Q1.

What was your initial response to the stimuli and what were your
intentions of the piece?

My initial response to the stimulus were

some questions that people don’t think
about when they are using social media
such as ‘how much time is this taking?’
and ‘what else could I be doing right
now?’. I found this interesting because I
don’t often take this into consideration
when using social media.

In our group, we discussed the impact of time spent on our phones on our lives and
when this happened. We talked about going on our phones before bed and how this
could potentially impact upon our sleep. This was important because there is lots in
the news about how ‘blue light’ can affect your sleep and we wanted to think further
about consequences of this.

With these ideas in mind we created a breathing image that showed a character
sleeping. She put her phone down and then lay down.

The people around the outside

symbolise the thoughts going through
her head while she is sleeping and the
close proximity represent the fact she
can’t get away from these thoughts as
she sleeps. The stiff body language and
angry facial expressions suggest these
thoughts are negative and could be
interrupting her sleep.

We realised from staging this mage that it would be interesting to explore the
contrast in worlds - one where the phone is used a lot and another where a character
of the same age does not have access to one. We wanted to inform the audience of
the negative impact social media and phone use has on a teenager’s life. We
decided to aim to tell the story through a mixture of naturalistic scenes, mixed with
direct address to the audience in order to break the fourth wall and make them think
further about what they are seeing.
What work did your group do in order to explore the stimulus and create ideas
for performance?

Research
In order to explore the stimulus further, each member of our group conducted some
research relating to the ideas we had developed. I used the internet to look for ways
that social media affects teenagers and found this report:

We discussed this and found 37% it to be quite a significant number: over 10 people
within our Drama class. We decided this significant statistic could be used to inform
the audience of the negative impact of social media. We experimented with direct
address and unison when stating the statistic to the audience and felt that this
delivery helped to emphasise how important it was, the high volume made them
uncomfortable and encouraged them to think. We decided to do something similar
with other statistics we had found.

Exercise
In order to explore the stimulus further we also did a number of exercises. One of
these was a physical movement exercise from Frantic Assembly’s ‘Othello’. Miss
taught us a sequence that symbolised the performers on the stage interacting with a
person at the end of a ‘street’ (the audience were the focus). We then developed this
in our groups by creating sequences, but this time we thought about our phones
being at the end of the ‘street’.
From this exercise we realised that, some are affected by the media’s reporting on
the use of phones before bedtime and so are hesitant to use them. We realised that
showing these people might not support our aim; we wanted the audience to see
someone who was affected negatively so they could think about the impact. We,
therefore, decided to only include my movement sequence within our final piece in
order to make this point more prominent.
Q3. What were some significant moments during the development process and when
rehearsing and refining your piece?

One of the most significant moments during our devising process was the staging of
scene where character x is being extremely overwhelmed because of the cyber
bullying he is receiving. We wanted to stage the scene naturalistically to fit in with the
rest of our piece so that the audience could really see how it affected this person and
empathise with them. To begin with, we showed character x talking to a friend about
what was happening and getting more distraught throughout the scene. This was
shown through the performer’s use of the repeated gesture of holding his head and
the increase in volume and pace in his voice as he got more distraught. After
watching this during a mid-phase run through, we felt that it didn’t effectively
communicate the feelings of the character as he wasn’t saying what they were, just
reacting to them.

We decided to experiment with a non-naturalistic style that involved the thoughts

going through the character’s head being said by other performers around the stage,
whilst he still got distraught in the centre of the stage. The thoughts were whispered
by the cast and got louder and faster to mirror character x’s voice and movement.
They stood staring out into the audience to emphasise they were thoughts and not
real. At the end, character x screamed loudly and the voices stopped but stayed on
stage. This suggested that it was all in his head and that it had built up so much, he
couldn’t take it anymore, forcing him to scream and breakdown. We decided it was
significant to leave the cast who had been his thoughts on stage for the rest of the
scene because it suggested the thoughts had not gone completely from the
character’s head and so this was really affecting him negatively still. Although it did
not fit in with our aim to present it naturalistically, we found that it was a key moment
and ensured the audience truly understood the character and therefore felt empathy
towards them. We decided the direct address we were using to show statistics was
not naturalistic and so this fitted in well with the whole style of the piece.
Q4. How did you consider genre, structure, character, form, style and language
throughout the process?

Genre
Our key theme of the negative effects of social media developed out of the stimulus.
Our piece was aiming to tell the audience about these negative effects and allow
them to empathise with the characters, so that they would think about their own use
of social media.

Structure
We decided to explore the theme through presenting the stories of three different
characters and exploring how they had negatively been affected by social media.
This meant that there was a linear narrative within each character’s segment but the
whole structure was made up of three separate stories. Doing this meant that we
were able to show that social media affects a number of different people in society in
different ways.

Style and Form

Each individual story was told initially told in a naturalistic way with a series of
scenes, however, we decided to add some non-naturalistic moments to emphasise
how the characters were being affected negatively and the impact it was having on
them. We used direct address to link the scenes and inform the audience of statistics
that were related to the content of our piece. This meant that the audience could
really think about the impact that social media was having on a larger scale.

Character
The idea of the characters was developed quite early on in the devising process as it
was important we knew who they were in order to develop their stories. In the early
stages, we completed a relaxation exercise that got us to think about the characters
we were playing and develop our vocal and physical portrayal of them. I played a girl
who did not sleep well because of her use of social media at night time. Throughout
my scenes I showed how she was tired in the day through a relaxed posture with
stooped shoulders and hanging my head down. I made my eyes wide to show how
tired she was and my voice was quiet and slow to emphasise how she was finding
the daytime quite tough.

Language
Language was also developed quite early on in the process and we found that a
clear contrast between the language used for the direct address and the naturalistic
scenes was vital. Using language that teenagers would use, for example slang,
meant that the language fitted with the naturalistic style and were recognisable to the
audience. More formal language was used for the direct address in order to
emphasise the reality of these situations and statistics.
Q5. How effective was your contribution to the final performance?

Throughout the whole devising process, I believe I was a strong and active member
of the group who contributed a great deal. I undertook a large amount of research
into our chosen topic and this meant that we were able to include accurate and
informative statistics within our piece. I also took on a directorial role when
rehearsing saying these statistics, directing other members of the group to use
intonation in their voice when speaking in unison to ensure the statistics were said in
an engaging way. Furthermore, because of the research I had done, I was able to
advise other members of the group on how they might react in the naturalistic
scenes by getting them to think of specific scenarios. This meant that the naturalistic
scenes within our piece were more true to life and informed the audience of what
was really happening in the world.

A moment that I struggled with was when I was playing the character who was losing
sleep because of going on social media. I found it hard to portray the interaction she
was having with her friends and found the dialogue I was creating to not be effective
because it did not seem to have any meaning behind it. Everytime I rehearsed the
scene I was saying different lines, which meant that the other performers would get
confused and the scene would be longer than needed and end up not showing the
audience the interaction between the friendship groups. I decided to create a script
for this scene in order to ensure every line had meaning and that we said the same
thing each time we rehearsed it. This worked well because it meant that we could
really work on building tension through our reactions to each line. For example, at
one moment my character snapped at one of her friends. Through learning the line I
was able to think about my fast-paced delivery of it, with a harsh tone and scowling
facial expression. It was short and quick and allowed the other performer to leave
silence before saying her line, therefore building tension in the scene and showing
the audience how lack of sleep from social media can affect friendship groups as
well.
Q6. Were you successful in what you set out to achieve?

I think that we were successful in what we set out to achieve because we created a
performance that presented the stories of 3 different characters who had been
negatively affected by social media and therefore informed the audience of the
negative effects it can have. The direct address we used helped to support our piece
as it suggested the problems were happening on a much wider scale and therefore
ensured the audience could really think about what was going on.

One of the most powerful moments in our performance was the breakdown of
character x. This scene was developed in a non-naturalistic way and contrasted to
the naturalistic dialogue that ran throughout the rest of the performance. The tension
built through the crescendo of voices that represented character x’s thoughts and his
irate movement really helped to show how negative the impact of social media was
on one person. I ensured I stared out at the audience the whole of the way through
this part as I said my line to make them feel uncomfortable and ensure they really
thought about what was happening on stage.

I would like to have improved some of the naturalistic dialogue within the scenes that
took place with multiple characters. I found that, sometimes, performers were not
exact with what they said and therefore there was some improvisation, meaning
delivery of the lines was less developed. For example, during the performance, when
I was playing the ‘Mother’ character I felt that my tone of voice was too sympathetic
and the pace of my delivery too slow. This meant that the child character’s angry
reaction, shown through a loud volume and harsh tone of voice, did not effectively fit
with what had been said before. I think that we could have developed a script for
each scene and therefore practiced how we said specific lines more in order to
ensure they had the correct meaning and always supported our overall aim.

Feedback from the audience was very positive and both teenagers and adults said
that it really made them think about how they use their phones and it communicated
some shocking statistics that they were not aware of previously.