This unit is based on the theme about conflict. It’s manly about the conflicts of war and the conflicting relationships between the two most important characters in this unit, Billy and Tommy. To me conflict means ‘not getting along with each other resulting each other being violent to each other, mentally or physically. ‘ In this unit I show this when Billy and Tommy have been conscripted to go to war. I show them showing there emotions about each other by using a variety of drama techniques such as: slow motion, being abstract, the use of still images, thought tracking and many more. Lesson 1
I started off by brainstorming all the words I would associate with conflict. These are all the words that I chose: I chose these words because I think that conflict has many effects on a person and some of them are the words that I chose above. I chose these words and made a short piece of mime role-play with my group based on these words. I used slow motion at the start of the mime role-play, because it gives a bigger effect and a good way to use facial expression. Also slow motion helped me concentrate more on conflict as it marked the moment of the scene. (Tommy showing his true side to how he feels about Billy).
I also used thought tracking. I think this is the best technique to use when working with the theme, conflict. Because while using thought tracking I felt as if I was with conflict with someone, and I thought of the line ‘I will get you back for this’. This line made me think of revenge. I think it links very well with conflict because then I can show the true side of the conflicting emotions that a character feels about another. (Billy and Tommy). In this short piece of mime my facial expressions were of a happy person, because my partner (Ameen) who played Tommy felt that Billy was everything to him.
This made me feel happy for him. However when I and my partner used thought tracking, Tommy and Billy felt different about each other and this changed our emotions from love to hatred. By now Tommy and Billy were showing each other there conflicting personalities to each other. They weren’t the same character as I started off them to be. I had to do a short piece of work, showing four linked still images on Tommy and Billy’s personalities. In this short piece of work I chose images of both characters, when they were young, what they used to do in the childhood.
In this scene I used a varied composition of facial expression. In Image 1, I chose the image of being blood brothers. I chose this image because it shows Billy and Tommy’s love for each other. I over exaggerated my facial expression because it was a very important moment in there lives. My body language was that I was a shy, because I was playing Billy, who is known to be shy. This is because his dad died in the war. The images that were showed were based on physical, social and mental emotions. As I was playing Billy I had very much to say. This is because I used the idea of thought tracking with my group.
I think that this worked really well because thought tracking controls a persons mind and his emotions and also sends the message to the audience in a very strong way. I used the use of slow motion in our piece to link the four images as I marked the moment in each image of the emotion that was being expressed. The words that were most important in our piece were from the first image were Billy and Tommy said “Together Forever”. This shows the audience that the characters mean a lot to each other and the depthless of their love and friendship. Lesson 2 Turning from a man to a solider. The turning point for both of these characters lives.
In 1914 every man between the ages of 18-41 had to be conscripted and go to war. This included both Billy and Tommy. Both of these characters have different opinion on going to war. Billy doesn’t want to go to the war because his dad died in the war and his mother would be scared to lose another member of the family. However Tommy wants to go to the war because his dad was in a war and he survived in it. Tommy believes that if he goes to the war he will make his dad proud and his country. So did many other Billy and Tommy’s. In this lesson I had to “use spontaneous improvisation to explore how Billy and Tommy’s attitudes were to conscription.
” I started off with a still image and discussed how we were going to do the spontaneous improvisation for 1-2 minutes. This is what I showed. My partner for the still image was Ameen. He played the character Tommy and I played Billy. Tommy’s image was of a figure that was proud and had just won something. His status and body language was high and positive. On the other hand, Billy showed a negative attitude. When he received the news his facial expression showed a man who feared something would happen to him. “I don’t want to go to the war. I don’t want to turn out like my dad!
” This is the line that I kept on saying with fear. I was scared to go to the war. In the spontaneous improvisation different groups showed different ways/ideas of how Billy and Tommy felt and dealt with being conscripted. The group that I liked and stood out for me were Group 2 (Lola, Jack, Tahir, Christina and Anthony). They used a multitude of techniques which included spontaneous improvisation, facial expression and split screen. They clearly showed how Billy and Tommy felt about conscription and did most of the scene in Unison. This made it very clear to the audience exactly what they were trying to show.
