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Assignment
 

For this assignment i will be working with three other students to put together a performance that will be performed in a space outside that we will choose.

This space can be anywhere as long as it is resnable for a performance to be performaned here
Our performance can be anything we want it to be and it is up to us to have any equipment involved and how we would use it.

Alternative Spaces Porfolio

Comparing My Alternative Performance spaces

Single door doorway.
 
The area for this performance space would be perfect for our assginment as this old town hall is no longer in use and the place feels abandoned. I think this area has a lot of use to it for a performance outdoors and could be used for a lot of different performance styles because it has alot of room for set, dance routines, physical theatre peices and even a simple drama piece. The doorway has made us think of a scene to have a homeless person living here because of the arch way and it can be used as shelter to get away from the rain and wind. The graffiti and the old brick walls give this place a scruffy feel for it to show that hte homeless man it living in horrible condtions and the doorway  can also look out into the area for people passing by to beg for money.
The road infront of the doorway still can be used by vehicles but because this town hall is not longer in use and is far away from Middlesbrough town centre you dont see many cars about so it would be safe for a audience to be seated here.
What i dont like about this place is that the doorway is small and im not sure that the audience would see the perfomer who plas the homeless man in there properly.

Vulcon Street Brick Wall
 

The brick wall was my idea of choice for our performance space as i have been involved in a music video that used this space to film. I thought it would be a interesting place for our alternative spaces performance as you can climb up onto the gates and there is also a space infront of the wall to perform on. The brick wall gives a old set feeling to it and looks good for affect.
When looking at this space it made me think of a scene that could include a prisoner or prisoners being locked up or another situation could be somebody a group of people  that have been kidnapped and kept in a dark room. To give the dark room feeling we could have had a black sheet to make a tent infront of the brick wall so it feels closed in and dark.
What i like about this space is the old brick wall and the gated circles which we could of played around with. You can easily climb up onto the gated circles so we could use it for people to sit on stand on or even dance. What i dont like about this space is that there is nothing we could use around the wall apart from the gated circle, there is no room for an audience to be seated and to watch and also with it being right next to a main road i think it would be unsafe for an audience and also the performers.

  

Abandoned Shed

The abandoned shed was found two minutes away from the single doorway and we had a idea to use both of these performance spaces together by having the shed to be the homeless mans secret layer. We would have the audience to walk from the single doorway to the abandoned shed and back to the single doorway for the final scene.
When thought that this area could be the homeless mans secret layer were he brings his victims to murder because of the scruffy area and because it feels creepy when standing in this area. You get a sense that you should not be here and that something bad may happen.  

Whats good about this space is that it gives a gruesome feeling and feels like a creepy place. With the brick walls still standing you still see it being a room of some sort.If this space didnt have so much rubbish i think it would be a great space for lots of different types of performances.

Our selected performance space

Double Door Doorway

 

Our selected performance space is the double door doorway. We chose this space because we liked the single doorway but would prefer it if the doorway was a big bigger so the homeless character could move about in it more as if it was his home and because this area would let the audience see our performers properly. The area is exactly the same as the single doorway apart from the audience space being bigger and the doorway being wider. When looking at our chosen performance space we had a idea to use a projector to project either images or film onto the door because they are black and we would see the images being projected well.
The doorway is part of the old townhall in Middlesbrough which is not in use and boarded up along with some houses in the area. There is still a road infront of this doorway so we could park a car next to our performance space and use that to power up our electrical equipment such as a projector and speakers for music or sound effects.

 

Performance Ideas 

 

  • Live performance at the Double doorway & the Abandoned Shed


This idea includes performing our live performance at the double doorway and also at the abandoned shed. To do this we would perform our first scene were our beggar explains to a lady why he is living the way he is and finally has her to come back to his old home to speak to his family to try and get him off the streets. After this first scene we would have our audience to follow the two characters to the abandoned shed which is a few steps away. When following the two characters the acting would carry on as if two people were walking down the street and having a conversation. Their conversation would include the beggar telling the lady what his family are like. When arriving at the abandoned shed we would have two of the characters from earlier to be stood in the shed waiting for the beggar and the lady. The lady will try to speak to the two characters thinking this is the beggars family but then realises she is in trouble but all of a sudden she is unconscious on the floor because of a sudden attack from one of the characters. A table of tools would be set out on a table for everyone to see clearly and the lady will be tied up on a chair. When the lady becomes conscious she is then teased from the other characters with all the tools as if they are going to torture her with them. For affect we will have the audience members ushered away by one of the characters to go back to the double doorway. Our performance would then finish with a repeat of the first scene but a different person would fill in the ladies place to let the audience know that it is all a trick to kidnap and murder people.This idea for our performance would not work in the shed as we do not want our audience members to walk through a tight path with bushes surrounding it as it may be a hazard and also the shed is not a very good place for a performance because of all of the rubbish and nettles.

 

  • Brick Wall

    At the brick wall we did not come up with a full performance idea but we had the idea to include a person that has been kidnapped and locked away in this room. We do not think this would work as the space does not give a trapped room vibe because of the open space and grass.

 

  • Double doorway and recorded scene at Abandoned Shed

    As we liked the abandoned shed space we thought it would be easier to keep our first scene idea with our beggar in the doorway and trying to get the lady to help him and to film the murdering scene in the shed then to project the film onto the doors in the doorway with them being black and being a good size for an image to be projected.

Final performance idea


For our actual performance we have decided to perform our live performance at the Double doorways and then to have a recorded scene to project onto the doors and then finish with another live performance.Our performance starts off with a homeless man referred to as a “filthy beggar”, drinking a cup of disgusting coffee waiting for passing civilians to ask for money. The first civilian who passes the homeless man is a snobby lady on her phone and when asked for money she calls him a filthy beggar which then leaves the homeless man angry calling her a bunch of nasty names. The second civilian is walking for the bus but stops to fasten his shoelace. When the beggar is trying to make conversation with him he is getting ignored which makes him more angry and upset but notices when the man has left he has dropped his wallet on the floor that the homeless man takes and puts in his pocket to buy himself a nice warm dinner later on. The final civilian walks past the beggar talking on the phone to someone but loses signal. She waits at the wall next to the beggar’s doorway trying to get signal. The homeless man try’s to get conversation out of the lady but is only replied with one word answers. She becomes uncomfortable with the homeless man and walks away. The male who left his wallet returns to the homeless man in a rage telling him to hand his wallet back to him as he knows it was him that stolen it. Both characters are arguing and the snobby lady from the beginning also joins in defending the male who owns the wallet calling the homeless man a filthy beggar. The third civilian who was standing at the wall joins in with the argument but defends the homeless man telling the snobby lady she should not point the finger when she does not know for certain. Interrupting the argument the homeless man then tosses the wallet to the side as if it was there all along. The three civilian’s know for certain that it was the homeless man. The third civilian tells the snobby lady that she should know his situation before judging someone and gives the homeless man some money and leaves the space. The man who owns the wallet takes his wallet and goes for his bus which leaves the snobby lady with the homeless man talking about how he got there in the first place. The homeless man convinces the lady to follow him to his old home to try and persuade his wife to let him come back she agrees and follows him to his old home.We then go into our recorded scene. The lady wakes up to find that she is tied up in a chair and notices a table full of threatening tools. Suddenly the man who lost his wallet and the lady who was waiting at the wall comes walking in with the homeless man not speaking. The lady is asking and begging what is going on while the three characters torment her by showing her each tool and how they are going to use it onto her. We finish the scene with the homeless man telling her to beg for her life and then suddenly the female killer attacks the snobby lady finishing with a scream.We then finish repeating the first scene with the snobby lady replaced by a different character. When the man who loses his wallet enters the performance space we see him and the other female nodding to signal to the homeless man who their next victim is.

Recorded scene

Unfortunatly the day of filming we did not get to use the abandoned shed because of weather conditions. With it raining on the day we did not want to damage our camera so we chose to film at my parents home and to use their garage to film the tormenting scene. We had the homeless man and the snobby lady walking down the street approaching the house. When the door opens we see the male who lost his wallet and the girl who was waiting at the wall but they say nothing. The girl attacks the snobby lady and the next bit of filming we see is when she wakes up in the garage tied up and seeing the table with tools laid out. The last bit of filming we see is the girl attacking the lady and hearing a scream.

 

When planning this scene we did want to use a better camera but we could not get hold of a certain memory card so in the end we used a (BUT WHAT TYPE OF CAMERA HERE) You do not see the snobby lady in this bit of filming but we do see everything in her eyes so she is still part of this scene.

How can we play our filmed piece to our audience ?

 

Originally we did want to use a projector to project our film onto the double doors using either a generator or a car to get power to it. Unfortunatly we could not use a car for the power as my own does not work to get power to electrical devices and using a generator would be to loud and we could not use it if it was raining so we did not want to risk it.  We also had a idea to use a hand held projector and to point it onto the double doors but we found our that it can take weeks to get this working and we do not have time to do this.

Finally we thought we could use four ipads to play our film to the audience. Thinking of ways to make it look more interesting with ipads was difficult because the screens are small and we wanted to give it a more interesting look rather than giving the audience member a ipad and to press play. We thought we could put the four ipads together to make one big screen but having them to play at the same time could be a problem and it would take weeks to figure this out. Finally we thought we could surround our audience with the ipads, stand in a box shape around them and to signal to press play at the same time. When practising to play the videos at the same time we thought it gave a great creepy vibe if they were not playing at the exaact same time as it gives a echo sound. When walking to surround the audience we thought it would be great to have pictures of our faces on the screens and the hold them up to our faces to make it feel abit more grusome and to give the audience a sense that something bad is happening. When going into the next live performace we would go straight into it as if nothing has happened.

Our plans if it were a actual performance.

 

If we were to do this as a actual performance for a live audience prefferably we would want to perform this at night time and have lighting for the first scene so the audience know it is day time. When we are about to show the audience the film i would like the lights to dim down slowly and to use a smoke machine to give a grusome vibe as if something thrilling was going to happen. To show the film i would want a projector that is run by a quiet generator to play our film onto the double doors and when our film is finished the smoke would fade away and then the lighting would fade in to give that sense that it is day time. As i do like the ipad idea i would want more people to carry ipads so the audience can have a good view of a ipad up close and to have the correct software for the film to play at the same time.

Our Meetings

 

  • 1st Meeting
    Our first meeting consisted of getting to know each other as we have not worked with each other before and seeing what type of performers we are. I explained to the others that i am more or a musical theatre performer and would like it if our performance included singing or some musical numbers, Steven also explained that he would count himself as a musical theatre performer and agreed with myself about singing in our performance and Tony and Abigail would count themselfs as a actor. They suggested that if were to include singing they would not want to be a part of it and would rather to only act in our performance.
    When talking about our assignment we started thinking of ideas what we could perform. Our ideas included :

  • A variety caberet

  • A silent black and white horror movie to be projected in our performance space

  • A comedy silent black and white movie with typical horror movie scenes involved to be projected in our performance space but then finishing with a live performance carrying on our film.

 

We agreed with a comedy silent black and white movie to then finish with a live performance in our alternative space. One of the members had a idea where we could use our performance space so we decided to use that as we thought it sounded interesting and thought it would fit in with our performance idea.  As we had the idea to film our silent movie we then started to draw out a story board showing what we would have in our movie. Each slide had a different camera shot. Our idea was for a character to be walking home from their friends house after watching a horror movie but they think they are being followed. Suddenly someone is chasing them which leads them to our performance space.

We finished our meeting by finding another time to meet up and to look at the performance space.

 

  • 2nd Meeting

 

We headed to our first choice of performance space which is located near at the back of Middlesbrough College next to the clock tower. Tony who suggested this performance space explained that it was a abandoned shed that was very old but looked very dark and mysterious. When arriving at this space unfortunatly the shed had been knocked down but the area had a clear space to perform in with old tyres, traffic cones, knocked down sheds and other bits of rubbish and looked very interesting to perform in. We all agreed not to use this performance space because with it being located next to Middlesbrough docks it was very windy and sand was getting blown in our faces. As we now did not have a performance space we started to drive around in the area to see what other spaces we could use. We then noticed Vulcon Streets Brick Wall, The old town halls single doorway and double doorway and also the Abandoned shed that was located two minutes away from the town hall. This is when we agreed to use the double doorway for a scene that included a homeless person. The reason why we thought of a homeless person is because the doorway seems like good shelter for someone and we could picture some sleeping rough in this area with a load of blankets and sleeping bags. We also thought to link the abandoned shed and the doorway together because they were not that far apart and to either film in the shed and project it in the doorway or to perform a live performance in the shed and to have the audience to travel from one space to the other. We then headed back to myplace to write down what props we needed, what costumes to find and also equipment for filming and projecting.
We then finished our meeting agreeing to meet up to write a drafted script.

 

  • 3rd Meeting

 

In this meeting we started to come up with ideas for our performance and wrote a script. After writing our script and we agreed to film the abandoned shed scene and to play it to our audience rather than getting them to move from one space back to the other. We then started to find out where we could hire a camera from and where we could edit our film. Myself and Abigail headed to Teesside University to see if we could hire the room for editing for unfortunatly the workers in this department had already headed home.

 

  • 4th Meeting

 

In our fourth meeting we all planned to meet at the Abandoned shed next to the old town hall to film our scene. Unfortunatly because the weather was horrific with heavy rain and wind we had to move our filmed scene to my home. We set up the murder scene in my garage by putting a table together and laying out a bunch of dangerous tools looking like murder weapons. We then had a chair for Abigail to be tied to as she was playing the lady who would be getting killed and used my front door for when she approaches the house that she is visiting for the homeless man. We had Abigail filming the movie as if we would be seeing what is happening through her eyes as we were filming ours scene this way we had the camera to do a long shot of everything, this made editing very easy to do as we only had to put two scenes together. When finishing filming we also had time to edit. We used windows movie maker to edit our film as it was only basic editing we needed to do. We also agreed to use four ipads to show our film to the audience because we could not get hold of a projector and we were struggling to find a way how to power it up without using a generator because of the noise.

 

  • 5th Meeting

 

This meeting consisted of putting our live performance together and figuring a way how to use our ipads. After finishing our live performance piece we then started to upload our video onto the ipads. We were struggling to upload our videos to we had to leave the ipads with our tutor to see if he could upload them himself. Before handing our ipads over we were thinking of ways how we could show the ipads to an audience in an interesting way. We thought of placing the ipads together to make a square and having one big shot of the film but we thought we could not play all ipads at the same time, another idea was to stand in a line infront of the audience and to press play at the same time but we thought we may not get the timing right. Finally we agreed to surround our audience so we could see each other and to signal when to press play. When practising this we found that even if the films were not playing the audio at the right time it still give a good affect and made it sound quite thrilling.

 

 

6th Meeting

Our videos were finally uploaded to our ipads but because of the weather we thought we would be better of to perform our pieces after the easter hoilidays. Also it would give us more rehearsal time and to make us feel a lot more confidant with our pieces.

 

Contact

Hthompson010392@hotmail.co.uk

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All work on this site is honest work by myself or other students in the same class or groups.
 

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