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As you know, my good friend Michael Aries, 53, kindly agreed to be interviewed. Anyone who has ever met Michael would know how much he loves to talk, so keeping him to a time limit of 20minutes was tough ! He told me he how “very impressed” he was with everyone’s questions and thought you all...

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Three different items in last week's BBC news...

Up to the minute research for use in your group's documentary drama perhaps…?

HIV patients told by Pentecostal pastors ‘to rely on God’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23729684

Patients of a dentist diagnosed with HIV are contacted in Paisley and Dumfries

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-23754254

Ban lifted for NHS staff with HIV

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23698991

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HIV and AIDS- Your group's documentary drama

A whole wealth of material is available on the web, and is your first port of call when researching your documentary drama. The links below are a good place to start to get an overview. They offer a straight-talking insight into the facts, and dispel a few of the ugly and silly rumours that can surround the subject of HIV. Basic facts http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/STIs/Pages/HIV.aspx http://www.msf.org.uk/hivaids?gclid=CILCtrLq_bgCFebJtAodqw8Afw http://www.careinternational.org.uk/what-we-do/hiv-and-aids?gclid=CPG1-Z_r_bgCFS3HtAodhysABA http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/basic/ http://www.webmd.boots.com/hiv-aids/default.htm Some of the common lies and misconceptions about HIV/ AIDS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misconceptions_about_HIV/AIDS Interviews with people who have contracted HIV http://www.msf.org/article/interview-hiv-teen-patient http://www.womenshealth.gov/news/spotlight/2010/3.cfm http://theviewspaper.net/an-interview-with-an-hiv-positive-person/ What happens when you tell others? http://www.tht.org.uk/myhiv/Telling-people Treatments for HIV and hopes for a cure http://www.tht.org.uk/myhiv/HIV-and-you/Your-treatment http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/07/18/156988650/hiv-cure-is-closer-as-patients-full-recovery-inspires-new-research Once you have a had a look at a few of these your group will need to decide how you're going to dramatise the facts; ways in which you might tell the stories for a target audience of teenagers. I would suggest your group narrow the subject down to one or two particular aspects of the theme or message when devising your docu-drama. For instance, ideas might include a combination of 2 or 3 of the following -‘Myth busting’- raising the true and the false ideas about HIV and AIDS -Tackling prejudice in your audience -3 different real-life case studies, dramatized- and offering information and hope for those at risk -Comparing a range of reactions from different people are told the news they are HIV+ (denial, rage, shame, acceptance). -Psychological issues, relationship issues and the medical issues -Medical research, evaluating the signs of hope for a cure in the future -What can we do? -What’s this AIDS/ HIV thing got to do with me? (More than you might think perhaps…!) There will almost certainly beother approaches but your docudrama, above all, must be educational, informative AND entertaining. You should be looking for different ways of teaching your audience the facts and holding their interest as they learn!

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Comments now activated on Nat4/5 Drama blog

Feel free to comment on any posts made on cadrama.tumblr.com Mr C. :-)

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My thanks to Stephanie Orr, Chloe Duncan (4D) & Beth Kennedy (3D3) for all their help tidying up the Drama Studio today (not to mention putting up with Bob Marley as we worked!)

Wishing everyone a refreshing and relaxing summer break.

:-)

Mr Coleman

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You have 50mins every time you’re in drama it’s important to make the best use of time available. The last thing you should be doing is wasting valuable rehearsal time trying on costumes or searching for and playing around with props. It’s a clever story and interesting characters that...

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Corpsing is the name used by actors for uncontrollable laughter in rehearsal or even on stage. There’s no shame in it, it’s actually very natural. As I young actor I suffered terribly from the giggles. Acting is fun after all. However, it’s not something that’s desired in most dramas that you...

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When devising, think about cutting scenes where precious little seems to be happening.

Good examples include…

Car journeys without any appreciable dialogue or introspection

Time spent eating, waking up, or travelling from one room to another. (Why not just have a blackout and cut...

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Mr Coleman's creative ideas on how to develop dramas based on issues of war and family as seen in Ann Marie di Mambro's Tally's Blood

Evacuees on a farm- insights through diaries,- recreation

How the parents feel

War is exciting for children, and then the reality hits

Rationing, the blitz, fear of whether parents, unlces, brothers and sisters in the services are safe

Frame events mentioned in Tally’s Blood with improvised docudrama sequences

Dramatisation of events on the arandora star. Plenty of research needed.

Recreate life on the Home Front with its air raids, blackouts and rationing, and take on the role of evacuees to experience the sad goodbyes, the exciting train journey

Kindertransport

Anne Frank

Radio broadcast- Chamberlain announcing we are now at war with Germany

War as a game (Peter Gabriel's song Games without Frontiers, war without tears…) piaow, piaow

Wearing gasmasks, Careless talk cost lives, ideas for dramatising grandparents’ or great-grandparents’ experience of the war. “They bombed our chip shop” Paranoia about spies. Paranoia about flashlights during blackouts. Air raid shelters- a place for telling stories.

Use oral history recordings-

Hiding under the kitchen table when the doodlebugs come over- sound and lighting effects

Writing in role phrases like I feel… I remember…

I dream of… I fear… I wish… I regret… I

hope… to generate ideas for drama, charatcer and situations

Description of bombings

•The excitement that some of the children felt at events, or even sleeping

through them

wartime leaders and their struggles to deal with responsibility and guilt about victims

Healing the wounds of war-torn societies is a long and difficult undertaking. The immediate demand is to ensure that people, and especially children, are adequately fed, have access to safe water and are protected against disease; caring for unaccompanied children; demobilizing child soldiers; healing the mental wounds of war; restarting schools; and embarking on education for peace.

>Unaccompanied children— In 1994, an estimated 114,000 Rwandan children were lost, abandoned, orphaned or otherwise separated from their parents. Many of these children were taken in by other families—some families took up to 9 or 10 children. Some children ended up in makeshift centres or former orphanages. Others ended up in special centres set aside for unaccompanied children in refugee camps. One of the risks of offering specific facilities for such children, however, is that their parents may be tempted to deliberately abandon their children in the hope that they will be better cared for by others.

Story of one child soldier: (very interested in this  dramatic idea!) one child’s who finds it particularly hard to emerge from war and build a new life. Perhaps lost his family or have been forced to terrorize their own communities, making it impossible to return home. They may also find it difficult to live without the power that wielding a gun can bring, and will be tempted to drift into violence and crime. Held in transit camps to help them adjust to peace before returning to their communities and perhaps to school. Others are being offered training so they will have a more realistic chance of employment. Child soldiers will have undergone horrific experiences that will live with him for the rest of his life. One of the most important aspects of postwar development is about psychological rebuilding.

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Mr Coleman's ideas for Wole Soyinka's 'Telephone Conversation' stimulus

Here are some of my thoughts tonight on how I might approach using the Wole Soyinka poem stimulus to create a range of interesting message-based/issue-based dramas on racism...

Some random creative responses for exploring the issues in Wole Soyinka’s poem “Telephone Conversation”

·         Start with tableaux (still pictures) to create visual imagery of characters with a song (music: Black or White- Michael Jackson) or to accomany shared reading of Soyinka’s poem.

·         Difficult (though not impossible) to make a comedy about the issues in the poem

·         S African apartheid and the experience of the black man in the poem not easy to connect with. How to get the audience to understand what it is like to be discriminated against because of your race?

·         Group improv, with narrator to stop action to comment on what’s happening on a day to day basis as someone struggles with racism.

·         Racist humour about the English in Scotland is something I am regular target for. Is this racism? Should it be a crime to even make jokes about such things? Ginger people? Blue eyes? What if it were? Interesting basis for a story set in an imagined future – very strict political correctness! J

·         Newspaper headlines/images associated with racism issue projected behind the action to grab attention, emphasise the message, create discussion.

·         Dramatisation of a topsy-turvy society where the whites become the persecuted minority who are discriminated against because of the colour of their skin.

·         Brief vox pop of a variety of views about how to solve the problem of racism.

·         On Thinking Aloud on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon (Wed 12th June 2013) it was claimed that only 3.8% of people in Scotland are ‘of ethnic origin’. Surprising statistic which could be included as part of docu-drama. What if it was a society where white folk were in the minority and viewed by the majority as somehow inferior? “Whities…”

·         The main character (victim) is moulded by the students in the group.

·         The racist hot-seated by audience to help them understand characters motives

·         Racist and victim face each other in a debate

·         Racist insults fired directly to the audience, perhaps going quieter and quieter until totally mute, but still animated as if they were shouting with the volume turned down as the victim enters. “It would be good if I could turn those stupid voices down sometimes…” She tells her story and her feelings about being victimised.

·         Monologue by witness character:  “I saw pupil X calling this boy a P**i / N****r and it’s not right and it ain’t fair but this is a good friend of mine and we grew up together, my mum and his mum are best friends. What should I do?”

·         Guidance councillors advise.

Can racists change or is it too late? How can we teach people to tolerate differences in culture/attitudes?

Idea for movement piece where character falls in love with someone of another race? Parents forbid it. Consequences.

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Drama stimuli group presentations

‘A stimulus is

the starting point

for the drama.’

The task I set you to work on is over the next ten days to first choose one of the stimuli outlined below and then to present and share your ideas and research on it through a creative presentation to the rest of the class. You will need to do some research  of your own as well as working together. Think creatively about how you might present your work/findings and plans for the drama. Presentations of research may include PowerPoint, direct presentation of your plans to class with notes, Prezi, online forums and blogs!

  You have until Friday 21st June when your group will present for the rest of the class!

  1. Explore and research the text of the poem

  ‘Telephone conversation’ by Wole Soyinka.

  OR...

2.         Explore the themes and issues of war, prejudice, family, loss and separation as seen in Tally’s Blood by Anne Marie Di Mambro.

(Mr Coleman can provide your group with paper copies as well as email the Tally's Blood text in the form of a Microsoft Word doc, perhaps for use in the form of a Powerpoint presentation.).

  The text should be used as a springboard for generating ideas for devised drama of your own.

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Drama Bingo- an example of how to write up your Drama Diary

We played Drama Bingo today. We divided into groups of 3 or 4 and picked a number between 1 and 50 corresponding with a 'last line', and another number between 1 and 10 for a drama location.

Group A chose-

"Who?" as their last line

 with the drama to be set in a CHURCH.

Group B chose the line-

"Can you remember the last time you were here?"

to be set in a SUPERMARKET.

After just 20mins rehearsal the two groups presented their scenes.

Group A's scenario: a minister's mobile phone goes off half way through a church service. It's her bishop informing her to keep the congregation in the building as members of the Chinese mafia had the church under seige. A shot is heard outside and a worshipper's brother (Petey) ends up being killed. The minister had to inform the distraught sister it must have been the Chinese mafia who did it.

Sister:     "Who??!!"

:-)

The End

Group B's scenario:

A five year old girl and 15 year old sister were squabbling in the middle of a busy ASDA as their mum tried to keep them from fighting and disturbing other customers. Eventually the manageress has to come along and ask the whole family to leave the premises. This has happened regularly in the past.

Manageress: " Can you rememeber what happened the last time you were here?"

The question was left unanswered.

I think Group A's worked slightly better than Group B's drama, although both were a bit too short. Limited rehearsal time meant neither story had well-rounded characters or decent narrative development. One or two of the actors in Group B kept turning their backs on the audience, masking themselves and other actors in the scene. More thought needed to go into how the actors positioned themselves, so the audience could see everyone.

Until the rest of the class return from work experience we can't properly begin the National 4/5 course so we'll be doing short form improv and drama games till Monday.

Tomorrow, it's charades! :-)

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Post your Drama blog/ diary/ journal here... :-)

Mind maps, ideas, cast lists, photographs, checklists, drawings, drawings, plans, diagrams, cue sheets, uploaded and embedded videos, rehearsal logs and drama diary entries, research material, mp4 sound files, music, scripts, useful or interesting links, not to mention Drama homework... etc, etc and anything else at all you think could be evidence to the SQA assessors of the great work you're doing both in and outwith the Calderside Drama studio.

Update your blog a little at a time, and often! It's a fun way of collecting evidence as you follow the National 4/ National 5 Drama Skills and Drama Production Skills course units

Always remember to date your entry, and provide tags so Mr Coleman can see at a glance what your blog entries contain.