Lesson video

Hi everybody, I'm Mrs. Bradley.

Welcome back to drama.

This is your second lesson in a scheme of work devising from an image narrative approaches.

So last lesson, we looked at how to create a narrative from a stimulus.

Today we're going to develop that a little bit and look at characters and developing our own character journey and a more detailed plot line.

Let's look at what you'll need today.

So in this lesson, you will need a pen, some paper or an exercise book or a notebook to write in and you'll need a little bit of space to work in practically.

So that's why I'm wearing more comfortable clothes today because we are going to be doing a little bit of practical work.

You will just need space to stand up and perhaps space to stretch your arms out on either side of you.

So just have a little look if you've got that kind of space and then when you're ready, we'll get started.

So let's look at what we'll do today.

Hopefully, you have done the intro quiz already which we'll recaped some of the prior learning.

We will just go through what we did last lesson to make sure everybody's up to speed.

Then we're going to start to focus on one character from our narrative.

And that will be a character that you will then perform.

With that character, we'll develop the character knowing how to do that using some drama techniques.

Then at the end of the lesson there will be another quiz for you, an exit quiz just to check your learning from today.

So here are some key words that we'll use in this lesson.

Characterization is the process of creating and developing your character.

And this is what we'll be spending this lesson doing.

We're going to be looking at a character backstory which are all the events, which happened to your character before the start of the play.

To develop our character, we will be using empathy today.

And that's when we put ourselves in someone else's shoes.

It's being able to feel what another person can feel.

And it's a technique we use all the time in acting.

So this is what we did last lesson.

We looked at this image and we were introduced to this image as our stimulus.

So then what we did was we created ideas from this image and those ideas were then developed into a narrative.

We chose one idea for our narrative and we wrote out the narrative structure using that five-part play structure we looked at.

So what we'll do now is we'll start to choose one character from your narrative that you're going to develop further.

If you remember, we said to treat this as a play not as a novel or a short story for English.

So to make sure that you've got different characters, perhaps up to three characters and that there was some conflict intention in your narrative.

I'd like you just to pause, go back through your narrative from the previous lesson.

And now make sure that you've got one character that you can choose.

This is going to be a character that you will perform and you will end up improvising and then writing some dialogue for this person.

So this should be a character that you feel comfortable performing.

And again, just as a reminder, it's always important to make sure your work is age appropriate.

It doesn't have to be dark and sinister, there can be some real value in creating something really fun and comic.

So just take a while to make sure you've got the character from your narrative that you can then develop today.

And then we'll carry on when you're ready.

So what we're going to look at first is a character journey.

So we're going to think about what happens to your character throughout the narrative.

And it can be really helpful in drama to set this out as either a bullet point list or a flow chart to develop a character journey.

Because we need to know all the events that's going to happen to your character throughout the play.

And I've done an example for you based on the narrative I came up with in the previous lessons.

And let's just have a look at my character journey first of all.

So if you remember, I came up with a narrative from the stimulus which was about a boy called Chris and a girl called Jess.

I decided that it would be a narrative about someone perhaps running away from home, but it might have a bit of a cliffhanger ending.

In that she might then return home or she might go and get help, but we just actually don't know.

So I'm going to focus on the character of Jess from my narrative and here is my character journey for Jess.

So it's important to me that we set up the background that Jess has set up camp in the woods because she has left home.

But what happens next in my play narrative is that Chris finds her.

He was on his way home from school, but she tries to hide.

What, and then what happen is that Jess explains to Chris why she's there when her backstory is then revealed.

The next event in Jess's character journey is that she agrees to go with him to his parents' house so that she can get some help and events can be resolved.

But then the last thing I want to happen in my character journey is that whilst they are walking she changes her mind and she runs away.

And I just want to leave that fairly open in my play narrative.

That we don't know what happens to Jess at the end.

So it is a cliffhanger.

So you can see that five part structure there is the journey that my character of Jess goes through in this play.

So you need a clear idea of the different things that will happen to your character so that you know the emotions that they are going to go through, and you know that the different scenes that you have to write for them.

So let's have a go at writing your character journey.

I'd like you to pause the video now to then write out your own character journey for the character you've chosen.

So this could be, as I said earlier a bullet point list or a flow chart just try and make your points quite specific that happens to your character.

And do you remember, you will write and perform a monologue for this character later in the unit.

So make sure this is a character journey that you feel like you are able to act out yourself.

So just pause the video, take as long as you need to write out your character's journey and then we'll resume when you're ready.

Okay, so hopefully you've now written a character journey.

You've got that in front of you either in bullet points or a flow chart and that's got some specific events which happen to your character throughout your play narrative.

So what we're doing is we are devising our own play step-by-step by putting all the structure in place that we need for some really effective characterization on a really, really good story.

So what we'll do now is we'll move on to look even more specifically at our character and the events that happen to them.

And this is a task called an emotion graph.

So this is something which is really, really valuable in drama, because it helps us really zoom in and focus on the emotions of our character.

Because to act and to perform as a character we need to be able to feel their emotions and know how they feel in lots of different scenarios.

And this is why we use empathy in drama.

Because empathy is putting yourself in someone else's shoes and being able to feel their emotions so that we can perform them in a convincing way.

So this is called an emotion graph.

So if you look at the example that's here on the screen, on the X axis, so across the bottom is the duration of time throughout the play.

So throughout the narrative of the play.

And then up vertically on the Y axis are the emotions that your character experiences from negative emotions at the bottom, which could be angry or sad, to positive emotions at the top, which could be happy or excited.

And then we plot the different emotions that your character experiences step-by-step throughout the play narrative.

And then we link them all together.

And what we see is the journey of emotions that they go on.

So if you look at the picture, you'll see, this is Romeo from Romeo and Juliet, which we used as an example because I thought you might all know this.

If you don't, what you can see on the screen, in the graph is that his emotions are very, very extreme, aren't they? So he goes from the negative to positive, to negative to positive emotions.

So what that tells us immediately about Romeo as a character is that his emotions are very extreme.

They're very frequently changing.

Therefore we could assume he is a very emotional person.

Perhaps quite emotionally unstable.

And so that would tell us how to perform him.

So we need to show that he experiences these very emotional highs and lows.

And if you know the play you'll know that he does because of his own actions, a lot of the time.

So the emotion graph, when we've completed it really shows us visually the range of emotions our character goes through.

And that's why it's a fantastic task to do in devising drama because it helps us develop our character even further.

So if we now pause the video and you now make your own emotion graph you can just draw it out really simply like this one.

Think about the character journey you've just written.

Think about the narrative that you wrote last week and really think about the different emotions whether they are positive or negative that your character experiences in that journey.

Take as long as you need, and then let's resume when you're ready.

How did you get on? So what you should have now is an emotion graph which really visually, clearly shows the journey your character goes on throughout this play.

What we'll now do is turn that into a practical task.

This is going to use still images.

So a still image is like a photograph.

A still snapshot which tells a story.

They can be used during performances but they can also be used as a rehearsal technique as part of your devising process.

Which is what we're going to do now.

So to make a still image, what we use is our body language, facial expressions, our eye contact, our maybe gestures as well.

The key is in the word they have to be still and they have to be an image.

So what I'd like you to do is stand up in an airy way you've got a little bit of space and then I'm going to demonstrate for you how we create effective still images.

When you're about and you have stood up with some space around you, let's have a look at how to make them.

Right, so I've moved into a space where I've got a bit more room now.

So if you have stood up and you've got some space, then we're going to make a start.

So we might've been sat down for quite a while especially if we're working from home.

So we're going to stretch out first of all.

So just put your arms out in front of you and then raise those above your head.

Nice big stretch there in the body, you can go up on to your tiptoes, if you want to and then float your arms down by your sides.

So let shoulders go and then just do that again.

Just reach up to the ceiling, nice and tall on your tiptoes and then just float your arms back down by sides.

Lovely, let's just roll our shoulders back a few times.

Your shoulders can get a bit tense especially if you're sat down or hunched over a desk or a computer for a long time.

And what's important in drama is a nice relaxed body when we are performing so that we don't injure ourselves.

But also so that we can express our characters in clearly and fluidly throughout our body.

Just roll your shoulders forwards as well.

As well it's important that we're wearing the right clothes.

So I'm wearing some nice, comfortable clothes today.

So I've got lots of stretch in my body.

Lovely, okay, let's just lean there with a one side.

Nice big stretch there.

So you can feel this down.

This side of you brought it here, a nice big stretch to the other side.

Same thing, you can feel a nice big stretch to the other side.

Good, and let's just jog on the spot a little bit just to get us nice and warm.

Nice and comfortable and lose in our bodies.

Okay.

So normally for a still image you would use no props.

You'd just use your body.

You can use a chair if you want to, but you don't have to.

You might use the floor and do some floor work.

But if I did floor work, now you wouldn't see me at all.

So I've got a stool here and you can use a chair for and drew images if that's useful to you.

So with the still image, we want it to be nice and big.

Okay, that's an exaggerated.

Because it's frozen and there's no dialogue so it's only the body that is communicating your image.

So say, for example our still image was about someone running, we did this, it wouldn't be very clear.

It's not big enough.

It's not clear enough.

It's not exaggerated enough.

We want to use the whole body moving through that space.

So for example, we might want to angle our bodies this way.

We might all just stretch our arms out like this.

We might want to angle our centre of gravity forwards.

And then we also need to think about our eye contact and our facial expressions and what they're also telling the audience through our still image.

So if we're running into someone over there we might want to look in that direction.

If we are running a race and we're trying to win we might want to look nice and determined.

So we might have a determined facial expression in our still image.

But if we were running away from someone and someone was chasing us behind, we might turn to face that direction which would help to communicate that story.

Or if we were running towards someone excitedly or happily we might want to show that in our still image.

So the facial expression and what you do with your entire body including your eye contact is really important in communicating the whole still image.

So thinking about your centre of gravity that's where you're facing, where you're leaning.

Thinking about your facial expression what that's communicating, is it happy? Is it frightened? Is it sad? Thinking about your eye contact who you're looking at, the way you're facing, which is going to help the audience understand your narrative.

And then also thinking about how you are using the whole space.

We've got with body language, open body language which we would say it's obviously nice and open at the shoulders.

It's very free.

It makes us look confident and self-assured.

Legs are shoulder width apart, shoulders are back, arms are just open.

But then we've got the opposite of that, which is very closed body language.

And you might want to use close body language to show that your character is frightened or insecure or nervous or worried.

For example, if you wanted to show that you were frightened you might sit down, you could do this on the floor and you might decide to hunch your entire body language up.

And this still image might convey that you are frightened or lonely or scared or worried.

So deciding whether your body language is going to be open or closed is a really good start for your still images as well.

So I hope that demonstration has been useful.

Just remember to think about all those things; body language, facial expressions, eye contact where the body is facing, centre of gravity and any gestures with your hands that might help communicate your image as well.

So now we've looked at how we create them.

It's over to you.

What I'd like you to do now is pause the video to create five still images which represent your character journey.

So in the still image, you will be the character.

Unlike we've explored, you can use space in different ways.

You can use your body language and eye contact and facial expressions in different ways to convey the different emotions in each image.

Try to vary your performance so that each image looks differently.

This will really start to help you visualise your character.

When you've done that let's continue.

But pause the video now to work on your still images practising each one and taking as long as you need.

Well done, so now we have a set of five different images.

What we're going to do now is we're going to perform them together in real time and we're going to practise transitioning from one image to the next.

So I'm now going to talk you through each still image counting through to five, and I'd like you to spend a little bit of time on each one before I can tell you to move to the next one.

So I'll talk you through and tell you when to transition.

Are you ready? Let's get into position to still image number one.

Hold that there, and transition slowly into still image number two.

And transition into image number three.

And now transition into still image number four.

And finally into still image number five.

And relax.

Good, so hopefully what you've just done is you've made a performance really easily and quickly of your five still images.

And if we were watching that we would be able to see really clearly your character, their journey, their different emotions, but still images can be really engaging to look up.

As an extension what you could do now is spend a little bit of time here, pause the video, practise transitioning from one still image to another.

You could even go a little bit further and add in some music, thinking about your own narrative, thinking about the mood and the atmosphere you might want to create.

You could now put music to that and turn your still images into performance which is underscored.

If you want do that, pause, spend a little bit more time here.

If not, let's carry on and look at how else we can develop our character, well done.

So thinking that about this question how else can we develop our understanding of a character we are performing? We've got a couple more tricks up our sleeve which are going to help us develop our character even further today.

The first activity is a character questionnaire.

So what this does is it helps us develop a more three dimensional character.

So we refer to a three dimensional character when we mean a character with a past, present and future.

So it helps us to think about, our character before the play started, our character after the play ends.

And it encourages us to think about, their life outside of the play using empathy, to develop more depth in terms of their emotions in their story.

So let's have a look at a character questionnaire.

Here are three sets of questions which you can answer in relation to your character.

The first category is basic information.

This encourages us to think about, what our characters name is, but also where they're from, about their background, their family, their friends if they have a nickname, how old they are? Questions that we might not have thought about, until we get to this point.

Then we have questions about your character's personality.

This encourages us to think more deeply about the type of person they are, their hobbies and their likes and their dislikes.

Which if you have written or you're writing a monologue or a device to play or a script these questions might not be in the script but you might want to answer them to add more depth to the kind of person that your character really is.

The third set encourages us to think about the past and the future of your character.

And that's that life outside of the play, making them more three dimensional.

So encouraging you to think about what else is your character do? And what was the best day of their life? What are their ambitions for the future? Where do they see themselves in their future after this play? So at this point, what I'd like you to do is pause the video and answer these questions as your character.

There are two ways you can do this.

Option number one, would be to write your answers down.

If you do that, what you might then have is a set of answers, a lots of information which you could then use in the next lesson when we come to doing some scripting.

If you don't want to write out your answers the other option is to pause and answer each question verbally in a more performative way.

What that would do is it would encourage you to improvise which is a form of acting without a script.

And it would also help you start to vocalise your character.

Either option is fine.

It's however you learn best.

But do you pause the video and take some time over this character questionnaire and then we'll resume when you're ready.

Well done, hopefully you now have a much more developed character.

We will do a little improvisation task now.

Improvisation is when we act without a script.

I'm sure you've done this before but it's anytime where we act without planning or preparation first.

We might have thought about what we're going to improvise but we haven't scripted it, it isn't written down.

We are thinking of the words as we speak.

We use improvisation a lot as a rehearsal technique to develop our characters and very importantly, in devising to create the dialogue of the performance.

So I'm going to ask you the questions you can see on the screen.

And what I would like you to do is respond live to me with your answer.

So, as I'm asking you the question you are improvising your answer.

If you wrote down your answers before try not to look at them and read them out because in essentially that's a script try just to speak freely and talk as your character in response to these questions.

Okay, so if you're ready, let's give this a go.

Hi there, what's your name? And how old are you? Okay, could you tell me about your likes and dislikes? And what do you think is your biggest fear? And if you could think back could you tell me what the best day of your life was? Well done, so I hope you found that exercise useful.

It's really encouraging you to think on the spot but also to talk as your character.

Which we'll do much more of in the next lesson.

If you want to, feel free to pause just rewind slightly and do this exercise again to just maybe get a bit more used to speaking in role and answering those questions.

If you didn't have time to answer each question, just pause the video before you then move on to the next question being asked.

But if you're ready, we'll also carry on and look at the next character development task.

Quick question for you just to make sure we're making some progress.

So a character questionnaire helps us to develop a backstory for our character.

Is that true? Or is that false? Well done, it is absolutely true.

So it helps us to think about our characters life outside of the play, which is really important for developing that depth and making our character really believable and well-developed.

Our final task for today then is going to be to create a role on the wall.

So a role on the wall is where we draw a body shape like this one, I've drawn very simply on the right.

It's at the outline of the body and then we fill that body with information about our character.

So around the outside of the body we're going to write everything that other people know and the people see about your character.

So they're things that are on the outside, that are visible or that you've said, or that people know.

But then on the inside of the character body we write things that are our characters hidden thoughts and feelings, perhaps secrets that only we know.

And what that does is it helps us to develop, again that three dimensional character.

Because we end up with a character that has more depth things that are obvious and see, but things that are also unsaid and unspoken.

And this is a task for your character from the narrative that you've developed, the character that you've been working on today.

So take some time to complete the role on the wall.

Use this as a combination of everything that you've done today.

So thinking about your character journey, thinking about your emotion graph, thinking about your character questionnaire and posting now all of that information into your role on the wall.

So pause here, spend some time on completing this task and then just let's resume when you're ready.

So just to think about now I'll put some statements on the screen.

I'd like you to think about which of these are true about using empathy in drama.

There are four different options.

I'd like you to read them all and select which you think are true about using empathy.

I'll just give you some time to have a go at this task.

And let's have a look at the answers.

So option one, two and four were the correct answers.

Unfortunately, option three empathy might not make it easier for you to learn your lines, but it will help you understand your character more.

It will make your performance better because your performance will be more convincing and emotionally realistic.

And by thinking as your character, it will help you know how to react to other characters because you've got a better sense of your own emotions and personality in that character.

So it just shows us how important this skill of empathy is when it comes to improvising, devising and performing in drama.

And that's our lesson for today.

So you took a huge amount of work today to develop your characters and your narratives.

If you'd like to, you could share some of your work from today with Oak.

If you want to do that, it's important that you ask the parents or carer.

You can then share your work on Twitter.

They can tag Oak National and #learnwithoak.

Thank you for all your great work today and I'll see you next time, bye.