Term Reflection - Drama

'Best Bits' of our Season

In the beginning of the lesson we watched some clips from reality tv shows where one person was leaving and they played the happiest bits of their journey. Our task was to recreate the 'best bits' from our season Little Sister. We had the option to either do it as still images or a 10-15 second clips. My group chose to recreate it using clips. We also had Hannah Montana 'Wherever I Go' song playing in the background since it was a sad but happy moment. We also had several narrators, one for each scene, where they were saying what was happening in the scene and other emotional lines. I thoroughly enjoyed this task because it was really fun to create and during the lesson I was in a really good mood which made the whole task 100 times better.

 

Little Sister Dream House

Little Sister Dream House - Teamwork Task

Reflection

This was one of the hardest tasks I had ever done in Drama! I will tell you why.

So at the beginning of the lesson, Ms Ruiz got into her character, which personally I find so annoying but funny at the same time. She picked 5 people to be team captains, these people then had to pick students to be in their team. I got picked by Yassin, and in my team there is Tereza, Maya and Maria, including Yassin.

The task Ms Ruiz's character gave us was to design our own Little Sister Dream House - staying in character throughout the whole process! This was extremely hard because a lot of our characters had very different personalities and didn't agree with each other. It was really hard to stay in character because as soon as I wanted to talk or give my opinion, I would start acting and talking like me instead of acting and talking like my character Holly. Also I one of the people who in a lot of teamwork tasks or group work, takes the responsibility to be the leader and take control of things. However, my character Holly isn't like that because she has problems with commitment and so got bored really quickly but it also quirky, so she likes to make jokes and has a weird sense of humor.

Another thing that I found difficult was making decisions based on our characters. For example, Maria whos character's name is Samantha, likes to skateboard and is a tomboy. So we had to make the design our house based on the likes and dislikes of each character, even though we sometimes didn't like it ourselves. It was hard making decisions altogether because some of us wanted colourful walls and massive garden facing the beach, others wanted a simple white theme and a nice pool. So there was a lot of arguing that took place and not a lot of work. We didn't really control out time properly, and as a result didn't have a lot of time to draw it in class. So what we did to solve that problem was we planned the whole house on paper and quick notes, then Maya and I took it home (She came to my house) and we finished drawing the diagram of our Little Sister dream house.

My character

Description from green sheet

This girl is known for her quirkiness and also has Lyme disease which makes things difficult for her. She has problems with commitment which attributes to being too high maintenance.

My Selfies

Picture taken before going to a dinner with a few friends

Picture taken in the hospital when doing some blood tests

I purposely took two selfies to show both sides of my character. She is high maintenance and an attention seeker; likes to be around people and has a weird sense of humor. However she also suffers from Lyme disease and this affects her emotionally, causes memory loss and other abnormal behaviour.

introducing new unit - reality tv

MYP: Reality TV
Key Concept: Communities
Related Concept: Arts
Global Context: Identities and Relationships
Stamtement of Inquiry: Reality TV creates false communities of misinterpreted characters. Characters must show development in a performance to be truly convincing
Inquiry Question: How can an actor demonstrate character development?
A character must show development in a performance for their role to be convincing.

Domestic Abuse Final Project

Domestic Abuse Advertising Poster

Completed Video - Domestic Abuse

Referenced Statistic: In the UK two women are murdered every week and 30 men per year

http://www.lwa.org.uk/understanding-abuse/statistics.htm

Reflection Video

I am really happy and proud, not only with how the video turned out but also the teamwork and collaboration skills that my group used during the process of creating this. I feel like the work was spread out evenly and according to each person's abilities.

Aman is really good with computers so he got the part of editor - and I helped him out a bit as well

Arnima likes to take photographs and videos so she was camera woman

Adham can do very good impressions and use different tones of voice so he was the abusive boyfriend

Amirezza got out of his comfort zone because I made him write the script with me as well as manage voiceovers. Since he doesn't really like speaking and he says that his English is bad, I made him do something different

Lastly I am very emotional so I was the woman who got abused and had to cry

We all gave a fair amount of contribution to the creation of the ad. I had the original idea of the woman looking at herself in the mirror and imaging all the things the guy said to her. With the help of Arnima and Adham, we developed the idea and planned the script.

Arnima came over to my house on Saturday and we filmed all of the scenes so that on the next lesson we would just need to do the voiceovers.

On Sunday, I helped Amirreza and Adham record the voiceovers and after several tries, we got the perfect ones. We also went in lunch time so me and Arnima could tell Aman where to place all the scenes.

Adham, in the lesson, had found sad music to put as the background and at home I had created the sound effects.

*All of the sound effects and voiceovers were created - nothing was taken from the internet

Aman completed half of the editing and then I took the rest home, added the final touches and uploaded it on YouTube.

Idea behind the ad

When creating this message/ad, we wanted to really tell people that this issue is something that is still happening and even though there are phone numbers to call, many people who are affected by domestic violence don't speak up. The idea of the ad was to recreate a scene when the woman will ignore the whole thing and what is happening to her but still get hurt. In the ad, we see that she builds up courage to dial 991 however as soon as she hears her boyfriends voice she becomes scared and her courage disappears.

In many cases this leads to death - that is why we put a very bold statistic which tells you on average how many people die because of domestic violence. I also believe that even though it does affect more woman than men, it still affects men. That is why in the statistic we put a fact about men abuse as well. 

The problem with domestic abuse, is that even though people know about it, they take it for granted and yes, I cant even imagine how much pain the person goes through but we tried our best to show it in the little time we had and hopefully it touched someone's heart.  

I hope that you enjoyed the video because we really tried our best and I feel like many people in my team did things and took on new challenges when creating the ad.

Conflict in Songs

In this lesson of drama, I watched four different songs and had to answer the two questions below.

What is the conflict?

What is the song about?

Alanis Morissette - Perfect

• Trying to be perfect
• Family pressure
• Parents forcing son/daughter to be the best
• Comparing them to other people
• Pressure from others to be flawless
• Parents are pushing the child to be whatever the parents weren't - achieve what they didn't

Tori Amos - Silent All These Years

• Abuse from boyfriend/significant other
• Boyfriend's mother does the same thing to him so he does it to her
• She wants to leave and escape
• Domestic Abuse
• Lyric - 'Boy you best praya that I bleed real soon' is saying, get it done with and make me bleed so maybe you stop

Pearl Jam - Jeremy

• No one cares about the boy
• No one listens to him
• Neglected by his parents
• Bullied at school
• Felt alone and helpless like there was nothing else to do
• Killed himself in front of his English class

Tracy Chapman - Behind the Wall

• Domestic Abuse
• Husband and wife fighting
• She [the singer] is the neighbour who can hear everything
• The police always comes late
• Even though they call the police it wont do anything
• The police wont fix the problem
• She sees the ambulance outside their house
• She [singer] prays that she was dreaming

Week 2 - Brainstorming conflict scenes

First Lesson

• My group and Abdullah's group performed the conflict scene where I wanted to build the fence but Abdullah didn't
• It started off well because there were only four people on the 'stage' however as more people from the groups started coming up it was very loud and chaotic and couldn't tell who was talking or even who each person was impersonating
• Then we read a poem called Filthy Heart
• We had to find verbs in the poem e.g. beating and thumping
• Ms Ruiz put us into groups and then gave us a verb from the poem
• I was with Aman, Salma and Varoon and we had the word beating
• We had to act out the word while Ms read the poem
• We took inspiration from the heart when it beats and copied the same movement

Second Lesson

• We entered the classroom and sad music was playing
• There were chairs laid on the floor, papers scattered, the bin upside down and the table on the floor
• On the board we brainstormed what characters, setting and conflict must have happened e.g. robbery, abuse, fight
• Then Ms put us into groups - my group is me, Arnima, Sahil and Daniil
• We had to act out what might have happened and recreate the mess
• Also we had to include thought tracking (what the characters are thinking, they say aloud when everyone else is in a freeze frame)
• We chose to do this scene:

The drunk husband came home and started shouting at the wife and abused her, their child tried to stop it and the neighbour got angry because of the noise

Characters

Malcolm (Drunk husband who physically abuses wife) - Sahil

Innocent wife who gets physically abused by Malcolm but doesn't want to divorce because she wants Sophie to have two parents - Federica (me)

Sophie 8 year old daughter who always sees her parents fighting and wants everything to stop - Arnima

Mr Harry Potter Neighbour who always hears screaming, banging and feels sorry for Sophie - Daniil

• 

Week 1 - Introduction to Conflict

This week we got introduced to the topic we will be exploring in Drama - Conflict. We focused on Forum Theatre, which is a form of drama strategy where  any spectator in the audience is allowed to say 'Stop' and change or suggest how they could improve or completely change the character or/ and the situation/scene the actor is impersonating. However if you say stop, you have to go and take the place of the previous actor and act out what you have suggested.

• The scene Ms Ruiz gave us was where there were two people and one of them wanted to build a fence next to their house, however the other person didn't want a fence.
• They were arguing about whether the fence would be built.
• When Abdullah and Jamila were acting it out, I found there could have been improvements made in the character choice so I shouted stop.
•  I suggested that they both could've been elderly people and arguing about who lived there the longest - or something along those lines so I replaced Jamila and acted out what I had suggested

The class then voted which one was better. Abdullah & Jamila or Abdullah and I (we got the most votes).

Then the class had to decide which team they were on Abdullah's side or my side. Almost every  girl chose my side with the exception of two and every boy chose Abdullah.

I was actually really happy that I got all the girls because girl power is strong! 



Below is the picture with each character description.

Back Row

Nikita:- The caregiver - she is the young woman who takes care of me (the elderly woman) and warns me when my pressure gets to high or I become to angry.

Maria:- Elderly woman who comes every day for tea and lives across the street

Arnima:- Elderly woman who comes every day for tea and lives across the street

Famke:- Eldest daughter of mine who got divorced but has a child

Jamila:- Daughter who loves to party and goes to clubs everyday

Sofia:- Daughter who loves to party and goes to clubs everyday

Front Row

Tereza:- My best friend for 50 years who has lived everything with me and knows me inside out.

Federica (me):- Elderly woman (60 years old) who wants to build the fence so she doesn't have to see Abdullah's horrible face again

Nehal:- My dog named Ripley who pees only in Abduallah's garden

Rawan:- Famke's daughter who is 6 years old and sucks her thumb

*All the characters have names however I forget them including mine and so on Sunday I will check with everyone and update this post with the names

First Blog Entry Introducing Drama

MYP: Conflict Year 9 Drama
Key Concept: Perspective
Related Concept: Expresssion & Narrative
Global Context: Fairness & Development
Stamtement of Inquiry: We can understand how conflict arise at home, school and in society through the field of drama
Inquiry Question: Can controversy be explored through drama to represent different perspectives?

Week 9 - Performance

This the YouTube link for the video of our performance 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g7hNbiA6J4&feature=youtu.be

Final End of Project Reflection 

This day was one of the most chaotic days ever in school because it was running around, fixing puppets, checking sound effects, instruments and volume of keyboards, sending videos at last minute etc. but I must say it was worth it in the end because our performance was amazing (in my opinion). i feel like all of our efforts and work that we have been doing for the past 9 weeks paid off in those very short 3 minutes of performance but I enjoyed every second of that. It was amazing how the sound effects came together with the music and the video with the puppets and the narration with the movement of the characters it was amazing. We did have a few issues on the day right before we performed. The first issue that came up was that another puppet was lost but fortunately we found it before the lesson started because obviously we came in first break to set up all the instruments as well to change into our black shirt, which by the way looked amazing and we really did look like a very professional team. Another dilemma was that we were meant to go first but the Jackson had the video on his iPad and the cable to connect the iPad to the projector was too big so he had to send it to Ms, Cross but that took very long so instead of going first, we ended up going third - but we still managed to solve all the dilemmas before our performance.

During our performance we figured something out that we hadn't notice in class and that was that in the beginning scene the picture on the video played for a short amount of time so Jackson who was in-charge of the video had to stop it and wait for me to have finished the part and then continue playing the video. However even though we encountered that problem we didn't stop the performance, we just continued like nothing happened and I'm very glad we did because it turned out really well. Also at the part where James is dead but he sees the light again, I liked how we came up with the idea of covering the projector so that the audience is in pitch black and when Mario took the paper away from the projector it really seemed like James was  adjusting to the bright light because the screen kind of goes all blurry and that is exactly what happens in the story, so I think it gave a really good effect.

Mario did an excellent job with the audience, because he told us after the performance that they got really scared when he was crawling through them. Maria did fantastic at playing the music because during music lessons when we were rehearsing together, she kept messing up the part of the rain and the introduction but during the performance she played beautifully and I was very proud of her. Yasmeen did a great job at decreasing the volume at the correct time and she was always on time when she had to change the numbers on the keyboards (She even memorized the numbers!) and she was excellent when she banged the drum really loud exactly when I asked her to do it. Jackson thought in a very intelligent manner and knew when to stop the video when we encountered that dilemma of the picture playing for to little time. Last but not least Aria and Rana did a marvelous job and handling all the puppets, making the move at the correct time, making them face the right direction and changing puppet/ putting them down/switching places during the right moments in the story. I don't actually think there was a time where we messed up during the performance other than the video part.

I learnt a lot from this experience and project, I made new friends and worked with people I wouldn't normally work with. I also improved my time management skills and organization skills but the skill I really think I improved on what reflecting. I feel like this year, I have really put in a lot of effort with my reflections, I not only have improved writing wise but also at converting videos and uploading images/videos. If I had to do this project again, I would create a shorter story but have more puppets and instead of having one narrator, we would have different people being a character each. Also I would use more instruments like try using the triangle or the xylophone. Finishing off this reflection, I have truly enjoyed this term and this project because it pays off in the end, all the breaks you have sacrificed and all the emails and Whatsapp messages to reply to so everyone has all the materials. It's worth it in the end.

Peer Evaluation 

Group Evaluated: Arnima, Maya, Famke, William, Nehal, Rawan, Joseph, Evita, Ashna
Story: Cinderella

I remember that this group really caught my attention because their performance was synchronized and well told, the music was suitable to the story as well as the target audience. It was really nice because even though they used an already existing story, they made up some parts such as the bloody shoe which related to horror and phantasmagoria. Another unique addition which they had was that on top of the music, they had some singing. I thought that was an interesting and creative touch as no other group had thought of that before. I really liked their puppets especially the princess and the prince. You could see they had put time and thought into making them. However they did stop sometimes during the performance and got stuck because people didn't know what to say but they didn't let themselves down and continued like nothing happened which I found really nice. They could improve on the sound effects because even if they did have a few, they were quite limited and could add some more, especially during the part where Cinderella was running. Another thing they could improve on was the variety of backgrounds they had because again they were quite limited and could've added more in the part where the prince came to Cinderella's house (they kept the same background for 3 different scenes). Lastly, I think as a group needed to improve collaboration skills because I remember in the lessons, they were mostly arguing and fighting with Art and Music and didn't know what each member had to do. Overall I did enjoy their performance a lot.



Group Evaluated: Tereza, Rozita, Kalyani, ATM, Amirreza, Daniyal, Aman and Zainab
Story: Maritopia

I enjoyed their performance from the first second to the last, even though I found it quite short and maybe the ending could've been more developed. I know that this group had many problems with the Art side because at week 7, they only had 2 puppets done and Tereza was going mad. She even had to take some home and create them from scratch even though she was in the music side. I must say that I really enjoyed the sound effects and the musical touches. I especially liked the bird sounds and whirling sound effect (when she was taken to Maritopia). The story was suitable for the target audience because it included princesses, a bad guy and castles. The slides on the PowerPoint also matched with the story and the quality of the pictures was good. Overall they had a good idea and I could see what they originally planned to do. However a very big problem that this group had was collaboration and organization skills. They couldn't communicate properly without arguing with each other and were always behind with the puppets. Though the music was finished on time. They didn't really listen to the group leader, and weren't organized. I would've liked to see more music, instead of sound effects, for example Tereza or Rozita could've been playing the piano or the xylophone to build up more tension in certain parts. When this group started performing, the messed up several times and had to restart. Zainab didn't know when to say what and the wrong puppets were held up at the wrong times. But I must say that when they did start again, they performed really well and it was really interesting to watch.

Week 8 - Rehearsing the Performance

This week was a complete nightmare simply because the Art students from our group hadn't YET finished their puppets nor the video meaning that we couldn't rehearse anything. On top of that, they didn't have enough puppets for the whole story. I found it really unfair how music had finished everything on time and art hadn't and the art group even consisted of more people than music which was only Maria and I. Also one of the art students thought to have lost one of the main character puppets so we couldn't even rehearse the main scenes because they had to go search for the puppet which fortunately though they eventually found. Meanwhile some of the group went to try and find the puppet Maria practiced and Yasmeen did the narration instead of, so I could help Jackson with the video and tell him where each sound effect should go, even though there was a picture of the script with highlighted parts where to add the sound effects. I also had to tell the Art students what puppets to add and make in time for next week or else we wouldn't have had enough. Having said all that, I did really like the puppets that they had made and I could see they spent time and effort into making them even though we still needed more. In my opinion those two lessons were wasted this week, trying to find puppets, creating the video which was supposed to be created and making enough puppets for the show. We did rehearse the performance twice but we did it with missing puppets and without the music because since the art students had to fix their puppets we had to stay in the Art room, so we only had 10 minutes in music. I just really hope that they manage to finish creating all the puppets on time as well as the video. One thing that was positive this week is that we agreed on wearing black shirts during our performance so we blend in and make it seem very professional and nice altogether. Also we wrote down each person's job during the performance:
Federica: Narrator
Yasmeen: Changes the numbers on the keyboard/decreases and increases music/plays the loud boom at the end
Rana: Controls the puppets
Aria: Controls the puppets
Jackson: In charge of the video
Maria: Plays the music
Mario: Spraying the audience with water/walking through the audience in the alleyway part/ covering the projector when James dies


Here is the YouTube link to the video which will be playing during the performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feauture=youtu.be&v=jjKgFauzVmo

Week 7 - Recording our Song

As I said in my last blog post that my goal this week was to complete and have the song finished and sounding good. I can proudly say that Maria and I have achieved this goal! Not only have we achieved this goal but we have solved our two dilemmas that we had last week. On top of finishing the composition of the song, I have worked out and planned when each part needs to start playing and stops playing. Below is pictures of the story with the planned times of when to play what: 

Half way through the lesson, we had finished planning, playing and had even practiced playing the song with the narration, so at this point we thought we had completely finished everything related to the music part of our performance. So we called Ms, Cross to show her our song and see if she liked it or not. When Maria had finished playing, Ms. Cross had the greatest idea ever which completely changed our whole song in a very positive way. On the keyboard you could change the sound/ melody it played so for example you could have the drum sound when you were playing or the flute etc. So she showed us a bunch of different sounds that we could use to make our song fit better with the story and would really give a nice and realistic effect to our performance. We spent the rest of the lesson trying out different sounds while still playing the same notes to see which ones suited the part of the story the best. I am really glad, Ms. Cross showed us this because this helped us improve the whole musical piece so much and at the end, Maria and I were really proud with what we had accomplished in that lesson. 

These are the names of the melodies which we will be using when playing each part

In the second lesson of the week, the original plan was to show the rest of the group which were doing art, what we had done and the finished piece of music and then in return the art students would've shown us their completed puppets and the phantasmagoria video that was going to play as the background with the sound effects we had created two weeks ago. We only managed to do half of what we had originally planned. The art students came up in the music room and we showed them the song, so Maria played and I read the story as well as changed the numbers to change the melody/type of music. The art students really liked the song and said that it fitted the story perfectly so Maria and I were really proud. However when we asked them to show us their puppets and the video, they said they hadn't yet finished them. I was really disappointed and a little bit angry because if we had to rehearse next week then when did they think they were going to show us what they had done. Their excuse for the puppets were that Ms. Turner was absent so they couldn't assemble the puppets, as well some of the puppets weren't finished yet and Jackson was supposed to do the video but she hadn't even started even though I had reminded him of it on the Whatsapp group. I really hope they manage to finish all of the puppets, in time for our rehearsal. 

Here is the whole finished song without narration 

Week 6 - Composing the Song

During this weeks lessons, Maria and I started composing and jotting ideas down for the song which will be played throughout the whole performance. As I said in my previous blog post we researched some already existing pieces of music, listened to some horror related songs and even took ideas from the songs that we composed last year for the Me,Myself and I project and I must say that composing a song is extremely hard! On top of that we were only two doing the music part, so we really had to have put our thinking caps on for these lessons. However, we have managed to compose the whole song that Maria will be playing while I will be narrating the story.  We are thinking to add some other instruments on top so the music doesn't sound monotone, like the triangle at the end (candy land = happy) and the drums (alleyway = scary and spooky). We decided that during the introduction, the song which is going to be played, we wanted to give the affect of it fading away so when Maria is playing I will be decreasing the volume of the keyboard to give the effect of the music vanishing. Even though we have completed the whole musical piece, we still have doubts on some of the parts because the alleyway part (scary) of the song is completely different to the candy land part which is happy and joyful and also if the music is playing then the boom wont have the same effect on the audience. Maria and I were trying to solve these dilemmas and came up with a few solutions like decreasing the volume of the keyboard when the 'boom' part happens or completely stop playing when I will be reading that part. For the other dilemma of joining each parts to create a complete, fluent song, Maria thought of creating other parts to the song but we wouldn't have enough time during the performance for that and it didn't really sound good. So next lesson our goal is to have a finished amazing musical composition ready for the rehearsal we should be having in two weeks.


Below is the video of Maria playing the introduction

Week 5 - Creating the sound effects

This week in music we recorded all of the sound effects that we are going to use during our performance as well as started composing the music that is going to play during the whole story. When we were coming up with the sound effects and creating them - choosing the instruments, how loud, soft etc. we are going to play them. Maria and I decided that these are going to be the sound effects we are going to include in the performance:

• Crowd
• creaking door
• rain and thunder
• echoes/whispering
• click of a computer mouse
• keyboard typing

The sound effects couldn't upload because the files were too big and it took too long, I even tried to convert them and Blogger still didn't accept the videos. 

 Also when we were recording these sound effects we used the internet/ YouTube as a starting point so we could see how a certain effect needed to sound like to be realistic. For example to make the whispers we first searched it up on YouTube and then created our own. To make the thunder and rain I used an instrument called the Ocean Drum and used the tiny balls inside it to make the thunder. We later asked Ms. Cross to listen to the Thunder and Rain effect but we didn't tell her what it was supposed to be and she guessed it, so I think we did a pretty good job. We recorded the crowd effect right after class in the hallways because we thought that since everyone is going to be talking, it's going to give the effect of a crowd.

After we had completed all the sound effects, we started brainstorming ideas for the composition of the song. In the previous lesson when I wasn't there, Maria had come up with a really nice tune and so she practiced that. I searched up some other music composition and Maria tried to play some of her song that she made last year in Music. Also we took a part from Christina Perri A Thousand Years and instead of her playing it slow she played it really fast and it sounded really amazing. However I couldn't upload the video of her playing these pieces because the file was too big and even if I tried to make it smaller it still wouldn't upload.

Note: During the performance I wont be playing any instrument because I will be the narrator, so during the music lessons, Maria and I will be coming up with the song but it will be Maria who will play it on the day of the performance. Since there are only two music students and I will be narrating, Yasmeen from Art will  be playing insturemnt on the day. This does not mean that I didn't do Music and she didn't do Art. We will just be switching when we have to perform.

Week 4 - Start Creating

During this week, we only had one music class because on Thursday it was holiday, however for the only lesson on Sunday I was absent because I wasn’t feeling good at all so I wasn’t there at all. Fortunately, though, I was able to communicate with my group because the last week we created a WhatsApp group to share pictures and remind each other of homework etc. So my team mates uploaded pictures and video of what they did, which I found very mature and helpful to still be on tracks and not fall behind. By what my group told me, Music and Art got separated into the appropriate classes so in the Music lesson, Maria started experimenting with different sounds and keys on the piano and also did a little bit of research. She came up with a really nice melody from the internet which we are going to change and adjust to our story. For example, she suggested we add the triangle for the happy scenes and speed up the melody when things are getting bad in the story. On the art side, Yasmeen and Jackson posted some really nice drawings of Nate and James, as well as the gun and the wallet (very important parts in the story). During that lesson where I was absent, it really showed how mature and responsible my group can be; remembering to upload pictures of the WhatsApp group as well as sending me links. I can’t wait to see what else they came up with next week. I can’t really write much because I wasn’t there but down below are some pictures of the work my group did in class

Sketches of Hero

Nate (The Villain)

Sketches of villain

Kinds of sweets in the Candy Land

The wallet

Week 3 - Creating our Story

This week our main focus was to plan, write and complete our story for the project. We decided that our story be very simple but have a sort of meaning or a moral at the end. The moral of our story is something along the lines of ‘Don’t trust strangers’ or ‘Don’t meet up with someone you have met online’/ ‘Social media is deadly’. Below is a summary of our story:

James (the main character) who is extremely rich and owns many hotels and golf resorts around the country doesn’t have many friends and if he does, they are only friends with him because of his money. So one day he decided to make an account on a website to meet people online. He started talking to this man named Nate and James was so happy that he liked him because of himself that just after two weeks, they decided to meet up at a café. After a while at the café it starts raining heavily and so they find shelter in a dark alleyway away from everyone else. However right from there everything starts to go downhill. Nate which obviously is the villain, demands James for money but James refuses and starts slowly walking backwards. Nate demanded again, however this time Nate takes out a gun. James is very scared and takes out his phone to call the police and starts screaming but nobody hears him. Nate then shoots him. The pistol was raised, it shone so bright, the trigger was pulled, James saw the light…

However, because this story is aimed for families and children, we wanted to end the story with a happy ending. So James sees the light again but brighter this time and wakes up to a candy land with froot loop trees and candy flowers, chocolate waterfalls etc. THE END

Aria, Yasmeen and I wrote the story whilst Jackson and Mario started planning out the two characters James (hero) and Nate (villain) and Maria and Rana started looking up backgrounds for the performance since we are going to combine Phantasmagoria and Puppets.

Our Story

‘Is 5 o’clock okay?’ messaged James. He couldn’t wait to finally go see Nate, his online friend, who he had been talking to for around two weeks. They had planned to go to the newly opened Thunder Café downtown. He couldn’t wait. James was an influential man with a very influential business. He owned a chain of successful 5 star hotels and had various golf clubs around the city. However, he didn’t have many friends and the friends he did have only liked him because of his money. He wanted a change, he wanted someone to like him for his personality, rather than his money. That is why two weeks ago he made the account. He knew this day will change his life forever.

 ‘Yup, sounds great! Can’t wait to see you, dude!’ Nate replied. He was ecstatic and went to fetch his favourite red coat from his cupboard. He bustled out the door, almost forgetting to grab his wallet. Rushing to his new sleek red Porsche, he slipped on a little puddle of water. ‘Oh no my new black pants!’ angry that he was going to make a bad impression on Nate, he looks up at the sky and sees that the sky is a grey as dust, ‘It’s going to rain today,’ he thinks to himself.

After about 10 minutes, James arrived at the Thunder Café and spots Nate already sitting down at a small table. ‘Hey man, how are you?’ asked James and from then they start chatting for hours and hours. Well, what felt like hours. It must’ve been after 30 minutes that it starts raining heavily.  Droplets of rain were splattering across the pavement, in our drinks and on our clothes. The sky was angry and the clouds were crying. People were rushing inside restaurants, shops and houses, eventually the streets became bare, like a desert in them middle of summer. The smell of clean air was stunning and the sound of drops on every object outside was like music to James’ ears. However, those soft notes turned to loud drums. There was thunder and lightning racing across the sky and the big booms were scaring the children.

James and Nate quickly grabbed their jackets and found shelter in a dark alleyway near the train station. It was cold but very dry, spider webs decorated the thick brick walls and every now and then you could spot some rats sprinting to the holes underground. The alleyway was pitch black making it hard for James and Nate to see. Yet they still made out where they were going. There was the smell of urine mixed with expired yoghurt, it was very hard to tell the last time someone had actually come there. The rats and bats were looking at James and Nate like they were some kind of intruders, disturbing them from their daily work. However, it was perfect, no rain and no noise, especially no people, James thought. Though this was exactly what Nate was thinking…

It seemed almost too perfect and that perfect soon stopped. Suddenly Nate halts and demands James to give him his money, ‘I want all the money that you have, NOW!’

‘I don’t understand Nate, I thought you were my friend.’

‘Obviously not, I knew who you were right from when we started talking. I can’t believe you’re so stupid and thought you could find a ‘best friend’ on the internet!’, ‘Now I want the money!’

James starts walking backwards and quickly takes out his phone and dials 999 but Nate was faster than him. He takes out a gun aims for James’s heart and shoots. The pistol was raised, it shone so bright, the trigger was pulled, James saw the light…

He must’ve been dead, of course he was dead, he thought to himself, ‘But why am I still talking to myself?’ James indeed was dead but he had actually been transported to another land. Seconds after James sees the light again, but this time brighter. Gently he rubs his eyes and after adapting to the bright light, realises that he is not in the alleyway or in the café neither at his house. There were colourful froot loop trees, chocolate waterfalls, sour candy flowers. The ground was made of liquorice and the street light of gummy candy, the stop signs of candy cane. It was magical. It was candy land.  

Week 2 - Presenting and Choosing our Groups

During this week, all the groups from Music and Art presented their PowerPoint on their ideas when combining Phantasmagoria and Gamelan Puppets. While each group was presenting, we were given a marking sheet with all the Criteria’s on and we had to assess each group and write down what they did well and improvements etc. I personally think that my group (Maria, Rana, Yasmeen and I) presented quite well, we didn’t need any notes and we weren’t constantly looking at the screen. We knew our information and we were confident while presenting. In addition to that we had a good balance between written information and pictures. We included a variety of media, such as pictures and videos, this made sure that the students who didn’t understand our ideas vocally, they would’ve understood it better visually. To improve our presentation, we could’ve gone into more detail with the skills that we used in English, Music and Art because we were a bit vague on that part of the presentation. However, we did give examples of our previous work done in these classes. Also while choosing the layout of the PowerPoint we made sure that it would suit the topics we were talking about. So obviously we didn’t choose pink or purple or bright colours because Phantasmagoria is very spooky and horror related and the Gamelan Puppetry is done in the dark with very little lighting, that’s why we chose for black and white and really focused on what pictures we put on the PowerPoint.  

In the second lesson of the week we got into our groups. Surprisingly we got to choose our own groups for the project which we didn’t get to do last term. However, if I have to be completely honest I didn’t really like choosing our group. Firstly, because I couldn’t choose by myself, I had to see if my other team mates were okay with the choice. Secondly, I wanted a mix of boys and girls but a lot of the groups were either only girls or only boys and I really wanted to go with Tereza, who I worked really well last term but there were people in her group which I knew I wasn’t going to work well with. In the end my group (Maria, Yasmeen, Rana and I) teamed up with Aria, Mario and Jackson. I have my doubts on Mario and Jackson because they are best friends but I think that if we give them jobs to do to keep them busy, they shouldn’t cause us any trouble. The only disadvantage that we have is that the only music people in the group are Maria and I and the rest are all Art so Maria and I are going to have to work really hard for the music to be good quality.

We only had around 15 minutes at the end of the lesson to just talk to our group and start sharing ideas, so we aren’t entirely sure if we are going to use a ballad or a story but its most likely we are going to choose Yasmeen’s ballad and turn it into a horror story while changing some parts to make it more interesting and realistic. We also decided that instead of just making it scary, we wanted our story to be targeted at little children as well as families. So we are planning to have a nice ending instead of having a cliff hanger or someone dying like in the original ballad. I am looking forward to working with this group especially because we all have different minds and ways of thinking which will be interesting to see what we come up with.

Week 1 - Rotating and Finding Out The New Project

 My name is Federica Ottonello and I'm in year 8, this is my MYP Arts Process Journal. On this blog you will find documented evidence of my learning through The Arts | Drama | Music. This term I am going to be completing this journey in Music. My strongest subject is Drama and I want to develop my skills in Music but especially Art.

Interdisciplinary unit - The Art of Story Telling English Visual Art Music 

 Key Concept: Communication

Related Concept: Narrative

Global Context: Personal & Cultural Expression

Statement of Inquiry: Symbols and conventions used to convey meaning to audiences are influenced by time and space

Inquiry Question: What is the relationship between arts and audiences?

ATLs:  Social collaboration, Research: Media Literacy, Self Management: Organization/Affective
Skills

POWERPOINT - Gamelan puppet show / Phantasmagoria project

Work in Progress

Picture of our plan for the PowerPoint  

Me working on the PowerPoint and adding the finishing touches

Maria organizing her homework and what she needs to do on the PowerPoint

Me planning what goes on each slide

Rana brainstorming her ideas

Adding all the final effects (making it look pretty)

Video showing all of the PowerPoint

Reflection

During the two lessons that I had this week, I got the chance to work with people I had never worked or even wanted to work with, however Ms. Cross and Ms. Turner did give us the choice of picking our own groups and so I decided why not give it a shot. I must admit, I'm extremely happy with my decision and my group and I managed to create a wonderful PowerPoint because we worked together, collaborated very well and most importantly we spoke to each other so ideas we said and everything was taken into consideration; no one got left out and everyone did their part/ completed on time. The task that was given to us was  to pair up with a person who did the same unit as you (in my case it was the Phantasmagoria unit) and I picked Maria. Our second instruction was, with your partner, make a group of four with another pair who did the opposite topic as you. Maria and I chose Rana and Yasmeen who had done the Gamelan Puppets. Our final instruction was to create a PowerPoint which had to include how we were going to create a show telling a story and incorporating both the Gamelan Puppets and Phantasmagoria Shows. I think that our group did a good job because we added quite a lot of information regarding the question but especially  we separated our ideas on different slides so it wouldn't be confusing or chaotic. We also had to include the skills that we think we will use/ develop/ learn during the term. As an extra we decided to add a video which visually explains our ideas so if the students didn't understand what we came up with, we could show them in a video so they understand. Overall I think we worked very well together because we didn't leave everything to the last minute we assigned each of us a slide or two and then emailed each other the PowerPoint. I even created a WhatsApp group so we could share all the pictures and videos we took during the lesson so it would be easy when it came to do our reflections. I am really excited to present this to the class, not only because I'm extremely proud of our work but because I'm extremely happy I got to work with Maria, Rana and Yasmeen and I hope that in future projects I get to work with them again.