Ok, so it seems there's really not much material written about my topic or anything related to it...or am I really not good at finding it??!?!!
Any help from my course fellows would be much appreciated!!! If you may happen to know any type of literature that speaks about How a performer can create a career on its own, and to what extent this is actually possible...is a full training strictly recommended or discipline and self teaching can help a performer achieve its goals on his own? I find it extremely difficult to find someone that has experienced or researched on this topic and written about it; maybe it has a too broad feeling to it? But honestly I don't know how to narrow it down any more! This is my field of interest and now it feels a bit late for a change of direction...any thoughts please???
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Pippin
As an exercise I decided to do for my inquiry is annotate on my blog all my goals for the upcoming week in terms of what my self-management skills research as a performer that I didn't posses or know before and analyze the results, positive or negative.
On the list I created on my previous post about what I will be trying to achieve for my inquiry, I forgot to insert a bullet point about GOING TO SEE SHOWS. It certainly is a great way of keeping up with the latest productions and what the business is throwing out there right now!
It keeps you informed on who is producing, directing and performing at the moment, also it's great opportunity for networking!
The other night I saw this great production of the musical Pippin at The Menier Chocolate Factory (a show I'm very fond of as it was my first principale role given when we did this production in college) and realized that in the cast there were two performers that had graduated from my same college few years before me; it gave me a link/connection with them so that after the show I managed to contact one of the two and to possibly obtain an interview that may turn out of great value for my practitioner research.
Either way I strongly believe that seeing shows (when our budget allow us to :P) it's a great self-management skill for an emerging performer as well as for an establish one, it keeps our creativity alive.
On the list I created on my previous post about what I will be trying to achieve for my inquiry, I forgot to insert a bullet point about GOING TO SEE SHOWS. It certainly is a great way of keeping up with the latest productions and what the business is throwing out there right now!
It keeps you informed on who is producing, directing and performing at the moment, also it's great opportunity for networking!
The other night I saw this great production of the musical Pippin at The Menier Chocolate Factory (a show I'm very fond of as it was my first principale role given when we did this production in college) and realized that in the cast there were two performers that had graduated from my same college few years before me; it gave me a link/connection with them so that after the show I managed to contact one of the two and to possibly obtain an interview that may turn out of great value for my practitioner research.
Either way I strongly believe that seeing shows (when our budget allow us to :P) it's a great self-management skill for an emerging performer as well as for an establish one, it keeps our creativity alive.
Saturday, 18 February 2012
Equity meeting 11.02.12
The other week I attended an interesting meeting of the body union for the artist Equity.
I enclosed it into my plan and I thought it would have been interesting for my topic of inquiry.
The result was as expected very interesting. Even though you could tell I was the youngest and a new face compared to the same people that always take part to these events, they welcomed me and made me feel part of this union which I now I'm part of.
The main matters and points touched on the day where "The struggle for gender equality" and few interesting motions that have been aroused on the day and to which we voted against or in favor, the one chosen will be sent to this year's ARC (Annual Representative Conference).
The first one was about Defending BBC towards the latest financial cuts, the second one was about Bullying in the arts, and the last one but not least was about Ending the need for casting director to get sent hard copies of CV's and photos being an outdated and expensive system. Regarding bullying, the story about the ballerina that spoke out about anorexia and bulimia came up, she was then sucked after the article was printed, a very good example of bullying. (It also linked to my studies, see previous blog)
I personally voted in favor of the last one being a topic that touches me the most at this point in my career, but I could see it was the least important for anyone else; it relates more to young and still financially unstable performers rather than adults artists in their 30's 40's 50's and above, which are more likely to be in a better financial situation than an emerging artist.
Other interesting points were a free workshop fundraised by FEU (The Federation of Entertainment Unions) on How to leave a good impression in a digital world which I straight away applied for; I have to say that my interests were slightly different compared to the other actors/actresses in the meeting due to the difference of age (most of the participants were well established performers in the business and in their elderly years), but nonetheless it was encouraging to see what difficulties a performer has to deal with and how supportive and active this body is no matter what's age you are.
About the main matter, the gender equality, very important and interesting things have been said during the meeting, I recorded the one most impressed me:
-Male presence in TV and Theatre is still larger compared to women.
-Same older women parts are played by the same famous actresses not leaving space for other older woman.
-The awareness of the laziness of casting directors nowadays. ( A woman participating told us her experience when she got told by a casting director that they always use the same four agencies, leaving out so many talents not lucky enough to be in one of those ones).
-A point in favor was that broadcasting is ahead of society where the gender racism starts from; you are more likely to see a senior woman police officer in tv than in real life, or a a black judge in a tv serial than in life.
-The still huge difference in wages between man and women that are casted for the same or similar job.
This meeting really brought up my awareness on the many matters Equity fights for, and give me a good hint on where to look next for literatures and others seminars/workshop that can enhance my studying.
Is anyone else in this course a member of Equity? Have you got any story you could share on how Equity helped you? If not I will strongly recommend you become part of it as they can help any type of artistry in the filed of performing and it's a valuable union out there for us.
For anyone interested the next meeting is going to be held on the 10th of March at the Italian Trade Union's Centre in Highbury and Islington.
:)
I enclosed it into my plan and I thought it would have been interesting for my topic of inquiry.
The result was as expected very interesting. Even though you could tell I was the youngest and a new face compared to the same people that always take part to these events, they welcomed me and made me feel part of this union which I now I'm part of.
On
the day I could tell I wasn't one of the regulars and that I was
probably the younger of the group, still they didn't make me feel
uncomfortable or anything and welcomed me to the meeting. It was very
interesting to see how passioned everyone was on the different
matters touched on the day; no matter what age you are, being a actor
don't have a professional expiry date.
Even
if the average age in the room was somewhere around 40 I noticed how
actors in particular are still not treated artistically the way they
should. (Personal journal extract, 2012).
The main matters and points touched on the day where "The struggle for gender equality" and few interesting motions that have been aroused on the day and to which we voted against or in favor, the one chosen will be sent to this year's ARC (Annual Representative Conference).
The first one was about Defending BBC towards the latest financial cuts, the second one was about Bullying in the arts, and the last one but not least was about Ending the need for casting director to get sent hard copies of CV's and photos being an outdated and expensive system. Regarding bullying, the story about the ballerina that spoke out about anorexia and bulimia came up, she was then sucked after the article was printed, a very good example of bullying. (It also linked to my studies, see previous blog)
I personally voted in favor of the last one being a topic that touches me the most at this point in my career, but I could see it was the least important for anyone else; it relates more to young and still financially unstable performers rather than adults artists in their 30's 40's 50's and above, which are more likely to be in a better financial situation than an emerging artist.
Other interesting points were a free workshop fundraised by FEU (The Federation of Entertainment Unions) on How to leave a good impression in a digital world which I straight away applied for; I have to say that my interests were slightly different compared to the other actors/actresses in the meeting due to the difference of age (most of the participants were well established performers in the business and in their elderly years), but nonetheless it was encouraging to see what difficulties a performer has to deal with and how supportive and active this body is no matter what's age you are.
About the main matter, the gender equality, very important and interesting things have been said during the meeting, I recorded the one most impressed me:
-Male presence in TV and Theatre is still larger compared to women.
-Same older women parts are played by the same famous actresses not leaving space for other older woman.
-The awareness of the laziness of casting directors nowadays. ( A woman participating told us her experience when she got told by a casting director that they always use the same four agencies, leaving out so many talents not lucky enough to be in one of those ones).
-A point in favor was that broadcasting is ahead of society where the gender racism starts from; you are more likely to see a senior woman police officer in tv than in real life, or a a black judge in a tv serial than in life.
-The still huge difference in wages between man and women that are casted for the same or similar job.
This meeting really brought up my awareness on the many matters Equity fights for, and give me a good hint on where to look next for literatures and others seminars/workshop that can enhance my studying.
Is anyone else in this course a member of Equity? Have you got any story you could share on how Equity helped you? If not I will strongly recommend you become part of it as they can help any type of artistry in the filed of performing and it's a valuable union out there for us.
For anyone interested the next meeting is going to be held on the 10th of March at the Italian Trade Union's Centre in Highbury and Islington.
:)
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
Starting out with...Copyrights.
After the campus session yesterday I started thinking more of what I need to collect and analyze in order to achieve a 'complete package' for a performer, what I need to have, technically and physically, to become an overall practitioner and obtain maximum results for my career.
As a next step for this project I intend to research and collect every kind of information needed for an emerging performer, these is a rough list of how I will plan it but the idea is to look for:
- Unions performers can benefit from (Equity, Spotlight, Dance UK..)
- Photo shoots (how to find the right photographer and links to the best ones,where to print high quality photos)
- Researching the best monologues suitable for different kind of acting auditions
- Researching and having prepared different styles of songs suitable for different auditions
- The agent hunt (how to look for one, best ones for different disciplines)
- Dance classes (costs and where to go)
- Singing lessons
- Jobs (un-paid and student's project and how we can benefit from them)
- CV tips
To start out my hunt I will share this link found while I was navigating on the DanceUk website:
https://www.danceuk.org/media/cms_page_media/255/Info%20Sheet%204%20Copyright%20for%20Dance.pdf
I now joined Dance UK as it was only £17.50 for students per year and it's an amazing body that sustains and helps dancers in several matters. I found this pdf that explains everything about COPYRIGHTS. I thought it's an important knowledge we (artists) need to have under our belt as it can always come handy and we can always need to protect ourselves and/or our work with copyrights.
Any thoughts about this post? Did you ever had issues about copyrights?
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Module 3
- 1st Campus Session -
Module 3... the final round...
Today was the first Campus session back from the last module 2 (we are still waiting on the results but I got the feeling it went ok) and I was a bit surprised when at my arrival I was the first one as I was running a little late.. I know many of us can't make it because of work commitment but I was hoping on seeing at least few people, luckily in the end Tanisha and Samantha turned up :)
We went through the Module handbook and had a general look into what we are expected to produce for this last module.
We are going to have to prepare 3 parts for this exam:
> Critical review
> Professional artefact
> Oral presentation
During the session we talked about:
-Deadlines (specific dates) and how we need to realistically organize our time into the project.
-Paula suggested we write at least 6 blogs and she pointed out what to include within these blogs (the slideshow we all these details should be on her blog soon)
-Paula suggested we look into where we are at at this stage, revise our Inquiry plan and, within the next week or two, focus and work around feedbacks; also, very important, to get on touch with our advisors as much as needed.
-We finally did a very useful exercise that Adesola created, a very simple map that helped us decide and clarify where we are heading to (arrow) what we want to keep for our project (tick) what we want to get rid of (cross) what we are proud of (word bubble) what we are still unsure of (thinking bubble) and feeling we had so far (heart shape)..more details will be up on Adesola's blog. I thought it was very useful as we can always go back to this this sheet and check if we sticked to it and if we are missing out on something.
-We also looked at some very good example of professional artefacts, which I know are going to be shown for the next session as well, so come along!!!
Module 3... the final round...
Today was the first Campus session back from the last module 2 (we are still waiting on the results but I got the feeling it went ok) and I was a bit surprised when at my arrival I was the first one as I was running a little late.. I know many of us can't make it because of work commitment but I was hoping on seeing at least few people, luckily in the end Tanisha and Samantha turned up :)
We went through the Module handbook and had a general look into what we are expected to produce for this last module.
We are going to have to prepare 3 parts for this exam:
> Critical review
> Professional artefact
> Oral presentation
During the session we talked about:
-Deadlines (specific dates) and how we need to realistically organize our time into the project.
-Paula suggested we write at least 6 blogs and she pointed out what to include within these blogs (the slideshow we all these details should be on her blog soon)
-Paula suggested we look into where we are at at this stage, revise our Inquiry plan and, within the next week or two, focus and work around feedbacks; also, very important, to get on touch with our advisors as much as needed.
-We finally did a very useful exercise that Adesola created, a very simple map that helped us decide and clarify where we are heading to (arrow) what we want to keep for our project (tick) what we want to get rid of (cross) what we are proud of (word bubble) what we are still unsure of (thinking bubble) and feeling we had so far (heart shape)..more details will be up on Adesola's blog. I thought it was very useful as we can always go back to this this sheet and check if we sticked to it and if we are missing out on something.
-We also looked at some very good example of professional artefacts, which I know are going to be shown for the next session as well, so come along!!!
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