Evaluation

Final Evaluation, 

Final board presentation with all information ..

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First Half: One to One

Second Half: One to One

Also, as an add on, things that went well was our set design. We worked hard on making sure that we still had a form of creepy dim lighting that would illuminate the performance as well as being creepy enough to be in keeping with the style of our performance. We did this by using pink and yellow lighting gels which went over our lamps which gave our set a very gloomy look. One thing I would change about the process is, spending more time on how we were going to make it look like it was not just a Tattoo Parlour, but a home for a weird family. I feel it would of enhanced our performance further if it looked more grotesque.

Over time, our performance changed massively, even to the point of having to change the ending to more of a scare factor just to make people leave. However as a group we were very good at changing the scene for different types of audiences. Also, we were given feedback by our extras that we were given on the day and they were telling us that the scene was too long and if we shortened it people would stay for a lot longer, which is what we did in the end. I think shortening it worked because there were so many creepy things that even with the first event where lily would show the the foetus, it would make people want to leave already, so as it was shorter they got to see the whole performance to its full effect.

Another thing that I would change about process is having more access to the site/location where we would be performing as we had never performed in the that space at anytime before the show day. If we had, this would have improved our spacial awareness, we would have experimented more with the lighting to see what effect it had on the make-up, costume and the overall set itself. I would have probably made it look more like we had taken over the shop or even making it as though they had walked in to a whole new place, and changed the look of the shop completely and not as though we had just occupied it for one evening.

Rule challenges

-Keeping it clean to respect the shop
   
* We worked well on this, because, before we left we did a big sweep up and general clean and reset their shop for when they reopen in a couple of days times. However, during the performance the audience would come in with muddy feet and leaves, so this was hard to prevent from happening as they were running around outside to begin with.

-Warm to entice the gamers in to watch our scene

* This was hard as the door was open and the participators were wearing costumes which did not necessarily promote warmth.

-Possible audience actor to keep the play realistic, red coat?

* We had marshalls, however they had not been briefed as much as they should have by the company so the majority of actors had to explain what needed doing themselves which was not their job to do.

-Lighting, wires need to be hidden and make sure all valuable/dangerous shop parts need to be as far away from where the audience are to stand once inside

*This wasn't a challenge becuase when we got to the location their plugs and wires were all away and there were no hazards. We did have lamps of our own for lighting but we prepared them in such a way whereby no one could come into contact with them.

-Safety first, doors cannot be blocked, audience need to be aware of any hazards

*Due to limited ability to give the participants information, as you would need to come out of character to give them health and safety advice, we guided them in character

-Fire doors

*The fire doors were monitored by the shop owner, which we found out on the day.

Part 2/3 - Costume Cupboard and Dress Rehearsal

Costume Cupboard and Dress Rehearsal

This is our last performance where we will be supervised and get feedback. We have also explored the costume cupboard for some outfits that we think might suit our messed up family. Elly will be wearing a bloody nighty, Lily’s wearing a very cute girly like dress, and I will be wearing an odd mixture of clothes underneath a very sparkly dress as if I have just found the dress and chucked it on.

Here is a list of props, costumes, and other things that lead to our concern –

Number of people in our Scene – 5 (Saskia, Lily, Elly, x2 artists)

Title – The Family

Props – Lamp x2, Baby, Blood Capsules, Chains, Pregnancy tests, Small Jar for heart, Napkin for baby, Fake blood, Used nappies.

Costumes –

Lily – Cute girly long dress, broken shoes

Elly – Nighty, slippers, dressing gown

Saskia – Dress over shirt and ripped trousers, biker boots, leather jacket

Zombie – As they are dressed like for the occasion

Male – As they are dressed like for the occasion

Character list –

Sister, Joy, Zombie, Becky, Daddy

Time and meeting place –

31^st of October, meeting at the Queen Mother Theatre at 2:00pm

Start of performance time is 7:30pm – finishing at 11:00pm

Final Performance feedback…

-to cover the air while Elly is writing on a notepad, have Saskia (me), eating some gross food and offering it to the audience

-Elly to have her tongue cut out, when she smiles blood gushes out

-introduce a mum to the scene, maybe a heart in a jar.

-play with my (Saskia's) dress a lot more

-the notepad needs to have more legitimate/appropriate words on it without being too obvious with what the family want to achieve sexually

We have decided to put a large trigger warning sign on the front door of our scene as there are are some distressing parts to our performance that we didn’t have in before this performance. This is because I feel our group utilised not having the limitations within the performance piece and a lot of these ideas worked well and were kept in as a result of good feedback and reactions from the audience participators.

Part 3 - Rehearsal - Performing x2

Performing part 2

We went through our piece with Lily present so that she could join in on the next performance we were doing later on in the day. We made the changes from the last feedback we were given and performed in front of everyone, whereas last time it was only a selected few to come in with us. Each group, the ones participating and the observers gave us feedback.

*video of performance

-My character needs to introduce herself

-The ending isn’t strong enough, try making it that lily and ‘daddy’ are “trying again”. Lily wants them to leave

-Elly needs to look ugly, there needs to be a reason to not want to talk to her. Elly also needs some speech, too casual

-Too much air, maybe lily could be showing someone something as I introduce the daddy character, something gruesome like something dead ( a dead baby in cloth)

For our next performance, we were told to go all out with no boundaries. We were told this so that we could perform with no limitations, as it is easier to bring performances down to a certain level but trying to make it bigger is harder, so, it was an exercise to see if we could think of extra situations outside of the box that we could add to our work.

We are going to add –

*A foetus that Lily is going to show to her audience member she has chosen

*The character of ‘Mumma’ who is going to be a heart in a jar

*We are changing the ending to Lily wanting daddy to herself

*I’m going to introduce myself

*And Becky is having no tongue, we need blood capsules
*Need to fill in where its just emptiness
*I need to shake hands with them but as if I want to stroke their hand

Part 2 - Risk assessment

Site Restrictions

- The fire doors will be behind the performance, however they were very close to the front main doors which should not be a problem to use with a marshal handy. 

- There are sterile equipment that can not just be put anywhere they need to be kept where they usually are which was in the drawers of the space that we would be using.

- There is a very big desk by the entrance which makes it difficult for people to get in, but there is a limit too how many people should come in to watch the performance each time anyway so should not be a problem to just have people coming in one by one single file.

- Tattoo chairs have to be kept on the shop floor because they are too complicated to move.

- There is a massive window wall at the front of the shop so people can see in, so we will need to ask if we can cover it or we just need to make sure that marshals are aware that there can not be any hanging around the front and watching through windows by the participators.

Part 3 - Rehearsal - Performing

Performing

Today we performed what we had got so far, it was a bit messy in places and we need to tighten up a lot of the piece so that it flows together well. Also, I have noticed there was a lot of air and pauses that need to be sharpened. Here is the footage of the performance and feedback is written below…

                                           

-Zombie and male are not really worth being there at the moment, they have got a predominant enough part.

-It didn’t last as long as we hoped

-Was creepy but could have had more, for a surprise scare factor to it, to get everyone to leave

-Elly isn’t being used much, liked the element of her being silent, but maybe she could make the person sitting next to her feel more uncomfortable by at least doing something to them, for example staring right at them

-My character needs to introduce more of the family and the family need to be more weird than “trying to scare”

-Lilys character needs to participate with the audience. (who was played by KJ as Lily was absent)#

-Stronger ending, why should they leave?

Part 2 - Process - Plot change

Plot change

Today we had a discussion about our piece with our overall Director present. My group were told that we didn’t necessarily have to have a script, as it's mainly just improvising around a scene that we have created, and the speech can vary and change, nothing has to be set in stone other than the plot and the cue lines. Also, that long speech will get lost as people are not going to want to stand there and listen for too long as they will just want to play the game. It was showing, that we were struggling to find ways about our idea as it was too simplistic and was hard to pull different things from it, so, we decided as a group to change the plot. Not completely change it, but enough so that we can have a bit more freedom to devise. So, we are thinking of loosely having the idea of repopulation attached to it. Our overall Director gave us the idea of maybe making it quite twisted, for example, maybe even having it as a twisted/perverted family.

We took this feedback on and decided to make a sort of adopted family. They are trying to get people to join their very twisted family, still in keeping with the repopulation, we decided to make it that they were a repopulation family. There will be one person, who will be me, going out and enticing people to come in and meet the family members. Elly is my unbothered cousin who doesn’t really care about this whole situation, if anything, she was more in to her games that she is playing on her phone rather than anything else. We thought this would be a really weird character as she is the normality within the freak show. Lily’s character was just basically a child almost, and she just does her own thing, like one to ones with the audience.

Next we will be performing our play to an audience. We are allowed to use extras so that our performance can come to life. We have chosen a male and a female character. We had to brief them to tell them exactly what they will be doing. The female as a Zombie and male as the dominant male character who will be winding the Zombie up to make the audience scared and making them all leave at the end by saying something like “Which one's mine?” and getting really close to the audience and making them feel uncomfortable, then dismissing them as if they are peasants. The Zombie will just get progressively more angry and noisy and making the audience feel like they need to run away.

Part 2 - Process - Developing Ideas part 2

Developing ideas Part 2

Beginning – Woman coaxing people in: saying things like “hey, we have food and shelter if that’s what you are looking for?” The coaxing speech varies for different types of audiences. We have based this particular character, however, on a character from the book/film Harry Potter. The character is called Bellatrix. She is ballsy and very creepy; it’s almost as if she has lost her mind. She has the same love for her master as we want to show in our own character toward the dominant main character. She is played by Helena Bonham-Cater compellingly, because you have to watch her, which is key for this character as she is the one trying to get people in to the scene and watch. I will be playing this character.

Bellatrix: "My Lord, it is an honour to have you here, in our family's house. There can be no higher pleasure."

Lord Voldemort: "No higher pleasure... That means a great deal, Bellatrix, from you."

Bellatrix: "My Lord knows I speak nothing but the truth!"

This quote shows that the character Bellatrix has complete respect and totally submissive to her masters, which is what we want to convey to in our created character.

The audience will come in and stand by the window where the sofas are and the dominant male character is sitting in one of the tattoo chairs like it’s his thrown. He sits there in dead silence, whilst all the dominant female can do is just keep talking, until he breaks it at the end and has a little speech of his own that we are hoping will freak the audience out so much that they will just end up leaving. This, however, can be varied with different audiences. My group and I decided that we did want to have a cliché ending where we have to scream at the to get them out.

The dominant male characters speech –

“You all seem rather confused. Almost too curious as to what I want to achieve. If you really want to know then I will tell you. I’m going to finish with them and get some more later. Right now, you all don’t really understand, but you will. Your vision will soon clear and you will understand that this needs to happen. We need to start new world order and I will be in power, this new world will be mine. You will be back… Trust me.”

That is the first draft but we want to make it more scary so we will just work on it until it’s enough to make people want to leave our site.