Unit 9 Task 1 - First Year Journey

Throughout my journey in first year, I have played a vast array of characters which have both developed my current skill set, all having types of different ranges to them. When I first started the course however, I was a very shy person who hadn't really opened up to anyone and didn't know what I would be getting myself into with this industry but I knew it was what I wanted to do. So, for the first couple weeks I was relatively quiet and felt awkward always getting involved. We did many lessons throughout the year like acting for camera and improvisation. I also took part of a writing group for the National Theatre where I wrote a script with my friend Will about two guys who get PTSD after coming back from the war.

When our first show came around, 'The Ghost Light Tours', I put myself straight into the deep end and decided to audition for a major character being the bartender in hopes it would maybe boost my confidence and take away some of the awkwardness doing warm-ups and just getting involved. However, for my audition I ended up being a nervous wreck, stuttering over my lines and shaking with the script in my hand, but I got a feel of what my first ever audition was like and it was somewhere to start for me. I ended up getting the role of a slapstick duo in the vaudeville piece of the show to start me off as it wasn't something major to scare me away, but it also wasn't something too simple for me either it felt like the right starting point. I worked with Will who was the twin, we had to make up our own backstory and our own little choreographed slapstick piece, we took heavy inspiration from Charlie Chaplin and incorporated it into our piece to give off that feeling of slapstick comedy we were going for. We performed this infront of an audience acting as stills to begin with and then coming to life once the attention was onto us, where I felt my heart race a little but was still fun, we had little moments where we worked with the other vaudeville acts like the lion tamer since we would run on when we heard the lion roar and I would be carrying Will in fear. We had a funny little fight scene where we both passed each other our umbrellas so we could roll our sleeves up. This got some laughs out of the audience and it made me calm down and not be as nervous when the second tour started. This role felt like the perfect start for me as it eased me into what the course was going to be and it opened me up to performing infront of an audience for my very first time, while also making the characters the up and the comedy piece ourselves as a duo which I think was also an extra challenge in itself to start off with. 

Once the 'ghost light tours' had wrapped up we were on with our second show 'The Wizard Of Oz', something I was very excited about doing. I knew from the start of hearing that we would be doing this show that I wanted to audition for the Tinman and this time I felt ready. I had the Globe Piece to thank for how much my confidence had grew to stride on forward with this course and take every challenge that came my way on and overcome it and a challenge this show was going to be. When it came to my audition I chose the cowardly lion as my backup and the Tinman as my main, I thought both auditions went great and in the end of the process I was cast as the Tinman. Already there were alot of differences with this role than with my 'ghost light' role as the Tinman was a more caring character and focuses more heavily on physicality as an actor and it was also my transition into playing a big, iconic character rather than devising my own. Kelly saw this as my chance to show off my acting ability, at first I was a little worried that maybe it was still too early for me to tackle a larger role like this but I took it on and it has been one of my favourite roles I have had to date. The main challenge I was facing when tackling this character was the stiff walking movement, so I put the time and effort into it, taking time out of my day to walk around either the dance studio or my house for an hour practicing the stiff like walk and in the end it paid off. This was also the first time I had really started working on accents as with the Wizard of Oz it's American, so we had some lessons on pronunciation of words and it helped me more with getting to understand my character a little. I think for my first time learning a full stage script that has a lengthy monologue in it as my introduction I really surprised myself with it. During, our time with this show we also did some ensemble work, so when it wasn't my cast I would be a munchkin in one and an ozian in another cast, with these roles we had to learn to move as one, so we would be doing warm-ups to help us. We would also have to bring our characters to life by ourselves again, I felt like my work with the ghost light tours also helped me here as well, as I would have to come up with my own character again but this time be more over the top and silly with it to give off the feeling that it's fantasy, we did this with how expressive we were and how some reactions would be more over the top than others. So we worked on warm-ups aswell where we would have to be in our Ozian or Munchkin character to help us understand what it's like to build a character from the ground up and work as an ensemble. 
While 'Wizard of Oz' was going on, I was casted in three christmas films for our film students. One of the films I was a scouse police officer that was not on the bright side, this shows again that I was working with different accents. In the other two films I played a homeless child who gets a present from Santa and it turns out to be the first present he has made and in the other film I was an emotional homeless punk teen who got kicked out on christmas and spends most of the film crying or wailing. This was my first time tackling film and I was a main character in one of them, I learnt how different filming for a camera was then being on stage and over the course of the three films I got plenty of screen time to show off my talent for a camera. I understood what it was like to be on a set, while also understanding how different camera angles and shots worked. This process made me fall in love with performing infront of a camera even more, as it was my main focus on why I wanted to act. 

The next show after Wizard of Oz, was something part of national theatre connections which is a youth theatre festival, bringing together some of the UK's most exciting writers for young people to perform their shows that they've written. The script that Kelly had chosen for us this year was called Old Times. For auditions we did it differently this time, auditions were based on running scenes in groups that Kelly had given us, I was auditioning for younger Kobi since the show relies on telling the story through flashbacks so there's an older and younger version of the characters. Younger Kobi is alot more energetic and on his feet since he's a young lad, so already this was a big change from the Tinman since I got to play around with always being on my feet and never staying in the same spot for more than one time. I got the role of younger Kobi for understudy cast and a police officer for the main cast. During rehearsals for the understudy cast, we had Morgan who was a student as our director, the main struggle we had with our cast was the changes between the present day and the flashbacks, we also struggled alot with keeping the energy whenever the younger ones did come on since sometimes the energy would dip. For the main cast the police officer is alot more demanding, as I have to interrogate the younger ones so that was a nice little switch for them both. While rehearsals were going on for these, I had a small part in the feature film we were doing, as a dad of two of the main girls, who ends up overworking himself and collapses. 

We were now onto our final two shows and end of year films. Throughout this period I took alot on since I felt I had grew as an actor and a person. I managed to juggle being part of four major end of year films, two roles in our end of year show Little Women and two roles in the other end of year production last resort where i had multiple fast changes. For the end of year films I played a vast array of characters again all ranging from different genres of film. I was in a black and white noir film as a schizophrenic detective with a plot twist at the end being that I was infact never the detective it was the person I killed. I was in a football mockumentary which by far was the best filming day I have still ever had, I played a character part of a trio called 'the three stooges' and we were the midfield of our awful team. I was in a thriller called 'the tree' where I was a drug dealer called Kyle who woke up chained to a tree with someone else who was at a party where someone overdosed and we would speak to the kidnapper over a walkie talkie that he had taped to the tree to communicate with us. For the last film I was a sleazy lawyer in a comedy called 'weight of the world' where I come and bring some bad news to main character that Mcdonald's plan to break down his fat camp and build another restaurant on top of it. This shows that I can do all types of different genres of film/movies showing how far my range can go aswell since a lot of the roles/characters I have played throughout the first year have all be very different. 
For Little Women we had to bring the American accent back, which was fun. I auditioned for the role of Laurie since I hadn't done romance yet but I got the role of Mr March in one cast and Ned Moffat in another cast. We had lessons teaching us dances that they would have at a ball and when doing rehearsals we were always taught for Ned mainly how to be gentleman like and how we would hold a women's hand and greet them. For Mr March we would have to walk with a limp on the walking stick since we had just come back from the civil war. I had one emotional scene in the show and that was beth dying. Whilst rehearsals were going on for Little Women we had auditions for Last Resort, I originally auditioned for one of the lads but got the role of Damien, later getting the role of Fraser one of the surfers who are your stereotypical stoners. I only got the role of Fraser since Aiden dropped out to focus on Laurie on Little Women so they did auditions again and I got a role. I had some fast dress changes in this show as when I would finish one scene with one role I would have to go and get changed ready for the next scene with my other role. Both these characters were different to one another since Damien is a chavvy spoilt brat, who always wants to get his own way and just annoy his family, whereas Fraser is a stoner who wants to ride the waves with his mates. This shows that I understand stereotypes in characters and also shows how I can switch from one character to another without it seeming like im just playing the same person. 

From all these roles in first year I believe from the start of the year that I really grew as an actor and it led to me taking on more and more challenges and overcoming them and slowly building my skill/talent. It also helped alot with my confidence since I have played alot of characters that people would normally be scared to play since they don't want somebody saying something about them. I knew where I needed to improve in second year and I knew what types of roles or skills I needed to work on. For second year I would like to push myself to play more serious and emotional roles and also some romance. I would like to spend time devising monologues or performing duologues as, that's something I felt like we hadn't done many duologues. I would also like to spend some time doing more singing lessons since I feel comfortable with my singing ability. To get me ready for University, I would like to do more improv style warm-ups and lessons on how to prepare myself for monologues and where the best place to find them are. I think naturalism is something I need to touch and work on a bit since sometimes when doing film I felt like I was partly natural but I played more characters that rely more on being over the top a little, so I haven't had that naturalistic feeling to a character for a long period of time.