And as the years go by, our friendship will never die...
- Randy Newman

Progress

How I'm progressing in the IBTA 1 Play So Far:

As an Actor:
Joel, Reca and Mrs. Moon have given me insight on how my character should be portrayed like on stage. I've learned that my goal on stage is to create a total psychopath out of my character. His feelings on stage reflect himself as a person mentally. His abilities to manipulate the ones around him are fantastic though, so I'm starting to see a slight clue towards him being a genius in manipulative skills. Truth be told, I've actually always have wanted to try out a role like this, where the character is a lunatic. The fact that he's also a druggie also gives me, joy.

As a Designer:
I'm not the most visually artistic person around, and I know that. However, this set has come together pretty well I think, and most of the credit should go towards Annie. I really think that she's done the most work in our group of three, and that she's given everybody insight as-to what we're all envisioning this play to look like. My abilities to help Annie could go better, and I think that I should also be communicating way more with her, and acquire her vision of the stage.

Progress As A Team

How I think we're doing

Positives:

• We've talked to Mr. Roddick and Mr. Black
• Talked about platforms
• Showed the set ideas
• Talked about different elements that co-inside with the Set
• Talked about the different problems with the Set
• We've gotten some of the tapings in the blackbox finished (some final touch-ups need to be dealt with)
• We have the *finalized* idea for the Tobacco shop and what we're going to need for the furniture inside of it
• We know what we're going to do with the lighting crew
• We've talked to Mr. Roddick/Mr. Black about the bridge
• Lighting crew had a problem with this
• We've come up with the idea to remove it or just to make it hidden (either way, it won't block the lights or anything)

Negatives:

• We don't fully know what we're doing with Wang's sleeping place at the moment
• We need to know if Mr. Roddick has actually booked the Blackbox for prepping and building for Monday
• We need to talk to Joel and Reca about the finalised prop list (Joel said it was fine to use the prop list from the pitch presentation we have already)
• We need to finalize everything with the Lighting crew
• We have had a lot of talks regarding the lighting on the set
• Most of the ideas we have are fine

Blue/Orange

http://youtu.be/swuMxAa9rD8

Notes on Chapters from the Textbook (late)

ALL NOTES WERE TAKEN FROM THE BOOK
THESE ARE NOT MY OWN NOTES.

Directors:

• Auteur Director - Author director
• made after ww2
• French film critics refered to different directors after this theory.
• associated with points of view
  
• Dramaturg - literary manager or dramatic adviser of a theater company
  
• stage manager - person who coordinates all the rehearsals for the director
  
• pace - rate of the performance
  
• front of the house - all of the nonproduction elements
  
• artistic director - person responsible for creativeness.

Stage Design:

• Aesthetic distance - Physical/mental separation from audience
  
• Arena stage - stage surrounded by the audience
  
• Thrust stage - theater space in which the audience sits on three sides
  
• Fourth wall - the feeling as if the audience is looking through an invisible wall
  
• multifocus theater - simultaneous things happening at once in a production
  
• Corral - theater of a spanish golden age

Lighting:

• Moving lights - lights that are mobile
  
• Backlighting - light that comes from behind
  
• Batten - pole supported above stage for lights or other things
  
• Blackout - darkness of the whole stage
  
• Dimmer - smooth lighting for the set
  
• Focus - aiming the light on a specific point
  
• Gobo - determines shape/arrangement of the light patterns that are shown onto stage
  
• Fresnel - spotlight for short distances/ also used for blending lights
  

IBTA Play Set

 Our Visions on the IBTA Play Set

• Windows on the side buildings
• Incorporate lighting into this
• Make the windows out of styrofoam? (cost efficiency?)
• Audience looks into the set as if they're looking into an alleyway
• NO sheets to cover the wooden planks
• Using the wooden planks on a slant to make them look like buildings
• Buildings must level with the audience (have the audience higher up) (Not on the blackbox floor)
• The shop made by the Gods will be sheathed under cloth (rough idea)
• Bring up an idea that can make the shop appear
• Shop only comes into the play later
• The shop would be too heavy to roll out onto stage
• Shop is used in the middle of the set to create a 'cramped' effect.
• Paint and texture on the set pieces can give it the 'shady' and 'grimy' feeling.
• Texture used to create a raw feeling so that the audience can see that it's supposed to look dirty
• Dark and non-shiny colours on the set pieces
• Yellow lighting in the blackbox on the pieces will create that rubbly look as if it's deteriorating.

Article Notes on Set Design

Through this small article, I've come to realize that texture on the objects/props/set pieces that we use are a key element into making it look fairly presentable. I liked the idea of using wooden blocks as practice objects when rehearsing and not using the actual objects needed in the finalised version of the play, but seeing as we don't have much time yet, this won't be an option. It also had told me that using cheap paintbrushes could also be a beneficial factor when producing a play that's going to look grimy (as we are doing right now) as the paint and the brushes won't make it looks all-too smooth which is a good thing.

(Other BTB article reading notes are on other people's blogs as I wasn't able to log into Haiku)

Pomo Presentations Notes - Points taken from Kevin's blog (my main notes are written down on the practitioner handouts)

Stanislavsky

Born in Russia in the 1860's

• Practiced realism in theatre
• Was the director of his own circus band
• Loved the idea that theatre was a way of life
• Everything done up on stage had to have purpose to it (nothing should be put in just for the sake of making it look artsy).
• Loved to think that characters had such diversity, and creating that diverseness from the actor's point of view was something that he supported.

Anne Bogart

And

Pina Bausch

Anne - American

Pina - German

• Focused on theatre of dance

• Loved diversity between races and cultures
• Repetition was used a lot (or in all) of their pieces
• 
  

• Philosophies
• Shared experiences of dancers rather than a precise vocabulary of movement
• Plays with reality whilst giving us room to dream.
• Expressing emotion physically
• Insight into societal issues
• Spaces created on stage - brings in the outside
• Costumes represent absurdity and reality.