Building our piece

http://www.quora.com/Does-life-really-flash-before-your-eyes-when-you-die

This article was really interesting and useful to explore it shows factual evidence and personal accounts of life memories flashing before the eyes of those near to death. This article helped me to be a bit more clued up on our subject matter but also gave me a few more ideas on things to add to the piece.

Continuing to devise resulted in changes on previous work as we were constantly responding to the site and coming up with new ideas, this meant seing what worked and what didn't work as well and making this better. At first we had begun to get annoyed with the continuous passers by from the musical theatre strand as it would 'desrupt' our performance but we came to realise that we should just let it happen as it added to the concept of every day life and sounds and was actually visually effective when watched from the audience seating area. 

Audience benefits: 

• compact snug atmosphere 

• performance space opens out 

• the space is almost built for the audiences visual and Audible benefits 

• familiar relationship of space with audience member as it is similar to a secret cupboard or hiding place 

• strong acoustics 

We also made the role of the man split so that both actors could get an equal chance at living and dying in the space but also so the could represent the man at different stages in his life. 

Techniques and Factors

We started to put out ideas on it's feet as we had a solid idea '7 seconds before you die when your life flashes before your eyes'. The 7 aspect lead us to pick 7 main or important parts of this particular mans life that he and the audience would see in front if them as he died. We brainstormed what we counted as important moments in our lives: 

• Birthdays 

• Friends 

•Arguments or fallings out 

• falling in love or being in a relationship 

• Embarrasing moments 

• Foods 

• Illness 

•Activities 

We then from here put our important moments in chronological order this started with the man falling down the stairs as a young boy which when put on it's feet, incorporated a lot of architectural features of the space from the above sound and use of the stairs to the resulted falling if the young boy in the door frame for the audiences view. 

We also discussed the use of Multi media as we agreed this was very important in the respect that it would add layers to our performance and help with visual and audible effectiveness. As it is the mans life flashing before his eyes we agreed that it would just be a huge wave of every day sounds and noises that would be all most deafening to achieve this I downloaded the app Hokusai and began recording and mixing together sounds such as

•train announcements 

•people talking 

•people walking 

•people laughing 

• repetition of words such as Love, Dad, Marry Me 

- these repeated words where to be an audible representation of important moments in the mans life so that we weren't just focusing on the visual side 

• Screaming 

• White Noise 

We also decided to add a physical theatre aspect to the piece to represent the relationship between the man and his daughter. I feel like we are being very broad with our techniques and incorporating lots of different theatre approaches and factors. I am really pleased with how the devising process is going so far and find the freeness to completely respond to a space with raw and original ideas coming from your company really inspiring. 

Exploring the space

To start our devising process we picked the topic 'death' and decided to just brainstorm some ideas. We thought of three main topics that we liked revolving around death:

• most prominent moments in life 

• the way you die 

•watching your life flashing before your eyes  

We decided that we would build a performance in that space built around those three topics linked to death but first we had to become one with our site. 

We removed all the clutter from inside the space this way we could get the best possible use out of it. We explored sounds that could be made in and around the space, architectural features we could use and the space itself from an audience perspective, here are some notes made from exploring the space: 

• Chlostrophobic atmosphere representative of the small amount of time left in a life before death

•Green light if dark enough can reflect shadows onto the wall opposite 

• Footsteps can be heard from the stairs above space 

• Smaller and lower area can be used for the audiences seating 

• Only around 3 audience members for the best audience experience 

• Door frame could be representative of a window into a persons life, frames a possible performance nicely 

• an amazing space for a mental perspective 

This space creates a very intimate feel so it is only fitting that we do a personal subject or story that is detailed and allows the audience to feel engaged and a part of the peice.