DRAMA Group Meeting - Actors

Group Meeting - Actors

Today we had a meeting about looking for a child actor to play Dylan and a female actress to play his mum. We thought of different ways to find actors and focused on Dylan's actor as we thought it would be harder to find a child. We started by getting a StarNow account and looking though boy actors around the Yorkshire area. We found that you have to pay for credits to talk to people and so decided to put up an advert and include that we were looking for a female too. We found this difficult as there were so many options and specifics and then at the end of it we found we had to have someone with a CRB check and that the advert would be reviewed as it was for a child under 16.

Our next idea was to look for drama schools around Sheffield. We found three and rang them but all went straight to an automated voice mail as the only phone number provided was to do with having your child join the school. We tried a few times for each one but didn't get anywhere, and Ellie said she would email them later on. We discussed any family members or friends that we could ask to play the part and Ellie said she would ask her cousin if any of his friends acted.

DRAMA Props

Props

I have been researching some different ideas for props over the past couple of days and doing some research into films that could influence me. We discussed how we intend the room to look (we are going to use Ellie's room as it is on the top floor and has a sky light) and that we need to make a university house look like a family home, and to make a teenage girls bedroom look like a young boys. We want the the room to have some suggestions that Dylan likes space in his room, but not that he is obsessed with it - he likes other things such as football, dragons and drawing. Beth found some old national geographic magazines that she ripped pages out of that we can stick up on the walls that have pictures of planets and the solar system. 

I suggested that we get some glow in the dark stars that you can stick on the ceiling - this is something that a lot of children have in their rooms whether they are into space or not and would be great to use them in some way in some of the shots. We also talked about other posters to fill the walls because obviously we can't change the colour scheme in the room, and so I intend to get other posters such as times tables and other educational posters that a parent has put up in a room. We need a lot of toys just to fill the space and so Ellie  is going to ask her cousin for some and I want to look in charity shops for some things to put around. We are considering getting a new duvet cover too unless we can borrow somebody's. 

The other thing I need to get materials for is to build the 'spacesuit' so I want to get tinfoil and I have a cardboard box to use, and then we are going to collect different types of bottle tops to stick on, and we need glue and other craft supplies. We also need to do some drawings that a child might have done to stick around the room.

One last thing is a large sheet and a torch as we could include a den, I think it would look visually pleasing along with the glow in the dark stars contrasted with the shadows the torch would create.

SKILLS Creative Media Production Skills - Introduction

Creative Media Production Skills - Introduction

DRAMA Pocket Satellite

Pocket Satellite 

Oliver who is in charge of sound thought we should include some music for in the background of the two minute piece that he could mix in with other special effects sounds and listens to a band called Pocket Satellite who have a song called astronaut for a day that he thought could work. He emailed the band who responded saying we could use the song and that we had the rights to use it. 

The band consists of five members who use an array of instruments and who are based in Sheffield. Here is the song;

DRAMA Group meeting - Character

Group meeting - Character

Today we met up to discuss our character - Dylan in more detail and decide on what emotion we wanted to portray in our two minute piece. We came up with the idea that the two minute piece would just show Dylan being bored in his bedroom, having a sudden idea and then him getting together all the things he needs to make his own spacesuit and so we decided the emotion that would work best was EXCITEMENT and JOY. 

We discussed how we would extend the idea for the longer five-ten minute piece and thought that the two minute could be something that has already happened and then right at the end of the longer piece the audience would find out why was doing that and it would be a flashback to before he makes the suit and to when he finds out that his dad has been killed, and the way his mum explains it to him is by saying something along the lines of 'Daddy's with the stars now' to try and help him understand what's happened; but Dylan doesn't understand and he takes it literally and thinks if he makes a suit and becomes an astronaut then he will be able to see his dad again.

DRAMA Forming a Group

Forming a Group

In today's session we formed a group and decided to use Kirean's idea of a young boy called Dylan who tries to become an astronaut after he finds out that his father has died.
Here are our roles:

• Director - Beth Elston
• Producer - Ellie Marsland
• Cinematographer - Kirean Boughan
• Editor - Valerie Li
• Art Director - Hannah Cross
• Sound - Oliver Guy

The role of Art Director was new to me as Sound was split in two last year so was interested to find out what it involved. It  meant that I needed to decide what sort of props, set and costumes we would use for our film.

We decided to form a Facebook group so we could all contact each other and post relevant information and arrange meetings etc.

DRAMA Creative Media Drama Project - Introduction

Creative Media Drama Project - Introduction