Lesson video

Hi there.

I'm Mrs. Bradley.

Welcome back to drama and to lesson two in the unit narrative structures using poetry, developing monologues.

So what we'll start to do today is build on our narrative that we started last lesson and start to use more devising techniques to develop this into a devised monologue.

So if you're ready, let's get started.

In this lesson, you will need a pen.

You will need an exercise books and paper or a notebook to write in and you will need some space to work in.

So again, we are going to be doing a few practical tasks so just make sure you've got a little bit of space just enough room to stand up and put your arms out at either side.

So if you're ready, let's have a look at what we're doing today.

I hope by now, you've done the intro quiz and that we'll have just recap some of that prior learning from last lesson.

We will just go back through what we did last lesson just to recap and make sure we're all up to speed.

Then what we're going to look at is narrative structures and that will help us structure the story that we're going to turn into our devised monologue performance.

When we've done that, we're going to explore how we can develop our character and create a monologue through some devising techniques.

That will then take us to the end of the lesson.

And there'll be an exit quiz to check your progress on your learning from today.

In the last lesson, we use the poem When the Colours Spoke by Grace Nichols.

So you read this poem out loud and then you did various activities to regenerate some ideas such as looking at the emotions in the poem, the emotions connoted by colours, the colours in the poem themselves and what personalities and characters they suggest.

From that, we then generated a narrative.

So we chose a few different narrative ideas.

We mind mapped those and we chose one which was that inspired by the colours on the objects in the poem.

So we're then going to now develop that narrative into a devised monologue performance.

So let's have a look at our key words for this lesson.

So what are today's keywords? We're going to be focusing a lot today on narrative.

So the narrative is the structure of your story.

But what we're going to look at is how narratives can be constructed in different ways for dramatic effects.

We'll also focus today on characterization which is just the process you go through developing your character and taking that character from page to stage.

To do that, we're going to use a technique called hot seating.

So this is a devising technique where we can add more depth to our character and also develop our story.

Okay, so focusing first of all, on narrative structures.

So a narrative or what we would call a storyline can be constructed in lots of different ways.

You'll know this from novels that you've read, films that you've seen.

Sometimes events are not always seen in the right order.

And so when we devise a piece of theatre, we can be really, really creative with how we construct our own narrative to have specific effect on the audience.

So we're going to explore today, three different narrative structures.

So let's have a look at what they are.

So the first one is a linear narrative.

So a linear narrative is the one you'll be most familiar with and it's a store rate, which is chronological which simply runs in order for beginning to end.

So chronological means in time order.

So we live our lives in a chronological order and a lot of books that you'll read and plays that you'll see and films that you'll see will just be a linear narrative where everything happens in order.

However, that is not our only option.

We also have what we call a cyclical narrative.

So the key word here, cyclical, comes from the word cycle.

So think of this as being a cycle or a circle.

So it starts at the end, but then it returns to the beginning and then runs again to the end.

So we have a cycle.

Sometimes, if you have a cyclical narrative, you would see the same scene twice.

At the start and then again, at the end.

You can play around with this structure and change how we see that scene.

Then it perhaps has a different meaning the second time we see it, but this is a really interesting way to structure a piece of drama.

Our third option for today is called a fractured narrative.

And that is exactly what it sounds like, it is broken up.

So fractured means broken.

So this type of narrative moves between the past, present and future.

So we might have lots of different scenes, which all appear in the wrong order, jumbled up.

And this can have a really interesting effect for a piece of drama as well.

So there's three types of narrative.

Linear, cyclical and fractured.

So what we'll have a look at now is how they can be used to make the same narrative appear very different.

What I've come up with here, just to show you an example is a really simple narrative.

So in my very simple narrative, here is what happens.

A woman wakes up in the morning.

She decides to buy a lottery ticket.

She's feeling lucky, and to go to the shop and buy a lottery ticket.

But on the way home, a seagull swoops down and takes the ticket right out of her hand and then flies off with it.

Nightmare.

But then, she finds out she won.

So she knew the numbers and she finds out that those numbers were winning numbers and she would have been a millionaire.

So that is just a very simple narrative.

If we look at that narrative as a linear narrative, this is how it would be performed.

So if I was to perform this as a one-woman show.

This is what would happen in this order.

But what we can also do is we could change this.

What would happen if we performed this as a cyclical narrative or as a fractured narrative.

Let's have a look.

So I've got my very simple narrative of woman wakes up, decides to buy lottery tickets.

The seagull takes it out of her hand and then she finds out she's won.

So I've come into my acting space.

I've stood up, I've got a bit more room.

Put my hair up to stop it getting in my way.

And I'm going to act out that narrative, first of all, in a linear way.

So I'm just going to tell the story from start to finish.

So might be something like this.

Woke up in the morning, normal day, really.

And I thought, had a funny dream last night.

I definitely dreamt about winning the lottery.

Had the numbers in my head.

So I decided I'd go to the shop, walk to the shop.

There I was, putting down the numbers that were in my dream.

It's like it just, it just came to me.

So six numbers on the ticket.

I thought, maybe this is it.

Maybe this is the one.

Walking back home, just didn't think about a care in the world, looking at my numbers, wondering if this was going to be the night, the night that changed my life.

And then out of nowhere, as if in slow motion, the seagull, twice the size of a normal seagull I've ever seen.

Came down, took the ticket, flew off with it and it's beak.

Gone.

Well, that was that then.

Forget it, I thought.

I was never going to win anyway.

Went back home that night, sat in front of the TV, channel hopping as usual.

Then lottery numbers were on.

One by one.

The numbers, my numbers, my numbers on the screen.

I couldn't believe it.

Four, 28, 32 16, 19.

I won! I won.

I won.

So, that could be a very simple way of telling that story in order.

So it's not the most fascinating story in the world but it's in chronological order of telling the story and the events that they happened.

But if you were to change that completely.

If you were to do a cyclical narrative and that means starting with the end then going back to the beginning and back to the end, what would that be like for the audience? So that's how that look if I was doing a cyclical narrative, it might look like something like this.

I won, I won! It was a normal day, really.

I woke up in the morning.

I thought I had a dream last night.

I won the lottery.

I could remember the numbers and everything.

So I went down to the shop.

There I was in the shop choosing those numbers.

I was thinking, what if this is it? What did these are the numbers? What if this is the night that changes my life? I walked out of the shop, staring at the piece of paper in my hand, thinking this could be it.

I could be a millionaire.

Walking down the street, didn't have a care in the world.

I didn't even see it come in.

I didn't even notice this giant body blocking the sun making its way down to scoop out of my hand the lottery ticket in its beak, flying off with it.

The seagull.

Well, that's that, I suppose.

I was never going to win anyway.

Forget it, I thought.

That night, at home, channel flicking as normal.

Then I saw the lottery was on.

I saw the numbers.

Hang on a minute.

They're my numbers.

Nine, 16, 32, 48.

I've won.

I've won! I've won.

Okay.

So I embellished it slightly though.

And it's a slightly different narrative but what's interesting is that if we start with the character saying they won, we think that's going to be a very different story to how it actually turns out when we get back to the end because she won but she has no ticket.

But we didn't know that at the start of that cyclical narrative.

So that has a very different effect on the audience.

So that would be the cyclical narrative starting at the end, coming back to the beginning, and then going back to the end.

A third and final way to tell the story would be to turn it into a fractured narrative.

And that might mean starting with the middle, came back to the beginning, the end and then the middle again.

And so this might really mix up your story for the audience and keep them guessing 'til the very end.

So this might appear a bit strange, but it might go something like this.

I saw it swooping down from the sky, blocking the sun, the entire shadow with it appearing in front of me.

I've never seen anything like it.

I've never seen anything that size.

Closer and closer it was getting.

I couldn't even move.

I was frozen to the spot until then, it took it.

It was a normal day, really.

Woke up.

Didn't really think anything of it.

Then I remembered this dream.

This dream I'd had about winning the lottery.

I could remember the numbers and everything.

I won.

I won! I won! I went to the shop.

I thought, yeah, put the numbers down.

There they came.

Just off the top of my head from the dream.

Four, 19, 32, 48.

Maybe this was it.

Maybe this was the night.

Maybe this was the night that will change my life.

I won! I won! There I was walking down the street with it in my hand, not a care in the world, just looking at these numbers, these life-changing numbers.

Then I saw it.

The shadow blocking the sun, the whole shadow of it in front of me.

I've never seen anything like it.

I've never seen anything that big.

And then I was frozen to the spot.

I couldn't do anything.

I couldn't stop it.

It all happened so fast.

This seagull sweeping down with its giant claws taking the lottery ticket out of my hand and flying off with it.

Well, that's it I suppose.

Forget it.

I was never going to win anyway.

So back at home that night, channel hopping as usual.

And I saw the lottery was on.

The numbers.

Hang on.

They're my numbers.

Four, 16, 32, 48.

I've won.

I've won.

I've won! I've won.

Okay so, that might be a little bit more confused and actually what I did there is I repeated sections.

So I kept repeating the section of winning, but it didn't have the full meaning until we get to the very end.

So that's an example of a fractured narrative where we have some flashbacks and some flashforwards.

We see bits from the past and bits from the future.

I decided that start with the seagull but I made that section a bit more strange and unusual.

And didn't really make much sense.

So I guess from the start, the audience didn't really know what they was talking about but then that moment slotted in to the story later on.

So that's a fractured narrative.

Where things are jumbled up in not necessarily in chronological order.

But that can make it interesting experience for your audience as well.

So you've got some different narrative options there for you to think about and it's time to have a go at doing this yourself.

Okay, so what we can see from that is that the narrative changes completely and the audience gets a total different experience of the story if we mix up the events.

It suddenly becomes maybe more intriguing, not as clear.

Maybe they want to find out what happens more and maybe it's more engaging.

So I'd just like you to have a go at that now.

So I'd like you to pause the video, stand up and find a little bit of space and create a really simple narrative like a did.

It's very, very simple and straightforward but then play around with acting it out in three different ways.

Linear, cyclical, where we start at the end, come back to the end and then fractured where it's all broken up.

This can be really, really straightforward and simple.

Don't spend ages thinking about your narrative which is playing around with changing the effect of a performance for an audience.

So pause the video while you stand up, move away from your screen and have a go.

And then we'll resume when you're ready.

Okay, great work.

So we've already now started to explore the effect these three different narratives can have.

And what we're going to do now is choose one of them to apply to the device narrative which we looked at in When the Colours Spoke.

So what we've done already is we've explored the stimulus, When the Colours Spoke.

And from that, we've developed characters and put those characters into a narrative.

So how can we then structure this narrative? Which structure from here do we want to choose? Do we want it to be linear, cyclical or fractured? So you can have a little think about that, about what would work best for your narrative based on the poem.

So now, it's time then to pause and to think about now acting out your chosen narrative from When the Colour Spoke in the three different ways we've discussed and see which one is going to work best for you.

Think again how it changes the effects of the performance for the audience.

And then decide on which one you want to use to then develop your devised monologue performance.

Pause the video while you do this practical task and then resume when you're ready.

Great work.

So what we've now got is a narrative in a particular structure chosen by you, which we're now going to develop.

So you might have a narrative with two or three different characters from the poem.

Perhaps red, pink, blue, green, or yellow.

But what we're going to do is choose one of those characters because we're going to make a devised monologue.

So a monologue is where one character speaks and we have monologue performances all the time.

They're called one-person shows.

So you might have a one-woman show or one a one-man show where it's one person telling the story but they can still tell the story about different characters who were involved as well.

But what we see is the performance from their perspective and that's what we're going to create.

So choose one character from your narrative that you want to develop a story from their perspective.

And this will be a monologue performance.

So to develop this character, we'll do a task called a role on the wall.

So you may have done this before.

You can see my really simple drawing here of a role on the wall.

It's a really useful task for developing a character.

Thinking about their personality, their thoughts and their feelings in and out and helping us think about the character in more depth.

So the way we do this is on some paper or in your exercise book or notes book, draw a big body shape like I've done just looking a little bit like a gingerbread man.

And then around the inside of the body, we write down the thoughts, feelings, likes and dislikes that only this character knows.

So things that are not known or shared by anybody else.

Then around the outside, all around the outside of the body, we write down the facts and the things that other people or other characters know about your character.

So how people see them on the outside and then how they are on the inside.

And they may be different things.

And then what we get from that exercise is a character which has a bit more depth.

So pause the video whilst you make your role on the wall for your chosen character in your narrative and then resume when you're ready.

Okay, good.

So now let's just think about why we've done this.

What's the purpose of this role on the wall? So I've got a statement here, a role on the wall can make your acting performance better.

Would that be true or would that be false? It is true.

And the reason is if we think about our character in more depth, however we do it, through the exercise of a role on the wall or through another method, it's going to lead to a more developed and more convincing drama performance because our character suddenly becomes more three dimensional and we have a deepest sense of how to perform them and that can be more effective for an audience.

So we are going to carry on now with our character development and we're going do a hot seating exercise.

So hot seating is a character development technique where we put our character in the hot seat.

And that means we ask them questions to develop the character further.

So what's important about this exercise is that you answer the questions in role.

So if I ask you a question, you improvise on the spot and you tell me your answer but you're speaking as your character.

So we're going to do this live.

So I'm going to ask you the questions and I want you to imagine this is a scenario.

So as your character, imagine your narrative has gone viral and you're now totally famous.

So you're being interviewed by me for a celebrity magazine.

And you must tell the story from your perspective I'm going to ask you some quite big general open questions because obviously I don't know what narrative you've chosen but feel free to pause the video in between every question to give time for your answer.

All right.

So the next time you see me, I will be in role as the celebrity magazine interviewer and you will be in role as your character from your narrative.

So remember in this task to stay in role and speak as your character and I will let you know when the exercise comes to an end.

Okay, good luck and enjoy.

Hi there.

Thank you for agreeing to this interview.

Me and the fans and the readers at Hi There Magazine, we're just huge fans of yours.

So this interview is really just about us getting to know the real you.

So if we could start off with some questions about you and really what makes you tick.

So tell us about your childhood and your family first of all.

Great, so interesting.

And really, what the readers of Hi There Magazine love to know is just what makes you tick.

So could you tell us your favourite food and your hobbies? How do you like to spend your time? Great.

It's so interesting.

I really feel like I'm getting to know who you are.

So now, what the readers would like to know is do you have best friends? Who are your friends? Would you say you have enemies as well? Because I know from your story that you've talked about the different people in your life but who would you say your closest friends? Great.

And what about enemies? Could you say that this is the someone that you really, really dislike? The readers of Hi There Magazine just love to have the gossip.

Great.

And so, what we always ask our celebs when we interview them is can you tell readers your perfect day? So what would your perfect idea of a day be? Go.

Brilliant.

And so last question, really.

How would you describe your worst ever day? So this could be a day that you have actually had or just in theory, what would your worst ever day be? Great.

Thank you so much.

The readers of Hi There Magazine are going to love reading all about you.

Thanks so much for your time.

Okay, well done.

Great work.

So from that improvise exercise, you've now got a really good idea of how your character speaks and how they tell their story.

We also know a bit more about them.

So we've thought about their past and how they led up to the events from your narrative.

So I hope that was useful for you.

Feel free to go back and answer any of those questions again if you want to have another go or get a better sense of your character.

But if you're ready, we'll move on.

So what we've done is built the character.

What we now need to do is improvise the narrative.

So improvisation, as we've been doing in this lesson is a technique where we act without a script.

So we don't write it down first.

We can plan it and we have thoughts about it but we've not written down a script.

What I would like you to do is improvise your whole narrative that you've developed from the poem from start to finish.

Remember the narrative structure that you've chosen.

So if you're doing this as a cyclical narrative, when you improvise, you will need to start with the end and come back to the beginning and work your way back to the end.

So some tips for you here, three top tips.

Just go for it.

It's impossible to get improvisation wrong.

You just need to give it a go.

You need to try and stay in role, build on your ideas.

So try and accept thoughts.

Don't block them.

Don't be too self-critical.

Don't overthink it.

And just see what works.

See what comes out of your mouth.

You may need to do it a few times, because then, the idea is we'll start to solidify the monologue through this improvisation.

So pause the video whilst you stand up.

Shake off a little bit and then improvise your narrative from start to finish.

Resume the video when you're ready.

And well done.

So that's the end of this lesson.

So what we've done now is fully developed our response to the stimulus, the poem When the Colours Spoke by Grace Nichols.

So we start off with emotions, ideas, colours, we developed those into characters.

And so then in this lesson, we've developed a whole narrative with a specific structure, taken a character, and then developed that character.

And what you've now got is an improvised monologue from that character's perspective.

If it helps you, do you feel free at this point to just make a note of that monologue if you want to write it down.

Just in case it's a while before you do our next lesson.

If you want to as well today, you can share your work with Oak.

So if you want to do that, please ask a parents or carer and you can use the details on the screen @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Well done for today and I'll see you next time.