Let's get PHYSICAL, then TeChNIcAL - RISK

I gave Eve a slap today

To be continued...

One of the character scenarios is about a woman in an abusive relationship. During the scene the female will be slapped by the husband character.

Jonathan, who is trained in stage combat to level 4, choreographed the slap sequence.

The main points while choreographing this scene were, to be at the correct angle for benefit of the audience, and to have sufficient distance between myself and Eve, for movement and safety.

We explored the different ways in which the slap could occur. Could be premeditated, or happen during a struggle?

The aim of the scene is to show a woman who is unsure whether or not to leave her partner. With this in mind we decided against the husband being overly aggressive or abusive, but instead frustrated with his relationship, with the slap occurring out of a reaction. We felt this puts the female character in more of a dilemma, rather than what would seem like a straight forward decision if the Husband was violent and physically beating her. 

EDITING THE VIDEOS

In the editing of videos the aim was to make the films appear as they are the characters memories. These memories are what hinder the characters from taking Risks that will better their lives.  

To depict the characters Old Negative memories the video clips were edited from colour into black and white, and with an ‘Old Film’ effect added to them. This gave the video clips the appearance of being past memories and also a feeling of lifelessness.

Video footage 1

The significance of the video is that the content within the video clips influence the characters decision making as the piece progresses. During the live action of the piece each character has a moment of decision or Moment of Risk. At this point the video will play. The characters memories all have a key word or sentence which is the characters main point of reference. For instance on the above clip the character is being told he’ll never be trusted again. (Video footage 1) This line is the stimuli for the characters future decision making during the live action of the performance. Due to their importance these key lines have been subtitled throughout the video footage. This also solves the issue of the key line being missed or lost, due to our limited sound recording equipment. 


IF THE MUSIC FITS

The opening line to the piece is 'Why old Caged Bird do you sing?' Music is a big part of our piece. 
Jonathan volunteered to take the lead on the musical side of the production. 

Jonathan selecting music

The choice of music was important as the style of music had to complement the story, rather than stand out. The style that Jonathan chose was Classical. This worked very well, as it created the feeling of journeying, which is what all the characters were doing through the piece. 

There was an instance when Jonathan wanted to put a piece of music under the 'Proposal' scene. I disagreed with this decision because I felt that it made this scene a separate entity to the rest of the piece. No other scene in the piece never had music playing under them, the only exception to this was the 'Party scene', where music was part of the scenes environment. I could find no reason why music should be put under the 'Proposal' scene. We decided that it wasn't needed.