characters and casting

Characters and Casting

During this weeks session, we looked at the auditioning process for the characters in all of the epsiodes, Magic Marvin, Hip hop, debate club and superhero.

I auditioned for two parts, Leah in the Hip Hop episode and Ellie in Margic Marvin. The character Leah in Hip Hop is a very confident and fiery character in the series but has a soft spot for her bestfriend Abi which shows a different side to her in the episode. Moreover, the character Ellie in the Magic Marvin epsiode is a very shy girl who does not really have many friends in school, relating to Marvin which makes him fall for her. She is a very mysterious character but likes speaking to Marvin.

Whilst looking at the different characters I wanted to audition for, I worked collaboratively with others to find the differences betwee the two characters by creating a mind map and seeing which of their qualities I relate more too so that I have more of a connection to one of the characters. Creating a mind map with others was very effective as it gave me a chance to look more into each character and get an insight into each of their needs and motives. This allowed me to individually create a table of the differences and similarities of both the characters and decide which one fits more to me as a person and who I can relate more to, giving a more raw performance.

However, during the collaborative task, I felt that it did become time consuming at times as not evryone had ideas to put on the mind map which lost time, so moving forward I recommend that we do some drama exercises to get rid of our mental block anfd produce ideas much quicker.

Self-tapes

In todays Lesson, we focused on completing our self tapes for our auditions and sending them off.

In order to do the self tape, we had to find a well-lit, quiet room in our academy with a plain background so that the directors are not distracted whilst watching it and can have all of their attention directed straight to your performance. We also had to have areader for both of my audition self tapes as I had to talk to someone else throughout both of my performances, so we had to make sure that we also had a strong and confident reader for the self tapes.

Furthermore, I worked collaboratively with others during this task as we each helped each other to film and be readers for our audition tapes so that they can be the best that they can be. Working together ment that it did not waste any time as we were able to quickly find someone to fill in for the reader rather than trying to edit your own voice in at the end of the process.

An individual action that I sugessted for finding readers and people to record the self tape was to have the reader talk whilst holding the camera so that it saves everyone from using too much people to help them and slowing down other groups who are trying to also film their self tape, whereas we could have the reader multitask and hold the phone at the same time which does not waste any time overall.

Casting decisions

In todays lesson we focused on the directors making a decision on who to cast for who we auditioned for.

In order for the directors to make a choice on who they want to put for each character, we had to do a 60 second long speech on why the character who we have auditioned for relates to us. As Leah is my first choice for who I wanted to audition for I spoke very clearly how she relates to me using my notes from the spider diagram I made earlier on, stating that I feel that I have grown up the same way Leah did with her bestfriend and wanting to support her friends, like I have done in the past.

After finding out that I got the role of Leah in the Hip Hop episode, I worked collaboratively with others to see which characters I had a strong relationship to in the script so that I can look more into the reasons behind their feelings between them. This was very helpful in getting more of an insight into my character and understanding her more deeply. An individual action that I sugessted during this process was to create a diagram of information about the characters who we have a relationship with and understand why we want to relate with them and how we relate with them to create that deeper understanding.

However, during the collaborative task I believe that it was a very slow process as we had not looked that far into the script to understand our characters that further yet which made us lack on information about them slowing down our collaborative process, so moving forward I recommend that we go home first and learn alot more about our script before looking into each character.

Character profiles

In todays session we looked at creating character profiles for our characters in the Mockumentary serires.

In order to begin writing our character profiles, I did a lot of research on the time of place and loacation that our script was situated on to see what was going on in that time and how that influenced my character as a person such as fashion, hairstyle, friendship and how I lived. Researching this information was very beneficial for my notes to put into my character profile as I was able to find out alot about my character that I would of never thought before, for example, our script was based around the 90's so my character dressed very grungy with loose fitting clothes and dark colours to express that 90's look.

Furthermore, I worked collaboratively with others during this task by helping asking each other questions in a hot seating exercise so that we can generate many more ideas about our characters and also have more detailed facts about them which can help us to find more things that we relate to with them growing a stronger connection. An individual action that I sugessted for this task was to ask very detailed questions that could help find out more deeper stuff about my character and help make my character profile well-written.

However, during the collaborative task I found that it was time consuming once again as we had to think about the questions we wanted to ask before saying them which lost time, so moving forward we should prepare questions beforehand.