How sloppy of me to let me momentum slip!
Its the weekend now, or rather Friday afternoon, so its practically the weekend. I am sat comfortable at the desk in my room at home, and as such am free to evaluate the two days in which my group worked on our first performance project, "Fear."
On the Thursday I was only able to attend half of the days performance, due to clowning (more on that another time) and so missed a bit of the improv they went through to measure how fear can be generated by a few simple guidelines. What I was there for was the continuation of where we left off on the previous workshop. only this time with a little more emphasis on the controlling nature of my demon character, and increasing the clarity of the act of 'decision' that the protagonist must take between good and evil. It was interesting to pursue the exercise from the other day but I have to admit, I felt that I had done that already and learned what I could from it. Today some people mentioned wanting to do their sketches again or even in the performance itself, which made me sigh. Luckily I don't think that will be the case.
Today was all about sounds, and how we can use them to evoke the emagination of the audience. We were all tasked to bring an example of a piece of music we find to be scary, unnerving, or could in some way effect the feel of a scene to invoke fear. I chose Sally's Song from the Nightmare Before Christmas...
I don't really know why I chose that, I suppose its because there are a few discordant sounds in there, and the voice is quite shrill and eery (interestingly enough, while finding that video for you, I found a cover version by Amy Lee of Evenesence which is absolutely stunningly awesome.) After listening to the tracks that other people chose along with mine, we were able to discuss the ideas, emotions and in some cases (certainly some of mine) the narratives they conjure as we allow the music to take us on a journey.
It was certainly harder to have the images free flow in our heads (as a consensus) using the music with lyrics (such as mine) and it was generally agreed upon that soundtracks such as the Godfathers Theme (my second choice) and those from other such movies work best at generating unbiased streams of conciousness.
Finally, we gave an attempt at spoof. After looking at other examples in early cinematography at how music can give the audience the impressions and links and allow them to make certain in-obvious connotations with as little dialogue as possible (such films as 'White Zombie' and 'The Invisible Ghost.') The spoof really came about while watching the bad acting in those films, although for the way cinema worked at the time it was perfectly normal to be largely theatrical on film, these days film and theatre are two completely different worlds which is much separate from the mid nineteen hundreds theme of using theatre techniques... and filming them. We took a track from one of the generic horror soundtrack CD's Mary (our director) brought along and set out at building a scene around the music using as little dialogue as possible.
I was disappointed in mine. Actually that's probably unfair, but then I am generally more critical of myself in private than I would let on. I thought that spoof would be something I was good at, being naturally comically inclined, but it seemed the other group got it without even thinking about it. The ironic thing is that some people in the other group with the same task I would argue do not have a single funny bone in their body, and yet they got it. This is sour grapes, obvious jealousy, but then what do you expect? Whats the point in thinking one of your strengths would serve you well, and you actually end up looking a fool (in a bad way) because of it. In fact, someone actually imparted some wisdom to us which was "Its much funnier when your not trying to be funny" which is ironic considering this is a lesson it took that person a semester to learn the year previous. That was vicious I suppose, but then I am actually more annoyed at myself than I am at the other people. Jealousy brings out the most vile creature in me, in most people I think, and I think I am over thinking things again as is my folly. I know I'm funny, I know I am funny when I don't want to be, I know that funny is spontaneous most of the time and controlled in only limited contexts.
Still, today left me feeling shit. Is that what it was supposed to do? I doubt it, and I doubt I will rectify the situation before division of our performance piece starts, but we shall see.
Fuck them, I'm well funny.
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