Final 'dance' for camera video

Further Development

If a production with similar themes and the same concept were to go on tour, I would expect the fashion angle of the show to be the main focus and/or selling point, production companies going all out with the designing of sets in relation to fashion, such as long rotating cat walks, actual models and designers contribution to the style of the set and of course the clothing being professional and top quality.

As for the story I hope although the concept would be a big distraction that it doesn't stray too far away from it's roots, including every song like the original, even Billy McCaw and ensuring the cat theme is still reflected somehow.

As for my character I would imagine him to be in a different stylish and classy suit in every scene, and when not in songs designing things which models could wear in the following songs.

Initial questions for Cats

18th April 2015

Q1) What stage is your choreographed song at?

Gus the theatre cat is getting there, we have devised dances for ourselves and the supporting side dancers throughout the song, the movements and structure is simply as the song is slow and nicely paced.

Growtiger's last stand needs a few more run throughs to make perfect, then a run through with the props (swords) to ensure it is correctly learnt so no one accidentally hits anyone else with a bladed plastic weapon.

Q2)How well do you know lyrics?

For Gus the theatre cat my lyric knowledge grows by the day, I find the lines easier to remember if alongside the backing track.

Growtiger's last stand lyrics I'm a little more rusty on as the song is faster paced and a completely different vocal range for me compared to Gus the theatre cat. Lyrics are about 40% learnt at this current stage.

The tempo is slow in Gus the theatre cat so the tempo of the movements would be slow and well paced.

Growtiger's last stand having a faster tempo means movement and space could be used more creatively, an example of this is bigger, more dramatic movements which would have much more of a visual impact as the scene before 'Gus the theatre cat' was slow and the tempo was calm.

Q3) What thought have you given to the narrative?

Gus the theatre cat is going to be based around an event where an article has been published which speaks about his life and the song is a reflection for him to explain to the audience his past and how he was once this incredible cat.

Growtiger's last stand is based on a pirate model show where he played the clothing of Growtiger the pirate. The song is the 'performance' of the clothing as he did when he was in his prime.

Q4)Have you considered stage movement?

For both songs the movement is simply yet at different paces.

Gus the theatre cat having being slow and small movement based it was easier for choreography and stage movement to be learnt. For Cherkanah and I though stage movement was self explanatory we still new where we had to be at the end of each verse and 'improvised' our movement there between verses.

Growtiger's last stand has faster movements but they weren't too complicated, just the movements had to be strong and confidently performed.

Q5)Have you sorted costume?

I have a clear plan on costume, following alongside the initial designs from the costume unit. A grey suit with changeable ties.

Q6) Have you completed your production role?

I plan on finishing a graph on the props for the show and making a start to the props table.

Q7) Have you attended any extra rehearsals?

So far I have arrange one where no one was able to attend but have used break times and after college hours to rehearse lines and help others with choreography.

Q8) Have you cleared your diary?

I am in the process of starting a new job, something I have needed for a while now so I intend to get the dates off around rehearse and show week to ensure I do not miss anything, college > work.

- Target for performance

I want to generate a strong emotional response amongst the audience to make them feel and understand the situation of Gus', how he was an inspiration in his past and wants to go to the Heaviside layer and his Jellicle life could be just like what it was when he was in his prime.

- Further development
So far I think the message of the songs is clear and the choreography has a good structure, it's more about singing the song in tune now so hopefully the 'Gus' section of the musical is understandable and obviously encourages the audience to hope that Asparagus is the character chosen to go to the Heaviside Layer.

Cats dance choreography

Gus the theatre cat

This dance (links are in the mini-project choreography under the performance workshop tab) took many attempts to master as we spent little time on this song compared to others.

Movement though was slow and 'simply', steps, waving arm movements and turns were all used in time.

Growtiger's last stand

Growtiger was quite the contrast to Gus the theatre cat as the movements were faster and had to be more 'fierce'. So swords were used as dance props to allow the dance movements to have more status and allowed the structure of the dance to look more rehearsed.

In conclusion, working on the dances by ourselves was challenging but allowed us to experiment with certain movements and choreographic devices such as canon in Gus the theatre cat.

Types of camera angles

Low angle shot: Used to give object in the image more status.

High angle shot: Used to show the lower status of the object in a picture.

Far shot: Used to show the scene and give a clear overview of the mise en scene for the audience.

Mid shot: A 'normal' shot used to show a person waist upwards.

An over the should shot, used almost as a POV (point of view shot) but giving the audience more of a spectating view, seeing what the object is seeing giving the view high status.

Final dance self evaluation

After feedback from my first draft I was able to take each point for development into consideration when I constructed my final film, although the location would stay the same I ensured I made the dancing and atmosphere very different, whilst still keeping parallel to the stimulus.

The set/mise en scene

Was based in my garage much like the original as it showed a sense of loneliness with the cold flooring and the timeless still objects.

Boxes, equitment, bikes, bins, normal garage stuff was placed around, but unlike my first draft these were more different to see and had less of a status.

The lighting

My first draft had a lot of high contrast lighting which didn't give one specific object any status not many the dance very visually impacting, so this time I make the risky decision to the only lights coming from a set of bright spotlight bike lights, the spotlight aspect to them reflected the stimulus of feeling claustrophobic.

The lights would vary in each shot to ensure the shadow of the camera man could not be seen and that not 'too' much light was on the dancer. Not every light was on at any one time.

Camera

Being a camera orientated unit, I decided to work more on the angles and shots rather than the actual dance as any movement could be interrupted as dance depending on the supporting camera angle.

To show the stimulus I used lots of close up shots and tracking shots to allow the audience to understand and relate to the dancer/themes.

Sounds/Music

Most of the sound in the filming was non-diagetic, such as the music, as having zero noise by the actual dancer assisted in the stimulus.

Although towards the end when the dancer steps out of the dark garage and into a much more open world the sound of his feet on the stones can be held, diagetically, allowing the audience to understand he is now free and can finally be heard.

Editing

I used editing to make the dance more visually impacting, I did this by adding jump cuts from movements to show a change in time, montages and it allowed me to make the dancing linear although the clips were not in order editing enabled me to show them in a different order whilst they still looked in time.

The dance

Aspects of the dance were just small movements, a few rolls and the use of levels, such so they could support the camera shots.

Stimulus

My stimulus stayed the same from the first draft as it was not only interesting but a challenging stimulus.

Narrative structure

One point of improvement was the use of an actual story going on in the dance, and showing character development, I showed this by the garage door opening at the end to reveal he is finally free from his fear or tight, close spaces.

Choreographic devices

Although less choreographic devices were used in comparison to the first draft I still included a variety, such as repetition through levels and spins, retrograde to show the never ending cycling of trying to get free but being brought back down by fear and tempo, some movements were fast and others were slow.

Post show evaluation and Strengths/Weaknesses of the shows

In conclusion, the shows were a success nothing when majorly wrong besides some technical sound issues. From show one, we knew that we had hit the bar, for a first performance it was good, but not the best we had put on. The first show allowed us to realise what we were up against, the nerves we will be facing and conquering, the sudden live challenges we will be facing (technologically and performance/character wise) and of course the improvements from show to show to enable us to become better performers.

After the first show I quickly realised my challenges, the biggest one being breathing, once on stage my breathing becomes quick and short, which is terrible when it comes to singing as I would't have enough breathe to finish lines or dance whilst singing. To aimed to fix this by having more control and focusing on my breathing whilst on stage, also using breathing exercises before the show starts.
Another issue was that I didm't think I showed clearly the intentions of my character, Gus wants to go to the Heaviside Layer, but my first performance showed his songs as almost just some filling acts, to fix this I could use more facial expression and make a more emotional impact with the audience.

An improvement we had to work on as a class was out singing in The addressing of cats as we were sloppy and very unprofessional. The only way this could be improved was line learning, our excuse for the matter was that we didn't get the song lyrics until a few weeks before the show.

By the second show, we felt a lot more confident as a class and I think that could be seen if the two performances were compared. Our dancing on stage was much more in time with the music and each other and our singing was louder and clearer. Overall the second performance was definitely a major improvement.

One thing that went wrong with my performance in the second show was my partner Cherkanah had dropped her sword at the end of Growtiger's last stand, so thinking on my feet, after approaching the spotlight for my reprise I picked up the sword and used this as a reflection moment, looking down at the sword and smiling lightly, this was something I then asked to be kept in for the last performances as I felt this helped the issue of having a greater emotional impact with the audience.

The third performance was a morning showing to a group of school students, usually school students are harder to keep their attention but I believe we managed to keep them focused and engaged with the storyline because of their questions at the end of the performance.

This performance I felt went worse for me as my vocals were off and we didn't have enough time as a class to complete a vocal warm up, next time I must always make time for a vocal warm up. As a class though I thought we did well, our dancing was on point and our changes between scenes went very smoothly.

The last performance allowed us to all show what we had in us. As a class the last was most definitely the most successful, everything went perfectly, besides some technical issues but even then our class recovered nicely and such acoustically, even the tap dancing parts without any music was in time.

Personally the last performance went well for certain aspects, such as the few solo lines I have in the first act were sung in tune and confidently, unlike most other nights, the second act was definitely an improvement from all the nights, taking into account the development points and completing the challenges.

Three strengths of my performance

1) Movement/Character development: My movement through songs and dances was well performed considering wearing a suit. I was impressed by my ability to add character to my movements such as dancing such as an 'elderly' person would dance (reference in show video) and other aspects of being on stage such as walking, I tried to give a gentle representation of my character through this; slow, graceful steps, movements were musical theatre stylised by being big and exaggerated but still managed to uphold old features.

Each show showed me more and more what kind of a character Gus is, someone who is haunted by his past, in the sense that he misses who he used to be, so much so to the point that he believes he still has what it takes to play Growtiger, a character he was most proud of, then hallucinates him performing him again. Every character has a strong reason why they should have won the Heaviside Layer, but when it comes to Gus, being reborn into a new Jellicle life is the only cure, Grizabella winning means he would spiral deeper and deeper into this obsession with his past. That being my opinion anyway of his character in more of a darker path. This being said I think I was able to represent how much Gus actually wanted and 'deserved' to be reborn into a new jellicle life well, my movement, facial expression and all round performance was convincing enough. 

2) Improvisation: In the second performance at the end of Growtiger, a sword was dropped on stage so thinking on my feet when walking back down there I picked it up and stared at it to show reflection of my characters past, this I knew had to stay in so we included it in the last shows, I think this 'accident' helped me to develop my improvisation and also was a challenge I successful completed.

3) Show after show my singing became stronger and confidence enabled me to used more of my voice. 

Three weaknesses of my performance

1) A weakness would have to be lyric learning, as in two group songs I was only 90% clear on the lyrics, I feel next time studying them more and going over songs with the class would be needed to conquer this.

2) Another weakness would be my costume, although I felt like I fitted the part very well it was very much an understatement of look than the one I originally designed, time, money and creative experience were all the things stopping me from being able to create and wear the costume I originally designed, I felt my character would have been supported a lot more through it and his personality and traits would be easier to understand too.

3) My production role would have been more useful, I tried to construct a props table but due to limitations on props and props already having set locations this idea quickly failed.