Director’s vision – Planning sheet.
Use the following to structure and plan your presentation.
Sequence
Introduction
Content
Establishment comments:
The playwright, text, style, contemporary context and your purpose,
submission to theatre company for consideration to include in upcoming
program. You may choose to establish with a statement or quote from
Betzien or Goodes.
Now write your first draft of this info.
Dramatic
context
Begin by examining existing stylistic conventions applied to the text and
then begin to reveal your own vision which overlays this.
Are you intending to follow conventions that are indicated or are you
intending to shift the stylistic approach to a different or more specific
‘imagining’ in your version of the play?
Your thoughts: DON’T FORGET TO JUSTIFY CHOICES
Accompanying multi modal
What stimulus is required to
display simultaneously with
the intro content?
Slides that include key
points?
Hyperlink to a short video?
Prezi presentation?
Images should be sourced
from existing production of
the play.
Juxtapose images drawn /
composed by you.
Intertextual
references
Elaborate upon the specific conventions that will be employed to establish
your stylistic approach, there may be characterisation true to realism,
staging in keeping with Epic theatre, projections that connect to verbatim
true stories / Australian Gothic imagery and or music that alludes to a film,
e.g. Picnic at Hanging Rock. Your choices need to be outlined AND JUSTIIED
FOR COMMUNICATION OF DRAMATIC MEANING
Write your thoughts: JUSTIFY
Transformation
of text (to
include
contemporary
social
awareness).
Thematically, what do you envision in the production and elements within
your scene?
How will your thematic priorities be embedded in the artistic choices? How
will you reveal a deeper psychological emphasis on issues of identity,
abandonment or abuse for example? If Gothic emphasis is your intention,
how will you maximise mystery and the supernatural and disturbing? Are
you wanting to accentuate social comments, examine the social norms of
belonging, which leads to Epic transformation of some conventions?
Your thoughts: JUSTIFY
Hyperlinks to the different
texts to be used for stimulus
form transformation, clip
from film, audio, music video,
soundbite from an interview.
Power point with key choices
identified.
Mood / motif /
symbol.
As an extension of this, consider the manipulation of motif (perhaps the use
of a ghost chorus (the girls who are missing) perhaps a revelatory statement
from the central characters that could be repeated at key moments or
projected for audience enhancement of the dramatic meaning (we are
doomed) the pan pipes haunting melody at key moments of tension.
Your thoughts: JUSTIFY
Stage / Setting
/ Costume /
Audio / Lighting
etc.
Consider the essential addition of creative elements of space, place, role
(status, attitude and purpose), mood, contrast, narrative tension, internal
and external worlds?
Your choices outlined in detail. JUSTIFY
Drawings or images from
other productions or staging
designs.
Play audio (you may have had
it playing softly the whole
time)
Sketches and designs either
found or created MUST be
displayed to give clear
indication of choices.
Acting.
Voice and
movement.
The human element on stage needs to be given specific examination.
Dramatic meaning through narrative, the story, is conveyed through the
characterisation and you need to ask yourself how you want the
performance to offer this to the audience through acting technique. What
are the commonly employed traits of characterisation within the implied
styles of the text? Will you adopt these approaches in the portrayal of the
roles? Will you have the actors move toward a particular convention,
Realism and the method or presentational and stylised, exaggerated and
absurd? How will this appear in the use of voice and movement (as
character and in the space)
Your intentions: JUSTIFY
Wrap it up.
Give a brief conclusion that restates the strengths of your vision.
SUBMITT A COMPLETE COPY OF ALL YOUR NOTES AND REFERENCE YOUR
RESOURCES ACCORDINGLY.
You may have pre-recorded
videos of prepared
demonstration with actors
used to show your intentions.
(only use a few lines or even
a single line delivery to
demonstrate)
You may want to include a
video clip of a professional
actor who is performing in
the manner that is
appropriate to your choices.
(Cate Blanchett in Hedda
Gabler, An Actor Prepares)
Summary of essential
components of your design
need to be reiterated in a
PowerPoint or a takeaway
handout.