Final Performance Reflection (Unit 1)

After learning and taking in a lot of skills over the course of our first unit in Drama we ended up doing a performance based on one or more of the scenes that we had practiced in our drama classes during the unit.

My group consisted of myself, Federico, Laith, Sai and Tommy and our piece was based on the bus 174 incident along with Carlos getting kicked out of his home.

My character was a frail, daring and lost teenager called Carlos and my situation/scenario was I was scared to death of father although I loved him dearly but I had lost all the money I had earned at 'work'. I knew that my father would kill me if I reached home with absolutely no money. I was a very delicate character that did not really have any mental capacity to face an angry father. As a character I had a lot of distinctive lines that showed
a) I was scared to death of my father yet I love him
b) I was a troubled teenager who had no purpose in this world
and finally...
c) I was no big gang member in fact I was delicate and quite frankly scared.
A few of my lines that were an example of the above...
1) "How am I going to face my father"(scared of my father)
2) (When Laith attempts to interrogate me) "I WANT TO GO BACK TO MY FATHER"
(my profound affection for my father).
3) (Thought Tracking) "How could I lose that money?, How could I be so careless? and is that a gun in his hand?"
(this shows just how lost I was (losing the money))
Along with these lines that I said during our performance I was quite restricted in my posture as again I was a "delicate gang member"and my toes were pointed inwards just to show how restricted I was. The fact that for most of the performance I had my head in my hands and most of my gestures were extremely hesitant was a massive clue even before any of my dialogue that I was a troubled soul. I did not utilise my accent change 'talent' to much which is something I wanted to do but I am not disappointed I didn't. I feel that I did a good job portraying the person I wanted to be although I did really well I still feel that I had room for improvement (accent change).

Our beginning was a quite a slow start yet it built a lot of tension in the audience. The beginning consisted of me (Carlos) and Tommy (Drunkard) in a bus occupied in our respective lives and again it was quite silent besides from the bus driver (Sai) yelling out the stations and stops. Entering angrily and not very silently was Nascimento (Federico) who first angrily dropped the money for the driver to pick up and then strolled to the back seat hesitantly yet confidently. The middle then came when we started to use 'tableaux's' (freeze frames) when we used the drama technique of thought tracking. The middle then sauntered along into the climax with Carlos getting fake killed and then controversial death of Nascimento we came to quite a depressing end where we tried to portray the lost streets of Brazil and I feel that we did in the form of a bit of role play between Carlos the lost yet daring teenager and the lost clearly not confident police officer (Laith) had a face off where eventually the faster teenager got away. The end was when I broke away from the police officer who had absolutely no care for the innocent person he killed barring in mind he also killed Nascimento.

I feel that as a group when I thought we were not being productive we actually were and the fact that our group looked like a group that could not pull anything substantial off and then doing the opposite and pulling off a brilliant performance was one thing I felt that worked really worked well for us. Another thing was we made sure no scene was boring and we utilised both space and time extremely well and that is another thing I feel very pleased about. Finally another really good thing was the fact that we had made sure a character's were all very believable and relavant to whatever performance we were doing.

Overall I am extremely pleased with our performance as both a group and individually. There was room for improvement like utilising the role of our characters a bit more but overall it was an extremely good performance. Our performance made me feel that we wrapped up the first unit in very good style.

Shawn 10C

What happens when Carlos is kicked out of his uncle's house?

In this specific scene we were re acting the scene of Carlos who is the nephew of Eduardo. This scene is based on what happens after Carlos is kicked out of the house by his uncle because he did not bring back any money from the outside therefore making his 'uncle' starve and kicking Carlos out because he is a waste of a 'nephew'.

We took this shot on a train where Carlos has boarded.

The scene consists of myself, Luca, Josiah and Krish, Krish is Carlos in this scene and has got no money for the train ticket (showing how the Brazilian youth can get lost quite easily in life) and a kind rich guy Alberto (Josiah) has paid the ticket for Carlos out of pure generosity and because he likes Carlos (Not all rich people are bad in Brazil was the aim of that gesture).

Corte (Luca) is an impatient train ticket collector and is having a bad day therefore he snatches the ticket angrily and walks away (this is showing the image of ticket collector's in Brazil). Rivaldo (Me) am seen as the rival gang member that Carlos helped and At the moment you can see my face thinking how I could have died today and how a rival gang member saved me. With a lot of thoughts running through my head like "Will I ever see him again?", "How can I ever repay him?" etc my life is at a complete standstill. Carlos on the other hand is semi-regretting his decision and feels life is over for him.

The two characters clash later in the scene but that part of the story could go either way.

Possible endings:
1) Carlos is accepted into the rival gang works his way up the ranks and eventually becomes the leader.
2) Carlos is beaten up and thrown out of the train to rot and die.
3) Carlos ends up working for the rich guy and getting a better life.
4) The two members Carlos and Rivaldo make their own gang/team or business.
5) Life continues as it is and everyone in the train go their separate ways.

Which ending?
We don't know :)
Shawn 10C

'Marking The Moment'

In our recent drama lesson we expanded on our skills in making our characters both believable and realistic. However we focussed on a particular skill which was called 'marking the moment'. This skill was used when we finished a particular scene.

Our scene was quite a particular scene which ended when the new 'train-surfer' was about to commit suicide when the police threatened him (Oggy).

In this frame Laith is seen as a curious and a train driver who has completely lost his senses due to the actions of the train surfer that was going to kill himself. While the photo was taken you could say he had a complete brain freeze and had absolutely none of his senses working at the same time. The role of Laith was to epitomise a driver lost in his own world someone just looking to finish his day but ending up tangled in a nightmare.

Moving on to the other characters Anushka was a police officer doing their normal thing and obviously taking advantage out of whatever they do because they have no choice. The role she played was as seen in the scene a role that is a bit like a sadistic, opportunist and someone who is looking just to take advantage of the situation.

I play the partner in crime the more experienced train surfer that has contemplated on why he didn't help his new teammate and save his life. In general I am seen as the team leader who is concerned for his team until something bad happens. I also am seen as a very over confident person who has a soft side when someone is in trouble but again I do not have the courage to stand up and help.

Oggy is seen as the young prodigy in train surfing who is eager to prove himself and badly wants to enter the field. In general he wants to be the be among the top and again is willing to do anything to prove himself.

Marking the moment is very clearly shown here with Oggy blackmailing the police with his life which is a gesture that is clearly shown when he reaches up to the wire. This shows how desperate he is to retrieve the vibrant yet deadly life he has. The other characters like myself, Laith and Anushka are all doing are respective things but because of Oggy our characters display the type of person they are. Laith was a lost soul who had absolutely had no idea what he was doing, Anushka was a police officer that did not have a clue about what to do to Oggy. I am as I mentioned earlier a person who is generally a hardcore, determined train surfer who is proud of his art yet has a soft side that can be exposed in situations like these.

Shawn 10C