Ghosts in Film

For my Film project, I had to portray the ghost of Duke Otto Von Klausner III, in which I created my own character and created my own hair, make-up, and stylized movement.

Earlier in the year, we did a scare workshop in which we learned different physicalities and traits to portray supernatural/non-human characters. When creating my character for this film project, I drew from the skills that I developed in the workshop, as it really helped me to create a unique physicality for the ghost. I felt like I had a lot of independence with creating my own character for this project, as Jaques, the film student I was working with, didn’t give me any specification as to what he wanted from my character.

As part of developing my character, I have also researched the use of supernatural ghosts in films – to look at their physicality, and also their hair and make-up, so that I can take inspiration for my own hair and make up.

One character that I like the design of, is Samara from the ring. Although I haven’t seen it, the ring is an iconic horror film in which people are killed by Samara 7 days after watching a haunted video clip. I think she looks scary and mysterious as her hair covers most of her face, and the parts of her face that you can see are disturbing.

 

 

I like how this makeup contrasts samara’s make up because it isn’t gory, and also the hat helps to hide parts of the face. The white eyes and large mouth gives the supernatural scary feel to this character.

 

 

A lot of the ghosts I have looked at use similar make-up techniques, or just don’t look scary. I will use these as inspiration to create the look of my character.

 

 

The Importance of Warming Up

Warming up for rehearsals and shows is a key element of the process, as it gets you mentally, physically, and emotionally prepared, and helps you get into character.

Throughout the course of this year, we have learnt a lot of different kind of warm ups. In singing, we have learnt warm ups that improve diaphragm control, diction, and expression. In dance, we have learnt warm-ups to help improve our flexibility and stamina for when it comes to performing.

Throughout the process of rehearsing and performing this musical, we have warmed up as a group, to help improve our collaboration, and I have also warmed up by myself, to help me get into the right mindframe to rehearse, perform, and to help me get into character.

Stage vs Screen Acting

For this collaboration project, we have had to develop and expand our acting skills to suit stage and screen acting.

As someone who has done a lot of stage acting, but has also learnt a lot of actor practitioner theory over the course of the year, I feel as though I am prepared to adapt my acting skills to suit what is required of me.

For the Musical theatre project, I will be using skills such as over-exaggerating and over-expression to express myself on stage, whereas in contrast, I will be drawing from more naturalistic actor practitioner theory such as Stanislavsky for the film project.

Hair, Make-up, and Costumes

As part of creating our own characters, we had to do our own hair and make up for the show. As I don’t often do a lot of hair and makeup, I wasn’t very sure what to do with my own hair and makeup, though I have done a lot of stage makeup before for different productions.

I have also looked at what fashion was like in the 1960s, even though we have already got costumes. I was also looking at the hair and makeup, to get inspiration for my own.

the skirts are just at the knee, and the colors are quite bold. The makeup is quite simple, and the hair is straight with a simple curl at the end.

I then looked at the costumes, hair, and makeup from past productions from the show;

The hair looks bigger in this final picture, and the makeup just looks like simple stage makeup. They will have to be able to move in the costumes, and they are all quite a high neck and the skirts end just below the knee. the hair is all mostly out of their faces.

I also looked at other musical productions set in the ’60s for an idea of bold hair, make-up, and costumes; Hairspray was one musical that came to mind.

Similar to the other pictures, the costumes are all bold colours, and the skirt comes just below the knee. Hairspray is known for big hair, and the make-up also doesn’t look too complex.

 

When thinking about my own Hair, I liked the hair down with a curl at the end, but thought this wouldn’t be practical with all of the dancing in the production, so in the first dress run, I decided to have my hair in a low ponytail, with the curl at the end. We were then told that all of the girl’s hair wasn’t high enough, so a lot of us then decided to backcomb our hair at the top and wear it really high.

 

For my Makeup for the show, I just wore natural makeup to accentuate my features so they could be seen in the bright stage lights.

 

Casting Celebrities in Musicals (Star Casting)

In recent times, Celebrities have been cast in Musicals to boost ticket sales. 

“With the rise of celebrity castings across the West End comes with it a rise in celebrity let downs. In these tight economic times, Producers are latching onto the mass appeal of ‘star names’ to revive a fledgling show or to pull new audiences into the theatre. In many cases these stars are professional in every respect and provide a certain boost for the theatre industry, turning a middle of the road play into a popular phenomenon overnight. With this power comes great responsibility, as audience members then expect to see the star they have travelled or paid over the odds to see, and in cases where the celebrity becomes bigger than the show, this can lead to mass disappointment.” https://www.cheaptheatretickets.com/the-drama-of-celebrity-casting/

Although this article is referencing the west-end, this can still be an issue in Broadway. Star casting can become a problem if the ‘star’ in question is untalented, and leaves the audience (who have probably just come to see the star) disappointed. So my question is; did the casting directors in How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying do this?

It’s clear to me that the actors who played J Pierrepoint Finch in the 2011 revival were all celebrities; Daniel Radcliffe, the star of the Harry Potter films, Darren Criss, a star of Glee (a popular musical TV show), and Nick Jonas, A Disney channel star and idol, and (at the time) an ex-member of the Jonas brothers.

But the question is; were they cast solely on their celebrity status, or their ability?

Watching back this video of Daniel Radcliffe performing in Brotherhood of man, it’s clear to me that Radcliffe has talent. And attesting to Criss’ and jonas’ talent, Criss was awarded the Broadway.com Audience Choice Award for Favorite Replacement for his performance in this role, and Jonas was nominated for a 2012 Broadway Beacon Award for his performance in this role.

So although Star casting can be harmful to a production, if the star in question has talent, they can be a talented asset to the production that increases ticket sales.

Choreography

Bob Fosse (1927-1987), who choreographed the original Broadway production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, was a dancer, choreographer, director, and actor. His work was predominantly musical theatre based, and he created his own style of jazz, popularly known as ‘fosse’, which he developed over decades, and was developed from his own personal experiences when dancing;

• his dances includes a lot of hats, as he lost his hair really young
• he wore gloves as he didn’t like his hands
• he was Pidgeon toed (feet curved inwards) and he included a lot of this in his choreography

In our production of How to Succeed, we have taken inspiration from his dancing style and incorporated it onto our own show;

• in coffee break, a lot of the chorus members are in what is commonly referred to as a ‘fosse huddle’
• in a secretary is not a toy, a lot of the movements at the end are sharp and precise, which is similar to fosse’s style.

 

For our own production, we took some of the choreography from the 2011 Broadway revival to incorporate into our own show. Rob Ashford directed and choreographed the 2011 revival. He is a successful choreographer for Broadway, the west end, film, and tv, winning Tony awards, Olivier awards, Emmy awards, desk drama awards, and outer critics circle awards.

For Brotherhood of man, we took inspiration from this video of the revival choreography. This is very similar to the choreography we used in our production, as it’s iconic as a final song – one thing we developed into it though was the additional chorus movements.

One thing I notice when watching this video back is the professionalism – obviously the singing, dancing, and acting is going to be of the highest quality because this is a Broadway production, but the synchronicity between performers is something that I strive to achieve, and is only accomplished with intensive rehearsals.

 

Throughout the history of this production, from the original Broadway production, the film, the 1995 revival, and the 2011 revival, the choreography has developed with the times.

 

 

 

The Success of How to Succeed

I recently listened to a podcast called “the Success of How to Succeed,” in which the creators of the UK’s only independent musical theatre podcast talk about How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; which they say is their favorite musical of the 20th century (a big compliment coming from someone who critically analyses and reviews musicals for a living). This podcast is insightful to me because it gives me another (critical) perspective on the musical, as well as another British point of view of an American musical.

 

He first goes to talk about the creation of the musical, how it’s not uncommon for a musical to be based off a book, but it is unusual to be based off a book with no plot; like Shepard Mead’s 1952 “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” and how the writers for the musical used the name J Pierrepont Finch as a play on J Pierpont Morgan, who was a successful businessman on the turn of the 20th century.

They go on to discuss how this musical is still relevant to Modern day, and modern office culture, and it’s relatable to office workers, which is why it was (and still is) successful. I Agree with this because a lot of office workers will relate to the content in the musical.

The talkers of the podcast agree that this is Frank Lesser’s 2nd best musical, which is second best to guys and dolls, and compare the musicals; the main difference being that the characters in How to Succeed are a lot faker; but also there a lot of parallels concerning the moral positions of the male characters, and the female characters actually being good at their jobs.

The podcasters discuss how cynical the main character is, but it makes it work because we are still rooting for Finch from the beginning, and we still want him to succeed, even though he stabs backs of others in the company and leads people to believe lies (though doesn’t explicitly lie). Finch has to be a likable character for the musical to work, otherwise, it isn’t enjoyable.

 

They then go on to talk about the blatant sexism in the production. They compare it to the tv show Madmen, a tv show set in offices in the 60s (of yet I haven’t seen) and how that’s a comedy that appreciates that sexism is a thing of the past, and in comparison, makes h2s look old fashioned in terms of how it treats women.

The song “a secretary is not a toy” blatantly addresses the sexism within the musical, though in contrast to our production, they discuss how they have seen a version in which Mr Bratt is portrayed as a gay man. I thought this was an interesting interpretation of the character, as he sings the song that tells the other men not to objectify women; I watched a youtube video of this portrayal, and I think it works really well in a modern capacity because it brings a twist on the original production.

they also talk about the sexism in cinderella darling and happy to keep his dinner warm – her whole character is based around the relationship she wants with finch, and her aspirations are, frankly, sexist on her end, but she knows this, his “understandable neglect” in happy to keep his dinner warm, and she’s happy for this to happen.

Then, the podcasters bring up a relevant point. they argue that in ‘been a long day’, it shows finch’s true thoughts, and through this, we can see it’s not a romance on his end, and he doesn’t really care about the romantic relationship.

how sincere is he about the relationship, if he only shows affection at the end of act 1 towards rosemary? according to the “how to succeed” book that finch reads throughout the show, he needs a wife to be successful; is rosemary just another conveniently ticked box to him? They argue that finch’s epiphany at the end of act 1 is completely ‘out of the blue,’ and that he only does so because his career is in peril. They then go on to suggest; is J Pierrepont Finch a gay man in 1961? they argue that, yes, it’s a stretch, and it would make his entire character much more unlikeable, as he has just used rosemary for the entire course of the musical. They mention that he seems “sexless” (which references Smitty’s joke that the opposite of a businessman is a sex maniac, a joke she makes after rosemary says he didn’t make a pass at her after their date,) and that he has always been portrayed by “sexless, boy scout type” actors; robert moorse, daniel radcliffe, matthew broderick. then, maybe he is asexual? the point is, it doesn’t matter, as he isn’t tempted by anyone; he only cares about his career, and he needs a wife to succeed.

 

 

Listening to this podcast has helped me define the musical’s place in history, and has also helped me to question the entire plot of the musical, as well as the development of the characters, and key plot points and why the musical is the way it is. It has helped me develop a deeper understanding of the musical, and I can now use this knowledge to help me develop my character for the musical.

 

 

 

The Importance of Marketing

As an actor in a production with a low budget and little resources, it was important for me to adopt other production roles, such as marketing. The majority of the actors helped market the event, by sharing Facebook and other social media posts, handing out flyers and posters, attending the flash mob, wearing their promotional shirts, and simply telling others about the show.

I researched how to market a production and I came across an article about how The Book of Mormon marketed their show when it first came onto the West-End from Broadway. https://www.officialtheatre.com/blog/book-of-mormon-marketing/

Although some of these points are irrelevant in terms of marketing for How to Succeed, as we don’t have a big budget, It helped me understand how significant social media is when promoting a show, even locally, so when promoting this show, I used social media to reach as many people as possible. This article has also helped me understand the difference between promoting on Twitter and Facebook, and how to differ the content for the different target audiences. For example, I used Twitter to promote the performance to my friends by retweeting the original Kendal College tweet, and on Facebook, I invited my family by inviting them to the Facebook event and sharing college’s event. Everything else in the article is irrelevant to the promotion of How to Succeed as it is about keeping the audiences coming, but we are only performing 5 shows.

 

I also read an article on top ten marketing tips for promoting a theatre show; https://uktheatre.org/who-we-are-what-we-do/uk-theatre-blog/arts-marketing-top-10-tips/

This article says that you should understand the work (ie the musical) and the target audience before you promote the show; I know the work because I have been rehearsing it for months, and I know the target audience, which is friends/family of the people involved, and the local area (in this case, Kendal.) This article also says that I should understand what the audience will benefit from watching the performance, in this case, the performance will be funny as it’s a comedy, and generally enjoyable to watch. There is a quote in the fourth point in this article, “The experience of an event begins for its audience when they first hear about it and only finishes when they stop thinking about it”. This has developed my understanding of marketing because now I know that how the audience find out about the performance is still a significant part of the experience.

 

Here is how I helped to promote the show.

• Sharing social media posts. This was an important one for me as I have all of my friends and family on things such as Facebook, so by sharing the college event, they could all see things such as the date, the time, the venue, and how much tickets were.

 

• Wearing promotional shirts. All of the actors were able to wear their promotional shirts around college, so all of the other students knew that there was a show. The shirts had our names, our character/role in production, and on the back it had details for the show including the dates, where it was, and where you could get tickets. This technique is often used with Amateur shows because they will also have a website and a number on the back of the shirt for people to ring if they want tickets, which is good promotion that targets the local community.
• taking part in the flash mob. this was a goo doppourtinuty for the local community to see a snippet of a few of the numbers, to interest them in buying tickets. at this event we also handed out flyers, wore our promotional shirts, and went out to talk to the local community, where they would ask us about the show.

 

Sexism and Discrimination in the 1960s

Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on sex or gender (predominantly against women and girls.) Although original origin isn’t clear, the term ‘sexism’ emerged during second wave feminism in the 1960’s-1980’s and was likely based on the term ‘racism’, which is prejudice or discrimination based on race.

Discrimination means being treated differently as a social group for reasons of certain generalised traits. Minorities are often discriminated against, and it often results in harm or disadvantaged to the targeted person or group. there are many different ever-growing forms of discrimination, such as racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, and ableism.

As this musical is set in the 1960’s, sexism is a running theme throughout the musical. Classism is a subtextual issue (as Finch is afraid to admit he was a window washer, a member of the working class,) and racism would’ve been an issue in the 60’s, but wasn’t mentioned in the musical.

I have read an online blog that discusses sexism in the workplace in the 60’s, and though based in the UK, I think is relevant to developing my character.

The blog discusses that the sexism experienced was perceived as ‘the norm’ as the women in the 60’s didn’t know anything else, and were brought up this way, and accepted it without question. Men always ‘knew best’ and women didn’t argue with them, and church-goers often heard the phrase from the bible “wives must accept the authority of [their] husbands” (1 Peter 3:1, New Living Translation).

Because of how the women were conditioned, they casually accepted sexism in the workplace, similar to how Rosemary accepts Mr Gatch’s advances, though she clearly looks uncomfortable, and also makes a modern audience uncomfortable as this is completely unacceptable nowadays.

“I started recognising the sexism for what it was in meetings. Men dominated. They shouted over one another and interrupted one another; they always seemed to get preferential treatment from the chairman while we women always seemed to have our comments and suggestions ignored or dismissed as unworkable or irrelevant. Later if a man made the same intervention, it was treated seriously.

Then I began to notice how few women were in senior management.

It also struck me that women were paid less than men for the same jobs.”

Gender equality, inequality and sexual harassment now and in mid 20th century UK. 2019. Gender equality, inequality and sexual harassment now and in mid 20th century UK. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.1900s.org.uk/1960s-sexism.htm. [Accessed 20 June 2019]

This is relevant in How to succeed as all the businessmen in the big boardroom are men. The highest position we ever see a woman in is Miss Jones, who is still just a secretary.

In 1963, John Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, and over 50 years later, a lot of men and women’s salaries are still unequal.

Until the early 1960’s, newspapers published separate job listings for men and women. Jobs were categorised according to sex, with the higher level jobs listed “help wanted- male.” some of the ads were identical, but with separate pay scales. between 1950-60, women with full time jobs earned on average 59-64 cents to every dollar for the male. In How to Succeed, this means that all the women characters in the show would have been paid just over half what their male counterparts would have earned. This can be fuel for my character development as my character would be constantly aware of this and though most of the women in the 60’s would know not to question this, my character will be hyperaware of this and it will bring her a subtextual hate for the men she works with.

An excuse for underpaying women is often that she will soon be childbearing – however, the pill was approved for contraceptive use in 1960, after an unusually large number of women requested to use it when it was only approved for severe menstrual disorders.

“the impact of the pill was even more radical. it meant sex need not lead to pregnancy. but it wasn’t just another form of contraception, it was an equalizer, a liberator, and easy to take. for the first time in human history, a woman could control her sexuality and determine her readiness for reproduction by swallowing a pill smaller than an aspirin. critics warned that the pill would spawn generations of loose, immoral women; what it spawned was generations of empowered women.”

The 60’s. 2019. Birth Control Pill – The 60’s. [ONLINE] Available at: https://the60s.weebly.com/birth-control-pill.html#.

In the context of the musical, some of the women would have only just been discovering the pill when the musical is set, encouraging sexual empowerment. This could be linked to Smitty’s joke before the number Paris Original – “I’m going to spread a rumor that I’m a nymphomaniac”

General sexism is still relevant in today’s society, or the notion that men are superior. It was almost unknown for a women not to take her husbands last name, then her Mrs title indicated that she was married. Also, in any publication, where a female is referred to as ‘she’ and a man as ‘he,’ anyone with an unknown gender would be referred to as ‘he.’

 

Rosemary’s character is a typical representation of a conditioned woman from the 60’s. In my opinion, it’s clear that her character has been raised with these sexist ideals and she doesn’t question them. In her song, ‘happy to keep his dinner warm’ (as if the title wasn’t enough), rosemary fantasises about being married to finch.

“I’ll be so happy to keep his dinner warm, While he goes onward and upward” expresses that she wants him to do well in his career and she doesn’t mind waiting home for him. She’s been conditioned to believe that the men should have the career and that the woman should stay home.

“I’ll be there waiting until his mind is clear, While he looks through me, right through me; Waiting to say, “Good evening, dear. I’m pregnant. What’s new with you from down town?” “

She seems fine about the fact that she knows he would look right through her, as though he’s uninterested in her. Her wanting to be pregnant establishes that all she wants to do is build a family, as that was what was expected of women.

“Oh, to be loved by a man I respect; To bask in the glow of his perfectly understandable neglect.”

Women shouldn’t be neglected and it’s not understandable to do so, and the fact that she thinks it’s fine is unusual in modern society but she has been conditioned to think this.

 

In our production of How to Succeed, we developed our own version of the song “a secretary is not a toy,” which is a number about how the men shouldn’t be sexualising their secretaries (or at least shouldn’t be acting on their impulses.) We developed the number to be more suitable to modern audiences because the sexism and objectifying of the females was really inappropriate. we cut the line “A secretary is not…A toy!, And when you put it to use, Observe, When you put her to use,That you don’t find the name Lionel, on her caboose!” because it was deemed inappropriate from the start.

We changed the choreography to display more of a feminist stance, rather than the men objectifying women, and the boys are intimidated by the women in the dance. we also gave more lines to women to establish their authority. I feel like this represents a more modern society, and this also let me create a more strong-willed character that would stand up for herself.

 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/sexism

https://www.britannica.com/topic/discrimination-society

https://www.1900s.org.uk/1960s-sexism.htm

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Peter%203&version=NLT

https://the60s.weebly.com/birth-control-pill.html#

https://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/howtosucceedinbusinesswithoutreallytrying/happytokeephisdinnerwarm.htm

 

 

 

Caffeine Dependancy – Coffee Break

A lot of people who work in offices or have other jobs in which they work long hours depend on caffeine to help them get through the day; it’s just culturally accepted throughout the UK and the US. So much so, there just had to be a musical number about it in a musical set in an office.

Research shows that that caffeine consumption is associated with an increase in alertness, concentration, and performance.

another research shows that “Caffeine could be the office ‘crack’, according to new research, which claims that 10 percent of British workers think they’re addicted to coffee” https://palife.co.uk/news/1-in-10-workers-addicted-to-coffee/

In the musical, one of the predominant chorus numbers is ‘coffee break.’ the number is early in the musical, establishing the scene and the hectic office life. The lyrics describe what the characters are going though, and the tragedy that there’s no coffee.

Frump sings, “If I can’t take, My coffee break, Something within me dies,” which overemphasises that he feels dead without coffee. Frump and Smitty then go on to sing, “Gone is the sense of enterprise, Somehow the soul no longer tries, Somewhere I don’t metabolize,” which implies that they don’t work without coffee, and are therefore are dependant on it.

Addiction to Caffeine has physical symptoms which includes headaches, fatigue, and drowsiness. changes in mood such as depression or irritability may occur. A withdrawal symptom is that the person may be unable to concentrate. People who excessively drink caffeine build up a tolerance, and need more to get the effects.

More uncommon traits that appear with serious caffeine dependency include anxiety and tremors; since caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant common side effects of drinking too much include feeling jittery or anxious, and having shaky hands.

I have actually talked to a close family member of mine, who works long hours in an office, who drinks ridiculous amounts of caffeine to help with her attention during work. After watching the musical, she approached me and said that she strongly related to ‘coffee break’ as drinking coffee at work helps her get through the day.

According to Wikipedia, “A coffee break is a routine social gathering for a snack or short downtime by employees in various work industries… The term subsequently became popular through a 1952 ad campaign of then Pan-American Coffee Bureau which urged consumers to “give yourself a Coffee-Break — and Get What Coffee Gives to You.” Coffee breaks often last for 10 to 20 minutes, occurring at the end of the first third of the work shift.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_culture#Coffee_break

Since the 1950’s, taking coffee breaks to increase focus has been embedded into American culture.

Using this research to incorporate into my performance, in coffee break, as chorus members, we have been asked to be very over dramatic with our movements. In the number we are all craving coffee, so I will incorporate the withdrawal symptoms, such as jittery hands and anxious and fatigued facial expressions into my performance and physicality.