Skills Audit

Acting is something I started doing from a very young age. I signed up to Young Actors Theatre at the age of 11 and later joined the advanced class on a Tuesday’s. My time there really helped boost my confidence as a person and it taught me new things I didn’t learn in school at the time. Unfortunately, I had to stop going because GCSE’s had come up and I had no time to go to YATi; I had to put all the time I had into revising for my exams. I took Drama GCSE and I managed to pass with a good level however my writing kind of let it down because at the time I wasn’t very confident in writing evaluations on plays I’ve seen. It was all new to me however, after applying to college and doing lots of written work, I got better at it.

During my time at secondary school I’ve done quite a few shows and worked with a few productions. A production I worked with for 2 years was Big Foot Productions, it was like a big drama club and we had to create scenes for the examiner to them come and grade us. The first performance we did was a short play inspired by Downtown Abbey but with a murderer. Before we left class, we were given and envelope to open once we got at home to reveal if you are the murderer or not and not tell anyone. Throughout the play, characters died but the murderer was yet to be revealed but in the end, the lights went out and the murderer stepped into the middle and then revealed. It was a very fun experience for me because I got to be the murderer and I had never done anything like that before. Our examiner gave us a Merit which gave us UCAS points for universities. Moreover, the next year, Big Foot Productions came back and we had another play to rehearse for and this one was based on 911 – Twin Towers. After performing to another examiner we got a Distinction which I was really psyched about because I receive more UCAS points.

A project I worked with was Time 2 Talk who are a mental health project that created short films for students to see and be educated by. There were eight students who were interested in being apart of the production and we each got casted. We didn’t have a script so it was improvised and in our own words. The story is about a boy who suffers from mental health, his family don’t care about him but his best friend and sister do. They try to get him to open up about how he’s feeling but he wears a mask to protect himself. Teachers at school try and help him but they can’t because he doesn’t want anyone to know. We named this short film ‘The Boy Behind the Mask’. After filming the short film, we got to perform it to every year group for assembly and they all enjoyed it and learned a lot from it. We even had students in the audience come to the stage and show us how they would change the situation to make it better. I thought we really reached out to the audience and interacted with them really well. Our short film was also shown in PSHE classes. Here is a link to the articles:

•  http://www.parkview.haringey.sch.uk/168/latest-news/article/249/park-view-time-2-talk-mentors-win-hsj-award-for-the-best-innovation-in-mental-health       
• http://www.thetottenhamindependent.co.uk/news/14093687.School_wins_award_for_teaching_about_mental_health/

There was a Winter Showcase that took place at my school involving drama, music and dance. I performed a duologue with my friend which was originally a monologue but we made it quite original and managed to mix the two monologues together and I think it worked really well. I had a lot of support from the audience.

When I was in Year 10, there was an opportunity for me to be the understudy of a girl in Year 11 who wasn’t able to make it to her GCSE Drama exam. I wanted to know what it’s like to perform to an examiner although I didn’t get marked, I just helped support the group. I was chosen to be the understudy of this student because my teacher thought I’d do a really good job at it. I worked with the group everyday, we did dress rehearsals and I also made new friends. I managed to learn the script off by heart to show them that I was dedicated to my role. The group had written the script themselves and came up with the story together.

For my GCSE Drama exam, I performed the play Tusk Tusk by Polly Stenham; three children are left home alone for a week with no parents at the new house they just moved into in London. They wait patiently for their mother who has gone to the shops. Their mother has bi-polar disorder. The eldest, Elliot expects his mother to be back home for his 16^th birthday but when she doesn’t turn up, questions are being asked. The second eldest, Maggie has a secret she kept from her brothers about their mother. She reveals that she made her mother take pills and commit suicide. I played the character Maggie who is a 14-year-old girl who is hated on by her mother, Maggie would rather see her mother die and stop suffering than see her ill and alive. I did a lot of research on bi-polar disorder and I noticed that this play is really dark with a lot of emotion.

At my time in college, I’ve performed two major performances which was a drafted script by Heather Speake called Last Summer. I was chosen to be the main character and this was a challenge for me because I had never performed a one hour play before especially with a lot of lines but I managed to do the best I could and give a great show. In addition, playing a main character in Peter Pan was really fun, I had to experience what it’s like being a 5-year-old little boy and learn new and deep things I never knew about the play.

Through all those experiences I’ve had, I believe I am a strong actor and my strengths are having good communication skills as I can work with anyone. I have confidence as an individual and as a leader of a group. I have very good projection considering I have a loud and clear voice and I am very quick at memorising my lines. I feel as if I am good at looking into a character I am given and make the most out of that character; explore their strengths, weaknesses and goals. On the other hand, I think that my weakness is playing a character that is younger than my age for example 10 and under. I feel as if I can’t relate to that role because of the age difference however I try my hardest to portray the character and make it believable for everyone. Unfortunately, I can’t sing however I use to take dance classes when I was younger and dancing is a technique that is needed in the performing arts industry.

The main goal in my life that I wish to achieve is gain lots of experience in the industry of acting and hopefully make my way to the top and be on television doing a show or a movie. In order for me to achieve these goals is to catch every opportunity I can to get me to where I want to be.

Devising

Our devising play is based on a crime scene murder investigation. Two officers who get promoted to detective are sent on a mission to America to help solve a murder. Mary from forensics and their new intern go along with them. However, a few days later, Mary dies and everyone is suspicious of each other. We thought of ending our performance with a life audience interaction; they would have to guess which character is the killer and the majority of hands up will be chosen. We were inspired with the theme of crime from some of our favourite movies and tv-shows such as Black Mirror, Sherlock Holmes, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Luther. As a group we decided on roles, my role was to do some research of murder crimes and to be on top of transport and how to get to the school. In this case, we were going to Stephanie’s secondary school which was in East London. The title of our performance is ‘American Noire’ however our company name is called ‘The Stage’. Dulce did a great job writing the script for us as we all managed to memorise it just in time.

When we first performed our devising piece to our class and the level 3’s, it didn’t go very well because we felt unorganised and very slow. I accidentally skipped a scene however everyone managed to improvise their way to their places on stage. Not having time to set up and be more prepared made us anxious because we knew we weren’t performing to our best ability although it was a quick run-through. This led to Dulce having a break down which I didn’t blame her for. We then got given the time to test out our workshop with level 3 students and it went really well although all three groups went over time. We were given the task to do a 20-25 minutes’ workshop so we had to come up with some games and activities. The leader of the workshop was Tarkan who was in charge of making sure the workshop goes well and remembering the orders and Dulce was the time keeper. To start off the workshop, we decided to add a physical warm up so the students feel energised and ready, this was lead by Marion. Then, we had Isaiah do a clap game going around the circle to try and go round the whole circle before one second is up and also film it. Next, I was the leader of the game Wink Murder and I added a little twist to it which was for the students to have the most dramatic death ever to make it more fun. After that, Tarkan started off with an activity which got the students to be creative. He came up with a movie game and to play this game one person from each group must step out the classroom and Tarkan will give each group a blockbuster movie and a famous actor and they must act it out with no speaking, only mime. Lastly, Dulce led the last activity which was a freeze frame of a death such as stabbing, suicide, poisoning etc. In order to gain experience for what it is like to do a workshop with students, we had another test run but this time on our class mates. Although our class is more mature considering we’re college students, when we were told that we have to do our workshop for two Year 9 classes combined, we knew that it’s going to be hard but we were up for the challenge. We managed to film the whole workshop with our class to see how it went and what we can improve on.

It was the day of the devising show and we all managed to get to the school on time. After we got into the theatre space at the school we set up all the props and placed them on each side of the stage for us to easily get. We did a quick headcount of the students in the theatre and introduced ourselves. There were 29 students which was quite a lot for us to handle compared to the amount of people in our class at college. It started off really well as we got the students to get up and form a circle but there was quite a lot of noise so it was hard for us to explain our games and activities. The first two activities were easily done however when it came to the game of wink murder, everyone knew how to play but when the game started nobody would wall to the ground. Only two or three people died during the game which was quite annoying because we had to tell them twice to die to make the game faster and that’s never happened to me before. I think the students were a bit shy and didn’t feel comfortable doing it. So we moved onto the next activity and we each stood by a group to help them out when they needed, Tarkan’s game managed to do very well because all the students seemed intrigued with the movie titles and actors they were given. For Dulce’s activity we tried splitting them up into different groups but they wanted to stay in their friendship groups so she improved and gave each other them a number to form their group with and to create a still image of a type of death.

One thing that went well with the workshop was that we all kept our calm and remembered our cues however a few things that didn’t go so well was time keeping and the students were too loud and wouldn’t be silent so we had to get their teacher to get them to be quiet. I think that if I was to do the workshop again, I’d prefer if we had older, mature and a smaller number of students because although there were six of us in the group, it was quite hard to maintain them all and keep them focused. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to be given feedback because we had to move onto our performance.

I believe that our performance went better than any other time we’ve done it however a few minor mistakes happened which weren’t noticeable to the audience but noticeable to us. We had forgotten to put a white cloth over Dulce to show she is dead however we improvised and I think the audience understood that she was dead. In addition, whilst the lift was happening, Marion’s character’s monologue wasn’t playing and I’m not sure why because we had it all set up but again that wasn’t noticeable to the audience. Throughout the performance, everything went well and the ending really got the students thinking who the murderer is and they managed to guess right which was fun for them. I feel like we all did a really good job, we all managed to remember our lines. Although it was quite stressful, we managed to work through it and I’m proud of my group for that. One thing I would improve on is our steps during the lift, I feel like it was quite messy and it felt like we were just walking at different times. Another thing I’d improve on is being more organised with speeches, props in the play and timing.

Overall, this was a great experience for us all to work with younger students and to share our work with them. In addition, I feel like I've gotten better with my leadership skills, telling the students what to do and leading the workshop. In the future, I would like to work more on workshops and performances at schools with older students.

UCAS Research

After writing a list of different universities and drama schools in London, I managed to narrow it down to six. I already knew what I wanted to do and that is BA acting. I did quite a lot of research on the list of places I was thinking of applying to but most of them didn’t seem very convenient for me and I certainly didn’t want to study outside of London because my parents preferred it if I stayed at home where I don’t have to spend money on accommodation. My six choices are:

•        Brunel University
•       St Mary’s University
•         London South Bank University
•         Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (RCSSD)
•         London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA)
•         Arts Ed

Each of these schools have great rankings and their alumni’s had a range of people that I’ve recognised before whether that be on television or in a movie. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go to all the open days because some were in summer and I was on holiday but others I could easily go to. Hopefully after being accepted and given an audition, I will be able to take a look around the schools and have a feel for what it’s like studying there.

Pros and Cons of HE

Should I go to University or is it a waste of time? There are many pros and cons as to why one should continue into further education or just not.

The pros of going into higher education:

•       Earning a degree is a major life achievement
•        More jobs available
•        Better employment opportunities
•        Gain independence
•        Develop skills
•        Increase earning potential
•        Make new friends and connections
•        Proud family
•        More responsible

The cons of going into higher education:

•        Student loan interest
•       Not having the right grades for that course
•        Too much work
•        Waste of three years
•        Waste of money
•        Financial crisis
•        Fees
•        Not being able to get a job because you don’t have a degree for it
•        Stress