Lesson video

Hello.

My name is Mr. Burt, and welcome to your drama lesson.

This is the second of three drama lessons, looking into a unit of learning called, "Approaching text: Bringing it to life." And if you remember, in our first lesson we looked at the key term characterization.

Now characterization is the process of going from nothing to a full performance of a character, to an audience.

And then our last lesson, we looked at the very beginning of that process and three key terms, given circumstance, interpretation, and motivation.

Now the process starts with the given circumstances.

They are all the information that is given to you by the author about the character.

And then we use that information to create our own interpretation, how we think the character feels and thinks about what is happening to them, the round around them, and the characters around them.

And then we use that interpretation to start thinking about the character's motivation.

And motivation is the reason why a character is on stage and the reason why they do what they do and say what they do.

And so in today's lesson we're going to build on that and start thinking about how we start acting out of character, using that information.

And in particular, we're going to focus on the use of voice and three key words, pace, pause, and tone.

So let's just have a quick look at what we need equipment-wise before we start this lesson.

So, these are the items you're going to need in this lesson.

You're going to need a worksheet or a piece of paper.

You're going to need a pen, and you might want to have a highlight as well to highlight your lines.

So go and get those items and let's get started once you've got them.

So this is the rundown of our lesson.

We're going to start with some key words which are going to be really essential to the success of our lesson.

We're then going to have a vocal warmup, using some of those key words.

We're then going to do a characterization activity which picks up on some of our learning from our last lesson.

And we're going to use that then to create and act out a monologue and we'll finish the lesson with a quiz.

So here's our key words, which are going to be essential to the success of our lesson.

The first key word is pace.

Now pace is the speed of your voice.

Whether you speak really fast whether you speak really slowly some characters speak really fast.

Some characters speak really slowly.

Some situations in which we find ourselves in, Change the way in which we speak.

Sometimes when we're a little bit nervous we speak quite fast.

Sometimes when we're not too sure of what we're going to say, we slow down a bit.

So pace is the speed of your voice.

Pause, pause is a break or a deliberate moment of silence in your speech.

Sometimes we can use it to add emphasis to what we're saying.

Or sometimes we can help use it to make the audience think About what we're saying as if we're asking a question for them to have a think about.

The final keyword is tone.

Tone describes the emotion in your voice.

Whether you're quite angry, we change our tone of voice, whether we're sad, we change our tone of voice.

Tone is all about communicating emotion in your voice.

So we're going to do three quick practical activities that look at each of those key words we've just learned about.

And our first key word is going to be pace.

Now remember, pace is all about the speed at which we talk and that can offer lots of different ways of communicating the character and the meaning behind what they are saying.

So we've got a line in front of us and it goes like this.

It's not fair.

It is just not fair.

I'm 14 years old and all I've known is this place.

Now I'm going to say it again, and then I want you to say it.

And to begin with I just wanted to say it at our normal pace.

So I'm going to say it.

It is not fair.

It is just not fair.

I'm 14 years old and all I've known is this place.

Now you say it at your normal base, go.

Excellent.

Now I'm particularly interested here in thinking about how we can compare the different speeds to each other and what they communicate about the line and how the meaning of the line changes based on the speed at which we say it.

So I'm going to say it a bit quicker this time and then I want you to repeat it after me.

It's not fair.

It is just not fair.

I'm 14 years old and all I've known is this place.

You say it.

Excellent, and let's just think how different was that to the first time you said it? What was the meaning of the line, has that changed? I'm going to say it again this time and I'm going to say it slower, in a much slower pace.

And I want you to repeat it in a similar pace to me.

So here we go.

It's not fair.

It is just not fair.

I'm 14 years old and all I've known is this place.

You say it.

Excellent, well done.

See how the meaning of the line changes completely, based on the pace of your voice.

Let's try it one more way.

I'm going to say it, and I want you to say it.

It's not fair.

It is just not fair.

I'm 14 years old and all I've known is this place.

So you say it in exactly the same way that I did.

Over to you, go.

Excellent, and in that line we changed the pace of voice.

We started off really fast, and then we slowed down as we went through the line.

I want you to pause the video now for a moment and just experiment saying that line in many different ways using different pace, going fast, going slow fast at the beginning, slow at the end slow at the beginning, fast at the end.

See how many ways the line changes its meaning based on your views of pace.

So pause the video now and resume once you've finished, off you go.

Now we're going to do a similar exercise but this time looking at the use of the keyword pause.

Now remember, pause is a deliberate break or a silence in the what you're saying, to add meaning or emphasis, or just to make the audience think about what you're saying.

So here we've got a line in front of us and we're going to experiment.

Never lived anywhere other than these four walls and you get to go all over the place.

Now I'm going to say it a couple of times with pauses in different places.

And I want you to think about how the meaning of the line changes based on where I've put the pauses.

So this is my first attempt.

Never lived anywhere other than these four walls, and you get to go all over the place.

So that time I put the pause between the you and the get.

Let's try it again.

Never lived anywhere other than these four walls and you get to go all over the place.

That time I put the pause between anywhere and other.

I'm going to have one more go never lived anywhere other than these four walls and you get to go all over the place.

Again, think about how the meaning of that word changes based upon where I put those pauses.

So I want you to pause the video now and I want you to experiment with this line, putting pauses in different places and think about how that changes the meaning of the line.

So pause the video now and resume once you're finished.

We're going to do one last activity.

This time, looking at the keyword tone.

And tone, remember, is all about the way in which you communicate your emotion through your voice.

And so we've got a simple line in front of us.

We could go, just me and you.

No one else needs to know.

Now I'm going to say it in one way and I want you to repeat me.

But first of all we're going to say in a happy tone.

So I say, "We could go, just me and you.

No one else needs to know." Over to you.

Now I'm going to say it this time, and it's going to be in an angry tone of voice.

And I want you to copy me afterwards.

So me first, we could go, just me and you.

No one else needs to know.

Over to you.

Excellent, just do on your own this time.

I want you to say it in a scared tone of voice, over to you.

And again, this time in an excited tone of voice.

Over to you.

And one last time in a confused tone of voice, over to you.

Well done.

I think it's amazing that you can take a line from any script, just like this one.

We could go, just me and you.

No one else needs to know.

And we can say it in many different ways in many different turns of voice or change our pace or add pauses to it.

And then when we do that, the meaning of it completely changes and it can be completely different every time we say it.

And that's something we need to be aware of as we go on in our practical exercise to really think and experiment with the use of pace with the use of pause and our tone of voice to make sure that we're communicating exactly what we want to communicate to the audience.

Now, all of those lines came from this monologue which I'm going to read out now.

And you can read along with me, either using the worksheet or off the screen.

The character is 14 years old and is talking to that brother.

And it goes like this, "It's not fair.

It is just not fair.

I'm 14 years old, and all I've known is this place, never lived anywhere else other than these four walls and you get to go all over the place.

I've never seen the sea.

I bet you see the sea every day.

So why don't you spend some of that money you won on a holiday? It won't cost much.

We don't need to go far, Blackpool, maybe Cornwall.

I don't know, wherever there's some sea.

I mean, it's not even your money, is it? I mean, you don't play the lottery anymore.

You organise it for work, isn't even yours.

We could go, just me and you.

No one else needs to know.

Before we start acting this monologue out, we need to start thinking about characterization.

Now, remember characterization is the process that we go through as actors from absolutely nothing to a performance of a character to an audience.

And there's parts of that process we have to go through from the very, very beginning and they are called, "The given circumstances and interpretation." Let's just remind ourselves about what those key words mean.

So tell me now, what do the key words given circumstances and interpretation mean? That's right, we did this in our last lesson.

So the given circumstances are all the basic information about a character.

It's normally given to us by the author of the play and can be found by reading through what the character says, what other characters say about that character.

Perhaps in the stage directions or perhaps in any other piece of text that the author has given us.

And the interpretation is when you use the given circumstances to create your own ideas for a character.

And that's the point where we start to begin to bring the character to life.

So this brings us up to our next task, which is all about the given circumstances and interpretation.

Now, this is a really important part of the process, because it really helps us understand who the character is so that we can communicate them effectively to the audience later on.

So we're going to start by writing a list of all the information that we know about the character, based on what we've read so far.

And then we're going to write a list of questions that we'd like to know about the character in the monologue.

In order for us to be able to do this task, we need to copy out this table onto a piece of paper so we can fill it in later on.

The table has two columns.

The first column is facts about the character.

And in there we're going to write all the facts and information about the character.

And the second column is questions about the character.

And in there we're going to write all the questions down, but for now what I'd like you to do is just copy this blank table onto a piece of paper so that we can fill it in in a moment.

So pause the video and resume the video when you've copied it out.

Now here's a copy of the monologue, which you can read off the screen, or you might have it on a worksheet.

And what I'd like you to do is, I'd like you to fill in the table you've just copied down.

And in the first column, I'd like you to write down all the facts and information about the character that you can read from this monologue.

Things such as the fact that the character is 14 years old and they've got a brother.

On the other side I want you to write down questions that you'd like to know about the character.

Now, remember, we can phrase the questions in two ways.

The first type of questions are emotional questions.

So this might be questions like, "How do they feel about their brother? How do they feel about this situation?" The other questions might be more factual questions, questions that you need to find out about because the monologue doesn't really tell you.

Like perhaps maybe when was the last time they went on holiday, have they been on holiday before? More factual based questions.

So pause the video now and use the monologue on the screen or the monologue on worksheet to write all of that information down in your table.

And resume the video when you're ready.

Excellent, how did that activity go for you? I've got a few ideas that I'm going to share with you, although I'm sure you've got some other ideas yourself.

So here's my key facts about the character.

They're 14 years old.

They have a brother, the brother has won the lottery, although there's some doubt as to whether that wasn't cheating and they've never moved house.

And I've got some questions about the character too.

How did they feel about never having moved house? How do they feel about their brother? And they've got some factual questions as well.

Have they ever been on holiday? And what does the brother actually do now? In order for us to start developing our interpretation of the character, we need answers to those questions and that's down to you.

You need to make those decisions because the author hasn't given us that information.

So for instance, when I think about how they feel about never moving house? I think that they are quite as sad and maybe a little bit angry about that too.

And I don't think they have a great relationship with their brother.

Don't think they get on very well.

I think he's quite jealous of his brother, because clearly his brother has a job that involves him travelling, moving around the country, whereas the character in the monologue feels really stuck at home.

So you need to provide the answers to the questions that you've written down to really think about and create an interpretation of your character.

So pause the video now and answer all of your questions about the character.

You can either write the answers down on your sheet of paper, or you can say them verbally.

But pause the video now and resume once you've finished.

And so this brings us up to our next task which is all about character's motivation.

Now remember, motivation is why a character does something on stage.

So have a really good think about what it is that your character wants to get from saying this monologue.

What do they want to achieve by saying what they are saying? Once you've made a decision about that, finish this sentence.

In the monologue, my character's motivation is what.

So write at the beginning of that sentence down on your piece of paper and finish it with your own thoughts.

Pause the video and resume when you're finished.

Now we're going to start acting this scene out.

But before we do that, I want us to think about what those keywords of pace, pause and tone mean.

So tell me now what do the keywords, pace, pause and tone mean? Excellent.

So pace is the speed of your voice, tone describes the emotion in your voice.

And pause is a break or deliberate moment of silence in your speech.

Before I ask you to act this monologue out, I'm going to demonstrate it for you.

But before I do that I'm going to remind you the process that I've gone through.

So to begin with, I identified all the characters' given circumstances.

I read through the monologue and identified all the key information that I needed to know in order to act this out.

From that I generated a list of questions, the questions focused on the emotional side of the character, how they felt about the situation, how they felt about the character's brother.

I also asked questions to just fill in some of the gaps of the information, like whether they'd been on holiday, or whether they had actually moved or not.

And so then I answered those questions to develop my own interpretation of the character.

I felt that the character is quite angry, quite angry at their situation of the fact that they haven't moved house and they don't go very far, and they've never been to see the sea.

I found the character was just quite jealous.

Jealous of the brother because the brother for some reason in their job gets to go around the country.

But yet my character still stays in the same place.

And that actually made me feel that the character's quite frustrated later on in the monologue, because they would just love to go on holiday.

They just love to have something different in their life.

And then at the end, I felt the character's a bit hopeful, that they were quite keen on the idea of going on holiday.

And that perhaps even though they were almost bribing their brother, then actually that might work in their favour and that their brother might organise a holiday for them to go.

Let's just hope though.

So I'm using those key words, those adjectives about my character to help inform the way in which I perform it.

And in particular focus on the way I use pause, pace, and tone, to hopefully reflect those emotions as I perform it to you as my audience.

So let's see, It's not fair.

It's just not fair.

I'm 14 years old and all I've known is this place.

Never lived anywhere other than these four walls.

And you get to go all over the place.

I've never even seen the sea.

I bet you've seen the sea every day.

So why don't you spend some of that money you won on a holiday.

It won't cost much.

You don't need to go far, Blackpool.

Maybe call them up.

I don't know, wherever there's some see.

I mean, it's not even your money, is it? I mean, you don't play the Lottery anymore.

You organise it for work.

Is it even yours? We can go, just me and you.

No one else needs to know.

So hopefully in that monologue I was able to manipulate my pace, pause and tone to be able to communicate how my character's feeling about the situation, how they're angry, how they're jealous, how they're frustrated and how they're hopeful.

So this brings us up to our final task, which is to perform the monologue.

And what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to act out the whole monologue.

And really think and experiment with pace, tone and pause.

So change the pace and tone of your voice.

Add deliberate pauses to show your interpretation of the character and to communicate the character's motivation to the audience.

So how did that task go for you? What was your character's Interpretation? What emotions do you feel that character's going through based on your thoughts? What was that character's motivation? Were you able to communicate that? How effectively do you think you manipulated the pace of your voice or adding deliberate pauses into your speech to emphasise what your character is feeling or to make the audience think about what you're saying.

Where you're effectively able to manipulate and change the tone of your voice to communicate your emotion clearly to the audience.

So either read the monologue off the screen, or use your worksheet.

Pause the video now and perform the monologue and press resume when you feel you're finished.

Let's just finish up by reviewing some of the key words we've used in this lesson.

We've used the key words of pause, pace, and tone.

Match up those key words with the definitions on the right.

Let's just review those answers then.

So pause is adding deliberate moments of silence in your speech.

Pace is the speed at which you talk and tone describes the emotion in your voice.

Well done on working on your performance today.

It can be really hard to work on those different elements of voice to manipulate them, to experiment them, and to change them to communicate different things to the audience.

And it's something that over time and with practise we can get better at.

So well done with the work you've done today.