Unit 4 Evaluation

Hello, this is my final evaluation for Unit 4. I am having trouble setting it up like how it is on my word document, but you get the idea.

Unit 4 – Evaluation

Shadow Play – Hands? Puppets?

What Worked? Why? – Right from the very beginning we wanted to incorporate shadow play into our show so we quickly started working with tents that we were thinking of using in our show. We found that torches created the best light source and could be used in many different ways to create various moods and atmospheres. The good thing about using the tents was that we could tell intimate stories to the audience inside but also tell them from the outside, with us actors inside the tents creating the shadows with the audiences outside the tent.

(This image shows how spinning the torches upside down in the tent and watching as an audience member from the outside gives a spooky, scary atmosphere)

After using just shadow play we started to expand our knowledge and experiment with finger puppets and dolls along with music and song, which gave the it more of a comedic feel to it, I really liked how this came across to the audience and would love to see this incorporated into our show.

(This image shows Dan and I creating a story out of various objects and using songs and jokes to create a comedy feel to it)

What Didn’t Work? – I believe that because we had decided to use the art of shadow play to tell stories from the start of our development process we concentrated so much on how to make shadows inside and out of the tents that we forgot about the main body of the show and how all of us were going to tell the story of Beowulf. As a result of this we looked beyond what we could do without fully thinking about it, how many tents would there be? Would some of the audience be inside as well as the outside? Would the audience participate? How many people could you get in a tent without it getting to hot? Do they get claustrophobic? What do we want to tell in the tents?

Why? What Did You Do? – Because we experimented heavily with shadow play at the beginning of the pre production there has been a long interval and we are finding that we have forgotten a lot that we had practiced. We also had no idea how this would fit into the final production, as the final scenes hadn’t been finalized at that point.

Who (Company)? - 

Looking at the House Of Whimsy they have incorporated paper puppets, which gives you more of an accurate description of what’s happening and what they are trying to unearth. The way that they are moving the puppets along to the music gives the whole show a lovely atmosphere and vibe to it, which I feel would work really well with what we are trying to uncover to the audience.

How do you know what worked and what didn’t? –

When we started this process of making shadows, I feel that we all knew what worked and what didn’t but now I’m not sure. The only way to fully decided what worked and what didn’t would be to ask a few people to come and see what we have done and for them to be able to give us feedback on it. As I have realized that we cant really go any further without feedback, I truly believe feedback is key. They give you better ideas and feedback than you could ever give yourself and others in your group as they are seeing it with a clean eye, unlike we are. We don’t just have to use to use puppets just for shadow we could also use them to tell a story.

(This image shows how hands can be used to recreate a love scene for Beowulf without it being to odd for younger children who might be coming to see our show)

(This image shows how you can create a battle scene using finger puppets which creates a comedic feel to a serious practice)

(This image shows how finger puppets can be used to create a story which would be stable to tell little children who are coming to watch)

Reference

HouseofWhimsy. (2008) Shadow Play--3 Annual Belle Epoque Party. [online]

Avaliable at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq4dKhGUSKA

Last accessed on 7th March 2014. 16:18pm