Risk 2

Wednesday 10^th October 

It was great to be back with my designated project group. We had a bit of a chat to get reacquainted with each other and the subject matter. We went over the notes from the previous work sessions and added any input from the survey of friends and family we had done over the previous weekend about Risk, the conclusion of which was that we hadn’t been off the mark with our ideas of examples of risk that people will and won’t take in life and the effects of such.

So we decided to carry on developing scenes and concepts from the previous week though I was beginning to feel a little un-easy with establishing staging concepts too far, due to the limited amount of time we had for development and prop making, our complete lack of budget and also that we hadn’t yet seen the theatre space we would be giving the performance in. I tried to steer the group away from too outlandish concepts and to keep it all as easy to produce and minimalist as possible.

The main concept that was developed in the morning work session was that each member of the cast would be faced with a decision whether or not to take a risk in life, that we would see a short scene of something that happened to them in the past that pushed them to not take that risk and that decision would form the individual bar to their metaphorical cage. Later on in the performance piece the characters would discover that by not taking those risks they had trapped themselves in that cage and would have to learn how to break free taking the risk, embracing the unknown future and taking flight.

Towards midday we were allowed access to the ‘Hexagon Theatre’ (the space all the groups would be performing in on Thursday 18^th). Unfortunately we couldn’t access the lighting so the theatre was extremely dark and Alex W. and I had to reconnoitre by the light of a mobile phone and the tiny LED torch on the base of my lighter. One thing was blatantly obvious to us even in the dark, that the theatre was a lot smaller than we had expected, (the rectangular area upstage I strode out as being 4m wide by 1.5m deep there was a curved out area downstage (approximately 6m wide by 2m) but as the front row of audience seating was on the same level as the staging area we wouldn’t be able to use too much of it without getting too close to the audience.
The performance students left the theatre to carry on working and to lunch whilst ‘The A Team’ stayed to sit a while getting a feel for the space, looking at what lighting and A/V options we may be able to access and also talk to Amy about how we were doing with our groups and exchange ideas on how we could develop the production requirements our groups were asking for. 

I voiced my doubts on being able to produce the bars for the cage, bars that would grow from seeds of doubt planted by each character. We discussed the possible materials from which those bars could be made: scaffolding bars, (expensive and unwieldy);  ropes (as we couldn’t access the rigging and each bar needed to be raised individually this was quickly rejected); lights (not too hard to recreate if the bar originated from above but as it was a case of the opposite direction, it would mean sourcing extremely powerful yet small portable lights and also having to use hazing machines to be able to see the shafts of light properly, and thus this was also rejected for being way out of budget and timescale.) A possibility we came upon was to use bamboo poles which the actors could 'plant' themselves, (this was a good option as Alex N. has a number of bamboo poles at home that he could bring in and therefore would not cost a penny to produce). We also noticed that there was a projector in the rigging which could prove very useful for my group: a concept we had considered was to project pre-recorded video representing those memories that steered the characters towards not taking risks.
Armed with all our information we returned to our project groups to help make any adjustments and carry on steering them towards finishing scripts etc.

After lunch we all returned to the ‘English Suite’ (a space I am beginning to dislike as the acoustics in the room are strange and the smallest sound is greatly amplified and when there are groups of people all talking at once, music blaring, etc. it’s just too loud. That afternoon I was developing a serious headache and going into ‘grumpy bear’ mode).

Ellie gave us a short brief on how we should use Harvard Referencing in our blogs and written work. A subject I am sure to find very useful in the future. Ellie had just had some surgery on her mouth and was finding it difficult to talk over the class when they got a bit rowdy so I found myself having to bark at them to quiet down and concentrate on what was being explained to us, the acoustics seemed to work in my favour and even though I hardly raised my voice the class ended up in shocked silence. (I have a feeling that I’m going to become infamous amongst my peers for my ‘Drill Sargent’ discipline.) 

After the briefing I returned to my Risk group and relayed the information about the projector and the cage bars. They liked the projector and chose to run with that concept but rejected the bamboo pole idea, the group seemed to have their hearts set on using lights, so I had to put my foot down (maybe a little too firmly due to the headache/grumpiness) and explain that that concept was just too far beyond our means of budget and time. I did soften the blow by introducing them to the idea I had had that by combining a metal clang sound effect and miming a reaction to an imaginary bar shooting up to trap them they could quite easily produce the desired effect. Plus I believed that it would paint them in a good light to the audience by stretching their acting skills whilst not relying on elaborate props and staging. The group were convinced that this was the best option and so I measured out a space in our corner of the suite mimicking the Hexagon stage so we could proceed with blocking out the various scenes and get down to devising a solid script.

As the day’s work sessions drew to a close we decided that we would dedicate the next day to filming those ‘bad-memory’ videos so they could be edited over the weekend. I went to Ellie to ask whether we could borrow a video camera and explained to her what exactly we would be using the video for. She very kindly agreed to bring in the camera and explained what cable/memory card we would need to transfer the video for editing.