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Showing posts from March, 2018

Frumpy Monkey Legacy?

The performances went well, and the audience seemed to enjoy the stories and our interpretations of them. We would like to continue Frumpy Monkey, and extend the life of the stories we told.  We recorded the performance again in the studio, so that we had more control of lighting. The venue was quite dark, and so we wanted to film the performance again with better lighting. Performing without an audience was slightly strange, but it meant that we didn't have to worry about transitions between scenes, and we could do as many takes as we needed. However, we had to be quick when filming, and be careful when we filmed scenes because there were interviews in the studio, and we had to move everything a couple of times before we were able to begin filming. Luckily, we finished just before we needed to be quiet again for the interviews.  To take up less space in the studio, we decided to film with a green screen backdrop rather than back project.  The film will be edited, and I hope to

Frumpy Monkey - The Performance

We didn't have a lot of time to rehearse in the venue because the day before the event was mainly devoted to installation and set up. However, we stayed late and made sure to rehearse in the venue, mainly to work out the transition between scenes. We needed to know which side of the stage each prop should be, and we couldn't decide this without seeing how much space we would have each side of the stage to store our props.  The day of the performances came, and we were nervous but excited too. We would FINALLY have an audience! It was the moment of truth. Would people understand the stories? Would they find it funny? We were really unsure whether our humour would translate, having not performed it for an audience yet (other than a few friends), and we hoped that people would understand the stories with no background information other than our speech before each performance. The stories are simple, and we designed the scenes around the props, many of the scenes not even includi

Documenting South London Story Lab 18

I decided to give myself the job of documenting the event in the Camberwell venue. I have been enjoying taking photos throughout the project for Frumpy Monkey, and for previous projects I have taken photos to share with people - for example the cinema event. I thought it was a good idea because we will be doing two Frumpy Monkey performances during the day, and so for the rest of the day I will have time to observe and document the event.  I began using the DSLR camera I borrowed to film our performance, however I decided to use my phone instead to take photos. Although the photos aren't as good quality, I found that it was really hard to get good photos using the DSLR because the back of the venue was very dark, whereas the front of the venue had lots of light due to the windows. This meant it was hard to get the settings correct on the camera, and whilst changing the settings for different parts of the venue, I found that I was missing important interactions with visitors, and

Outreach Ambassador - fun workshop with young children

I love working as an outreach ambassador. This time, I got the opportunity to work with some primary school children, who came to Chelsea College of Arts for the day for a workshop. Although it was bad timing, right in the middle of a very busy project, I decided to help out, and I'm so glad I did.  The children were in groups, and were set a challenge to build a shelter in Chelsea's banqueting suite, using cardboard boxes. It had to fit at least 3 kids inside (and not the smallest ones!), but the more that could fit inside the better! It was really fun to help out, and my group all managed to squeeze inside their shelter. I enjoy working with children, especially creatively. I would love to do more workshops like this.  In the afternoon, the kids were asked to create drawings based on their feelings of being in a shelter, or things that are important to them. It was really lovely to watch them sit and draw, and I got to turn their drawings into a simple stop motion animati

SLSL and Frumpy Monkey Promotion

As part of the promotions team, I wanted to promote Frumpy Monkey as well as the event as a whole. After working with South London Gallery and Big Family Press for the first part  of the project, I stayed in contact with them and kept them informed of our event. After Naomi designed our Frumpy Monkey poster, I organised for us to get the poster riso printed at South London Gallery. We will give them away to the audience after our performance so that the story can continue to be shared within the community.  By keeping in contact with Ben from  South  London Gallery, I was also able to invite him, and ask him to invite the children from Big Family Press, which was an important thing for us because we will be performing stories written by four of the children involved in Big Family Press, and so it will be really great if they could come along and see their stories come to life. I plan on keeping in contact with Ben, and we plan on sending him the recording of our performance so that i

Prop Making and Painting - Sticking to Schedule and Sharing Skills

As always, we were ambitious, and gave ourselves a lot to do. But we also had a schedule, and we stuck to it! We planned to make all the props and gum tape first, having all props made before we move on to painting, which helped us keep our colour palette consistent. Each day, we discussed what we needed to do, which really helped us to meet the deadlines we set ourselves. We were also very considerate that some people had less experience working in 3D than others, so we worked to our strengths and helped each other when needed. Naomi took on the HUGE task of making a working shopping trolley, whilst the rest of us took on smaller props. Some props were individually made, whilst others were a result of collaboration - for example the telephone was made by Naomi and I.  My favourite part of making props is always the painting! I love to see them come to life once colour is added, and I enjoy adding in the details. I am good at painting neatly but quickly, so I helped to do a lot of th