First Workshop with Lilie Ferrari

During the first workshop with Lilie Ferrari, we were introduced to the story theories and we wrote all 5 biographies for the characters from the story. We also voted for the possible working title for the drama and learned how to create a character that can be then used in a story. 

The working title: 

The title were: 

1. Unconditional Love

2. Bereavenado

3. Depature

4. Peligro

5. Exit Group 

6. Bereva

7. Bereaving Room

8. While Mirror

9. Good Grief

10. Husk

11. Nevermore

12. Lost & Not Found

13. The Losers

14. The Bereavement Club

15. Not Forgotten

16. The Unbereavables

17. The Unseen

18. Alone

19. Musical/Empty/Talking Chairs

20. First on your Left

21. Dragonfly

22. What's Left?

23. What's Next?

24. Who's There?

25. What Now?

26. What's Left Behind?

27. Elephant

28. Grief

29. Yesterday

30. You said Tomorrow

31. Dolor

32. AD: After Death

33. Hollow Souls 

In the end we were left with: 

1. Bereaving Room

2. Good Grief

3. The Bereavement Club

4. First on your Left

5. Dragonfly

6. AD: After Death

After choosing the names we voted for our favourite ones. 

1. Bereaving Room - 4 votes

2. Good Grief - 6 votes

3. The Bereavement Club - 0 votes

4. First on your Left - 3 votes

5. Dragonfly - 1 vote

6. AD: After Death - 0 votes

During creation of the world for the drama, I came up with the idea of using something used in the drama as the title for it. Such as something that refers to a character, something they say, or a place in which the action takes place. That way, when finding the name for the place where our characters will meet, we suggested the name "Tombland".

We presented it to the crowdfunding team, but we do not know what they think about it just yet.


The world:

We started with creating the world, in which our characters will exist.
We decided to set the story in urban environment. We thought that it would have stronger impact if the person who lost someone feels alone, when surrounded by lots of people.
We also wanted it to be set in a real place, place that our target audience can relate to. It would allow them to see themselves within the story. Researches McQuail and Blumer expended theory of encoding and decoding and published their own in 1972, starting that individuals might choose and use a text for the fllowing purpose: 

• Diversion - escape from the everyday problems and routine, entertaiment. 
• Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other ineraction, e.g. substituing soap operas for fiamily life, "water cooler" moments. 
• Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts. 
• Survaillance - information which could be useful for living e.g. weather reports, financial news and holiday bargains. 

- information given at my 6th Form  

We decided to go for Norwich (city centre) as it is the place we are familiar with. It was easier to decide on the specific location, than looking for place that we did not know.

At first we decided to set the community centre at London Street, but then I suggested that the working title could be the name of the centre and we all thought of a place that would sound just right.
We thought of Tombland.

Tombland is a heart of Norwich. Many people think that the name comes from a burial ground, however it was only used as a market place.

The name itself comes from two Old English words meaning 'open ground', or an empty space.

It has quite interesting stories such as:

The citizens said  that someone from their number had been killed by a monk. They wanted the monk the justice, but the monks refused, saying that their justice system had nothing to do with clerics.
It annoyed the townsfolk, who fired burning arrows from the tower of St George Tombland church, over the walls that protected the cathedral close. The cathedral bell tower was burned, priory buildings damaged, and the church of St Ethelred inside the walls was destroyed.

Those actions  got a band of armed men, roamed the streets of Tombland and Elm Hill, exacerbating the violence.
Edward III was forced to step in, and when he did, he sided with the monks. The citizens of Norwich were fined, and over 30 leaders of the town executed. The king made Norwich agree to build a new gateway to the cathedral close, incorporating a chapel to replace the destroyed church of St Ethelred. The result is Ethelred Gate, built around 1320, with a small chapel over the gateway arch.

http://www.britainexpress.com/counties/norfolk/norwich/tombland.htm

There is also  is a monument to Edith Cavell. During WWI, she helped  Allied servicemen to escape from occupied Belgium. Eventually she got discovered and shot and then brought to Norwich Cathedral for burial.

http://www.britainexpress.com/counties/norfolk/norwich/tombland.htm

Using the misinterpretation of Tombland being a burial ground and the meaning of the word - empty space, we thought it creates the perfect connotation to the drama's story.

Later on we decided on the name of the place where our characters will meet. At first it was the London Community Centre, however we changed it into the Tombland Community Centre. 

We decided that the characters will meet every Wednesday for one hour session starting 7:30pm. 

We said that we will capture five sessions out of 10 of them. 

The Classroom Layout:   

We decided on having four locations: 

1. main room

2. toilet

3. smoking area

4. break room

The chairs will be placed in a circle, where we will place: 

1. 1 counsellor  

2. 5 visions

3. 7 people

4. 4 people talking

After creating the world, we started creating the characters. The first one was the counsellor. 

Before we started, Lilie Ferrari told us to focus on the person, who they are and what their past is. After we had the whole person, we were allowed to think about their lost and reasoning to take part in the session. 

Joel McLoughlin (30), born 1988.  

Name -  Joel McLoughlin
Sexuality -  gay, private about his sexuality, out to his family.
UNI - teacher for one year (2010). Hated it. Moved from London to Norwich to study psychotheraphy at UEA. He was qualified in 2014. He was employed by NBT - National Bereavment Trust Charity.
Work - proffesional counsellor during day, supervision once a week
He is single
Goes on tinder
He has a cat called Chairman Mao
He lives in 2bedroom house in Golden Triangle
He has a sister Sarah married to Justin Evans. She is a housewife and self pro artist. They chave two children: Louisa and Tobby. And a dog - Max.
Joel perents live in London. They are doctors. Still alive.

The reason:
While being a teacher Joel had a partner, Adam Lewis. Adam was close with his twin sister, Lydia. She died in a car crush. Joels, inability to support his partner ended their relationship. Joel decided to study psychotheraphy to be able to help people like Adam. Deep inside he hopes that his partner will go back to him, when he is able to support him. 

My version of the Biography:

JOEL MCLOUGHLIN (30) BORN IN 1988

PRIVATE, EMPATHETIC, RESPONSIBLE

"TALKING IS IMPORTANT - BUT SO IS LISTENING..."

Joel was born in London in 1988 to two doctors. He has a sister called Sarah, who is now married to Justin Evans. They both live in London with thir two children Louisa and Tobby, and their golden retriever Max.  They live a "picture-book" existence in Kensington.

Joel was sexteen when he came out to his family as gay. He was always relaxed about his sexuality, however he also kept it private. In 2010, he was living in Kent with his partner Adam Lewis, working as a teacher. Adam was always very close with his twin sister Lydia. After her death Joel did not know how to support his partner in his grief. His inability to help Adam edned their relationship and completly devasteted Joel. He decided to quit teaching and leave to Norwich to study psychotherapy and EUA. He wanted to learn how to support people like Adam.

In 2014 he became a qualified psychotheraphist. He runs a private practice in his two-bedroom house in the Golden Triangle in Norwich, where he lives alone, with his cat, Chairman Mao.

His another source of income is the NBT (National Bereavment Trust - a charity), who pays him to run a grief counselling group in Tombland Community Centre in the middle of Norwich.
They meet every Wednesday at 7:30pm for free. Most of the participant have been referred by their GP's to the NBT, or they saw publicity for the group and came on their own.

As a counsellor, Joel has a supervisor Helen. She is a middle-aged, highly experienced psychotherapist who Joel sees once a fornight. She is always on the end of the phone if he needs her.

Meanwhile Joel also tries to date someone via Tinder, however he tries to be cereful not to overlap his personal life with his professional work.



When we designed this character, we moved on in a separate groups to design a character. This way we could practice what we learned while designing Joel and do the work quicker by working on all of the characters in the same time. Meanwhile Lilie Ferrari wrote the biography for Joel using the ones that we wrote, again working in pairs.

My friend and I got to write about the 4th talker, who was a lady in her 50s. We meant to only decide on who they are, without the reason why they joined the bereavment group, however my firned and I got very into the design and decided on that as well. After we did that, we all presented our chracters and disscused them with the rest of the group, however we did not mention what we designed for the reason for the character to attend the group meetings. 

After we presented the designed character, we were put into different groups, where we had to write about character that we did not design.

What I wrote with my friend about the lady in her 50s: 

My attempt to write her biography: 


ROSEMARY CLARKE (50) BORN IN 1968


WISE, CARING, HARD WORKING

"KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON..."

Rosemary Clarke (Rose for short) was born in Norwich in 1968 to a shopkeeper and a housewife. 

She was seventeen (1985) when she started her training to become a nurse. In 1987 she met her future husband, Dr Harrold Clarke who at the time was 25 years old, working at the same hospital where Rose had her training. Two years after she became a quliefied nurse, in 1990, she got merried to Harrold. 

One year later they had their only child, John. Rose got very close with her son, after Harrold's death in 2010 at age 48 due to cancer. She kept working as a nurse, hoping to help people like her husband to fight with cancer and to support them and their faimiles. 

She stayed strong after her lost, however her son's death completly devestated her. 
He died in Army in Syria where he got shot. He left behind his wife Ruth and his two children Ebony and Zack. 

Rose wanted to help Ruth and her children, and so she quit her job as a nurse, getting benefits and moving closer to her doughter-in-law's house.  Rose's lost was too overwhelming. Ruth told her about the Tombland Community Centre, asking if she could go there and ask for help. 

After writing all of the biographies, we presented them to each other and the crowdfunding team as well as the world and Joel design. Lastly, we listed all of the deaths. 

More about the audience theories:

- my 6th form notes


The final edit of all of the biographies by Lilie Ferrari:

More about the Narrative and Character theories:

Narrative:

Todorov's Narrative theory 
1. Equilibrium - the setting is established , key characyer(s) are introduced and the storyline is set up.
2. Disruption - oppositional character(s) appear and the story takes a particular direction.
2. Recognition of distruption - the lives of characters and events are interwoven. Tension builds. 
3. Attempt to repair distruption - the highest point of tension after which there is a change in dynamic. 
4. Reinstatement of equilibrium - problems are solved and questions are answered. Equilibrium might be different. 

Propp's Characters
1. Protagonist (hero)
2. Antagonist (villain)
3. Hroine (reward for the hero) 
4. Helper (sidekick)
5. Donor (give the hero something)
6. Mentor (teaches/guides the hero)

Binary Oppositions - Levi-Strauss 

 All narratives are driven foward by conflict that is caused by a series of opposing forces:
good/evil     powerty/weath     youth/ age     light/dark     sanity/madness     peace/war

Barthe's Narrative Codes 
He argues that every narrative is intewoven with multiple codes and identifies five different types. A combination of these codes describes the meaning of the text - if there is only one meaning, they are "closed" texts. If there are multiple ones, they can be described as "open". He describes these five code as following: 

1. Proairetic (action) code - the code of actions. It referes to any action or event which suggests that something else will happen. It isused yo build tension in the audience. 

2. Hermeneutic (enigma) code - the code of enigmas or puzzles. It referes to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hance becomes a mystery to the audience. These make the audience want to watch on, but cacn also frustrate them.

3. Semantic code - this code refers to connotation within the story that gives addditional meaning over the basic denotative meaning.

4. Cultural/Referential code - this code refers to the established base of shared knowladge across cultures and includes elements such as science, history and religion, as well as sayings and cliches.   

5. Symbolic code - this code deals with binary oppositions or themes. The main emphasis is in antithesis where new meaning arises out of opposing and conflict ideas. Often used to create drama and character development.

Gustav Freytag (1863) 

https://archive.org/stream/freytagstechniqu00freyuoft#page/28/mode/2up

1. rising action,                                                                          
2. climax,
3. falling action,
4. catastrophe/resolution 

For example EX Machina ( film that we went to see in the cinema )

 
1. the introduction to the main character, introduction to the mood and introduction to the setting.
We meet with Caleb. The mood is very mysterious. We are far away from others in a forest. It makes he film seem even more mysterious. The viewers want to know what is happening and what is going to happen nex. 

2.  Caleb meets with Ava and interacts with her.
We are introduced to the answer of our first questions whichwas "where are we, ahat is goingto happen?" 

 

3. Caleb falls in love with the machina. She pretends to be in love with him, however he does not know that she is not saying the truth. Caleb wants to help her escape.  

4. The plan works, but for the machina. She escapes. Turns out that she was laying and she wanted to escape from the begining. The experiment was on Caleb not on her. We learn more about the machines and Nathan

5. Ava escapes. Nathan isdead. Caleb is trapped. The situation from the begining of the film changes in 180 defrees.

Joseph Campbell - The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) 

He suggested that most stories old & new follow the same structure.

He called it the monomyth.

Monomyth 

The 12 Stages of The Hero's Journey

1. Ordinary World
The safe place for the hero. We meet they there and we learn about them, their everyday life, their personality and theyway they look at things. It helps the viewers with identify with them.

2.  Call To Adventure 
The adventure begins when they receive a call to action.
It might be direct threat to their safety, their family, their way of life or to the peace of the community in which they live. It starts the challange, where they must do something to be able to go back to their ordinary life.

3. Refusal Of The Call 
Hero may accepts the quest although they will need to face their fears They wll daubt in themselves. When this happens, the Hero will refuse the call and as a result may suffer somehow. They rather go back to their normal lives even if it is not possible for them at the moment. 

4. Meeting the Mentor
The hero will be given something. A lesson, a object or anything that will help them to go back to the thought of completing the quest. They will feel ready to face the challenge. 

5. Crossing The Threshold 
This action signifies the Hero's commitment to his journey. They cross the line between their ordinary life and the world or actions they have not meet with before. Something that they were scared of before or somethingthey they have not had done before.

6. Tests, Allies, Enemies

Hero must overcome each challenge they are presented with on the journey towards theie ultimate goal. The Hero needs to find out who can be trusted and who can't. They might meet enemies and all those little chalanges will build their skills to be able to face the main goal. The obsticles they face, mistakes they make and every victory they have, bring the viewers closer to them.

7. Approach To The Inmost Cave

Thats where the tension for the audience is build. The hero must face some kind of a greater challange, where they will use the skills they learned before. They may daubt in themselves and reflect on what they have gone through so far.

8.Ordeal
Hero faces the hardest challange. It is the most important part of their life as everthing impotant to them is put on a line. It is the point where hero must "die" to be "reborn".

9.  Reward (Seizing The Sword) 
The hero survives and comes out with some kind of a prize. The yare stronger than before and ready dor the last part of their journey.

10. The Road Back 
The moment before the Hero finally commits to the last stage of their journey may be a moment in which they must choose between their own personal objective and that of a Higher Cause.

11. Resurrection 
The final battle for the hero. 

12. Return With The Elixir 
Hero goes back to their ordinary life. They grew as a person. It represent three things: change, success and proof of his journey. 
http://www.movieoutline.com/articles/the-hero-journey-mythic-structure-of-joseph-campbell-monomyth.html