FMP- final reflection

Introduction.

 The research and development phase of our FMP project and journey was extremely vast and extensive
and beheld loads of exercises, practice, and many other activities and independent study to grow our
piece. Every single individual on our team imputed countless ideas and skills that continued to grow us
as a team and also help benefit our piece with all of us making our own paths of personal growth
collaborating to a mutual end goal. a brilliant performance and end to our course.

Research and development phase

How I developed ideas throughout the process. What surprised me?

 During the FMP creative process of making buckets, I personally feel like I played a pivotal role in
contributing and developing ideas while working hand in hand with the strength of a brilliant group of
passionate and enthusiastic people ultimately led to a successful performance. For example, I actively
participated in brainstorming sessions by giving ideas on set design for certain scenes offering unique
perspectives that I believe could really contribute something positive to the environment and theme on
the play for example on the doctor scene set it in a hospital that conveys a creepy atmosphere with all
of the ensemble walking around like they're stuck in an eerie liminal space. and creative suggestions
that enhanced the storyline and character development. I also persistently tried to actively engage in
rehearsing and refining scenes, however I sometimes struggled staying present in the process when I
began to get restless and drained but none the less trying to be productive by providing feedback on the
development of certain scenes and how they could improve Aswell as collaborating with the director
and taking in his input so me and other team members can ensure that the production met their shared
vision. Overall, my contributions and dedication on occasion was a part of a big group effort that led to
the success of the drama performance, and our enthusiasm and commitment served as an inspiration to
the entire team. What surprised me is actually how much we all tried are hardest to make this an
incredible experience because I expected us to crack under the pressure and feel more overwhelmed
than we did.
• What problems did I encounter? How did I overcome them?
 Truthfully speaking there were many problems I began to experience during this stage of the
research and development stage. This often included being late to the lessons where we worked
alongside are director before we were given scenes and characters where we were still creating it
all. Aswell as being ill for a prolonged time that took me out of lessons because I had to go to the
bathroom frequently. I feel hugely behind on coursework which was the other side to our FMP
which was the non-devising side meaning I lost the balance and had to prioritise the course work
consequently leading to me missing out days where we developed the piece so much so it started
to feel like I was not really involved and couldn’t join in on the exciting side to the course. I
overcame this by realising what mattered and understanding that I cannot be a liability otherwise I
would be affecting the other people on my course which they definitely did not deserve.
• What did I learn?
 I learnt lots of things during this stage some that were individual to me like about myself and my
work ethic and others to do with gaining knowledge on theatre making first hand with
professionals. I learnt about the extensive process and about why everything we do that may seem
insignificant at first like movement exercises all give the professional team a stimulus on how to
work with us as individuals. Aswell as all that time we spent on script learning and understanding
the play was eventually going to be extremely useful for organisational skills when the time got
closer to piecing together all the scenes and transitions and finally about how my actions whether
they were positive or negative thoroughly affects every part of the process.

What did I succeed at?

- Collaborating effectively with others: making buckets the play typically involved huge
collaborative effort, involving many different individuals working together I believe I
 succeeded at this by actively participating in group discussions, offering constructive
feedback, and being open to different ideas and perspectives. I feel like I did this well
when we were reading through a few scenes and ask to talk about how we can
develop the setting of the play and what personas we want the characters to
portray.
- When adapting to changes and challenges I feel like I succeeded at that on occasion
for example Creating a drama performance can be a complex and unpredictable
process, with many different challenges that can arise along the way. I think I
succeeded at being adaptable and flexible, and by responding positively to changes
in direction or unexpected obstacles. Like when we removed scenes from buckets or
completely switched the way stan was set and the choreography it was tough to get
used to but we managed it well.

• What were my areas of development?

-overall, my areas of development in this stage were becoming more engaged with the process and
becoming more open minded to the unique way we devised it. Aswell as prioritising the groups success
that gave me the determination to push through the struggles of being behind on my course work.

Rehearsal phase:

* What rehearsal room techniques did your practitioner bring to the room - how did you utilise them/did
they work for you/what would you develop into your own work.

 We had many practitioners teach us many different rehearsal techniques all trying to expand are
horizons on different techniques and find out what each individual works well with and finds the
technique the most helpful for them specifically. Some techniques we were introduced to was the
moulding technique where we were put into groups and one person was used as a puppet and
controlled by the other and shaped to build chemistry to towards the other actors we haven't
necessarily worked with much this was similar to the bamboo technique which helped develop
more chemistry but in silence to build body language which is a huge part when performing or
rehearsing because you can't talk while performing so it help develop cues through body language
something I had to practice and often utilised to not Panick me when something went wrong in a
scene or when I wasn’t comfortable with the transitions or cues. I feel like this really worked for
me. Exploring basic movement is a technique we tried out I think to show peoples strengths when
improvising and going of the top. I didn’t really understand how this would help as a performer so
I would say it didn’t really work for me, but I can see people how people could use this to get
comfortable with improvising movement in front of an audience whether its small or larger.

Discuss your rehearsal room work ethic - be honest about your individual approach to rehearsals

 My work ethic when it came to rehearsals most would say it wasn’t the best and at times, I became
a liability mostly due to lateness or because I was unlucky enough for anomaly's to occur for
example I was in a car accident and I had doctor's appointments and fell ill a few times during this
period I would say a bit of it was out of my control but most of my reliability was not good due to
mistakes and my priorities at the time. But I am proud of my team for not giving up on me and
trying there hardest to help me even when they didn’t have to but it ended up being extremely
beneficial as my time keeping and organisational skills did improve when they needed to.

Discuss moments that you found challenging, what didn't work, why didn't it, what did you do to
overcome/develop through this challenge?
  An obvious moment I found extremely challenging was when the intensive rehearsals and me
being super behind on coursework as I mentioned before I think the reason why I found this
moment so challenging because at this point it wasn’t just being behind on coursework it was so
much more than that. So much pressure was building pressure to not be behind, pressure to not
miss my rehearsals and pressure to not let down my group. That all became so built up and
extremely overwhelming to deal with and overall slowed down the speed and rate of handing in
my completed course work so I could get back into the rehearsal rooms. I think I overcame this by
seeing my dad's disappointment and using that to fuel motivation.

What surprised you? How did you react to this surprise?

 I think something that surprised me was how many scenes I was placed into. Because of my bad
attendance I assumed that the director would see me as unreliable and would put trust into me to
having a bigger role in the play I feel like that pleasantly surprised me because he gave me a
chance to show him my capabilities and prove myself as an actor.

*Key moment - discuss a key moment in the rehearsal process that developed you. This may be when you
'got' the script, understood your character, felt like work was coming together.

 There were lots of key moments during the rehearsal phase that developed me and impacted me in
a way of making me feel like it was all coming together, and it became real. I think one of these
moments was definitely when we were rehearsing the scene stan with deeps. Mostly because it
was the first time, I had seen the ensemble work together collectively and Aswell as me being a
main part in this scene and going over my rehearsed lines made me realise the show was getting
closer and I was officilaly involved now.
 Discuss your own development throughout the process - you have come a long way as a theatre
maker in this project, consider your journey and discuss your development - remember the 'why'
and 'how' rather than the 'what'
 I think my personal development heavily fluctuated mostly because of my mentality change
towards the process at first, I was unmotivated and not very driven because the whole environment
of the FMP felt overwhelming and draining. so, I ignored all the work and script learning to feel
more comfortable when really, I had to push myself to grow. After the script learning and
familiarising ourselves with the play I think I definitely snapped out of the unmotivated Ness and
began to really immerse myself by thoroughly engaging in all the scene development which I
enjoyed because it made me feel a lot more included in the whole process. I did this because I was
tired of letting people down and wanted to prove myself and was focussed on improving.

Production week

- Moving into the egg/tech - discuss your experiences of moving from the rehearsal room to theatre and
into tech. Consider how you felt, what impacted you, was there a challenge and how you overcame this,
how and why being in tech changed your focus.

 The moving process going into the egg theatre for a tech run, completely changed the environment
and feeling of the play as it all suddenly felt extremely professional because we were now
rehearsing on a stage and not in a classroom space. Aswell as seeing all the lighting presets for
each scene made me feel like are creativity and imagination had come to life just like that which
was a beautiful moment. I switched the focus from rehearsing to perfecting which could be seen in
everyone's acting and there was more focus on not messing up then practicing which gave it a very
professional feel which was nice. I felt a little bit out of my depth because I had not performed a
show on stage in a while. But the nerves eased off quite quickly. One huge challenge for me was
the smoke that was being used for practice in the tech, which I found extremely irritable for my
sore throat and cold because it made me sneeze and cough more and initially started to make my
health slightly decline. However, after taking medication that problem got quickly solved. In
 general, I think experiencing tech rehearsals first hand was a big deal to everyone and really set
me and others into a professional performing mindset.

 The first dress rehearsal was full on and had everyone excited but yet nervous, because it was our
first time performing the show to an audience which consisted of our friends meaning there was an
underlying pressure to do well. Once the stage had been set up and we were ready to perform I
could tell nerves were high. People chatting in the wings including me trying to gather information
quickly on scenes and transitions so we could feel prepared even though we knew them, I think it
was just a rush of Panick and everyone all contributing to reassure each other on the structure of
the piece. As the play went on there were noticeable slip ups in the scenes like people forgetting
traits and personas of their characters whilst watching in the wings I could tell the nerves of the
team were affecting them, because the pace of the play sped up with scenes finishing quicker than
they should with a rushed feeling masking and making it difficult for the audience to understand
the different character relationships. And stopping the audience from being fully captivated. I feel
like this rushing also limited the actors practical use of stage because they were so worried about
remembering lines and not messing up any ques that there was not much movement and the stage
occasionally felt empty. Myself included made this mistake a few times. A lot of these points were
all very similar to are directors' notes that he made clear and stated we need to work on to give a
better performance. The audience were incredible as they laughed a lot and were extremely
supportive when anything went wrong, I think this is because they are our friends and because
they were going through the same thing and were a lot more considerate because they had a
mutual understanding of how stressful performing can be.

1st performance

 The first performance felt a lot more improved than the dress run, the directors and stage crew told
us what worked and what didn’t when they watched the play which shocked us all a bit when we
had to adapt to new stage directions and choreography on some of the ensemble scenes like Stan
which was quite difficult because we had to get used to a new improved scene for safety reasons
right before our first public performance. On the other hand, it felt more serious all the stage crew
were extremely organised and were amazing at reassuring the actors about anything they were
uncertain about I think they knew they needed to be prepared and organised for the actors because
they knew the less amount of stress the better the performance. Practical use of the stage and
movement was increased throughout, all complimented with a steady pace I think we improved
this because as actors we realised, we needed to present this show as high quality because it was
more than just a college performance and was advertised to the public by the theatre royal
company.therefor there was more responsibility involved. However, with this comes nerves and
the sense of overwhelmingness which unfortunately lead to an occasional forgotten line or
moment of silence Aswell as a few missed ques. But with a supportive audience we were not
disheartened.

 The second performance to say the least went perfectly, the stage management crew were
perfectly organised and helped us prepare in quick time, the tech and sound crew had mastered
and perfected visual ques and sound ques, as actors we now knew the play inside and out, so there
was no stress on scenes and order because we had done it enough times. This is why I feel ,like all
the many rehearsals we did positively affect the smoothness of the run as we understood
transitions and each independent scene and its layout, we were organised when it came to probs so
there were no mistakes made when it came to scenes with props. Our vocalisation improved
drastically Aswell as projection as the actors were more comfortable on stage, this is because of
the previous runs, and are director making us comfortable. All the team effort was really
beneficial for the success of this show. As the show came to an end, I could instantly notice
 relationships between the members of BTA blossom as we had experienced such a huge, long
process that we all equally collaborated on with such a huge reward of relief and achievement
which was beautiful to see. So, I think in future we as a theatre company will be stronger.

In conclusion the FMP process has been vast, hard work but an amazing experience with many lessons
learnt and knowledge on the art of performing theatre as a team.