MYSTERY BOX - PERFORMANCE WORKSHOP

This post will be going over the performance workshop we did for our Mystery Box project.

We started off with a warmup game, called "Chase the Chicken". We had to imagine we were following a sequence of events:

1. Chasing a runaway chicken
2. Reaction to seeing it get away
3. Grow sad about it
4. React to clouds parting, sun shining, and seeing more chickens
5. Sneaking up on a chicken
6. Successfully catching it

We'd block out our own sequences, each time being more focused on one particular area of it. One stage that would prove important later on was exaggerating our movements, so we can show what the character is feeling through their body language, as clearly as possible.

Once Chase the Chicken was done, we moved on to work on our own Mystery Box animations, and blocking out what movements we wanted for it. We all came up with some individual ideas, which we would workshop across the rest of the session. I had a few ideas, mostly having indifferent or positive reactions to what was in the box. But ultimately, I found the one negative reaction the most interesting. The events would go as follows:

1. Character walks across, just overshooting the box
2. They look back, becoming curious of the box
3. They check their watch, have they got time to look in the box?
4. They do! The character walks to the box
5. Crouches down to look in the box, and...
6. SHOCK! Something surprising and dangerous is in the box
7. Character backs up, hands in the air

When I brought the performance of my idea to the rest of the class, we worked on making it better. The first step was to understand the character's thought process more, so I said out loud what they're saying instead of remaining silent. The expressions and body movements were pushed further, to be more exaggerated. Timing was also considered, seeing how the sequence in the end will have to fit into a time threshold.

After that, we split off into groups and all tried to interpret each other's prompts. Daisy, Jenny and August all tried my blocking out, and I chose August's as what I'd use in the end! After I chose him, we took photos of what the key blocking points were. These are essentially base lines for the actual storyboard to start from!

So the next step from here is performance analysis, which is tomorrow. Did I enjoy this session though? Kinda. I think it was the repetition that got me; I realise it's important and understand this is entirely a me-thing, but doing the same short performance over and over with changes so minor each time just didn't seem too interesting to me. I much prefer going with more wild ideas and trying something entirely new each time.