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Creating an Atmosphere

Recently we have been doing a play whilst trying to create an atmosphere.
The idea behind this unit was to create an atmosphere that was seasonal at
this time of year, which is winter. Normally when watching a film, which has
a wintry atmosphere it, would be something like a Dracula, Ghost stories,
Murder Mysteries etc, so one of these ideas would be ideal for a play, as
ancestors & scriptwriters have described to us in films and stories for
hundreds of years.

Before we got into groups and started the improvisation we did a few warm
ups to help. Some of these warm ups helped us to express our emotions more
fluently, there was one activity in particular that was particularly odd. In
pairs we had to do an improvisation based on a game of chess, however this
was no ordinary game of chess, this game of chess was arranged with "Death"
the grim reaper himself and an innocent human playing for his/her life in
which the grim reaper would then posses. During this improvisation we had
show many different emotions contrasting with this event such as fear,
stress and nervousness. I used a few small expressions like biting my nails
and hesitating whilst taking my turn, which showed the audience that I was
careful/cautious. However I wasn't performance wasn't extremely effective in
persuading the audience that I was.
When we had finished all our warm ups we were assigned into groups of five
or six in my case it was six. My group consisted of Sami, Christopher,
Sinal, Shane, Claire and myself. I was happy with my group as it contained
many people that I knew were capable to make our assignment successful, I
also knew most of them, which made everyone more relaxed, therefore it was
easier to co-operate with each other.

The idea that was first thought up by Christopher was the very one that we
took further to develop as it was a extraordinary and well thought out. We
also new that we could make this idea well developed, as we were sure that
we could make a brilliant improvisation from this unit of work.
The basic idea of the plot was a simple murder. The idea had three main
characters which were D.C.I Summers, D.C.I Winters and The Prince, there
were also three other character which were the queen, the outcaste
stepsister and Miss MoneyPenny. The people that played these characters were
Shane whom was D.C.I Winters, Christopher whom was D.C.I Summers, Sami whom
was the Prince, Claire acted the part of the deformed stepsister, Sinal
played the part of Miss Moneypenny (the secretary) and I played the part of
the queen. The idea of the story was based around the murder of the queen
and two detectives were assigned to this case. We made the story difficult
to define the murder in the story in order to keep the audience in suspense
and also to keep them interested in the story. In the end, with the sharp
thinking of the rather dim-witted D.C.I Winters, the murder was then
concluded to be D.C.I Summers.
When we started to practice our improvisation we realized that our biggest
dilemma was our spacing. As we had a lot of activity in our play we realized
that it would become difficult in keeping our faces to the front, instead of
turning our backs to the audience we figured that we could overcome this
problem if we were careful in making sure that our bodies wouldn't fully be
turned around. instead we would be turned at a certain angle to attain our
professionalism.
The exercise with the famous nursery had helped me a lot, it helped me to
enhance my voice. I learnt how to extend my voice fuller. I feel as it had
helped me gain more confidence whilst I was on stage and I had used a more
angered voice rather from my original one. I also feel that this didn't only
help me, it helped everyone in the group as after we had finished that
exercise we all seemed more focused and the entire improvisation seemed more
realistic.
In one of our lessons we were shown clips of scary movies from different
ages. The first clip that was show to us was Nosferaratu, this helped us to
develop our mime skills. The second film was from "Great Expectations" this
showed us the skill in how to surprise and scare the audience and how to
express emotions such as fear.
The third film "Dracula" wasn't that helpful to me as I had already
learnt these techniques before.
The creation of all these horror films were build slowly, also I realized
that in most of the films the atmosphere was accompanied with the rustling
of leaves.
In the following lessons we had finished our improvisation but we didn't
change anything as the film clips had nothing to offer us due to the fact
that we had almost finished the improvisation and we couldn't change the
entire improvisation in order to include a minor change.
Our final performance was admirable as we put so much effort into it. I felt
that my performance was of a good standard but there is always room for
improvement. I had a small part in the play but I tried to make the most of
it. In the beginning whilst I was speaking to my son the prince I used a
firm voice to ensure him I was serious and to show the audience that I was a
strict mother whom expected her son to listen and command her. When I was
killed I tried to make it as realistic as I possibly could. I screamed and
as I was screaming I used a technique I grabbed from a film, which was to
make a sound of choking blood in my mouth. My concentration was always
thorough through out the improvisation, as I never lost my concentration.
The audience seemed to have enjoyed the play immensely as they showed great
interest. When I first was the video I was proud to be in the play as it I
saw how well thought out the play was. I learned to appreciate it as I knew
how much work we had done to make this improvisation one of the best, I
guess all the hard work paid off in the end. I was glad that I had the
opportunity to work with such a great group.

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