A little while ago Jack Iredale launched his degree project in community theatre by blogging for us...the next 3 weeks of his work with Sapphire are documented in this blog...
Weeks 2 and 3
Sometimes, when creating something, you don’t know where to start. Other times, you have an idea, but don’t know where to take it. Or an end point that you don’t know how to reach. After the first week, however, I pretty much had all of those things. It’s the bit in the middle that I was lacking.
I tried looking at character first. We started with some creative tasks (30 second movies, a group favourite) to get our heads in the game. Looking back, I would’ve liked to have done some more in-depth look at creating characters before jumping into the next section, but as they say, hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Essentially, what I tried to do was get the group into the mindset of one of the people that inspired them, to be able to show others why they were inspirational. I gave the group the task of performing as their chosen person on a television program, and they came up with an interview, a game show, and an episode of the voice. Whilst these pieces were good, and showed some brilliant understanding of character, something didn’t fit quite right, it wasn’t what I was looking for.
So for week 3, I tried something different. I got the group to look not at people, but at places.
And it was brilliant.
I started by getting the group to really explore the space by playing clear the space with them. Whilst a tad unfocused at first, within five minutes they were ready for the main task.
I started by getting the group to really explore the space by playing clear the space with them. Whilst a tad unfocused at first, within five minutes they were ready for the main task.
Before we could look at exploring their own spaces, I tried to get them to think of different ways to walk and different situations to walk in, such as a sunny day, on a beach, in snow etc through just getting them to walk on a journey. When I thought I’d looked at a wide enough variety of these situations, it was time to begin.
I started by asking them to visualise there place. Everything about it. Then asked them to picture a sort of starting point. Then, I walked them through their place at different times of day, starting from early morning, all the way through to late at night. And it was a fantastic thing to watch. A whole group of people exploring the same room, but seeing a dozen different things. I knew there that this would be the basis for our piece. And the team seemed to love it, considering I got groaned at when I brought the exercise to a close.
All in all, a creative two weeks.
Week 4
Here it is then. The week where we start creating the piece. And the bit I was most worried about. Not with the group, I have total confidence in them. It’s that, when I get big ideas, I sometimes have trouble explaining the mental image I get in my head, and articulating that to whomever I’m talking to. Fortunately, James Loughlin managed to be my translator for whenever I said something that pretty much only made sense in my head.
We did a quick recap of the previous weeks, before explaining to the group what we were going to do this session. We started with a shorter exploration of their places from last week. Once that had been done, I asked the group to think of 3 actions that they associated with their place, and a simple line of dialogue that explained how/why it inspired them. I let them just walk about the space, finding these actions for a while, before starting the main process of the piece.
It was mainly just winged at the beginning in the first few minutes, as I started to find a way to open it. Once I found it the rest of the piece just seemed to evolve on its own. It starts with a few members of the group walking whispering there lines then escalates until we see one persons place, then another and another. Though half of that is only in my head at the moment.
Honestly there’s nothing more I can really say about it. It’s a very visual piece at the minute.
Next week is the final week. I’m dead excited.
Weeks 2 and 3
Sometimes, when creating something, you don’t know where to start. Other times, you have an idea, but don’t know where to take it. Or an end point that you don’t know how to reach. After the first week, however, I pretty much had all of those things. It’s the bit in the middle that I was lacking.
I tried looking at character first. We started with some creative tasks (30 second movies, a group favourite) to get our heads in the game. Looking back, I would’ve liked to have done some more in-depth look at creating characters before jumping into the next section, but as they say, hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Essentially, what I tried to do was get the group into the mindset of one of the people that inspired them, to be able to show others why they were inspirational. I gave the group the task of performing as their chosen person on a television program, and they came up with an interview, a game show, and an episode of the voice. Whilst these pieces were good, and showed some brilliant understanding of character, something didn’t fit quite right, it wasn’t what I was looking for.
So for week 3, I tried something different. I got the group to look not at people, but at places.
And it was brilliant.
I started by getting the group to really explore the space by playing clear the space with them. Whilst a tad unfocused at first, within five minutes they were ready for the main task.
I started by getting the group to really explore the space by playing clear the space with them. Whilst a tad unfocused at first, within five minutes they were ready for the main task.
Before we could look at exploring their own spaces, I tried to get them to think of different ways to walk and different situations to walk in, such as a sunny day, on a beach, in snow etc through just getting them to walk on a journey. When I thought I’d looked at a wide enough variety of these situations, it was time to begin.
I started by asking them to visualise there place. Everything about it. Then asked them to picture a sort of starting point. Then, I walked them through their place at different times of day, starting from early morning, all the way through to late at night. And it was a fantastic thing to watch. A whole group of people exploring the same room, but seeing a dozen different things. I knew there that this would be the basis for our piece. And the team seemed to love it, considering I got groaned at when I brought the exercise to a close.
All in all, a creative two weeks.
Week 4
Here it is then. The week where we start creating the piece. And the bit I was most worried about. Not with the group, I have total confidence in them. It’s that, when I get big ideas, I sometimes have trouble explaining the mental image I get in my head, and articulating that to whomever I’m talking to. Fortunately, James Loughlin managed to be my translator for whenever I said something that pretty much only made sense in my head.
We did a quick recap of the previous weeks, before explaining to the group what we were going to do this session. We started with a shorter exploration of their places from last week. Once that had been done, I asked the group to think of 3 actions that they associated with their place, and a simple line of dialogue that explained how/why it inspired them. I let them just walk about the space, finding these actions for a while, before starting the main process of the piece.
It was mainly just winged at the beginning in the first few minutes, as I started to find a way to open it. Once I found it the rest of the piece just seemed to evolve on its own. It starts with a few members of the group walking whispering there lines then escalates until we see one persons place, then another and another. Though half of that is only in my head at the moment.
Honestly there’s nothing more I can really say about it. It’s a very visual piece at the minute.
Next week is the final week. I’m dead excited.
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