This past week we had the first part of our dramaturgy workshop, and then we worked full on nerd mode on the director's notebook. On another note, i think my brain also died this week, thank you IB!
Now that my concept is fully shaped and i have my vision clear, i think i can now continue with my work properly. Essentially i resolved on working with how we build lies in order to cover the ugliness of reality, to escape it and embellish it. And i think this all came from the fact that the play explores essentially this topic through Blanche's struggle with society.
My vision especifically centers on one thing only: for the audience to see the play through Blanche's eyes, her perspective of things. I want the audience to experience the entire play and the actions just like Blanche did, and then generate a sort of catharsis.
For example, i've decided to start the play (even though this is NOT one of my two moments), with lots of sound and conversations and sequences around the stage and in the entire theatre complex, in order to set the context of New Orleans, but using all of these elements to the extent that it becomes overwhelming to the audience, just like it happened with Blanche. I think that from the begining i want to establish this sort of relation ship with the audience.
Another moment for example is when Blanche sees Mitch for the first time. I personally believe she was indeed attracted to him, so i want to cut anytype of sound and movement in the stage and she is the only one that can move, admiring him, for a few seconds, and then continue as if nothing happened. It would create the effect of attraction, and even love
I even sort of intend to heat up the theatre itself when Blanche talks about how hot and sticky everything is, for the audience to actually see things the same way, and well set the literal atmosphere.
As for the stage, at first i thought about doing an in the round play in an amphitheater, because i wanted the audience to look down on the characters, symbolizing society judging their actions. But then i found two problems with that: one, that all the exits and enters of characters, aswell as the stage division of the room would make things a bit awkward and difficult. And second, and most importantly, that it doesn't quite fit my vision, if the audience is sort of looking down on them, then they are not experiencing things like them (kind of confusing i know). So i designed a different stage. Basically it is just a normal looking stage, but it has an extension in the middle that crosses the audience, and leads to a circle (i guess we can call it that), surrounded by the audience, that stands on a lower level (about 1 m). So i want to have all the moments of great tension, like the monologue, the mailman's kiss, the poker game, etc. in this place, in order to create the effect of the audience looking down on them.
On the topic of design elements, i intend to use very flashy and bright colors for the entire. This is because this type of colors usually give a sense of dreaming or fantasy, which is exactly what happens with lies. They look so bright and pretty, in order to hide something really cruel and ugly: reality. I haven't really desinged fully how i want the costumes to look, but i want to strictly stick with the 1950's style, and i want to make the evident contrast between Blanche's attire and the others'. I also want to have a constant change of attires, and characters putting on clothes as they lie, and taking them off as they reveal something true.
Now talking about my moments, i want to stage Blanche's monologue about Allan, because it is the best example of my concept. Literally, Blanche is taking her lies apart and being fully honest, like if she is undressing herself. Thus, i want her to actually undress herself, fully naked, to symbolize her taking away all of the lies that cover her, her reality. It fits perfectly, since the "dress of lies" is physically present in the scene, and she takes it off as she reveals the truth. I also plan on staging it on the circle of the extension, to have the audience look down on her, because she ultimately created these lies to avoid being in the position where society looks down and judges her, which is happening right now. I also want to light the entire stage (the circle), for her to be fully visible by everyone, and only focus her by turning the lights off the other parts of the stage. I think that the shock of seeing an actress get naked on stage, impacts the audience a lot, to the extent that it could connect empathecally in sense of how shocking it is to tell the truth. I've been considering lighting the audience too, but i think it would be distracting from Blanche's nakedness and her monologue.
As for the second moment, i plan to do the part before the rape, where Stanley attacks verbally Blanche with the truths he knows about her, telling her what that he told the truth to Mitch. At first i had a different approach, but it didn't quite suit my concept. So now i plan on Stanley taking off parts of Blanche clothes, which symbolize her lies, and then she tries to put them back on but fails to do so, because reality is catching up to her. I'm still developing my ideas on this, and i haven't truly figured out how to make the audience feel Blanche's fear first hand.
Mainly, what i've managed to learn this week is how to work like a real director. Previously, my work with the DN was based on researching and deciding what i want to do, coming up with all of these cool ideas to use. Now that i am past that, my job has become to evaluate each idea, scratch, re-imagine, sketch, and so on and so forth and what have you. I think that it is important to stick to the concept and vision, and always check your ideas with them, like the in the round amphitheatre style stage i planned to do, i had to scratch that idea because it didn't quite fit what i wanted to do. I even had to change my initial idea for the second moment of the people carrying Blanche throught he stage, to Stanley forcing Blanche's clothes out.
So my main inquiry of the week is how to connect the vision and the concept into my second moment. How does a director actually manage to do it for every scene? Does it have to happen for every single one of them? What if a scene is just pure absurdity and there is no way to add it?
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Concept and Vision
This past week i've been working on my Director's Notebook, completing the drafted version of the first two parts. I've managed to come up with lots of ideas for my vision, and i've finally decided on a concept: "Lies are a handmade dress to keep us safely covered from the cruel reality".
Personally i feel quite confident on how my work is turning out, yet i'm not sure how will i ever manage to finish it in time. I think that there's so much to write, and i have so many ideas, but i'm not sure how or when will i include them all into it.
Something that has been bothering me is the fact that i have literally millions of ideas for both scenes, and even for the entire play as a whole, and as much as i would like to include them all, it's pretty much impossible. I mean, i've had trouble on focusing a main vision, because of all the new cool ideas that i come up with. So i'm constantly struggling with focusing my ideas and scratching the ones that won't work, because i really have a lot of expectations. The good thing though, is that the work is never truly staged (except for our sampling of it), so it gives lots of space for me to actually include the craziest and coolest ideas for my vision, because it will never be physically done, and no one will have to pay for it (relaz cino...).
In terms of my concept, i found it pretty easy to come up with. From the beginning i perceived the play as a game of lies, and a struggle with reality, so i already knew what i wanted to say with this play. The hard part for me was actually phrasing it, because i sometimes want it to sound poetic, but it's supposed to be as simple as possible.
Now that i do have a concretely phrased concept, i'm confident i can move on with my work, and i can focus more my ideas directed towards it.
Something realli important i learned is that you always need to think about what you want your audience to feel, and later talk about over coffee after the play. Like Brecht himself proposed: the audience must feel a sort of catharsis through the self reflection of the actions in the play. And that's pretty much where i want to get. I want my audience to experience the play in Blanche's shoes, giving them the experience of social injustice and insanity. It is important for a theatre maker to think about this as a starting point, specially if he doens't have a fully fleshed concept at hand. I think it helps a lot to narrow down, until you actually get to phrase it. Plus, it also helps you focus on your vision to use the best ideas that fit both of these thoughts.
I think that putting yourself in the audience's perspective helps a lot when it comes to your intended impact on the audience and concept. It pretty much helps you identify and evaluate your concept and vision and whether it works or not. Maybe you had a lot of cool ideas, but if you see it from the audience's point of view, they have nothing to do with your concept, and they don't create the effect that you wanted. In my case, i'm still drafting my ideas, though i'm pretty close to a concrete scene, so i can't evaluate like that yet. But in the case of my vision, i can do this to see if my ideas are too crazy and unrelated, or if they do achieve what i want.
As i mentioned before, my concept is about lies covering up reality, and i chose it because i wanted to talk about Blanche's constant lying in order to walk away from the truth and reality for what it truly is. And i think most people do it, and so we make our own pretty lies and fantasies that cover up what we don't want to see or hear from reality. So i wanted the audience to reflect upon the lies we tell and create ourselves in order to escape the cruelty of our own reality. And thus comes my vision of the audience looking at the play through Blanche's perspective, experiencing everything like her. And as a theatre maker/producer/director, i must make sure to use every possible element to achieve them. For example i will use annoying sounds to begin the play, so the audience feels as stranged as Blanche felt when she got to Elysian Fields. It is important for a director to take notes on the most minimal details to reach his objective. To always be sure that things have a purpose in the scene, rather than just filling it up. Obviously, he needs to direct everything towards his vision and concept in order to reach the effect he wants.
But something i have been wondering about is how director's manage to translate the playwright's meaning into the concept? I mean, the director obviously has a concept that matches the play, but many elements the playwright included may affect negatively the director's vision. Should he take them out? Wouldn't it loose a bit of meaning? What if i changed the cue for the Varsouivianna to enter? Would it change Williams' effect?
Personally i feel quite confident on how my work is turning out, yet i'm not sure how will i ever manage to finish it in time. I think that there's so much to write, and i have so many ideas, but i'm not sure how or when will i include them all into it.
Something that has been bothering me is the fact that i have literally millions of ideas for both scenes, and even for the entire play as a whole, and as much as i would like to include them all, it's pretty much impossible. I mean, i've had trouble on focusing a main vision, because of all the new cool ideas that i come up with. So i'm constantly struggling with focusing my ideas and scratching the ones that won't work, because i really have a lot of expectations. The good thing though, is that the work is never truly staged (except for our sampling of it), so it gives lots of space for me to actually include the craziest and coolest ideas for my vision, because it will never be physically done, and no one will have to pay for it (relaz cino...).
In terms of my concept, i found it pretty easy to come up with. From the beginning i perceived the play as a game of lies, and a struggle with reality, so i already knew what i wanted to say with this play. The hard part for me was actually phrasing it, because i sometimes want it to sound poetic, but it's supposed to be as simple as possible.
Now that i do have a concretely phrased concept, i'm confident i can move on with my work, and i can focus more my ideas directed towards it.
Something realli important i learned is that you always need to think about what you want your audience to feel, and later talk about over coffee after the play. Like Brecht himself proposed: the audience must feel a sort of catharsis through the self reflection of the actions in the play. And that's pretty much where i want to get. I want my audience to experience the play in Blanche's shoes, giving them the experience of social injustice and insanity. It is important for a theatre maker to think about this as a starting point, specially if he doens't have a fully fleshed concept at hand. I think it helps a lot to narrow down, until you actually get to phrase it. Plus, it also helps you focus on your vision to use the best ideas that fit both of these thoughts.
I think that putting yourself in the audience's perspective helps a lot when it comes to your intended impact on the audience and concept. It pretty much helps you identify and evaluate your concept and vision and whether it works or not. Maybe you had a lot of cool ideas, but if you see it from the audience's point of view, they have nothing to do with your concept, and they don't create the effect that you wanted. In my case, i'm still drafting my ideas, though i'm pretty close to a concrete scene, so i can't evaluate like that yet. But in the case of my vision, i can do this to see if my ideas are too crazy and unrelated, or if they do achieve what i want.
As i mentioned before, my concept is about lies covering up reality, and i chose it because i wanted to talk about Blanche's constant lying in order to walk away from the truth and reality for what it truly is. And i think most people do it, and so we make our own pretty lies and fantasies that cover up what we don't want to see or hear from reality. So i wanted the audience to reflect upon the lies we tell and create ourselves in order to escape the cruelty of our own reality. And thus comes my vision of the audience looking at the play through Blanche's perspective, experiencing everything like her. And as a theatre maker/producer/director, i must make sure to use every possible element to achieve them. For example i will use annoying sounds to begin the play, so the audience feels as stranged as Blanche felt when she got to Elysian Fields. It is important for a director to take notes on the most minimal details to reach his objective. To always be sure that things have a purpose in the scene, rather than just filling it up. Obviously, he needs to direct everything towards his vision and concept in order to reach the effect he wants.
But something i have been wondering about is how director's manage to translate the playwright's meaning into the concept? I mean, the director obviously has a concept that matches the play, but many elements the playwright included may affect negatively the director's vision. Should he take them out? Wouldn't it loose a bit of meaning? What if i changed the cue for the Varsouivianna to enter? Would it change Williams' effect?
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Week off, work on
This past week during the school break, i worked on my Director's notebook portfolio in all of its aspects. I also got to see a play in NYC and managed to visit actual theatre facilities at a university (with actual lights and real floors).
This is really frustrating... i have a massive writer's block, and i really don't feel like working on 20 pages of pure work. But being all serious and honest, i think this is a great challenge we have taken. Writing an essay is one thing, but developing a portfolio is something else entirely. I sometimes feel like giving up and just handing in whatever i have, but i guess i just have to man up and keep on going.
So far, i'm pretty confident about my job, i think i have produced a fair amount of work, and i did manage to do develop more throughout the break. I still feel like I'm missing something, like my portfolio could be better, or even that it is not of a good enough standard.
What really bothers me is the fact that I'm used to working with a very structured scheme, and i thought the DN had a very defined and structured one. But it turns out that it is incredibly flexible, and i don't like that. Each of the three examples i read were entirely different from one another, and they all followed their own structure. I got to the conclusion that it was pretty much just having all the information needed, without any clear structure whatsoever. I'm not very fond of this, because it makes things very ambigious, and it becomes harder for me to actually lay out all of my ideas.
As of now i've already planned one of my scenes, and have lots of recorded ideas of the third part in my journal. I literally spent a day sketching the stage and some of the costumes. It's really fun actually, and i like the fact that i can let my imagination free. What i don't like is that the second part is very confusing, and none of the examples show either a pattern or what i thought was supposed to be done in that part. So i guess i'll just carry on with what i'm doing.
Something i've learned in further detail is organizing myself. Having two essays and a portfolio for the IB is not an easy task, so i guess i've been improving my organization skills. And i think this is really important not only to complete the work on time for the deadlines, but also to reduce the stress and the pressure. I believe that this skill is useful in the school, life, and even as a theatre maker. Obviously a director has deadlines to complete his work, and obviously creating an entire play takes a lot of time, and thus a lot of organization, for him to be prepared and follow a schedule. I think that i can relate this a lot to the work producing the school play, because we had to organize our works to deal with everything on time.
And i'm not only talking about organization in terms of work, i'm also talking about organizing and setting ideas. Obviously a creative process requires creativity (duh.), and sometimes your imagination flies away and you come up with all these really cool and wonderful ideas to include. But maybe they don't all match, or maybe you think of it in the shower, and then forget. So something i've learned is to keep track of my ideas that come up randomly, and writte them down to remember them. Even so, when i was visiting the drama school, tons of ideas flowed through my mind, so i started to write words on my phone to remember them later. I think this is something that happens not only to directors, but also to writers, producers, designers, etc. They can draw ideas from very simple things, and i think is important to organize them and keep track of them. Maybe some ideas work, maybe they others don't, but who knows they might come up useful anytime soon. I've heard of directors who discart ideas for one play, but then use it for another, and i think that i something i could do with the ideas i don't use for one of the scenes, and use it in the next.
And i think something really interesting, and a technique i find very useful, is to draw the images that come up in your mind. I think that as a director reading a play for the first time, it is useful to draw the characters, some of the important objects described in the play, the setting, etc. to get a physical picture of your vision, and what you want to achieve. I recon it helps to make your vision clearer and actually approachable to evaluate if it can be done, or if it works and matches with the play. I believe that as a theatre maker, someone who works with visual performances, it becomes better to record the images in your mind than just recording the sole reactions.
Speaking of which, i've had a hard time putting my ideas together, because there are so many and they don't all match together. So i've been improving my judging skills on the ideas, supported by the organization skills to put them in the most logical order, and then evaluating to see what could be useful and what is just garbagge.
Something i've noticed, is that a director is always looking for new inspirations, new ideas, new things to try. Before, when we watched plays, i was only looking at the aspects as a student, to later analyze in the play review. But now that i'm working on being a director myself, when i watched the play in NYC, i was noticing more the ideas that could apply to my own play. I've been reflecting on how directors do this, and i think this is why the DN asks us to compare and relate to previous theatre experiences. They want us to dig the ideas from things that actually existed and we have seen. And now that i watched a play with that in mind, all i could think was "maybe i could use the light in a similar way". And probably that's what directors do in real life, they look and evaluate to inspire themselves.
What i still struggle to understand, is how do directors take the vision and make it real? Now i know the DN is not going to happen, but i've been wondering about it. How do they manage to bring all of those processed ideas onto the stage? I remember how we did it in the school play, and it was not an easy job. But we had standards and limitations to follow, so we knew exactly when we were going off chances. However, how do directors know that? The budget? If so, when they know they won't have the money and decide to go another direction, wouldn't that take something off their vision? Could it make a huge difference? And how do they manage to transmit their ideas to the designers, artists, and builders? I mean, a picture in your head is not the same in someone else's head (this is why TOK is useful). And what happens if he has so many ideas he looses track of his initial vision and concept?
This is really frustrating... i have a massive writer's block, and i really don't feel like working on 20 pages of pure work. But being all serious and honest, i think this is a great challenge we have taken. Writing an essay is one thing, but developing a portfolio is something else entirely. I sometimes feel like giving up and just handing in whatever i have, but i guess i just have to man up and keep on going.
So far, i'm pretty confident about my job, i think i have produced a fair amount of work, and i did manage to do develop more throughout the break. I still feel like I'm missing something, like my portfolio could be better, or even that it is not of a good enough standard.
What really bothers me is the fact that I'm used to working with a very structured scheme, and i thought the DN had a very defined and structured one. But it turns out that it is incredibly flexible, and i don't like that. Each of the three examples i read were entirely different from one another, and they all followed their own structure. I got to the conclusion that it was pretty much just having all the information needed, without any clear structure whatsoever. I'm not very fond of this, because it makes things very ambigious, and it becomes harder for me to actually lay out all of my ideas.
As of now i've already planned one of my scenes, and have lots of recorded ideas of the third part in my journal. I literally spent a day sketching the stage and some of the costumes. It's really fun actually, and i like the fact that i can let my imagination free. What i don't like is that the second part is very confusing, and none of the examples show either a pattern or what i thought was supposed to be done in that part. So i guess i'll just carry on with what i'm doing.
Something i've learned in further detail is organizing myself. Having two essays and a portfolio for the IB is not an easy task, so i guess i've been improving my organization skills. And i think this is really important not only to complete the work on time for the deadlines, but also to reduce the stress and the pressure. I believe that this skill is useful in the school, life, and even as a theatre maker. Obviously a director has deadlines to complete his work, and obviously creating an entire play takes a lot of time, and thus a lot of organization, for him to be prepared and follow a schedule. I think that i can relate this a lot to the work producing the school play, because we had to organize our works to deal with everything on time.
And i'm not only talking about organization in terms of work, i'm also talking about organizing and setting ideas. Obviously a creative process requires creativity (duh.), and sometimes your imagination flies away and you come up with all these really cool and wonderful ideas to include. But maybe they don't all match, or maybe you think of it in the shower, and then forget. So something i've learned is to keep track of my ideas that come up randomly, and writte them down to remember them. Even so, when i was visiting the drama school, tons of ideas flowed through my mind, so i started to write words on my phone to remember them later. I think this is something that happens not only to directors, but also to writers, producers, designers, etc. They can draw ideas from very simple things, and i think is important to organize them and keep track of them. Maybe some ideas work, maybe they others don't, but who knows they might come up useful anytime soon. I've heard of directors who discart ideas for one play, but then use it for another, and i think that i something i could do with the ideas i don't use for one of the scenes, and use it in the next.
And i think something really interesting, and a technique i find very useful, is to draw the images that come up in your mind. I think that as a director reading a play for the first time, it is useful to draw the characters, some of the important objects described in the play, the setting, etc. to get a physical picture of your vision, and what you want to achieve. I recon it helps to make your vision clearer and actually approachable to evaluate if it can be done, or if it works and matches with the play. I believe that as a theatre maker, someone who works with visual performances, it becomes better to record the images in your mind than just recording the sole reactions.
Speaking of which, i've had a hard time putting my ideas together, because there are so many and they don't all match together. So i've been improving my judging skills on the ideas, supported by the organization skills to put them in the most logical order, and then evaluating to see what could be useful and what is just garbagge.
Something i've noticed, is that a director is always looking for new inspirations, new ideas, new things to try. Before, when we watched plays, i was only looking at the aspects as a student, to later analyze in the play review. But now that i'm working on being a director myself, when i watched the play in NYC, i was noticing more the ideas that could apply to my own play. I've been reflecting on how directors do this, and i think this is why the DN asks us to compare and relate to previous theatre experiences. They want us to dig the ideas from things that actually existed and we have seen. And now that i watched a play with that in mind, all i could think was "maybe i could use the light in a similar way". And probably that's what directors do in real life, they look and evaluate to inspire themselves.
What i still struggle to understand, is how do directors take the vision and make it real? Now i know the DN is not going to happen, but i've been wondering about it. How do they manage to bring all of those processed ideas onto the stage? I remember how we did it in the school play, and it was not an easy job. But we had standards and limitations to follow, so we knew exactly when we were going off chances. However, how do directors know that? The budget? If so, when they know they won't have the money and decide to go another direction, wouldn't that take something off their vision? Could it make a huge difference? And how do they manage to transmit their ideas to the designers, artists, and builders? I mean, a picture in your head is not the same in someone else's head (this is why TOK is useful). And what happens if he has so many ideas he looses track of his initial vision and concept?
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