IN class writing

1. What was your vision as a director/creator for this project?
My vision is a mysterious twisty play
2. What elements of the original story did you maintain in your project?
I maintained the normal storyline
3. What did you change about the original story in your project?
I changed the death of Louise
4. What is the twist or climax of your adaptation?
The twist is that Louise's friends murdered her.
5. What is the strongest part of your project so far?
The strongest part of the project is the ultimate twist
6. What is the weakest part of your project so far?
The weakest part is too much talking and explaining
7. How has this project helped you learn about how stories work?
I'm not sure, I didn't really learn much since I write scripts all the time.
8. How has this project helped you learn how theater works?
I realized that it's hard to transfer a story in to a play because the staging and the actor's gesture is important when there are audiences and I have to consider the view of the audience.

Story of an Hour

Story of an Hour

Genre: Suspense

Characters: Louise, Brently, Josephine, Richards

Setting: Big vila owned by Brently

Plot:
Phone rings, Louise picks up her phone, her husband Brently tells her that he will be back soon, he just need to finish his work and be right back. Louise put down her phone and ran up in her room and made another phone call to a mysterious man, she planned her rich husband's death, and she will take all the heritage so she will split 15% to the killer she hired. But the killer on the phone requested more money, so Louise angrily agreed to his payment. When she heard the news that her husband got killed in an accident, she pretends to be sad in front of all her friends and laughed in her own room. She made a call to the killer thanking what he did and instantly transferred him 150grands, the killer smiles and says, glad doing business with you. During the phone call Josephine and Richards kept interrupting Louise and the moment they broke in her room, She already put her phone away and pretends to be sad again. Josephine tries to comfort her and asked Richards to pour some water from downstairs. Louise gulped down all the water and grabs Josephine's hand telling her that she is her best friend and she will never leave her. But when she got downstairs, Brently walks through the door, Louise shrieks and pretends to be so happy, but Richards turns to her smiles and says glad doing business with you. Louise's eyes filled up with fear and suddenly, Louise puked out some blood and she turns her head to Richards, there is poison in the water. When she's lying on the ground, she sees Brently giving her 'friends' Josephine and Richards some money, Brently then turns around and said, tell the doctor that my wife had a heart attack, now bury her.

Pivotal movement:
Brently died in a planed car crash.
Louise planed her husband's death.
Josephine almost found out.
Brently's actually alive.
Richards poisoned Louise
Josephine and Richards were actually paid by Brently.

The Climax: Brently was alive and he is the killer.

Resolution: Louise died of poison.

https://youtu.be/8NdA7zzw0kE

Apperently won't br graded

Introduction: first two-paragraph, 10 min

Rising: when she heard that her husband is dead - she reveals that she's happy her husband is dead. 40 min

Climax: Husband comes back - Louise died of 'happiness' 10 min


Rising:
When Louise heard that her husband is dead
Cried
Go to her room sat on a chair
Reflecting her life
The realization that she's happy
Went downstairs

Do

Ideas for The Story of an Hour

We need to enlarge the actor's emotion to make the last twists would be impressive.

Review

Review of Fall Play
Play: Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
Author: Mark Haddon
Date of view: 2019.11.15
Director: Olivia
Main Characters:
Christopher: Amelia
Judy: Pacifica
Ed: Will
Siobhan: Olivia

Word count: 1185

     The play Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime started with a dog being murdered, and Christopher, the main character tried to solve the mystery. His dad is a very impatient man even when he tries to talk with Christopher, he still sometimes gets triggered by Christopher's personality. In the beginning, Ed, Christopher's father told Christopher that his mom passed away, so Christopher will stop investigating the death of the dog. When Christopher was investigating the death of the dog, he met Mrs. Alexander, she revealed that Judy, Christopher's mother has an affair with their neighbor Mr. Roger, and Mrs. Alexander was really surprised when she heard about Judy's death. Christopher has a teacher named Mrs. Siobhan, she took really good care of Christopher because she knows that Christopher'ss personality can be very annoying to some people. She would help Christopher making decisions and talk to him when he is having trouble, she wants what's best for Christopher and so she recommended him to take maths A level. She worries that if Christopher's investigation will make Ed very angry so she tried to talk him out of it, but Christopher kept investigating around the neighborhood, and a while after, Ed found out. He took away Christopher's notes and hid it away. But when Ed took away Christopher's book, Christopher started looking for it right away. He found the book in Ed's closet, but besides the book, there is a box full of letters. When Christopher opens them, he realized that his mother Judy never died, she kept writing letters to him but Ed hid them away. In the letter, Christopher realized that Judy moved to London with Mr. Roger, and when Ed came into his room, he got furious and told Christopher that he killed the dog, Christopher realized that he can't stay with his dad anymore. Ed bought a train ticket and left, a lot of small accidents happened to show Christopher's personality. At last Christopher finally arrived in London, and when Judy saw Christopher she was both excited and worried. Judy wanted Christopher to stay, but Christopher wants to go back to do his maths A level test, and Mr. Roger wants to be alone with Judy. So a lot of conflicts have happened until Ed shows up and brings even more conflicts. Roger starts to act violently against Christopher because he is interrupting his life so Judy got really mad and agreed to let Christopher take his maths A level test and took him back to Swindon. Christopher got an A* for his test and Ed came to apologize to Christopher, Ed bought him a puppy and their relationship starts to heal back to the way it.
     The lighting of the play is my favorite, it shows the emotion of the characters, especially Christopher's. The blue light in the first scene when Christopher is daydreaming if he becomes an astronaut, the blue lights enlightens the mood and give the audience a sense of floating in space, and creates a dreamy atmosphere. And throughout the whole play lightings were frequently used to show the focus point on the stage, when Christopher was playing with the toys, or when Ed was sitting by the table yelling at Christopher. Lighting is extremely important in any art, and as a filmmaker, I love it when the lighting tells the story.
     The second most important part about a play is the staging of the actors. Just like in a film where the actor stands or moves can be very important for the whole picture. But a play is easier to arrange the staging because they don't have to worry about the camera, all the viewers or the audience are in a fixed place generally, so the most important part of a theatre staging is never turning your back on the audience and never block other actors from the audience, not if you want to do that on purpose. In this play, the staging was incredible, I mostly focused on the camera so I can see the whole picture. The actors moved around the stage to their position without questioning, and a lot of scenes has Christopher and Ed in the front and Siobhan on the side or in the back. This play is special because of the story is frequently changing actors that are talking. Siobhan appeared on the stage a lot because Christopher has to quickly change his position talking with Ed and Siobhan back and forth. The director perfectly emerged them together with staging and lighting is very impressive.
     Lastly the performance of the actors. Different to film, actors don't have to have really good acting skills in film because they can fix it by changing the camera position or the lighting, but in a play, there are no retakes, and if the actors made a mistake they have to keep going. In this play, even I've only seen the preact, I still find the actors fascinating, and experienced. There are barely any mistakes, they have to remember all their lines, not like a film we can shoot script by script, so it is very incredible that they can talk frequently and do the correct direction.
     A very memorable moment is when Christopher found his mother's letter, and instead of him speaking, his mom come up the stage as an image in Christopher's head while he plays with the toy trains, I really liked this moment because of the director's intention of emerging the real set and the imaginative set together is nearly perfect, with the lighting and the blocking of the stage, what the audience sees is incredible. We almost forgot Christopher's mom was an image of Christopher's thought, it felt so casual, and when she walks off the stage, we are still shocked by the twist. So that's why I loved this scene because the lighting the staging and the capturing of the time were perfect.
     My favorite character in the play is probably Ed, he's acting skills were amazing, I got scared three times by him when he shouted at Christopher, the outburst from him is incredible. Even the actor who played Christopher looked scared by him. But that's not it, the best part about him is that he can exchange his temper throughout the play, angry, sad, lonely, regret, those emotions are like toys in his hand played around like its nothing, that is the most important skill of an actor when they can control their emotion in a play, they become the center.
     I really liked this play generally, the story, the acting, the lighting and the directing were nearly perfect, it is incredible for me to see high school students putting up such a great play. As a filmmaker I am very jealous that I never had such great actors when I was making films, so I really need to start digging for those awesome actors.

94 - 99

This is the end of the book, and after all the trouble Chris has been through, he finally gets his happy ending. He solved the dog murderer, he got A* on his maths A level, his father apologized to him, and he even got a new puppy named Sandy.

Note for the book

Caroline:

Everyone can take a moment,

Write performance instead of writing text.

What can you do, stage, the setting's write plot? Around that capture potential of space

Favorite moment: Gesture, not text

React in a natural way to senses

Experimentation key to moment work, see what works.

Helena:

Props moment, suitcase, pillow, flour sifter - manipulating props in different ways can achieve different meanings, emotions, scenes/plots.

Moments can lead to 'writing performance' in the scene

"Get our hands dirty" = experiment

"A-ha moment" = moment of recognition

"Discursive power" = act of speaking on stage

"Giving titles" = name them to remember

Costume moment: wedding dress, boa, red dress.

Create emotion, an element of surprise, direct attention to do something specific on stage.

Maddie

Lighting; create mood, shaped space, direct eye, time of day - Compliment the narrative, (equal to performance or acting)

Exercise: each member brings a lighting source -> create moment/experiment -> how does light speak, what makes you think about.

Add more people, add color, add props, costumes -> can be a beginning, end, dialog.

Theatrical Tension - other elements

Dramatic Tension - narrative

Pacifica

After creative moments, how do we craft into a narrative,

Consecutive -> put them in order, A, B, C.

Moment Layering -> moments can happen simultaneously

Content -> creating "back story" or knowledge/background that helps w/ clarity or beg, mid, end.

Techniques:
1. Sketching - practice 1st, then improve/revise
2. The ticking bomb - create tension/suspension for the audience
3. Keep info from the audience - Don't over-explain, let them imagine
4. Create confusion - conflict/problem



Ruth

The Laramie Project

Hesitant -> many were gay, didn't want to be targeted/safety important

Interviewed lots of different categories/locations

NY -> making moments

How to portray the fence? Line & chairs, people
                                                                    > want to draw in the audience
Trial and error -> Ex. 5 diff opening statement

Want it to be about people/community, not incident -> goal for the audience to understand people.

To company through line/Mathew's through-line/Laramie community through-line.

Third act? Dad's speech/Funeral

Theatre work = connections w/people of Laramie

Final edits: narrative/performance the priority.

Simile
My friend is like a barking dog.

Metaphor
That guard is a huge wall dude.

Personification
Listen to the river sing as it flows down the mountain.

Hyperbole
Bro, I am so hungry, I think I could make the school broke just buy eating.

Onomatopoeia
Did you hear that buzzing sound? It's killing me!

Alliteration
Bane broke his brown badge with his butt.

Alliteration
Kieth lost his keys in a peakok park

final draft reflection

Final Draft Reflection

1. My first draft turned out a little off the topic because I didn't fully understand what I need to do.

2. I mainly worked on perfecting my language from the second draft.

3. It's difficult to come up with a good thesis, and it's a piece of cake to actually write it because there are a lot of good things to write about.

4. My strength is probably reaching the word count, but the weakness is to make the quality good the first time.

5. I would probably recheck all my grammar mistakes and fix that up.

Analyzing Lemon Tree Last draft

Analyzing Lemon Tree

   

Analyzing Lemon Tree

The lemon tree produced in 1995 by Fools Garden is a very special poem, the words in it pass a feeling that’s very complicated. This poem was very popular at that time, and until now, people still remember it. The first time I heard it was a long long time ago, but I just couldn't remember the name of the song,  but just a few weeks ago, I heard the song in radio, I was so intrigued, I asked for its name and downloaded it straight away, and now, it has become my favourite song. The lemon tree gave people a sense of loneliness in sadness with their wise choice of words.

The repetition in the poem enlarges the sadness. This line repeated twice in the poem, and we can feel the depression in the words. This poem contains multiple repetitions, there are the main verse and 2 vice-verses, and the main verse was repeated 3 times, the 2 vice-verses. "But nothing ever happens and I wonder". There aren’t many changes between the verses, but if the reader read them carefully, they will realize that the whole poem becomes a depressing love story. 

There are some rhyming in the lyrics, especially in the main verse, the word 'why' and 'sky', 'down' and 'around', it makes the poem very fluent and feels very chill when listening to it. Most of the lines in Lemon Tree gave a sense of sadness for example “I'm sittin' here in the boring room It’s just another rainy Sunday afternoon.” This line includes a place, a time, wether and what the character in the poem is doing. Place, which is a boring room, represents he is alone and has nothing to do. Time, which is Sunday, and that's weekend, so that's supposed to bring some joy. But, the weather, it's raining, and again it brings the reader to a low point. At last what the character’s doing…, sitting there and doing nothing. This is the very start of the poem, and already, the atmosphere is decided, it's going to be sad.

In conclusion, this poem used rhyming as a sugarcoat to attract people’s ear, repetition to enlarge the story or the emotion the writer is creating, and at last the lyrics or the wording, which is the most essential part,  successfully increased the atmosphere of the poem and set the mood in to what the writer wants.

Analyzing Lemon Tree= draft 2

Analyzing Lemon Tree

   

Analyzing Lemon Tree

The lemon tree produced in 1995 by Fools Garden is a very special poem, the words in it pass a feeling that’s very complicated. This poem was very popular at that time, and until now, people still remember it. The lemon tree gave people a sense of loneliness in sadness with their wise choose of words.

The repetition in the poem enlarges the sadness to cover up happiness. This line repeated twice in the poem, and we can feel the depression in the words. This poem contains multiple repetitions, there are the main verse and 2 vice-verses, and the main verse was repeated 3 times, the 2 vice-verses. "But nothing ever happens and I wonder". There aren’t many changes between the verses, but if the reader read them carefully, they will realize that the whole poem becomes a depressing love story. 

There are some rhyming in the lyrics, especially in the main verse, the word 'why' and 'sky', 'down' and 'around', it makes the poem very fluent and feels very chill when listening to it. Most of the lines in Lemon Tree gave a sense of sadness for example “I'm sittin' here in the boring room It’s just another rainy Sunday afternoon.” This line includes a place, a time, wether and what the character in the poem is doing. Place, which is a boring room, represents he is alone and has nothing to do. Time, which is Sunday, and that's weekend, so that's supposed to bring some joy. But, the weather, it's raining, and again it brings the reader to a low point. At last what the character’s doing…, sitting there and doing nothing. This is the very start of the poem, and already, the atmosphere is decided, it's going to be sad.

In conclusion, this poem used rhyming as a sugarcoat to attract people’s ear, repetition to enlarge the story or the emotion the writer is creating, and at last the lyrics or the wording, which is the most essential part,  successfully increased the atmosphere of the poem and set the mood in to what the writer wants.

Analyzing Lemon Tree

Analyzing Lemon Tree

The lemon tree produced in 1995 by Fools Garden is a very special poem, the words in it pass a feeling that’s very complicated. This poem was very popular at that time, and until now, people still remember it.
The lemon tree gave people a sense of happiness in sadness. The repetition in the poem enlarges the sadness to cover up happiness. This poem contains multiple repetitions, there are the main verse and 2 vice-verses, and the main verse was repeated 3 times, the 2 vice-verses. There aren’t many changes between the verses, but if the reader read them carefully, they will realize that the whole poem becomes a depressing love story. And the tempo, it's very poetic, its two verses have almost the same beats. The repetition between lines creates a genuine feeling for the writer, the depression of life and the loneliness surrounding us. There are some rhyming in the lyrics, especially in the main verse, the word 'why' and 'sky', 'down' and 'around', it makes the poem very fluent and feels very chill when listening to it. Most of the lines in Lemon Tree gave a sense of sadness for example “I'm sittin' here in the boring room It’s just another rainy Sunday afternoon.” This line includes a place, a time, wether and what the character in the poem is doing. Place, which is a boring room, which means he is alone and has nothing to do. Time, which is Sunday, and that's weekend, so that's supposed to bring some joy. But, the weather, it's raining, and again it brings the reader to a low point. At last what the character’s doing…, sitting there and doing nothing. This is the very start of the poem, and already, the atmosphere is decided, it's going to be sad.
In conclusion, this poem used rhyming as a sugarcoat to attract people’s ear, repetition to enlarge the story or the emotion the writer is creating, and at last the lyrics or the wording, which is the most essential part,  successfully increased the atmosphere of the poem and set the mood in to what the writer wants.

Reflection for Theatre class

Reflection for Theatre class

Throughout the week, I've experienced a lot of new theatre technique and vocabularies. We started with a whole new different kind of way to learn, we’ve learned how to express our feelings without any words, only with body motions. We’ve also practised soft focus, which is very important for an actor on stage, he or she needs to stay alert to everything that's happening around them, so practising soft focus can be very important. Due to days of bonding, I can successfully sink into everyone’s motion, which is the other vocabulary we’ve learned, Kinetic Response. When actors are connected kinetic response, they can cooperate a lot easier, especially when they are improvising. Those are the most important thing I learned, at least for me its kinetic response. Other than this we’ve also learned a lot of other techniques, for example, Tempo and Duration. Tempo represents the speed of one’s performance, like how fast or slow they move from one place to another or their speed of moving gesture. The duration is how long a person can stay in one motion or gesture, maybe even standing still. During the practice, we have experienced a lot of cooperation, at start we get a lot of orders from the teacher, the teacher will tell us what to do and we will be following order, but later on, we have more freedom to improvise our every move. The last tree day we were spat into two groups of four and one group will be performing on the stage and the other group will be watching off the stage. It's interesting because when you are on stage, it's hard to realize your surroundings, especially when you are mostly focusing on yourself, or focusing on one other actor. But when you are off the stage, you can see the whole scene, what everyone is doing and how they react when another actor performs something. I’ve talked about kinetic response, but there are other representations of teamwork, for example, Repetition, where one person copies another person’s gesture or movement. Spacial relationship means how much space one person has between another person.

lemon tree

Lemon Tree

I'm sittin' here in the boring room

It's just another rainy Sunday afternoon

I'm wasting my time

I got nothin' to do

I'm hangin' around

I'm waitin' for you

But nothing ever happens and I wonder

I'm drivin' around in my car

I'm drivin' too fast

I'm drivin' too far

I'd like to change my point of view

I feel so lonely

I'm waitin' for you

But nothing ever happens and I wonder

I wonder how

I wonder why

Yesterday you told me 'bout the blue blue sky

And all that I can see is just a yellow lemon tree

I'm turnin' my head up and down

I'm turnin', turnin', turnin', turnin', turnin' around

And all that I can see is just another lemon tree

There are some rhyming in the lyrics, especially in the main verse, the word 'why' and 'sky', 'down' and 'around', it makes the song very fluent and feels very chill when listening to it. Ant the tempo, it's very poetic, its two verses have almost the same beats. The repetition between lines creates a genuine feeling for the writer or the singer, the depression of life and the loneliness surrounding us.

The overall tone for this music is sad, most of the nouns used in there are sad, and it is very depressing. But when you listen to the music, the rhythm is actually pretty happy, and it's interesting, when you actually listen to it, you don't feel the sadness at all, maybe a little at the start, but the main verse was really happy. The overall message from the song is probably betrayal and life is like this, so get used to it. Here are some lyrics: Yesterday you told me 'bout the blue blue sky, And all that I can see is just another lemon tree. Even though the lyrics were pretty sad, but in the song, the rhythms were most major, so it sounded pretty happy.
The rhythm for the main verse is this: G, D, Em, B, C, G. There is only one minor in the rhythm so it's pretty happy. But in the starting, the rhythm was all minor, so it's like an uphill slope, starts sad, and become happy.


Here is the music.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va0vs1fhhNI

Reflection

Reflection on Performance

Well, It all went pretty well, it's easy to act out everything, but it's hard to memorise all the lines. The most interesting thing about the performance is probably me shaking on the stage. Well, it all worked out great, it was fluent, we did one go, so I think we did pretty well.

CARPE DIEM REVIEW

CARPE DIEM

Seize the day

Without love

your spirit will be a flower

picked up without purpose

and thrown on the ground

to be trampled by anyone.

This is my favorite line in this poem, because it visualizes what people feel like when they are lonely. It is very true when a person lives without love, he or she's either lonely or free. People need reasons to live for, but when a person don't have any needs or purpose, they will be eaten by the space growing inside themselves. Love is an antidote, for loneliness, for sadness, for life. People need things to fill up their blank space, some uses work, some uses drug, some uses game, but love, it distracts people from everything, when a person stays with their other part, the bond can be so strong, nothing in the world could break it apart.

Poetry

What is Poetry?
How does Poetry work?


Poetry can be short/ discription of something/ event
'snapshot' -- capture a moment
rhyme/ pattern/ repetition
emotion
"deeper meaning"
rhythm/ beat/ meter
5 senses --- visualising/ feeling

pre-written language

oral tradition - stories of life, culture, history, family, tradition.

easier to remember

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-MGhxvkcHo

Review:

My tone can be a little bit better, it is very clear that I am not capable of being a good performer, I do not have enough experience to control such character. I need to remember my lines and combine them with my performance, and I shouldn't have turned my back on to the audiences.

Monolog of a Nuke

I’m a nuke, and there is something special about me compared to the other week missiles. I can only be set off by one thing, the button. No matter how much you punch me or shoot me, I won’t blow up. Although, if you touch my button, ohh I swear to god, there won’t be an ash left of you. So if you want to be safe around me, leave my button alone!

My life you see is very fun. I get to stay in the launch station all day, and the best is, I don’t even have to move! Those little two legged things come to check me every day, super comforting, only if they could set an tv up, that will be better.

Something happened today, I was sitting and starring at walls just as usual, but a few hours ago, a few of those two legged thingy came in to a room full of monitors, they are wearing white, but one man he wears a suit, he stares at me and said a word, I couldn’t hear it, but the other little things seem to freaked out. Hmmm I really wish it’s nothing.

(Yawning) what’s that sound, why is my room red, what, are those count downs, no no no no no! Guys we can still talk about this, we don’t need to use violanaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

Some Performance Stuff

I can't really remember the last performance I was in, I mostly am the director, and maybe out of 20 pieces of my work, I was only in one of them. Although, a few years back I've watched a fair amount of performances, for example, Wicked, Lion King, also Chicago The Musical. They were really good, although when I was watching Chicago The Musical, I fell asleep, cause I had jet sick back then. My favourite one is Wicked, when I first heard we are going for a musical, I wasn't that excited, but the reality slapped me in the face, it was really really good. There is a very very interested coincident about this musical, because before going to the musical, in the morning, we learned the exact music in Wicked in our music class, and when I sat down in the stadium that night, I was so excited, I was bragging about it all night and the next day in school.

This is an object that can represent me. Actually, its the things that this controls. I am like a giant, but I am peaceful, no matter how much you hurt my feelings or hurt my body, I will never grow a lot of anger towards you. Although there is one thing about me, is that, if you dare hurt my friend or the people I care about, you pushed the nuke button, I will erupt and you will feel my wrath. So you can do whatever you want, but know this, leave that button alone, you don't want to touch it.

Life is hard #3

3


Standing at the bottom of the building,

Looking up,

You smiled and took a sip from the hot beverage handed you by the police,

All you can see is bright

Waking up and look out the window,

Rain pouring down,

Wind blowing trees,

You walk to the window and says,

'Hello, world.'

A smile slowly grows on to your face,

'You look just like yesterday.'

Wind growling outside the door,

You make your self a hot beverage.

Life is hard,

So what?

You living in it,

Can make it better.

Life is hard #2

2


Why is life so hard?

Don't ask me, ask god.

Life is hard, but you are still living it,

You want to end it, but, does it worth it?

When you sat on the side of a building,

People are watching from down there,

Siren on the police car covers all the noise in the city,

All you can feel is peace.

You know that all you need is to move a little forward,

and it will all end.

But when your hands behind you are ready to push,

Your heart starts to shake,

Does it worth it?

To just push,

just push,

push.

Life is hard #1

1


Life is hard.

When you are enjoying your life, remember this, it will end.

Every time you tell yourself, hey, life is great!

It's not.

A few minutes ago, you were enjoying the sunshine beside the beach,

Now, it's just pouring rain and bone freezing wind.