UNIT 3 Silent movies

UNIT 3
Context
Unit three is about silent movies. We are reading the dumb waiter which is a play about two assassins wasting time waiting to be called in for a job. At the end of the play the job was to kill each
other as it's a comedy which many silent movies follow. For the dumb waiter play Rob chose our partners.
The important skills we would need for this silent movie would be:

• eye contact
• creativity
• memory
• imagination
• body language
• face
• gestures

I feel like these are important ones especially  body language and face movements as we have no dialogue or speech. Our face movements and body language is to show the audience what we are portraying.
There a specific themes in dumb waiter. I think these themes help us in acting in the dumb waiter. I think the themes of Dumb Waiter are violence as Gus constantly annoys Ben. Ben does physically attack Gus at times because he got so annoying and Ben had enough that he had to shut up Gus at times. There are also themes of comedy in the dumb waiter on how the two characters play off each other and have a friendship which shows they have known each other for a long time. It also shows that they are used to their friendship.
The two characters have very different personalities. Ben has a much higher status than Gus. As Ben is the senior co-worker. Ben is very bossy and passive aggressive to Gus. Ben is sarcastic and condescending and very lazy and asked Gus to do a lot of tasks which he could of done himself. On the other hand Gus is very submissive and very talkative. He is very annoying, so he tends to annoy Ben a lot which his meaningless questions. Their friendship is something that has gone on for a long time and they have been used to each other but at some moments they can still get on each others nerves. This has helped us act like our character by getting them to know them better. I play Ben and what helps me. I can pretend to act like Gus is an annoying sibling which i have myself in real life.

Research

In acting we were invited to go watch the musical production of Hamilton and have a Q&A with the whole of the cast. This helped us in seeing how professional production shows work and perform daily to audiences. The Q&A showed us how they worked and they give advice to younger actors like ourselves in what to do.

We had to practice our lines a lot as we were doing a scene each and we have to research the play as it been performed before and we watched how to actors portray the characters in the performances and how we can do the same.

We also watched youtube videos of actors playing the scene before so we can see how actors play the characters and learn how we can do it. We also watched comedy duos and see how there is always a high status character and low status character and this play is no different. There is a high status character and a low status character. We used these youtube clips to play the comedy accept of someone more powerful takes control of someone lower and make it funny by the scene they do together and the relationship they have between each character. We had a sheet of skills which gave us skills we can use for this performance.

Planning 
The planning process was more of practicing and figuring lines and characters. We just had to practice and learn lines and work on our characters.

We were working on mime technique and had to improvise a scene of two decorators one high class and one low class.

In my scene I was the high class decorator and our plan was the low class decorator was doing the wrong technique and the high class gets frustrated trying to improve it.
I think what was successful was our movements was very clear and the audience can clearly understand what we were trying to portray in our performance.  At one point there is a lot of angry movements as we are angry at each other for not doing there job correctly and those were big movements with our arms.

Also there is a trip being plan to go see Hamilton the music production this will help us in seeing professional actors in a professional theater. This will help us see our future and what the different job chances there are in the performing arts career.

In our movement class we did gestures for different emotions. We had to over exaggerate every movement as there is no dialogue in silent movies. So we did a tune made out of claps that we march to this works on our listening skills and our team work so the whole class can march to the tune together.

In acting we were working on our silent movie pieces and our dumb waiter pieces. In our silent movie pieces we had dialogue and movements in the silent movie we would still have dialogue but it would be on the screen and it would be on or two words a something big or important.
 My piece included of someone of a high status and someone of a low status as that what many silent movies follow as the high status shouting at the lower stars makes more of a comedic scene.
https://youtu.be/MIQocRXlQTc

My scene with my partner we decided to do a low status had to make tea for the high status we got the idea for making tea from the dumb waiter script we were reading. Our performance was the high status which i was playing was complaining about the tea that was made by the low status as the low stars kept getting it wrong and kept making the tea taste disgusting. I had to act the high status which means i had to be mean and very pushy to the low status.

In acting we worked on the dumb waiter and our silent movies. For our silent movie we worked on putting it together and having the different scenes go together to make one story. We have to do it in scenes as it going to be filmed. For our dumb waiter i have remembered my lines as it was easy to remember for me and we have to start practicing performing it without a script. We have two weeks until we have to perform it so our performances has to be perfected and performed in front of people. In movement classes we had to perform one piece from our client movies.

Ben and Gus personalities 

Our performance is a week away i want my performance to appear funny and that these two questions have a good relationship. Like it is portrayed in the script and the play.

Problem solving

 I feel there will be challenges with this unit as we are using our bodies more than using our voice.

Our facial expressions are important as-well as we use angry or sad expression to portray what we are feeling as we can't use our words. The difference between our facial and body language in when we have dialogue and when we don't have dialogue is when we have dialogue we express our feelings with our words, but when we have no words we over exaggerate our facial expression to make it clear what we are feeling.

When we were practicing i feel our body language was over exaggerated and clear but I feel like we need to work on our facial expressions and making them more big and more clear on what we are feeling and saying.

We all performed one piece and give each other advice on how to improve. In the dumb waiter piece we worked on developing our characters. I am playing ben who is in the high status place so I have to put the other character down at all times. Rob told me to improve on some things which were to act more annoyed as Ben (my character) is very annoyed at Gus and to act like to Gus is a younger sibling. We have to listen to each other so are characters can play off at one another. I also have to work on my projection skills. Another improvement was to back myself to help the other actors if they forgot there lines and to improvise until we are brought back on our thought and remember the lines. During the performance one of the actors came late so our teacher put my group first i didn't go in chronicle order because the actor was supposed to go before us, but it was solved and the actor came in and did it straight after

Evaluation

Our performance happen in the theater. Our dumb waiter performance went well in my opinion. I remembered my lines and my actions and i did everything according to our practices. The only problem was the  group that went before us can in late to our performance leading to our group having to go first. My feelings was nervous especially as wen weren't expecting to go first. I think i still have the problem of my voice projection not being loud enough. I do project my voice but my voice isn't loud enough even tough i still think i am loud enough. I used my props to my advantage an example of this is the news paper when my partner portrays Gus as annoying my character i use the newspaper to cover my face as if i was avoiding my partner and trying to concentrate on my news paper. This also helps me take a break from being nervous of the audience staring at me as i concentrate on the newspaper. I did slow down my speech which was also a improvement that i had to for on.
Our performance went well our characters clicked and bounced off at each other which was supposed to happen.  I did feel nervous but my concentration on the performance and me doing good over ran the nervousness. The performance went well we learnt all our lines and the audience enjoyed it.