March, 2007
You are looking at posts that were written in the month of March in the year 2007.
Hooray!
Posted on March 27th, 2007 by Jess.
Categories: Uncategorized.
Today was a really good lesson!! After having a major mind block and not being able to write anything or act anything and not having any ideas, today i got a lot of work done and i was impro-ing as i went (and then I’d laugh at my own lame joke and write it down, just to make sure i didn’t forget the comic genius when it came time to rehearse later) Tara and I were lucky enough to score a room to ourselves (thank you Year 9’s for being on camp!) so it was awesome coz if i needed any ideas or someone to listen to part of my script, tara was there. 
We also watched a couple of solos from top acts a few years ago, to give us a sense of what a solo actually looks like. I always find it really helpful to see examples of what I’m supposed to be doing because it helps me understand what all the dramatic elements and non-naturalistic elements look like on stage. I think I’m a visual learner, because if you show me what to do i can copy you, but of you just tell me then it takes me longer to understand. (maybe that’s not visual learning. Maybe that’s just me not being the brightest crayon in the box…)
It’s funny reading over my blog because it changes so quickly. One post will be about how stressed, worried and unmotivate I am, and the very next post will be all about how many ideas i have. Strange child. Goes to show that solos are stressful and resmeble rollercoasters.
Have a good one!!
Jess xx
Posted on March 24th, 2007 by Jess.
Categories: Uncategorized.
Well, where to begin! On thursdays lesson, Cashy got us to do a character based activity where we closed our eyes and focus on our characters. We stood like them, we walked, sat and talked like them and them we introduced oursleves to the other characters in the class. I found it really really helpful and i felt better about my character. Then we spent the lesson scripting and getting our solo together. I had a couple of brainwaves (which aren’t a regular occurance for me, so it was amazing that more than one happened in drama) so i got some good ideas down on paper and started to feel more relaxed about the solos. Unfortunatly, that didn’t last long. At all.
On fridays lesson, we started by playing ball up, which is always fun, but cashy will most likely never play it with us again becuase the ball kept mysteriously hitting him through no fault of the class. (cough) Then we went into our corners of the room and worked on our solos. I had so much trouble i wanted to cry! I was looking at the page going “this is crap.” It had no plot, no point, symbol, contrast no ANYTHING. It was really frustrating so i tried brainstorming, which usually works for me, but i got nothing. Jacqui came over and helped me and gave me some good ideas and helped a lot (thanks Jac! :D) And then Cashy talked to me as well and gave me some more good ideas, so thanks Cashy!
Last night i watched “Take Awway” and “Wog Boy” to get some ideas and they were SO HELPFUL! I’m not going to rip off lines or plot at all, thats not the kind of inspiration i got from them. But I got some ideas for movements, how to speak and how to act. I think I’ll watch them again today.
So now I’ll have some serious work to do in class.
Have a good weekend!
Jess xx
Finally! Some progress at last!!
Posted on March 16th, 2007 by Jess.
Categories: Uncategorized.
Well thank the lord, I’ve finally got the ball rolling with my solo. Although the lesson started slowly yesterday (understatement of the century) , once we finally settled down and got some work done, I had a couple of brain waves and couldn’t stop writing. A couple of times I cracked up laughing coz i could imagine what the scene would look like. (Unfortunately Cashy just thought i was being a distraction) Im getting pretty excited about this solo because i think it will be fun. Im going to make it funny, because i find it easier and more fun. But i don’t want to make it a parody. I’m not bagging anyone and I’d hate to offend, so Cashy warned me to make sure i wasn’t taking the mickey too much.
Even though the work we were doing on fridays was solo so we were workind individually , Nadia and Adri were giving me some Italian phrases i can use when i’m playing the old italian nonna. (Thanks guys! that was really helpful!)
Now I’m just trying to work on my scenes and putting it all together!
Cya!
Jess
Solo progress
Posted on March 14th, 2007 by Jess.
Categories: Uncategorized.
In my last post, I didn’t really say much about our solos, so i’ll go into some detail now. A couple of weeks ago we were given a criteria sheet outlining what we were to do for our solo performances. We have to base our characters on a particular subculture of our choice. Some people knew straight away who they were going to be and i envied them SO much. I could not decide on a subculture. I honestly can’t stress this enough, I could not figure out what to do. I was stressing and freaking out and thinking “well clearly there’s something wrong with me! May as well give up now!” (Slight exaggeration) And then i was sitting at the dinner table talking ot my family and we started mucking around (imagine that, Jess’ family having a sense of humour) and my brother and I were pretending to be old italian fish and chip shop owners and we had our parents in stitches. And my mum said “Jess, you should do that for your solo!”
SO I AM! At the moment I’m thinking of loosly basing it on ym local fish and chip shop owner, who’s really friendly and happy with costomers but a real perfectionist with his staff. I might also bring in elements of my own boss as well. Also, On the way to my holiday house over he long weekend, we stopped at a fish and chip place for some food and the man who ran it was exactly what i wanted to do for my solo! So i sat there staring at him (much to his concern) the whole time we were there.
Plus, now that Cashy has said that we can have secondary characters in our performance, Im really excited about what i can possibly add into my performance. I’m really excited about these solos now and i can’t wait to work on them in fridays lesson. Never thought I’d say i was excited about solos, but there you go.
Have a good one!
Jess xx
First entry! yay!
Posted on March 8th, 2007 by Jess.
Categories: Uncategorized.
Well well well. We find ourselves in a new drama year and alas, the blogs are yet again part of our drama ritual. Like I care, i love blogs!
At the moment, i dont have heaps to say, because the year is still young, but i’ll say a little bit about what we’re up to. At the moment we’re working on solos. I know what you’re thinking. “You lucky, lucky girl Jes.” And you’re right, how lucky we are! It’s actually really exciting because we get to create the characters ourselves. We’re basing them on subcultures. eg. emos, goths, cheerleaders, hippies etc. Pretty cool concept and it will be really interesting to see what other people in the class come up with.
We are also doing a SAC on tuesday on a play we saw earlier this week called ‘Destin’. Personally I was really impressed and inspired by Destin. I thought their use of symbol and light and EVERYTHING was fantastic and i found myself sitting forward in my chair, staring in awe with my mouth wide open. I really really enjoyed it and learnt a lot from it.
Well, for someone who didn’t have much to say I managed to mention quite a lot! Go jess go.
Have a great long weekend!!!
Jess