We did an exercise where we had to imagine an object that we disliked and then describe it without using the items name. I picked a spider and when describing it to the rest of the class said it was light, about the size of my hand, it lived in homes mainly, and had eight legs and eyes I also described it's appearance and what it felt moving on my hand and when receiving feedback after my describtion i was told that everyone new it was a spider because of different ways, one was because of how they related to what I was saying and they saw spiders the same way I did and another was because of a particular physical description such as the eight legs and many eyes. Later when we were descussing the exercise we found that the reason we didn't say the name of the object was because everyone has there own ideas of how a particular object looks such as the spider but by describing it you create a personal picture for the audience that is shared with everyone listening.
Given circumstance
3 chairs where placed in the centre of the room and we where asked what they could be, after a couple of comments such as a doctors waiting room, airoplane and van we decided that the most realistic answer was the doctors waiting room as in a doctors waiting room there are just ordinary chairs placed together. We then discussed what would be around a doctors waiting room such as a desk, a receptionist and a board reading patients names, we also spoke about what day it would be ( a day in the week not weekend) and what time it would probably be ( the morning ) these were the given circumstances. Ella was then picked to come into the doctors waiting room and just act as she would if she was waiting at the doctors, two other people from my class then joined her and sat in the other chairs and acted as they would at a doctors waiting room. When we had a descussion about it after watching them for around 5 minutes we descovered that what made it so successful was the realistic and genuine approach to the scenario, it was so believable and almost hypnotising to watch as you really felt like you where just peering into a doctors waiting room. In this excersize the 4th wall applied as this was vital to making the peice believable when hearing the 3 class members speak it came apparent that what helped them become so believable was having a back story and after hearing the back stories that they each had we all agreed that it came across. We also annalysed body language such as there leg position or how they were holding their arms this all added to the supposed character they had in their head.
Relaxation
We did an exercise where we stood in neutral and slowly imagined each part of our body starting from the feet turning to ice/ freezing. This involved us tensing up every part of our body such as locking knees and scrunching the bum. Once we where completely tense and in freeze mode we slowly began to melt from head to toe un tensing each body part. This was a zipping feeling as we felt trapped and restricted when freezing and free and loose when melted. This excersize was designed to completely free the body and to realise the difference between being tence and loose and how this can affect an actor.
Tempo-Rhythm
The Tempo or Rhythm of a scene makes you feel a certain way and get a certain feeling from the scene. For instance if there was a murder about to take place the tempo would be going quite slow giving the audience more time to build fear making the audience member feel on edge and tense but if a character was just doing a normal everyday thing the tempo would be quite relaxed and normal making the audience member feel calm. The tempo is used as a dramatic tool it can heighten tension and dissipate it.
Magic if/ What if
We did an exercise where we walked around the space with a purpose, which was to get to school. As we where walking we where shouted out things such as 'What if there was a £50 note on the floor' and we had to react as we personally would if this where to happen. I found that in this excersize everyone acted completely differently although some may have not been as truthful as expected. I personally found it hard to envisage some of the 'what if' questions but I tried to act as truthfully as I possibly could putting myself in the position of the scenario. This exercise was particularly advantageous to me as it helped me with my improvisational skills and naturalism which are key in the particular area we are studying at the moment.
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