10/12/10

Period 1 & 2 - We ran through all of our finished scenes, adding in anything that needed to be changed or rehearsed. We added more slapstick humour to the frogs, and more interaction with the audience in the last scene, where all the animals have a party and invite the audience to come and dance with them, the audience are then requested to go back to their seats while the characters leave in the order that they came to bears house (Rosie Rabbit, Frankie & Freddie Frog, Mr Owl, Molly Mouse, followed by Bear at the very end.) they leave and each say goodbye, in a way that was similar to a childrens telivision show the Teletubbies (See video)

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They would go off, and at the end, reappear together, before then disappearing together.

We performed to the group our improved version of scene 5, wherein the animals take various Christmas themed things to Bears house. The improvements on the scene were, instead of using a cake that Frankie and Freddie both get pushed into, we decided not to use a cake, because of the mess it would create, which would be unpractical. We decided instead, to wrap up empty boxes to look like presents, and have Freddie appear, carrying one box, and Frankie appear with a pile of boxes that is higher than his entire body, he stumbles for a moment, while Freddie looks impatiently on, waiting for his brother, he then says "Frankie... can you hold this for me?" and places his present on the top of the pile, this causes the pile to become unbalenced and Frankie drops the entire load on the floor.

Our feedback for this lesson was to project more vocally, and keep in character.

26/11/10

Period 1 - In this lesson we worked on our last scene of childrens play, wherein we decided to add a resolve, after each character brings Christmas to Bear, he realises that he is no longer alone and people do not think he is scary after all. He then promises never to cancel Christmas again and they enjoy Christmas together, we roughly blocked this scene, so it was not finished when it came to performance. We intent to include a song, and more audience involvement, as when we then performed it in period 4 we were told in feedback that we needed to work on it a lot more as it is missing a lot, we realised it needed more humour, audience interaction, music and the storline needed more to it, it also needed to be easier to understand for the younger children. We intend to add more personality to each character also in the following lessons.

22/11/10

We rehearsed scene 5 with April, telling her the work she had missed last lesson.

19/11/10

Period 1

In this lesson we worked on adding the end to scene 5, the scene where each character brings a part of Christmas to Bear.

It starts when Mouse is kicked from Bears house after trying to get their Christmas back from him. The other animals make a plan, realising that he only cancelled Christmas because he was lonely, so to show him that the animals were no longer afraid of him, they decide to bring Christmas to him.

Each character apears one at a time, except for the frogs who always appear together. Rosie Rabbit appears first, taking the Christmas decorations, but the tinsel has become entangled around her ears, she then asks the audience to help her untangle it. She then goes to Bears house and knocks on the door. Impatient after the previous incident with people knocking on his door, Bear opens the door in a bad mood and becomes confused when Rosie Rabbit wishes him a Merry Christmas, she then hangs the tinsel around the door, Bear acts grumpy and closes the door. Rosie Rabbit sits down outside of the door and waits for the next people to arrive.

The two Frogs appear, Frankie and Freddie, Frankie carrying a cake and Freddie carrying presents, on the way over to bears house, Frankie asks Freddie to hold the cake, but to do this he has to drop the presents he is holding, when he goes to shout at Frankie for making him drop the presents, Frankie pushes his head into the cake and begins to laugh. Freddie, annoyed, then tells Frankie he has a present for him and Frankie becomes excited, as he turns round, his face is then pushed into the cake. The two giggle at each other for looking so silly and pick up the presents and the squashed cake and walk to bears house. When they knock on his door, Bear opens, still grumpy, the Frogs wish him a Merry Christmas also and Freddie puts the presents down, saying that he brought presents, then Frankie puts the cake down, saying he brought cake, but it got a little 'smushed'. Bear then rolls his eyes, clearly irritated and closes the door. The two frogs sit by Rosie Rabbit as Mr Owl makes his way to Bears door.

Mr Owl approaches carrying a book, he hobbles over in a typical old man fashion, and he knocks on the door, Bear opens it, almost so used to being bothered now that it doesnt bother him. Owl says that he brought a book because it isn't Christmas without the Christmas story.  Bear grumbles and closes the door again, and Owl goes to join the others.

Lastly, Molly 'The Mighty' Mouse appears, carrying nothing, she walks in and signals the others to come and stand with her, they stand by the door and become Carol Singers, singing Silent Night. Bear slowly opens the door, peeking round curiously. When  they reach the end of the song, Molly wishes the Bear a Merry Christmas, saying that she brought Family, because it isn't Christmas without family. The Bear then takes a moment, looking around at everyone, and at all the things they brought with them, and he says "Well... i do like decorations... and i do like presents, and cake... and i do like Christmas Stories... and i really really like Family..." and then decides that cancelling Christmas was the wrong thing to do, he then decides to give them back their Christmas, he rips down the Christmas is Cancelled sign and this ends the scene.

17/11/10 - Rachel.

In this lesson we started to block scene 5, which is where all the animals go to bears house with different things from Christmas.

Rosie Rabbit brings some tinsel with her as decorations for Christmas, saying "...Because it's not Christmas without decorations!" The Bear then slams the door shut, and she decorates the tinsel around his door and sits down.

The Frogs bring a cake and some presents, one frog has presents piled up and the other struggle with a cake. The one with the cake asks the other to hold it, that frog then drops the presents on the floor before taking the cake, as soon as she takes the cake, the other frog pushes her face into it. She then does the same to the other frog. They both then go to Bears door and put the presents and cake down near the door, saying "It's not Christmas without cake/presents" and then Bear closes the door again. They sit down next to Rosie Rabbit.

The Owl then knocks on the door, bringing with him a Christmas book, saying "It's not Christmas without a Christmas Story" and places the book on the floor near the presents, he then sits down next to Rosie Rabbit and The Frogs.

Mouse then comes to the door and says that she brought friends saying "It's not Christmas without someone to share it with!" Which was what Bear didn't have to start with so now Bear has everything he wanted for Christmas.

1/11/10 - Rachel.

In this lesson we were set three targets:
-To have in our groups selected a stimulus.
-Cast the characters.
-Structured roughly with a scene by scene process planned.

After discussing the characters again and agreeing on how each character should behave we then cast each character.
Bear - Hayley
Frogs - Autumn & Leah.
Rabbit - Sarah
Owl - Joe
Mouse - April

We then created our step by step plan for the play and wrote it up in basic notes, we then named each scene, the scene by scene structure went as follows:
Scene 1 - "Merry Christmas!" All characters are enjoying Christmas except for the bear. The bear runs into the happy scene and wishes everyone Merry Christmas loudly. All animals are scared of Bear and runs away. Bear is sad and angry that he is alone on Christmas and talks to the audience. He then says that he is going to cancel Christmas and puts up a sign on a tree saying 'Christmas Is Cancelled.'
Scene 2 - "Cancelled?!" All the animals see that Bear has cancelled Christmas and they each have a different reaction, eg Rabbit is sad and cries, owl worries.
Scene 3 - "Off to see Bear" They all go to Bear's house to ask him why he cancelled Christmas but all the animals are too scared. Except for the smallest animal, Little Mouse.
Scene 4 - "Brave Little Mouse" The mouse enters Bears house and the two talk about Christmas. Bear has a monologue wherein he says that he is lonely and isn't scary really. Mouse asks Bear if he wants to spend Christmas with her and her friends but bear grumpily refuses because he says they will all run away from him. Scene 5 - "You don't like Christmas." Mouse leaves and talks to other animals about Bear being lonely. They plan to take Christmas presents and cakes and decorations to Bear, and they offer them to Bear and then say "Oh... You don't like Christmas... Do you?" they leave the things at his door and go back to hang out with each other.
Scene 6 - "Celebrations" The animals are celebrating Christmas without the presents and the cake and Bear opens the door and looks at all the things, he suddenly realises that cancelling Christmas was wrong and takes all the stuff back to the animals.
Scene 7 - "Happy Ending" Bear is sorry, they all enjoy Christmas and sing merry Christmas.

27/10/10 - Rachel

Children's play write up.
We were divided into groups and performed the mock children's play we had rehearsed, we performed the Sophie The Spoilt Fairy to the class and received the feedback suggesting we needed more exaggerated facial expression, we needed to work more on each character and try to include the moral a little bit more clearly.

We then got into groups again and began to plan our proper childrens play, we took the advice presented by the class into consideration. We each presented our stimuli that had not been presented in class and discussed from then. Most of the class had already shared their ideas. My idea was a story called "The King Who Cancelled Christmas" the group said that they liked my idea and decided to form the children's play around that, but changing the characters to animals to make the play more child friendly and slightly less complex as the original story was aimed at older children.

We re-invented the characters at animals and came up with some basics about each character and came up with the following:
Bear - Big, scary, grumpy, lonely.
Mouse - Tiny, brave, timid, squeaky.
Owl - Wise, smart, old, leader mentality.
Frogs - Clumsy, funny, argumentative.
Rabbit - Jumpy, scared, timid, shy.

29/10/10 - Penny

Period 1.

We discussed more ideas, as we did in Rachels lesson, we shared ideas, which were.

• Rachel - Mr Blobby

Kids character

Kids like clumsy people

Things go wrong

• Grace - Bear tales/fairy tales

Each story has a moral

'Best present' about a Little girl call charlotte

Baby is the best present

Moral at the end

• Autumn - Teddy - Story

Bad person steals teddy

Goodies set off to rescue it

Realise in the end that giving it back

• Joe

Story about a mouse called Gordon

Summer to autumn

Go into the wood to harvest stuff to make wine

All about how they work as a team

5 senses

• Leah - Characters that are strong

Shy teddy

Happy teddy

Grumpy teddy

Children's

• Chloe - nursery rhyme book

All characters go on a journey through nursery rhymes

A new characters added each nursery rhyme

On a journey to find something

• Becky -  little book of fairy tales

Ugly duckling

Bad character has to go through something to become good

• James - Christmas carols

Carol singers had lost the words and had to go and find them

AI - audience help their lines

We then got into smaller groups and talked about what we would like to do for Childrens play, discussing any ideas that had not yet been used.

I put my idea forward which was the story of The King Who Cancelled Christmas, and we decided, to make it more for children, to make the characters animals, and instead of a King, we'd have a Bear who was lonely because everyone was scared of him, so he wanted to cancel Christmas because he couldn't enjoy it. The story is the rest of the animals trying to convince the bear to have Christmas again, but they are all too scared to say anything, but the mouse, the smallest of them all, is the bravest, and finds out that the bear is lonely, not scary or mean.

We will start to plan in more detail next lesson.

27/10/10 - Rachel

We worked on our childrens plays in our groups.

I was in the group which had Sophie the Spoilt Fairy in it.

We had decided to do a short story wherein Sophie talks about all the pretty things she wants for Christmas, and how she wants to have all the presents to herself, when the presents are being passed around, she looks at them as if she wants them, her family then tell her that she has to wait for Christmas morning and that it is time for bed, Sophie then pretends to go to bed but hides behind the Christmas tree until everyone is gone. In the night, Ellie the Elf comes in to deliever presents for Santa, as she counts with the children as she puts the presents under the tree, Sophie is taking the presents away for herself. When she gets to the final present, she grabs it before Ellie has let go, so they spot each other. Sophie is suprised that Ellie is not Santa Claus and asks her who she is. Ellie introduces herself and says that Sophie is rude for stealing the presents and that she wont get anything nice unless she behaves and isn't spoilt, but Sophia doesn't listen. She then goes to bed and dreams about the presents she wants. She then wakes up and finds that everyone else has the presents she wants and she only gets a diary, there is a message inside the diary from santa, explaining that it is not how pretty she is, or the amount of clothes she has that matters, but that it's what's inside that counts, how nice she is to others, and she writes in her diary that she has learnt that it is what is inside that counts.

After performing it, we were then evalutated, we found that we needed to work the moral of the story into it slightly better, because the only way she knew that it's what's inside that counts was because Santa told her, she didn't learn it properly, and although the staging was good, we need to work on where people are when they are 'offstage' as the school we are performing in may not have somewhere we can use as backstage.

We then offered our stimuli that we had brought in, to the group we had the following:

• Sarah - How the Grinch stole Christmas - He's not evil he has just never been shown how to love/share

Great character who just needs to be taught about Christmas spirit

Nobody understands him

Flashbacks to when he was at school

Narration

Taran- Mr Men - Great characters to use in terms of learning something (Eg, Mr Messy learns to be tidy)

• Leanne - Pinocchio

Goes on a journey when he becomes a real boy

Learns not to lie

Characters: fairy - jiminy cricket - jippeto - cat - Pinocchio - Stromboli

Challenge: Nose growing, making the moral clear

• Abbi E - Barney live

Character took the bag
Took the bag so they would all follow him
Realises he had to give the bag back to make them his friends

Use Santa's bag instead of the barney bag
Use Christmas music
Animals children's friends
Jack frost as bad guy.

25/10/10 - Rachel.

Rachel's Lesson. Period 1.

We took notes for the Responding and Developing of the Childrens play:

Responding (Stimulus)

Target audience

Suitability

Imagination

Creativity

Needs of audience

Developing (Shaping Process)

Insight

Imagination

Liaison and constraints

Needs of audience

We then wrote questions for the woman from the primary school, to ask about the children and the performance area, the questions were the following:

April: What are the age ranges of our audience and will that be the case for all performances - So that we know our target audience age.

Leah: What do they already know about Christmas - So we know what we dont need to talk about and what we do.

Chloe: what TV programs do they watch - So that we know what they like to watch and what characters they like.

Abbi E: what Christmas songs do they know - We want to use songs they can sing along to.

Taran: How far can they count to and what colours do they know - So we know how much they know so that we dont try to teach them something they already know and they dont feel patronised.

Rachel: what do they find entertaining - So that we know what to include in the performances

Abbi F: Can they have sweets - So that we know if we can give them sweets as part of the performance

Grace: Subjects we need to steer away from - things that may offend or upset the children

Hayley: How long should it last to fully engage them - So that it doesnt drag on and we dont lose the audience's interest

Joe: Anything that might upsetting/scary (In the past what has proven to be ineffective) - So that we know what we should and shouldnt do to prevent the children being scared

Sarah: Any children who would get up and join in (Do you advise audience interaction) - So that we know if we can write in audience interaction or if they wouldn't like that.

Lauren: Where will we be performing (Here or there) - So that we know what to do, in terms of props, (can they be moved, ect.)

Autumn: Is there is a time that we could come and see the performance spaces - So we know what we have to work with (Is there a back stage curtain, ect.)

James: Any young people with disabilities that may affect their involvement - So we know if we should have audience involvement that they may not be able to do.

Leanne: How many will be in our audience including adults - So that we know how much room there will be and how big a crowd we will have

Becky: Are we ok filming and taking pictures - The children may want photos taken with their favourite character but some children or parents may feel uncomfortable with this.

Then we divided into three groups and were asked to work on small performances about specific things.

Group 1:

Character: Jack

Moral: Learn to share

Convention: Narration

Characteristic: Audience interaction

Group 2:

Character: Sophie the Spoilt Fairy

Moral: What's on the inside

Convention: Vocal collage

Characteristic: Exaggerated body language

Group 3:

Character: Elvis the naughty elf

Moral: True meaning of xmas

Convention: Freeze frame/thought track

Characteristic: Counting