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Hello, I'm Mrs. Bradley, and welcome back to Drama.

This is lesson three in the live theatre scheme of work, looking at acting skills.

In this final lesson, we'll carry on to look at acting and looking at a different clip of theatre.

If you're ready, we'll get started.

In this lesson, you'll need an exercise book or some paper to write on, and you'll need a pen to write with.

If you're ready, let's look at what we'll do today.

So I hope you've done the intro quiz, because that will have recapped some of your prior knowledge.

We will recap some acting terminology, because we're going to use that again today.

Then we will watch a clip from the production of "Frankenstein." With that clip, we will write a theatre review today, bringing all of our terminology into use for the final task, and then that will just be followed by your exit quiz, which will just check your learning from today.

Our keywords for today are pace, which is how we describe the speed of an actor's speech, which is going to be quite important for this clip that we're going to watch, we're going to be looking at the way an actor has energy, which is one way of describing what an actor brings to their role, and we're going to be looking at the technique of foreshadowing, which you may know from English, but it's a dramatic technique as well, where the action onstage gives a warning or prediction about what's to come later.

So, let's recap some useful acting terminology that we need to use today.

And I've done this in the form of a quiz, so, can you name all of these terms? I want you to give me please the term used to describe emotion in the voice, the term used to describe using hands in performance, the term used to describe how loud or quiet the voice is, the term used to describe the space between actors onstage, and finally, the term used to describe the movement of limbs.

So, if you could pause the video here and write down the answers to each of those.

When you've done that, we'll just check your answers.

Great, so here would be your answers.

Tone, gestures, volume, proxemics, and gait, which is spelled G-A-I-T.

So, double-check your answers, they are the answers for those particular terms, and then if you've got those written down, that will help you use the terminology in this lesson today.

And we're going to watch first an extract from the production of "Frankenstein." So, "Frankenstein" is Mary Shelley's novel from 1818, and this is the production by the National Theatre in 2011, which was directed by Danny Boyle.

So, the clip we're going to watch features the actor Jonny Lee Miller in the role of Victor Frankenstein.

So Victor Frankenstein was a young man, he was a scientist, he'd studied philosophy and chemistry at the university in Ingolstadt, and that had really given him this passion for science, but also knowledge and discovery, to see if he could create life himself, so, Frankenstein was obsessed with the idea of, what's the secret of creating new life, and what he wanted to know the answer to was whether he could create new life himself, almost like he wants to act God.

So, as I'm sure you know from this very famous story, this leads to him later in the story creating his monster.

So, Frankenstein creates a being, and that becomes Frankenstein's monster.

In this clip, which is from earlier on, he's talking to his brother, William, about his ideas for creating life.

And I want you to look really carefully at how Jonny Lee Miller, the actor, uses his acting skills to convey Frankenstein's passion and excitement for what he's talking about in this clip, okay? So here is the extract.

We're going to watch this together, and we're going to watch it twice.

The first time, I don't want you to write anything, I just want you to watch and focus and give the clip your full attention.

The second time, think about these questions that I've put on the video here.

What impression do you get of the character of Victor Frankenstein? What can you tell about the character's personality in the scene? What is the character thinking in the scene? And what emotions is he experiencing, and how are they conveyed? So you've got quite a lot to think about, so we will watch it twice, and the second time, write down as many notes as you can.

Here we go.

I too wished to penetrate nature, to lay bare her deepest mysteries.

So I studied mathematics, I experimented with galvanism- What's that? You induce spasms in inanimate flesh, using the current from a chloride battery- Great! where a zinc plate's laid on a solution of ammonium chloride and Ceylon moss- How thrilling! And as I watched the current arc between bismuth and antimony, I found myself asking, where does the principle of life, the actual spark of life itself, where does it come from? It comes from God.

Yes, but only from God? I don't know.

Can a man be a god? I don't know! Well, I had to find out! So off to the graveyard I went.

Oh, Victor, yuck! I watched the flesh rot in the soil, I watched worms eat eyes, maggots chew the tissue of the brain.

I went to executions and charnel houses, I studied the moment of change from life to death, the specificity of the moment, the annihilation of the spark, until suddenly, months later, in this fever of creativity, I found that I could identify and replicate the prime cause of life! What is it? Can't tell you that, Will, you're only little.

What are you going to do with it? I don't know.

I have travelled where no man has travelled.

I wonder how far I can go.

I can create people, Will.

Living people! Look at me! I breathe the breath of God! Okay, great, so that's the first time.

We're going to watch it again, and this time, I want you to have your pens ready and to make as many notes as you can about the character, about these questions you can see here, but then also try to draw on some of that terminology we've prepared for today, such as pace.

How you could talk about his energy, how you could talk about maybe his gait, his posture, his proxemics.

So try to focus on acting skills, as well as what impression you get of the character.

Let's watch that one more time.

I too wished to penetrate nature, to lay bare her deepest mysteries.

Yes, but only from God? I don't know.

Can a man be a god? I don't know! Well, I had to find out! So off to the graveyard I went.

Oh, Victor, yuck! I watched the flesh rot in the soil, I watched worms eat eyes, maggots chew the tissue of the brain.

What are you going to do with it? I don't know.

I have travelled where no man has travelled.

I wonder how far I can go.

I can create people, Will.

Living people! Look at me! I breathe the breath of God! Okay, great.

So we've watched that twice now, and I hope you've got some notes on the impression of the character, the personality, what you think Frankenstein's thinking, what emotions he's experiencing, and then maybe some acting notes on how that's been achieved.

So, well done.

If you need to pause here for longer just to make those notes, that's fine, and then when you're ready, we'll carry on and we'll look at some of the things that you may have written down.

Great, so we're going to review your notes now.

So if you want to pause the video, if you've not got any notes in these categories, but I'm now going to go through what you may have written down, and then you can pause again, if you want to add to your notes with what I've got here.

So, looking first at what we see in terms of Victor Frankenstein's personality in the clip.

He appears to me to be very passionate, very intelligent.

He's clearly very clever because of what he studies at university and how he talks about that, but he's also a bit obsessive, I think, and that comes across to me in the extract.

In terms of the emotions that come through, I see excitement, but I also see a bit of nervousness about what's coming next.

I see a bit of confusion, because I think he's a bit confused about if a man can be God, like he says, but also what he should do now with his knowledge.

So I think he portrays those emotions really clearly in the extract.

In terms of what he's thinking, I feel like he's thinking that he's discovered something really amazing, but he wonders how far he can go with it, and at the end of the extract, there's quite a lot of pause where I think he's having those thoughts of, "What next, what do I do now with that knowledge?" And then just thinking about how he uses his skills, and we're going to look at this in more depth a little bit later.

He is talking with a really, really fast pace to start with, isn't he, and he's got a really frantic energy.

It's all very, very fast and a bit manic.

He's got very frantic and quite fast-paced gestures as well, but then he uses pause a little bit later.

He's pacing around quite a lot in his movement, and his gait is a little bit unsteady a little bit unorganised, and he has quite wide proxemics between him and his brother William.

So, there are some of the notes that I made from the extract that I noticed.

Pause here if you want to add to your notes with this detail, and then we'll move on whenever you're caught up.

Great, so, as I said, we are going to focus more on the use of acting skills now specifically.

So we've got a really good sense of the character, let's now look at how Jonny Lee Miller, the actor, does all of this through his use of skills.

And I've given you four categories to focus on.

I'd like you to look at the pace of voice and the pause.

So I've mentioned this already, but listen to the pace of his speech, but also look at when and how it changes.

Look at the movement in the space.

Again, I've talked a bit about this, but we can add more detail to this.

How does Miller move in the space? Describe his movements.

Look at the hand gestures.

What are they? So describe them a bit more.

When does he use his hand gestures? What individual words or lines do they punctuate? And then the tone of voice.

What tone would you say Miller is using to deliver his lines, and when does this change? So perhaps just pause here to write down those four headings, and then we're going to watch the clip again, just to really zoom in on the use of acting skills.

Great, so one more time, we'll watch the clip again to make your detailed notes now on the use of acting skills.

I too wished to penetrate nature, to lay bare her deepest mysteries.

Yes, but only from God? I don't know.

Can a man be a god? I don't know! Well, I had to find out! So off to the graveyard I went.

Oh, Victor, yuck! I watched the flesh rot in the soil, I watched worms eat eyes, maggots chew the tissue of the brain.

What are you going to do with it? I don't know.

I have travelled where no man has travelled.

I wonder how far I can go.

I can create people, Will.

Living people! Look at me! I breathe the breath of God! Okay.

So you've seen that three times now, so you should be really familiar with it, and what we should've done this time is made notes on the acting skills, the ones that I told you to focus on.

So if you need to pause just to catch up with that note-taking, that's fine, and then when you're ready, we'll move on, and we'll look at this in more detail.

Great, so, what we're going to move on to is analysing the acting decisions.

So remember that analysis is explaining why things were done and what effect those choices had.

And I've just modelled two examples of analysis here for you.

So, looking specifically at the pace of the voice used by Jonny Lee Miller.

He uses a very fast-paced voice.

That's a description, isn't it, of what he did, but the analysis is why that was done.

So, this conveys his excitement, his passion for the subject.

It's as if the words are tumbling out of his mouth uncontrollably.

However, he pauses, and he switches to a slower pace when he asks if life can only come from God.

And to me, this suggests this is the really key issue on his mind, and it's what he's desperate to know the answer to.

So, that's my analysis of those use of skills.

So the fast pace, the pause, and the slower pace convey those things to me.

In terms of the movement in the space, so I noted that Jonny Lee Miller moves quickly and in random directions through the space.

His movements are fast, and at an irregular rhythm, and he keeps the proxemics very wide between himself and William.

So that, again, is just description, that's just what happened, that's what I saw.

But in terms of the analysis, I think this could suggest his excitement, but also his nervousness about what he's doing.

He can't keep still, and this could represent the fast movement of his mind, so like the frantic energy of his movement represents the frantic energy of his mind.

I think that was quite clever.

And the fact that he keeps a wide distance from William, his little brother, could be that he's trying to keep his work private, he's trying to create that distance between himself and William in that he is telling William about it, but he's not really looking at him, is he, he looks out, and there's some things that he doesn't tell him, and I think that's because he wants to keep some aspects of it private, or maybe distance William from it.

So what I'm discussing is my analysis, my interpretation of that use of acting skill.

So, using that example that I've just modelled for you, I'd like you to pause here and make notes analysing all of the acting choices that you made a note of.

So using that modelled example, make some notes on what all the acting choices suggest, convey, or represent about the character of Frankenstein.

So, using everything that you wrote down in terms of description, adding that now to analysis, and using these key words of suggest, convey, or represent might help to focus your writing.

So pause here until you've made some analytical notes, and then we'll resume when you're ready.

Great, well done, some good note-taking there.

So, we're building in detail as we go along.

And what we're now just going to look at is the concept of foreshadowing.

So I mentioned this at the start as a key word, and you may be familiar with this from English, but foreshadowing is when the events onstage give a warning or some sort of indication about what's going to happen in the future.

And I just want to pose you a question, which is, how does Miller's performance in this scene of "Frankenstein" foreshadow the events which are to come later in the narrative? So, two key points here.

Look back at your notes so far, so look at what you've already written about, but then can you now add in the concept of foreshadowing to your analysis? So what is it that Jonny Lee Miller does that foreshadows that something bad might happen later? Okay, so just pause here until you've added this in, and what this will do is just give your analysis that little bit more depth by having added in another concept.

Great, brilliant.

So that's all our note-taking for today, and what the task is to do next is to put this into a theatre review format.

So, writing a review.

Theatre reviews appear in newspapers, they appear in magazines, but now mostly people would read them online, so on news sites and on blog sites.

So anyone can write a theatre review.

You get professional theatre reviews in newspapers, and you could be an amateur theatre reviewer, because everybody is entitled to an opinion about theatre.

So, the purpose of theatre reviews is to inform the reader of the quality of a production.

They do give some performance details and facts, such as who was in it and where it is and how long it runs for and who directed it, but they also give the personal opinion of the reviewer, and so we're going to imagine that you are the reviewer.

So, I would like you to structure your theatre review like this.

We'll start with an introduction, so, the name and the details of the production that you are reviewing.

What we'll do then is we'll add a summary sentence, and that will be in one sentence your overall opinion of this production.

Then, I want you to give examples, so, specific moments which you will describe, analyse, and evaluate, and then a conclusion giving your overall evaluation of the production, summarising the points made.

Obviously we've only watched one scene, but we're using that one scene as our specific examples of the production, and then we're just using our imagination to imagine we've seen the entire production, but we're focusing on this scene when we come to give our specific detail.

So, if you want to pause here and just jot down that structure briefly, you can do, and then I'm going to give you some success criteria and some sentence prompts as well.

So, here are some sentence starters.

You can pause here if you want to write down these sentence starters, or you can come back to them later.

These are totally optional, but just might help you structure your writing if you're a little bit unsure of where to start.

And then here are my success criteria for what would make a really successful piece of writing.

So, what I would be looking for is, first of all, a concise, that means short and to the point, but factual introduction.

I would be looking for a clear overall opinion of the production.

I would then be looking for detailed examples of specific scenes from the production, and I know you can do that because you've got all your notes from today.

Accurate use of acting terminology.

Some insightful analysis, perhaps referring to these things about foreshadowing and how the actor uses their skills to convey certain things.

A clear, personal opinion.

And then an informative conclusion.

So they would be my success criteria.

If you want to pause here again and just jot down these key points of what this theatre review should include to be successful, then you can do that.

And when you're ready, we're going to get on to the task.

So, now it's time to write your review.

So, using all of your work for today, and you've got some brilliant notes to rely on, write your theatre review of "Frankenstein." If you need to go back to the success criteria or the sentence starters as you can do that.

Good luck, and then just resume the video just to finish when you've completed this task.

Okay, great work.

This is the end of our unit, so if you want to, at this point you can share your word with Oak.

So if you'd like to, ask a parent or carer, please, to share your work on Twitter.

You can tag @OakNational and #LearnwithOak, but thank you for all your hard work, and I hope you've enjoyed developing your skills of being a theatre critic, and take care, and thank you very much.

I've finished the video