War of Art Film Notes

• Only thing left standing was the theater after the war in Berlin.
• He laughs when approving of things
• Process - looks like bad acting
• It's like showing people a new building, but starting from the plumbing lines
• A play is like a film
• moving from frames
• sequences are like short narratives
• like a montage
• How you work, for who you work, has a lot to do with who you are
• Class acts as a constraint, in a way...
• Mix historical periods together for the purpose of having the audience not affiliate the costumes and what time period that the costumes are trying to present.
• The play was a cry of pain
• Brecht was a great writer
• from teenage years
• He was disconnected from the government (?)
• Changed the way that the German language could sound
• "These people live by the harm that they do, not by the good."
• Brecht wanted to search for something that was bigger than himself, and he submitted himself to that.
• "Countries are changing more that we change our shoes"
• War is good business.
• War gives, and it takes away
• 8-9 people that brecht has met in a PoW camp were actors
• they made an acting stage in the camp
• They made everything from scratch
• Technique that was used by the director
• Mother courage stayed in the same spot for a big switch change
• showed that she was in the same moment for the whole time, even until that moment in time
• this was after she told the officers that it wasn't her son that was brought back dead
• Theatre has a power but it's not a direct power
• it has influence over what people think
• a revolution
• "Change or die."
• Brecht's parents threw all they had away because things in Germany were heating up too much
• Brecht goes into exile
• Brecht was running for a majority of his young life from the invasion of Germany
• it was his own country
• He didn't want to be a part of it all
• He was Jewish
• FBI had spied on Brecht and his family while they were in America
• Brecht had created plays that he thought he wouldn't even be alive to see
• Brecht was questioned in the Mcarthy trials
• Artists were all killing themselves as they were losing their jobs even though they weren't being convicted of being communists
• 'Hollywood Ten' were all put into prison
• Brecht left America the day after the Trial
• All virtues are dangerous
• meaning?
• It's not virtue that pays in this world, it's wickidness.
• People use god to get away with murder
• Brecht had emotional things in plays, yet put a twist in it.
• Mute daughter gets shot
• soldier comes in and throws a tantrum on the ground
• Everybody laughs
• This breaks the 4th wall
• Gives the audience something to think about
• Brecht had an idea about characters with virtues
• It's the virtues that will kill them
• It's their good traits that will ultimately kill them in some way
• It's not the characters that should change
• instead, the people around them are the ones that should be changing
• We're all going to die unless we all come together
• "to those not yet born"

Mr. Black's Review

I'm blown away to think that this was the best 'all-round' play in Mr. Black's opinion out of the four year's that he's been here.
I also think that the Set crew had done a really good job on the set. Combining all the 'area's presented in the script had all been combined down to a rotating shop, a couple of 'no man's land' places here and there, and Wang's spot. With the help of lighting, I think that the shop had acceded it's original plans and then some. I honestly think that this set had turned out to be such a success considering the amount of time that we had to build it.
Making the audience feel as though they were in a cold and miserable environment was what we were trying to accomplish, and with the colour of the set, I think we did a very good job at doing so.

Love

You live to learn, breathe to live and help others to _______
Try putting any word in there that can follow up with the sentence, and I'll guarantee you that love would probably be your best answer.
It has two meanings,
you can help somebody to love life and to love being kind to others or, you could look at it by saying that you help others for you to feel love. Either way, love's being put into the process, and I don't think there's anything greater than that.

Ms. Kim's Notes

When working in theater:

• Mrs. Moon introduced her into theater
• Wasn't talented in acting
• Studied English Lit
• Intro to drama class
• Professor was the director at U of T
• Did a production of Macbeth
• She partook into it
• Directed Robert LePage
• Learned about all the elements of theater
• dramatergy
• effects
• brecht
• artaud
• Bernliner ensemble
• it's like a german ensemble
• perfects things from beginning to end
• All actors present for rehearsals even if they aren't a part of the scene
• Actors don't have any contact with the director for weeks on end
• Mask theater
• physical theater
• As an actor, you need to connect everything together
• use small ticks
• need full connection of all 3 elements
• What are the 3 elements? - ask Mrs. Moon
• you need to know what you're doing
• you need to express things through things like your voice and your breath
• go far and thrive in your role
• don't be afraid to do the craziest things
• Acting isn't the biggest thing
• managers/producers have a lot of opportunity to talk and get along with actors and meet other people
• others create the opportunity to let the actors create and portray what they want
• if you're an actor, you need to know what the other people are going through
• You can act through stillness as well
• stillness is an artform as well
• pictures, are still.
• people find pictures so interesting
• When in a monologue, you should stay still and only move a little bit as it's more powerful
• Suzuki
• Visionaries
• create images that you will never forget on stage
• Jack Le Coque
• not a nice man
• will tear you down
• that's his approach
• you'll leave crying
• this will force you to look at yourself
• you will raise your standards
• Intentions should be shown through actions up on stage
• Any physical action you do has to refer back to the script
• Subtext
• make connections
• Everything in a set has to have a constant purpose
• not only to hide actors
• you need to incorporate all the thing in the set
• 
  

Reflection

Reflection of the play


         1.       Describe in detail your experience with your assigned technical element as you went through the process of adapting it to the script you  selected.
a.       What did you hope to learn? I had hoped to learn the feelings one goes through when suffering, or when desperate for money. I had hoped to learn how to act like a bad guy on stage, and how it felt to become that bad guy.
b.      What did you learn? I had learned the things above. I hope.
c.       What do you wish you could have learned? I wish that I could have actually felt the effects one goes through in withdrawal after not doing drugs for 12 hours. The shaking of the body and the constant need for something to be inside your system.
d.      What research did you do to support and enhance your work with tech? I had worked a whole lot with the lighting people, that it had also become my main focus at times as well. I had gotten familiar with the feeling of dangling off the grid of the blackbox looking at the whole set upside down, refocusing the lights, using gobos and gel sheets to colour the walls. The keyboard with all the buttons was something that I hadn't at all learned much of, but If given a chance I think it would be cool to work as a lighting person next year.

2.       Describe in detail what YOU contributed to process as a whole. When you think about where you began and what you saw this week, what are your feelings and/or thoughts? What have YOU personally learned about the playwriting/devising experience based on this past month?

With the set design people, I knew that my ideas weren't going to be enough to actually help (except for raising the audience to look down on Szechuan, that was a good idea of mine :D) so I had helped out with more of the physical things and painting the set. I had actually asked Joel what he had wanted me to do a lot of times, so that I wouldn't ever really be doing nothing at all. When the set people didn't need me, I'd be up in the lighting area, and when they did need me, I'd go and help them out. Some pictures that I had found that gave some good influence were things like this: 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Zb5VJt0i3miBNaQLWWeaJA0HjOnpT6oWDRtGSZkyrTo/edit#slide=id.g787874f5_0_22

Prop list: Water Cups, cigarette boxes, Water measuring cup, rope, furniture, shop items, YangSun's bag, Envelope, Buckets, Money, Cart of goods, plane tickets, key to the shop, bags of heroin, Shen te's bag, bottles of wine, cups, rice cooker, washing line, police batons(?), basket, table

We created a facebook group as well

In this google doc, I had posted some images that I thought the set and lighting crew could use to their advantage. By giving these stimuli, I think that it had influenced the whole idea of the set positively. However, as I had said before in a previous blogpost, I really think that Annie deserves most of the Credit coming from the set people. She was a good leader, and would always get her things done on time. I think that I did get things done on time as well, but compared to all the mathematical and sketch pieces that she had drawn, I really could have done more in the thought process of the Set part of the play. Also, as I had said at the coffee shop meeting, I have developed a new respect for all members of a play and the set designers, directors, lighting people, sound people, script people and etc. The amount of work that goes into a play like this is honestly so overwhelming, that when it comes to actual big productions, I really don't know how they do it.

-Previous Blogposts-

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.

• Our job to convince the audience emotionally
• they need to feel what Brecht felt
• Visual resourcefulness
• The Set has to flow well along with the music portrayed
• we need to make it so that the set coincides with the music

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

3.       Describe in detail your response to the finished product in the following terms:
a.       Acting

We had such a small amount of time with rehearsing the actual play that I really think that we had all done a fabulous job on acting in the play.
b.      Realization of vision

The ideas and visions of the play had all come together so concisely that I think that it wasn't far from that perfect picture that we all had, if not, even better than the perfect picture that we had thought up of.

c.       Cohesiveness of technical elements

The elements had all come together so well, not so much on the first night but definitely on the second night where nothing really had gone wrong apart from the two different scenes that we had to work together with.
4.       Explain what you think the overarching themes of the play were. What were the symbols? How well did you think the ideas of the play were conveyed based on audience feedback forms and responses?

Something that my Mother has always told me growing up was that if one ever tries to be nice to somebody else, they're always going to want something in return. She's hated this fact about life, and she's always been telling me that if I do things for other people, not to expect anything in return, and to carry out with whatever I'm helping them with, using all my effort. The moment I had read through the play, this idea that my mother has taught me, it almost felt like magic. Saying that, the symbol of the play I think would be Walls. You throw a ball at a wall, it'll pass it back to you using that much force. You'll get what you give to it. Throw other objects at the wall, the chances of it being passed back to you are pretty dull. That's why, you can't expect things to be given right back to you, it may take time for the lightly thrown marble to roll back to you. You see? It'll come back, with time.

          This was my first play where my mother wasn't there to help me through it. Normally we would spend nights going through the script with each other, so that memorisation wouldn't be an issue when the night of the play would come. But this time, It was a huge issue. Not ever have I felt so alone, and stranded at sea.

          Going back to the more earlier stages of the play, where things were less hectic, I was thriving because of the character I had received. It was such a turn around from the Jesus role that I had immediately started to research about Heroin addicts and what they looked like, what were their small ticks? did they have any? what type of sufferings did they go through before the addiction? what sufferings did they go through as they were addicted? I had watched so many youtube videos and documentaries about heroin addicts that I myself felt like I was becoming one. At night, I'd start shivering, making small noises with my nose, I even developed a awkward tick where I'd itch my nose and pretend that I had just snorted drugs. My body would feel weak and I'd lie on the ground sometimes for ages trying to see the world around me spin. I've even had a desire to try cigarrettes, just to see how it tasted like. I would try to get light-headed to see just what those druggies would see when their worlds spun around them. Of course, I never prevailed.

          My father has always given me small philosophy quotes that I've always taken and thought hard about. It's not as helpful as what my mother does for me, but it sure as hell gets the job done when it's time to step into gear. The night before the play, I was thinking to myself about kamikaze pilots and how they felt like right before going to war. You see, they know they're going to die and they know that they're doing it for the greater good. Call me stupid or selfish but I had applied this to theater, and how I knew that we would inevitably mess up in some way shape or form, BUT, one thing that these pilots didn't have was the chance for redemption, and the support of your comrades with you. Like firemen, when one of us goes down in flames, we all jump in to pull him/her back up knowing the chances of us all burning down. Like infantry men, when one of us gets shot and goes down, we pick them up knowing the chances of falling twice as hard. Mistakes are inevitable, but it's those mistakes that create the possibility of redemption as well.

          After about two weeks of acting like a complete drug addict at home and sometimes at school, my mother had left the country. I had skyped and talked to her on the internet and the phone yet it all still felt like I was alone. What I hadn't realised was that in my own selfish way, I too had been suffering. It had all added up. The role was depressing, I had entrenched myself in all this misery to get into my character's mind, my mother was gone, the play was coming up in days to come and the motivational speeches my father had given me counted for shit, at least at the time. I was going insane. I had recorded myself talking with myself on my ipod listening to it over and over till hours flew by and before I knew it, the clock would strick two o clock. My mother would be on skype for a little while and I would chat to her when I could. Now, this is what scares me even now after the play had finished. This is an excerpt from a chatbox that my mum and I had created on skype:


[2/6/13 12:32:37 AM] June Kang: you can take it on
[2/6/13 12:32:39 AM] Christian Choi: don't worry about me
[2/6/13 12:32:42 AM] Christian Choi: i'll be fine with this
[2/6/13 12:32:46 AM] Christian Choi: and everything

[2/6/13 12:33:06 AM] June Kang: you are really sounding like the heroin addict..i think you're getting more into the character than you are aware...it's like dad

(She had called me on the homephone before all of this, and had heard my voice)

          The opening night was better than I had predicted it to be like. It was honestly one of the most fun plays that I've ever done. One thing that I really wish I could do, is not to be scared about my father coming to a play of mine. I remembered the Judas Iscariot play and how I had nearly died when some cast members had told me about how my dad was sitting in the audience. I was balling backstage, worried sick about it all. I really don't know why I'm like this, it's just how I am I guess.

The play, was magical. I could really not think of better directors other than Joel and Reca. To be honest, I really couldn't stand some of the kids in the play, and I should talk to you about that at a different date. Other than that, I think we all got along well in the end, and became like one big family.

 I really should be writing this at night, as I normally do. I find that in the night, I tend to be more open with my thoughts when writing, and the more artistic side of me comes out to life. Don't misunderstand me, it's not the most pleasant time of the day either, it's actually quite scary, the night. It's the time of day where the hours seem to pass you by as seconds when you sleep, yet pass by as years when you try to fall asleep. The only thing keeping you awake is the sound of your heart thumping through the fibers of the bed, and the screaming thoughts in your head. It's the thoughts that make you want to die that also give you that will to live.