Unit 320 (2.2) Performance Evaluation

Evaluation of first run.



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At the start, when doing my monologue, I started off with good volume and clarity which would allow the audience to hear what I'm saying with ease. However, towards the end of the monologue my volume started to drop. To improve this, I will make sure that my volume consistency stays high to allow the audience to hear every word. Also the pauses I put into my monologue i feel were too short making it sound rushed, meaning the pace was too quick. this may effect the audience by not understanding or being able to take in what my character is implying, also reducing the amount of characterisation. The pace of my speech could also be slowed down. In the lines I have with one word or a short phrase, I feel that they need more volume otherwise the audience wont hear the line, also needing more emphasis and meaning to them, especially the island voices lines such as " nothing " and " don't think so". The line " which is fast becoming the hub" I think needs to be slowed down much more as it becomes quite hard to understand. Also during the cleaning scene, my volume and articulation was good however, I could add more emphasis on certain words. Towards the end I need to be clearer on my lines, however I think its because I'm too focused on the blocking and getting the correct props whilst on stage, and my characterisation needs to change between island voice and pupil characters. This should be done through my tone but it didn't happen in the run.








Evaluation for Hope Springs.

In Hope Springs I thought that the planning for my character, build up towards the show and vocal techniques I used was good. Before we started on this unit I didn’t have any ideas on my usual vocal habits. I realized that the consistency of volume during shows wasn’t too great, as I have been picked up on it when performing in other shows. In the past I had studied on vocal work, but only the vocal work inside singing or performing in a musical. However, this did give me some insight into the vocal techniques, as some were similar to the techniques used during singing, for example, articulation and diction especially. During the unit, I found that I never really had to think about my pace or even pauses, this is because I sung. I think that adding pausing and changing my pace for different characters has definitely improved my acting or even the way I can portray a different character now, as different characters may talk with a completely different style. When I was trying to improve my vocal approach I struggled with emphasis on certain words or phrases, as to me the phrase was emphasized enough to know what my character was feeling but to others it wasn’t. I improved this by making the emphasis more exaggerated, for example, the phrase “where’s the dignity in that” wasn’t exaggerated, so during the show I exaggerated and you could tell that I wasn’t happy about the situation. During the piece I faced problems with my monologue at the beginning of the show. Firstly it was my consistency with volume, as I went on I also got quieter, that was easy to improve though as I just projected my voice better. Also in the monologue I feel that I struggled with m pacing quite frequently as when I knew the lines I would just try and get them out of my system reducing the characterization that I was supposed to have.


During the piece I had many standards that I wanted to achieve in the performance with my vocal. At the beginning I wanted a significant change between island voices and pupil 4, however when nearer the show I thought about the story and though that the island voices could be pupils that had suffered on the island. This made me change my tone but not completely different to pupil 4. I felt that in the show this standard or target was reached. Another target was that during my monologue I wanted the audience to feel sorry for my character. I did this by emphasizing some words with more expression, also dropping the pitch of my voice but still articulating the words properly and with a good, clear volume. I felt that I reached this target as a member of the audience came up to me at the end and said they felt touched by the emotion the pupils were giving off. However I feel that in the performance I could have upped the standard of the smaller island voice lines I had by increasing the volume and slowing the pace. I feel that I’m revealed as a learner who thinks and knows what he has to do, however sometimes I don’t have the confidence to portray the character how I want to and it takes me a few goes before I get to the standard that I am happy with. To begin with I thought the play was going to be hard for me to produce a character without singing however, once I was on the stage I really felt myself in the characters shoes, and this came through by volume in my voice and emotion throughout the play.


In this unit, I feel as if I approached the vocal performance similarly and differently to others in my class. Firstly I feel this is because my character was different to theirs and mine got upset quite easily meaning the dropping of my tone had to be done throughout most of the play, with also an adrenaline in some parts of the play. If I were a teacher looking over myself I would tell myself to slow down and not to be so unconfident when speaking a longer phrase as I feel I rushed a few of my lines and this would make it hard for the audience to understand. The most engaging moment in my vocal performance for me was the monologue at the beginning as I had to show expression and everyone would have been looking at me, so it made my improve my vocal techniques by having a louder volume or even just changing the tone a little bit more in my voice. My classmates picked up on me rushing on my dialogue however, they also said that my pronunciation, diction and volume was clear and at a good consistency after the show however, I thought my volume was slipping towards the end.


One thing I would like to improve on vocally is the pace that I speak when I’m confident with my dialogue otherwise the audience wont be able to understand what I’m saying and the next show could be broken up and misinterpreted if they don’t understand my lines. If I could do this piece again I think I would have a significant change in tone between the island voices and pupils, so I took a different take on it, which may have been more understandable. Also I would have slowed all of my lines down. So for my next show I would like to slow the pace of my whole dialogue adding more pauses and reducing the pace so it’s even easier to understand my and my character can have more characterization. In the future I would also like more help with emphasis on certain words and also pauses during my dialogue as sometimes I feel that I put my emphasis on the incorrect words. To get my next teacher to understand that my pace is too fast I could show her the rehearsal run of hope springs showing her my dialogue as I thought it was to quick.


Overall I am really happy with my performance I just need to adjust a few things in my vocal for the next show, this includes pace, emphasis and a continuous sustained volume.



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