Costume 1 - The Costume Bible and Plot

What is a Costume Bible?


A costume bible is a book created by a designer at the start of a process of designing for a show, this is a good resource to have as people can refer to the book to find out anything about the shows costume and the characters. For example if a costume supervisor left a show, a new costume design could come in and just make the costumes and understand the needs of each character, just from the bible.


 In the costume bible it should include:

• Costume Plot
• Where to find all of the fabrics, and add in samples of what fabrics you would use, and price ranges of the fabrics.
• Costume inspirations and starting points
• Initial costume designs
• Final costume designs
• Details of specific items to add on; EG- jewellery, buttons, zips
• Photos of the character in actions
• Different location

Reference to what is a Costume Bible








What determines a costume designer?

• Practicality - is it practical for the space or what the character has to do. (Dance?)
• Time period - Costumes are fitting to when the show is set, (EG- Downton Abbey would were older clothes, however We Will Rock You would be futuristic
• Templates Character profile
• status - what the character is trying to portray to the audience and is measured towards the other characters
• lighting - Can change the colour of a costume and reveal a different side to a costume
• set
• context of production
• era - See time period
• Fitting with show and other character
• colour scheme
• budget - How much you can afford and other ways of getting the same effect but for a cheaper price, other ways of creating status rather than buying elaborate fabrics.
• personal preference
• personality - for example colours reflecting the personality
• Original Costume - How much from the original production do you get inspired by and how much do you discard.
• Character Profile - One accent costume that can immediately show an audience what your character is, for example, the queen would wear a crown and footballer would wear boots or have a ball.
• The audience - Children's theatre, would be appropriate costumes, yet with bright colours, that can make them interested, for example light up and making noises, textures. Costumes that include all of the sensory features. In contrast a show like Chicago, you would not take a child to this as the costumes are a little more revealing.

What is a costume plot?


A costume plot is a breakdown of a certain characters costumes, and it shows a designer and the dressers what costume is needed for each scene and it says what clothing, headwear, footwear and accessories. Unlike the bible, which is all about designing and creating the costume, the plot is a practical document that has it down what it is that the character has to wear.

S CLub 7 presentation evaluation

In groups we all explored ensemble bands like S Club 7, we had to explore how well they worked together and significant moments in their life. In my group we set it out as if the group were in a rehearsal and each member would speak about what happened next in the groups timeline.


In the group I played and researched the part of Bradley McIntosh, in the group he was quite a big character, and would always voice his opinions, I showed this through, being quite forward in the performance and making it know of what I was feeling about what was going on.


When it came to devising different scenes to go into the play, we just explored lots of different scenes and how we could include the researched information into the scene using improvisation, through this we got some really solid scenes. when it came to blocking out the scenes I felt that I came up with a few ideas on how to make each scene interactive and comical for the audience. for example I came up with the section at the start where we all say a character profile, I felt that this worked well as from the start the audience could tell what members we were all playing.


When it came to researching about the band i was left to look up about my own character and thier first hit song, 'Bring It All Back'. Others in the group had to look up different subject in the group history, for example how their music developed over the years, and how they split up. By us all looking into these different subjects, and then bringing them all together to start piecing them together, it made the devising process alot quicker and slicker.


If we were to do this project again i would have liked to spend more time on making all of our research link up, and making it really clear in the jumps in the timeline of the performers life. However i feel that as a group we all worked really well together and brought a side of comedy into the piece, which i felt reflects how the band worked as a team.

What is Freelance

For an actor the first priority is to get a great training at a drama school or university, and through that learn all of the key essentials to perform successfully. Most actors would think that with a good training and the opportunity to perform in a showcase in front of agents, producers and directors. Actors think that this is enough and would come out and jump straight into a acting career. As actors are not always taught how to build an acting career, this can help to get specific goals, marketing yourself and working towards putting yourself out there for the roles that suit you.

For new and up coming performers the rise in technology has really improved the way in which we can sell ourselves, involving for self promotion, for example show reels are much more common, where they may not have been necessary for an actors portfolio. In modern auditions, a headshot is not enough for a casting, as it cant show all sides of your skills.

Before technology was common your reel was your reseme, and your would maybe include some clips of your past productions, and this would just remind the casting team of your past work and could include a range of your shows, that contrast. Now days your show reel can include clips from things, that are purely just there for your show reel, for example if you felt that your show reel did not include anything that shows off your straight acting enough, people would go out of the way to film a extract of a scene to include in your reel.

For a really good start into the creative industries, it is really good for a performer to get a head start into the business, a really good way to get a good first impression is to

Musical Theatre Getting Ready for pack

We will rock you is a juke box musical, based on the music of Queen. It tells the sotry of a group of bohemians, who struggle to find sanity in a very different world in the furture, where everyone dresses the same, and acts and thinks the same. In the world of the play there is no thing as music and all composers are forbidden, rock is seen as a sin


The production is set 300 ytears into the furture, where the planet is named 'IPlanet', the main population is made up of 'Ga Ga Kids', where they all resemble clones of each other. The production follows the black sheep of the class ' Galilio', who has always has wanted to be different and something more with his life, he hears strange words in his head, and most play out to be lyrics to the song.


As the play goes on Glailio and his love are captured by Killer Queen and Khashoggi, the leaders of IPlanet, once killer queen has got them they have to fidn a way out and find the hidden istruments, to bring music back into the world. As they work their way through the play we find more characters, Brit and Meat, who are also break aways from the formula of killer queen.

healthy practice

Dance essay

It is important for a dancer in practice to stay fit and make sure that their body is ready for movement, this is mainly through a balanced heathy diet, that includes that correct nutrients and meals, and warming up the body. 

It is really important for a dancer to warm up their body throughly before they participate in any movement, as this will prevent injury and fatigue. Every performer is different in the way that they need to warm up, for example someone may have to focus on stretching out their muscles and then other may be more about raising their blood pressure. But it is important for everyone to balance all of this out so that they are fully prepared.

when warming up the aim is to raise the body's temperature by 1-2 degrees, this is done by increasing the heart rate, and then making blood pump around your body at a faster rate, allowing it to get to your muscles, to loosen the movement up, rather than cold muscle that don't move. An example would be blue tack, when it is cold it is brittle and doesn't move that much, and then once it has been moved about a bit, it is much more pliable and can stretch further. Another benefit of warming up is the body produces synovial fluid into the joints. This is a fluid that has the constistace of egg whites, and the more movement that the body does, the more is produced, which is between the the bones, and works as a lubricant that makes the joints slip over each other without injury. It is also good for mentality for dance and movement, it gets up in the mood to dance and want to get involved and creative.

The first step of a warm up is to participate in around 10 minutes of rhythmic movement, that has a range of moves, that involve the whole body. This could be a simple phrase, that has some simple movements, working its way down the body, incorporating all the body. This would help to start to raise the body temperature and allow the blood to flow through the body. The next step of a successful warm up is to stretch out the limbs and pull the muscles to their fully capacity, this would be different for every individual, so personally my flexabity is not the same as a trained gymnast. The last stage of a successful warm up is static stretches, this should be mainly focused on the main groups, that are used in movement, legs and arms, and the torso area. These should be held in a comfortable position, and held for a long amount of time, during stretching you should never bounce in a position, this is because it tears the muscles, and can cause pain, and once you feel any pain you should reduce the tension of the stretch.

As important as it is to warm up before movement it is just as important to cool down after as well, this helps the body to return to it natural temperature and state, prior to movement, this should take just as much time as it does to warm the body up. This should begin with reducing the amount of movement and intensity of movement as the rehearsal comes to a close, and then ending with some static stretches, but held for a shorter amount of time. These final stretches begin to reduce the body temperature, and then gets rid of the waste fluids in the joints, such as lactic acids, and this will speed up the healing process of the muscles.

When planning to do some movement it is really important to plan well what you wear. The first factor to take into consideration is the amount of movement available in the clothing, first of all in the lower body, to be flowing enough to allow full movement, and the same in the top half. The next factor to dance clothing would be in the temperature that the clothes make you. A good way to stay on top of this is to have layers. It is good to start off the movement with lots of layers during the warm up, to ensure that your muscles are not going from cold to warm in a short amount of time, and then as your body warms up you have the freedom to remove items do you do t overheat. This is the same for the cool down, you can add more clothing as you cool down, so your muscles don't got to another exstreme temperature when you stop moving.

A dance space is as important as a dancers body. The ideal space is to have a object free zone, to prevent collisions with anything and causing injury to the body. More modern dance spaces will have sprung flooring, this is key as it creates a softer surface to land on, and makes it easier to land on and allows your joints to follow through onto. If an injury was to occur during practice, there are some strict rule to follow on how to treat it. The first step is to protect the injury, for example if you were to sprain your ankle, you should put some support onto it, and then rest the limb, by elevating it, and keeping it still, the next step is cold, it is always good to relax your injury and cool the temperature with ice. This will cool down the muscles and prevent swelling. Before putting anymore weight or strain onto the injury it is evaluate how it feel to you, if after all of the prior steps, if it feels any better, and if it doesn't you would need to rest and ice even more. 

As discussed it is really important for a dancer to look after themselves when performing and getting ready to, wether this is prior to movement with a thorough warm up and then cool down after, or with the materialistic items, such as clothing and surroundings, and keeping a heal thing and balanced life, to ensure the safest practice.

Using Text to create a Performance Piece 23/09/16

Recaping Duet work


In the start of the lesson, after we had fully warmed up, we began to recap on the work that we had done previously, for example the main phrase based around secrets and the media. We recaped the main phrase and then split off into our pairs to go over our duets.


My duet is with Holly, whom i have worked with before and we both work well together, and know how each other can work. we recaped our duet, while adding more dynamics, witht eh fluidity and sharpness of our movments, we then teamed up with another duet, and both performed them simultaniously, with us in the middle and the others either side. The two pieces really worked well together, and had some nice contrasting sections, for example when they were using soft movements, and then us being quite harsh with our movements.


To add some more depth into our duet we added a section where they would pick up with some of our movements, and we would all perform in unison, and then go back to our own work, i think that this adds some dynamics to our piece, as the big unsion phrase is really contrasting to the rest as there is usually a lot going on at one point. We then ended the section with all of us pulling the same unison tabluex, which is all of us covering our mouths, and staring out into the audience, which is the move that simblises secrets.




Using Text to create a Performance Piece


In the second part of the lesson we were set the task to find a piece of text in the media or online on a theme that effects us, and we feel has an effect on us, i choose to base mine around a piece of text that discusses womans place in modern society.


I began my anotating my text, and branching off of words that i felt i could make into movement, in relation to that. I came up with things, such as the word 'Rigid' made me think of really sharp, robotic movements, that is all very upright and jaggered.

From here we got up on ur feet and got some material devised. Another member of my class had a piece, about woman being victomised in the work place, about not getting support during their menstrual cycles. I felt that this theme and mine really handed well to each other, so we began to explore to posible phrases and moves that fit to our themes.

The main parts that we came up with were alot of contact work and levels to show supirour sex's in different situations. Alot of our moves relyed on facial exspression to support the theme, for example the girl that i was dancing with had very pained facial exspressions throughout, and then i had a powerful exspression, to show my characters dominace which is reflected through the media.

In advance of the next lesson i am going to look into different views and how other people look at the gender fight, and how other ways equality can be shown.

Developing Contempory Dance through Warm Up phrase (Continuous)

Warm up Phrase Development Blog

23/09/2016


At the start of the lesson we all learn't as phrase that incorporated lots of different moves, that range for abilities. We learn't it and then paired up and performed it for each other. We started by performing it on the right and then the left, the music that we did it too was quite a fast tempo, so i had to really focus on the timing to make sure that i have it nailed.


The feedback that i got from my partner was quite positive, to start with:


Pros

• Good pointe in the foot, when doing jumps and rotations.
• I carry through with every move well, and always try to end everything.
• Good exstention through the arms.

Improvements

• Work on my more technical moves, for example the bunny hop, get strengh in arms.
• Use the whole body, to ensure that i am fully warmed up.

Exploring team work and Improvisation

In this lesson the first section of the lesson was taken by one of our learning mentors, Sax. We explored a few new warm up games that all we focused around character improvisation. The first one was called park bench, this one was very open to interpretation, as you are aloud to make up any character, and then using that character just go up to the bench and try to get rid of the other character by changing the story around.

My character was based off someone in my class, but  to make it even more comical and out of the blue, i exaggerated every movement and sound. I enjoyed this task as i think it brought everyone out of their shells and gave everyone a chance to show their funny side, and it was nice to see people perform  like that, as i had not seen everyone yet.

The next exercise that we did was a game with a few more boundaries. we were all given a strip of paper with a random sentence on it, and then we had to take turns going around the group and reading them out. mine was "Why did you take my puppy". As I had not read this before my go , it came as a shock and then my partner and i had to make short scene, using this sentence as a starter.

I think  that the beginning of this lesson was really valuable, and by exploring improvisation and taking a scene further, showed me how much a scene can change around by exploration. I think that we should use some of these techniques that we learned in some of the scene in WWRY, in particularly the bohemian scenes, and explore improvisation for the background character, to make it look like a lot is going on.


Team Work

In the second part of the lesson we look into what makes a group work well, and how we all can work together to create the show that we can. We took it in turns to write something that we thought was important to have in a team or ensemble. this is what we came up with.

As you can see in the picture, we came up with things that really were quite varied. some of the things were emotional things, such as support and looking out for one another, and others were practical things such as punctuality and taking risks.We all came to conclusion that all of the things that written down all linked into working as a team and team work.

If some of these attributes were missing from this list, it would not make a successful team. For an example if everyone in a cast had all of these values but not everyone was punctual, it would not be successful. If you had a rehearsal where lots of people we really supporting everyone and were helping one another to take risks in the session, but people were turning up late and not motivated it just slows down the process.

Another example would be if determination was missing, and everyone in the group was there and really supporting everyone in the group,but the actor that was receiving the support had no determination and just kept giving up, the rehearsal would never be moving or getting anywhere.

Personally i would like to think that i try to take on all of these attributes when i'm rehearsing and always want to feel needed and supporting to others. But if i had to improve on at least one of them, i would  like to have a bit more compassion when im rehearsing, for example i would like to be more understanding that other people can take more time to understand things, and other way round as well, that it may take me more time to get things, and i would hope people would have compassion with thattoo.

What makes a successful ensemble?

Researching the Market 20/09/16

British Actors

From research on the internet, i have found that a lot of british actors and actresses dont have up and running websites advertising themselves. On the interent there are a lot of websites for american actors, i feel that the british actors are limiting there work, where amercian are always advertising themselves when given the oppotuinity.

Cillian Murphy

















This website is a fan page, but it is set up to look like an offical page. It contains all of his work and details that an emplyer would need. On this website it has links to his work, so things can be found easier.  My first impression of this website was that it was set out really well, and it looked clear and tidy and had the relivant information. If i was to make an improvements on this website i would have added some more pages with some more in depth on his past performances and his details, as he has been in the business from a young age.


Terry Alderton

This website i think is a really successful the way that this website is set out. I could easily find where everything was and has the needed details to where to find him or his upcoming shows and events. As an actor Terry Alderton has a vartiey of styles of performance. If i was to have set up a page for him i would have set to a simpler design, that just showcases him as a performer and not all the colour and interactivity.


American Actors


Brian d'Arcy James



















In comparison to the british actors websites, this american actor has been really thourogh in his website. From this website i have found out everything that this actor has done, including theatre film and TV. It also has samples of his work in recording and his cast albums. If was to add something else i would make it a cleaner look, it looksn very dark on first glance and i didnt get the impression that he was an actor, it could have just been a selling page or a fan page for the artist.


Ramin Karimloo

Exploring Personal Trends and Costume

To begin out costume unit we all spent some time in groups talking about our own fashion styles and clothes that we personal enjoy to wear. The main question that was asked in my group was 'Why do you choose to wear that?'. This made me think about my self and the process that i particularly go through in the mornings when getting ready.

I explained to my group that i liked to wear clothes that are fairly exspressive, and that dont tend to follow any fashion trends. I feel that i wear bright colours, and try to stear away from blocked colours and things that are fairly dark. and like there to be a lot going on in my shirts, for example.

Some people in my group saids that their fashion is often in responce to what other people are doing and how people see them. For example, someone said that "If I know that im going to be seeing someone or someone that can judge me". However personally i dont take into consideration who i am seeing, or what people think, i just wear things that i feel confident in, and go with my mood.

In this diagram you can see how three people in my group explained their own fashion sense. They were all really different takes on the subject and every different person had a different reason on my they wore certain things, and nobody had the same take on it as myself.

Later in the lesson we did an excirse which involved us getting into an order of how long it takes us to get ready in the morning. For example the first task was to get into an order of getting ready for college in the morning. I placed myself around 30mins to get ready, i felt that this was a good reflection as i dont like to spend to long on what i look like, but dont rush into it and make myself look slapped together. In contrast others placed themselves higher in the line, saying that they can take anything up to 2 hours to get ready for college, personally i could not see myself doing that, as it takes so much time out of your day, and then on the other side of the scale there where people that would just next to know time in what they look like, and again i could not see myself like this as i never know what i going to happen in the day, and i want to feel prepared.

I relation to the production of We Will Rock You, that we will be designing the costumes for, i feel that this excirse really made me think about the depth of the costume design. For example what sort of character it is can be showed through their clothes. For the character of Killer Queen she is the antagonist of the show, so this would be showed through her costume, with her wearing darker colours and being a bit ruff around the edges, like she hasn't put my effort into her look, this would give an audience an idea of her character, rather than her wearing something random that is not in relation at all, like if she wore something bright and flowing, the audience would think that she would be a positive character

Vocal Warm up ands Singing Session

Vocal Warm Ups - What's their importance?

When you  are singing you are using the your vocal chords and the inner muscles of your  larynx (the muscle that controls your vocal chords opening and closing to let out a sound). We need to stretch these muscle before we attempt any real singing, just like you would warm up before you go for a run or play sports. This allows them to become lose and can also gets rid of any mucous and can also reduce the risk of having an injury, such as losing your voice. It is  recommended to warm up for 15-20 minutes before hand, to wakeup  your chords, and get the blood pumping around them.

The ideal warm up would be to start off with something small, that doesn't add to much strain to your voice, for example what we did in this warm up was begin with gentle lip trills and humming. and then slowly as you feel even more prepared, you can start to produce some more natural sounds that let more air flow over your vocal chords, for example in our warm up we tend to start with simple sounds, like Ahhh and Oooo going up and down a scale or arpeggios. Then as we progress it is good to make it even more complex, by adding in words over the top. For an example tongue twisters, which get your mouth moving to get your mouth muscles moving and warmed up.

Also vocal warm up can also develop your voice further, while as helping with the general upkeep of your voice, just like a bike chain would need oil to keep it moving. For myself I have found that by exploring different warm ups that suit my voice and me as a singer, I have heightened my range, and I can now reach higher notes with more confidence that I could, before I started to explore and warm up my voice regularly.


Song Session - How is it Valuable

In our first rehearsal back we began the lesson by just standing around the piano and singing some of the songs from the score of our first performance, which is We Will Rock You! After doing a thorough warm up, we began to sing some of the songs in unison, and just exploring what everyone knew and could do to bring to the songs. As this was our first lesson of the term, and was a new class of performers, there are some people in the class that have not worked  together yet, and nobody has as a collective yet.

When we all first entered the room I felt that we did not yet have that connection as a cast, and where not 100% on how everyone performs and works in a rehearsal. I felt that the moment that we all started to sing together, there was an automatic connection, that we all blended our voices well together and listened out for others, when we were singing.


Basic Harmonies 

When we started this lesson we all set ourselves goals for this year, I felt that I wanted to learn more about the technique of singing, as I know how to singing certain things, but don't always know why I'm doing something.

In the first section of the singing period we learn what a basic harmony was, and it was explained to us in the form of the chord A, and that the bottom note was a A and then every other note from there on was the harmony line.