mike lee

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Leigh

Mike Leigh, April 2008
Born	20 February 1943 (age 69) Brocket Hall, Welwyn, Hertfordshire, England [1]
Spouse	Alison Steadman (1973-2001)

Mike Leigh a well known British director of film and theater. in the 60s  he was a play writer and director for example "nuts in May" . in the mid 70s and 80s his career went into making  films s for bbc television  such as "all or nothing". he won best director in cannes for the film "naked" in 1993.

Leigh doesn't use a script but has a basic scene written down and characters the ideas come more easily with the improvisation of the actors this develops the scene   .he himself works with the actors helping them to get used to improvisation and the character making the character come alive you could say. he tells them to base it on someone that they know well some one with a unique way of walking speaking facial gestures and body actions this makes the character easier to develop.

("The world of the characters and their relationships is brought into existence by discussion and a great amount of improvisation – that i s, improvising a character. And research into anything and everything that will fill out the authenticity of the character." It is only after months of rehearsal, or 'preparing for going out on location to make up a film http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Leigh         ',) 

13th september

today we did some more improv but with mike lee a director who specialises in improvisation firstly we had to pick three people and write down there charecteriatic habits i chose:

Amy - pouts talks a bit like towie a proper sussex girl struts alot and on the hip bitchy confident confrontational into gossip.

George - pouts shakes his head struts says ok alot confitent runs her hands through his hair quite dramatic sweetie with a nervous laugh 

Julie- a typical dancer loud bubbly perky however she hates children ans is quite scary and sarcastic but kind hearten lots of energy struts lot.

we then worked in twos and discussed our characters i worked with grace and we made a combination of all our characters together. as a class we got given a scenario that we were on a coach stuck near the Olympics waiting for the traffic to stop we did this as a improv scene all with our made up characters this was really fun and i really enjoyed it. our constructive comments form Rachel that we need to tone down the drama and me quieter to let the scene take itself along.

musical betec

12th september 2012


musical theatre


we started the lesson with a warm up  and a general chat to see how everyone is and then we started with a exercise called "what are you doing". the game started of with a person frozen in a position either left form the last scene of impro or a new pose to link each scene together creating the structure of each scene it also  gives the second person time to come up  with an idea for a scene.  the game has two  rules : "exception and yes" and the scene must always contain a relationship between the two characters  ad a scenario. the scenes worked best if they were realistic situations and had both characters going with it.
we then  added another person to each scene and the excersis changed to freeze tag now people could freeze a scene if they felt the scene was loosing effort and dragged bit having three people for me changed the dynamics and actually made the give and take a lot harder.

we then got given a map and we had as  a group design our own town we then came up with the basic details of a character, my character was twenty one called maria who owned most of the east side of the village including the hospital shes was quite a snoot stuck up character.
we then had Emily's  character who linked each of the scenes together as a taxi person as she goes round she stops at different scenes whilst the rest of us stayed in freeze frames in character.
our scene was about me being stuffy to a employee and telling i want impressed by scene included Maisie  Emily and Ben.

i have learnt that is is difficult to think on the spot but i really enjoy freeze tag the feeling of  being spontaneous  i have learnt im confident enough to put my self forward instead of being picked i also learnt that improv is give and take and you have to just go with the scene also giving the other person some control to. i  know this will help in the long run to ease any nerves about mucking up and i think it will also help with cews at the end of then sentences making sure the pace of the scene keeps going, the pace in a scene means everything as it can make ascene go from being fun and exciting to unrelistic and uncomfortable.
my strength - im good at thinking on the spot and charecterisation
my weakness - i need to go for more realistic situations instead of creating drama because this can make a scene run out of ideas.