear alone. After all in a witches case, isn't it far better to be feared then loved ? But she is a different kind of witch, unlike the classic witch in other fairy tales you sympathize with this witch. We can tell that she hasn't just taken Rapunzel out of spite but because she has always longed for a child herself.
The Disney film of Into The Woods is out this December.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180411/

From this Poster It was evident that the Witch is a sinister character . She looks dark and negative.Her clothes are dark colours which could symbolise her dark , evil personality.Just by looking at the stereotypical image of a witch i already have a feel for how i will portray her.  

One to ones with Kim singing

Myself and Kim have practised the Witches Rap . We will be going through Stay With Me aswell. The Witches Rap I  find has really hard music becuacause you have to fit your words into a certian amount of beats otherwise the whole song will be out of sink. For example there are 12 beats at the begging of the song before I come in . In thoes 12 beats I have to fit in my dialogue in. We also worked on breath conrtol. Its important to know when to breathe in this song becuase there is alot to sing and not alot of time to fit it in. We decedie the places where I need to bretahe and into total for the first verse I breathe 3 times. Control of breath is also inmportant becasue you want to be able to reach the heights of important notes. I have also foccused on charaterisation througth the song. Its  a song full of impact therefore I feel the Witch needs to be up in the audineces face. She is there to tell everyone that she means buisness and I need to show that through the short punchy lyrics. 

Stay With Me Into The Woods solo work with Kat

Stay With Me
For my song 'stay with me' there isnt really a dance however there needs to be movment and interaction between the Witch and Rapunzel. I thought about some of the Witches stage directions and what her personas semantic feild involves. The stage directions for the song 'tender but intence' gave me the idea of reaching out to Rapunzel yet trying to scare her. For example on the line "Princes yes but wolves and humans too" the Witch creeps up on Rapzunzel with her fingers bent like claws. This shows depth to the song putting empathis on certain words gives impact and makes it ineresting watch .

Into The Woods Dance with Kat

Into The Woods Intro Dance
So far for into the woods we have created a marching sequence and auidence partisapation.
Its all based around box steps and we also had to create a 8 step dance step of our own. If our 8 step dance fitted in with the march we could actually use it in the dance. I created a dance where you would march looking forward for 2 steps then 2 spets croached down then 1 step you put your hand on your leg then the other for the next step . In the last 2 step you would go from looking down to looking up at the audience . I think it was quite simple yet effective. It gave impact and a sence of argency that is show throughout Into The Woods.
The Witch isnt actually in this dance but it was important to take part in the dance as it is a contribution to the production , also it is nice to have an understanding of what
the others where working on . It also gave me a chance to put my ideas forward and have a say in how the dance looked and what need to be worked on.

American Vaudeville unit1 Variety performance

Black History Rehearsal Evaluation

Rehearsals 
For rehearsals my self Holly and Luke would often use an empty class room. At first we found it hard to deliver an emotional piece , and learning lines was a struggle . We wanted to distribute the right lines in the right emotional way. So in rehearsals we deiced Luke would portray the bird ( metaphorical slave) and myself and holly would be the narrators telling the harsh story in an aggressive way ( metaphorical slave owners).  
Rehearsals were very useful . We would discuss  together about where on stage we thought it would best to start and finish , how to make a bigger impact and to get other opinions on how it looked we asked other peers to watch it (Katie and Jenifer).

Costume For Black History

Our costume for Black history 

The idea behind the costume being all black was that i wanted to represent a neutral state. Instead of my clothes being the center of attention i wanted my words and actions to make a bigger more important impact hence the all black costume. 

Rehearsal Evaluation Into The Woods

Lesson 1
In lesson one we started reading through the script and having ago at our lines and listening to our songs.I managed to get an idea of how I wanted the witch to sound just from reading through her lines and stage directions.  I learnt very quickly that she was an edgey , cunning charter. For example some of her stage directions give you an idea of how she would act and be portrayed (getting worked up), (THROWING spell) , (yelling), (tender but intense).

Sound and Lighting Black History

This was our lighting plan. We wanted a spot light in the middle of the stage to represent a cage. Our poem was about a caged bird so we thought it would e a really nice touch to have a metaphorical cage. For sound  we went a cappella as we though this would make an emotional impact o the audience.