Drama - Rotation

Domestic Violence Project

PrePlanning:

 

On this sheet, we wrote down basic notes and different details of our project. Our planning was done very roughly and we continued to add more features later on, throughout the group planning and discussion. The rough planning was made, including, noting down the names, characters, plot, props and much more. Though we planned with all of our group ( Magnus, Francesco, Dina, Salma, and I ) Salma had gone on the school related NASA trip so she wasn’t here during the filming process. We had come to a decision of myself, Dina and Francesco to be the main characters (husband and wife) and Soroush was chosen to be the child as well and the editor of the PSA video. Myself, Soroush and Magnus took part as co-cameraman for each others scene. Salma and Magnus both had the jobs of planning the different positions of the scenes and Salma made some decisions on the positions and angles of where the camera should be. Followed by our planning, Magnus was also chosen to have a police man role though we altered our story and the police man was not needed.

Rehearsal Images:

1)     I am directing Francesco on what pose to stay in while filming the "drunk" scene, also explaining his lines and how they should be delivered. I told Francesco that he should be acting in a way where he is not perceived as fully conscious and aware of his surroundings (the stereotypical characteristics of being drunk) which will make it more evident that he is drunk, to the audience. I was also explaining the fight scene where I pretend to throw him on the floor and how I will slap him using stage combat techniques, which helps the scene develop to giving the audience a more realistic feel of domestic abuse. Francesco and I ran through the stage combat scene a couple of times just to perfect it and make it as realistic as possible.

2)     In this image above, you can see that Soroush is talking to Francesco about how he will fall to the ground in the second last scene, where the child enters the scene. Soroush wanted to show him how he will be falling so he could be safe and that he would not fall on him and we were all safe. Francesco and Soroush positioned each other so that there was no risk involved. Francesco and Soroush also practiced this on multiple occasions to perfect it before we filmed it. The first few times where they tried it, it was somewhat unrealistic because Soroush was a bit scared to throw himself on the ground, though we found a solution where we put one of the cushions under Francesco and half of it exposed so Soroush could throw himself on the cushion without hurting himself or injuring himself.

3)      Francesco and Soroush were going through the scene where Soroush shakes Francesco's face to see if he is awake. Soroush was giving Francesco a brief idea on what he needed to expect once the scene started as Francesco's eyes were closed and Soroush didn’t want to shock him and make him have more of a scared reaction. We did a few trial runs on this scene as well until Francesco knew what to expect throughout this scene, though one complication we found was that when Soroush and Francesco were doing their scene, being filmed, they were very loud so we had to find the most ideal time to film it without interrupting other classes nearby. Francesco and Soroush tried to synchronize Francesco's reaction so they could make it realistic. Soroush was also discussing on how Francesco and I were going to freeze in the background of Soroush using thought tracking, as you can see in the last scene of the video, so Soroush was giving him a set position to freeze in whilst the thought tracking was happening.


Group:
Francesco
Dina (Me)
Soroush
Salma
Magnus

Characters:
 Francesco: Matthew (Drunk stay at home husband)
Dina: Sabrina (Working wife)
Soroush: Nathan (Child)

Video :
- Francesco played the drunk husband who was being abused
- I played the angry wife who pays the bills and gets nothing in return
- Soroush played the worried child who also expresses his feelings through the flashcards

Resolving/De-solving a conflict:
 The scenario my group and I were given was "My friends ditched me and sat with other people at lunch"

Nada: Emma - Tori's best friend
Dina (Me): Tori - Emma's best friend
Nadim: Noah - Cool boy which Tori likes
Karim: - Cool boy
Lawrence: Carter - Lonely but caring boy

Summary of scenario:
For our conflict scenario, Emma and Tori are best friends, however, they get into a big argument/fight because Tori went to the mall on Friday night with another girl, behind Emma's back. Emma found out Tori went to the mall and threw a calm fit. In school, Emma is ignoring Tori and low-key throwing shade. At lunch time, which Emma and Tori normally spend together, Emma goes and sits with the "cool boys"; Noah and Karim. Emma did it deliberately as she knew Tori was obsessed with Noah. Meanwhile, Tori goes to the "lonely boy", Carter. She has an awkward conversation with him as he convinces her to go confront Emma about this awkward situation and solve it. Tori tells Carter how she didn't do anything over the weekend except go to the mall with her mom. Tori goes on the field to Emma, Noah and Karim and confronts her. Tori tells Emma how she went to the mall with her mom and Emma gets confused and embarrassed, especially in front of the cool boys. Emma immediately starts apologizing and Tori finally accepts the apology.

We chose this scenario to portray gossip. We also included a bit of exclusion to create more gossip and make our performance look more dramatic. We showed gossip by Tori and Emma having a fight and having the "cool boys" to take Emma's side and have Carter take Tori's side, with addition to, Tori talking to Carter about it and Emma over-exaggerating the gossip to Noah and Karim.

Personally, I think our performance looked realistic at times, but fell apart at others. Our performance went exactly as planned however we did mess up the lines at times. In Tori and Carters awkward conversation scene, I forgot to call Carter his name, instead I called him Lawrence. Another time was when Tori and Emma were having their resolving conflict scene. Myself and Nada forgot the lines to some of our parts so we just made it up on spot to cover up our mistake and make it look as realistic as possible. 

I think our performance got across the point as we accomplished most of what we expected our play to turn out as. The audience didn't seem too confused on what was going on in our scenario, therefore, I think we did an alright job but could still improve in many areas.

We could improve in many ways, such as; not forgetting our lines, not laughing at times, knew exactly what we were doing, staying in character, and faced the audience more. If we wouldn't have forgotten some of our scripts, I think we could've been more into character and had more expression in our characters voice. At some points, we would giggle. Not to blame but I think Noah (Nadim) could've improved our performance by not giggling at times and staying in character. Overall, I think everyone stayed in character pretty well and we didn't have a big issue on that issue. My character, Tori was to be the one resolving conflict with Emma (Nada). In that scene, I think I could've faced the audience a bit more and shown them my facial expression of how confused my character was, to give them a better idea on what was going on and how realistic it could look.

 

Music - Rotation

Music

 Introduction:

Hello, my name is Dina and I am in the 9th Grade in Emirates International School, Dubai. I am in the arts rotation system, now rotated to music from art. Through this term we will be analyzing and creating our own abstract music to share in an abstract painting, which makes this task a collaborative project. 

During this week we have been introduced to an abstract artist and musician who have collaborated. These two artist's were Wassily Kandinsky (Artist) and Arnold Schoenberg (Musician). Kandinsky and Schoenberg created a collaborative piece where they were inspired by each other and their different styles of art. An example of their collaborative work can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypu3Knxl-B4

They surely have inspired each other in their tone of work. An example of a similarity between their work is, in the abstract art piece, you can notice sudden buildups, and you can also spot this in the usic. These pieces were created to favor each other instead of mirroring each other to create tone of the music. This doesn't entirely match the abstract art however you can spot the similarities.

Wassily Kandinsky: (Portrait)

 

Example of his Abstract Art:

 

Arnold Schoenberg: (Portrait)

Example of his Abstract Music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEY9lmCZbIc
 "Arnold Schoenberg - Piano Concerto, Op. 42"


Week 2-3

During the past two weeks I have been set a group task with my partner, Nehal, to complete a power-point of any artist and musician that have a collaboration with their abstract pieces. Nehal and I researched the famous American musician John Cage, and Jackson Pullock, an American abstract artist. We completed this project in the form of a power-point presentation that is shown below: 

 Week 4
Peer Evaluation:
During this past week in music, we have been presenting our power-points to the music and art class and we have been giving and receiving feedback. In  this week we got to see 6 group presentation however Nehal and I didn't have time to present. Observing the other power points in comparison to ours, I could tell that ours needed a little more improvement because there was good informaton however we could've added detailed text to achieve a higher grade. My partner and I spend a decent amount of time working on this, this is shown by the number of sources used to create this powerpoint (references). 

Week 5-6
In these two weeks we seperated classes and learnt about ciphers. We explored and created our own ciphers. After that, we learnt about simplicity and how musicians used simplicity in their pieces to create abstract music. In week six we learnt about the 12 tone note and how it is arranged, as well as how it can be changed.
  
Final Abstract Music Piece & The Creative Process
 

 

After working on our abstract music for a long period of time, I have come to conclusion that they are many difficulties to face and challenges to take, to make a music abstract piece. During these past few weeks my partner, Soroush and I have been trying out and practicing different techniques which would be compatible to the art piece I have chosen. At last, we chose to produce a music piece comprising of serialism and create a 12 note range (A D F C G B E A) and played it with different tone settings on the keyboard. We experimented with many different instruments which were suitable with the played 12 note range on the keyboard. We thought it would be an interesting concept to play the same tune on many different instrument settings. The instruments we played with were the cowbell setting, organ setting and the gong. The compilation of these three sounds expresses different layers of the art. This would compliment the art reasonably as making it a statement rather than just being in the background.

We used many collections and experimented with moving around all the recordings. This would create a different effect of a new tone. However, my partner and I were not entirely pleased with how our piece turned out, therefore, we tried to cut out the pieces of music and distorting it which would create a cipher. We created the cipher to see if the listeners could spot the 12 note range hidden throughout the piece, which is an different, interesting new challenge. We ended up cutting the different audio clips and made them into singular notes, then assorted them up until we had a unique piece which we were happy with.

Our main goal throughout our whole musical piece was to keep the listener confused. We wanted to create that effect in the listener’s mind so they would question the art in many different ways. (We were aiming to use my art piece however, since it has been moved to an art festival we do not have access to it therefore we have changed our inspiration for the music.)

 

Art - Term 1 Reflection

Year 9 Art

Powerpoint of Shoenberg and Kandinsky:
-
Concepts & Processes of Abstract Art:
Abstract art is a concept and process itself because it's a process of your own mind. For example, it is when you listen to a piece of music and draw whatever comes to mind but it is very creative and unique in a way.

Function & Purposes of Abstract Art:
Abstract art is very functional because you are painting whatever comes to mind. It is a way to draw random patterns and use different colors to create a piece of abstract art. In this way, Kandinsky reacted to Shoenberg's music in a very calm and peaceful manner towards the outside of his painting and more tension in the middle:



Kandinsky & Shoenberg Powerpoint Assessment:
In this assessment task we were to make a Powerpoint answering questions on how the artist felt towards the painting/music that he created. The work was divided into two people, my partner was Yasamin. I did the art work and she did the music work. In class times, while going through the questions I thought this assessment would be hard to do and the answers were difficult to answer however as we learned along in lessons, I found it easier than expected. I presented this on the first lesson it was due and the feedback was good however I needed to make more eye contact with my audience and needed to have more knowledge.

My Powerpoint:

 

 

Creating an Abstract Art piece with different materials:
In this activity/assessment we had to create our own abstract art piece. There were 4 stations, one station is to cut out random pieces of shapes from paper and stick them on our A3 paper. The second station was a painting station, we had watercolors and could paint our painting however we liked. The third station was to add material to our painting such as newspaper and cotton. Finally, the last station was to draw whatever came in mind. For every station, we had different music. My favorite music was the Indian music at the drawing station because it was the most different and the only music that wanted me to draw something related to the vibe of the music.

   




















 Creating your own Abstract Art:
For this task we are allowed to create whatever we like. We had to pick a song of our choice and create an abstract piece out of it. Ms. Jeewanjay told us all to start of with an instrument, therefore I started off with a violin. Every thing I drew has something related to the song or something that made me think of another.  I started coloring in with chalk and we are still continuing in class. The song I picked was "Magnets" by Disclosure.

 Throughout the weeks, I have been working on my abstract art piece. I painted/colored the painting using a variety of materials such as sharpie,  watercolors, chalk, powder paint and more. I am happy with my overall result of my abstract piece and am looking forward to linking it with a music piece.
My final abstract art piece:

Hero/Villain Actions Character

Villain Actions:

Hero Actions: 

Stage Combat Assessment Progress Images

  Isabella acting out the "hair pull" skill on me during our fighting scene

 Isabella attempting to "punch" me as soon as I give her attitude.

Isabella doing the "foot stomp" on me.

Stage Combat Video

This is Isabella and my stage combat video link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgSnZK04FEA