Research on FMP

For research on my character, Jireh assigned us a task to make Instagram accounts for our characters and we had so much fun doing it because we got to control who we speak to, how we speak to them, who we follow and who's pictures we like. It helped us gain more insight with our character by using the script and thinking about what our characters are like in person and on social media. In addition, we had such great fun with the Instagram accounts that even people from other groups were making accounts for their characters. My Instagram account for my character is https://www.instagram.com/oliviaxxlincoln/

In order to gain more knowledge about my character and to get to know her more, I researched the following 10 things:

1           1. Watch Liv and Maddie – Focus on Liv being the better person and friend

             2. Watch La La Land – Focus on the third act
      3.  X-Men: First Class – Focus on dealing with diverging path
      4. Watch 500 Days of Summer
      5. What is Corporate Law?
      6. What is manslaughter?
      7. What is the difference between manslaughter and committing a crime?
      8. Of Mice and Men – How does it link to Lincoln committing manslaughter?
      9.   Go to a manslaughter court case (or murder)
     10. Watch videos of people in a waiting room – what are their actions and reactions?

Researching these things gave me an insight of what my character is like for example, the character Liv in Liv and Maddie is a girly girl, who is very outgoing and a confident individual, never passing up an opportunity to live her wildest dreams. I believe that this is what Olivia is like as well.

‘You are most like the beautiful, fabulous, cute, adorable, sweet, and bubbly Liv Rooney! One thing is certain—that you love to be in the spotlight. You are a very outgoing and confident individual, never passing up an opportunity to live your wildest dreams. Singing, dancing, and acting are super fun! As a fashionista, you always dress to impress and love giving style and makeup tips to your friends. You have big heart full of love that you want to share with the world! And you are a joy to be around. With such an exciting life you want everyone to know about the buzz going on in your world. However, sometimes you may like the limelight too much and it comes across as being prideful or self-centred. But that is only because you are an excitable person and love what you do! You have so many wonderful qualities and are always finding opportunities for self-improvement. But most of all, you desire to share life's greatest joys with the family member you are closest to—your best friend—your sister.’

Website: http://www.playbuzz.com/danielleduet/are-you-more-like-liv-or-maddie#eightieth

One of the main themes of the play that we researched was manslaughter. We watched a documentary on manslaughter and murder to understand the difference between the two. We had a discussion as a group on whether we thought it was right for the soldier to commit manslaughter and I said no because it wasn't his fault. This gave us an insight on what happened before Lincoln was charged and put into a visitation room. In addition, for Tarkan it helped him understand why he would feel upset and plead guilty as well as the other actors. 

What is manslaughter?

Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a person, the individual accused has the intention to kill or cause serious harm

 Manslaughter can be committed:

·       Where death occurs due to the dangerous, reckless or grossly negligent behaviour of another individual

·       Where someone kills another person as part of a suicide pact, and didn’t expect to survive

·       An unlawful killing, where the accused can argue they should not be held responsible; as their mental functions were impaired

·       An unlawful killing where, despite wanting to cause harm, the accused “loses of control” and unintentionally kills the victim

The difference between Manslaughter and Murder:

Murder requires the intention to kill or cause serious bodily harm.

Manslaughter is committed by reckless or negligent behaviour or the failure to take proper care.

What is corporate law?

Corporate law is the practice or study of how shareholders, directors, employees, creditors, and other stakeholders such as consumers, the community, and the environment interact with one another. A corporate lawyer works for or on behalf of businesses or governments to provide legal counsel and services.






Character development


I asked Jireh if he could tell me in detail who Olivia is when I first got shown the casting list. All he told me was that Olivia is Lincoln’s girlfriend, she studies Corporate Law at University and she works as a librarian at her University, the rest he said I could make up myself. In class, our task was to research who our character is by looking for words that describe our character in our scripts through other characters and the narrative description. Looking through the script, I found a couple words that the character, Victor described about my character; lovely, loving, steadfast, supportive, makes Lincoln a better man and a gift. This helped me with finding an emotion or action for my character to use in the play. Other information that I found for my character is that she’s 18 from the narrative description, she’s not angry at Lincoln, a little sad, hurt, proud of Lincoln, not selfish, believes in her gut feeling, serious, honest, sarcastic, humorous and calm. Gathering all this information for my research, I was able to visualise what my character’s personality is like and how she would act with people. An objective I had for my character was to stay positive throughout the scene with Lincoln and support his decision even though she doesn’t want to admit it but she thinks it’s the right thing to do. In addition, she wants to gain closure from Lincoln so she can carry on living her life without him. A couple quotes from the text to back up my objective are “I’m using humour and sarcasm as coping mechanisms.”, “I don’t think I could’ve gotten angry at you. It was like some calming force took over as soon as you laid out everything.”, “You’re putting what is right before what you want.” and “Go on, live our life”. Olivia’s actions were to remain calm and positive throughout her time talking to Lincoln in the visitation room. Although she’s hurt and upset in the inside, she wants to show Lincoln that she is able to cope without him and carry on with her life.

Considering Jireh created the character of Olivia, we played a game of question and answer and I asked Jireh any questions I wanted in order to get to know my character better. The first question I asked was “What is Olivia’s personality?” and he answered: confident, independent, spunky, caring and calm in situations. I asked about Olivia’s family and Jireh said I could make that up so i did that during a game of hot seating. We wrote a short synopsis about our character to read whenever we need to retrace who our character is, ‘Olivia is an 18-year-old University student studying Corporate Law. She also works as a librarian at her University.  She is a very confident and independent person whom in under any heat, she is very calm in situations. Being an only child and living with her father after her parents divorced when she was only five. She learnt a lot from her father’s job as a policeman, he taught her to defend herself in given situations, to be well spoken in a debate and discipline. After her mother left, she hasn’t seen or kept in contact with her since.’ 

Learning more about Olivia I realised how different but also how similar she is to me as a person. Personality wise we are very similar however Olivia is always positive and very chilled out which is also like me however I wouldn’t have reacted the way Olivia did when Lincoln told her straight up he was going to plead guilty and go to jail for five years. Personally, I would’ve probably gotten mad and tried to change Lincoln’s mind because I wouldn’t want to lose him and I’d try to fight for him. When I first read the script and I saw Olivia was keeping it all together throughout the scene I just thought “Wow, what a brave girl” because I wouldn’t have been able to do that.

Picking out my costume for Olivia I thought was quite easy because I pictured her as formally yet casually dressed, I didn’t want her to wear what Diana was wearing; formal black skirt and shirt with heels. A denim jacket, simple tee and black jeans with white slip on Vans seemed to be the perfect outfit for Olivia as it’s very relaxed and casual which is very similar to how I would dress.

My group's individual development for them self and others.

Individual development I had to do was to learn all my lines by the set date, rehearse the scene many times with different emotions and actions in order to explore and find the right one, play hot seating games and character games in order to get to know each other more and to see whether we know each other well by testing each other and lastly make an Instagram account for my character.

My research on Olivia in rehearsals.











Research video about developing our characters.

Video on our research feedback.