My time working on this project has been very enjoyable but stressful. Enjoyable because I got to do something different, and stressful because our plans got changed, but I suppose that is what refining is. Our feedback on our short site specific film was rather good. One contructive critism was that we did not need music on our film for the sake of just having music, it took too much attention from the stories. The reason we put music in was just for easy viewing of the film we felt it carried the film and made it easy to watch. We got told it was distracting though and was not needed. Site specific has also taught me that the world is a stage, anything could be a performance but not everything should, just because of the simple fact that not everything is interesting. I think I have developed as an acter, I think I am much more confident and I hope my future shows can show this.
Gary Richardson
What is Site Specific?
Site specific is form of theatre that can be defined as a performance that takes place within a particular space. The term “Site Specific” came to be in the “early 1980s, a term began to be used by certain theatre groups, such as the incredible Brith Gof, as an attempt to describe their own particular performance practices and their relationship to the local environment.” ‘Site-specific theatre’? Please be more specific’ (Andy Field, 2008). Even though the term Site Specific is relatively new the term is so broad “Site Specific” has been round for centuries. These days “site-specific” can be just about anything that doesn’t happen in a theatre. It can refer to bus tours through the streets of Sheffield, Shakespeare play in abandoned vaults, dance shows based on Japanese horror films, two performance artists tracing a spiral across the grounds of the Barbican or an alternative reality game played across the streets of Soho. So Site Specific is pretty much anything that is not in a theatre, being able to have this blank page to do anything to was a nice change from other modules but also extremely stressful.
When Site Specific works it can be prodigious and exciting, it can show off the chosen sight in a new light, making the audience think that they have never been there before. But a few critics I have come accross think diffrently, they think site specific to be a “gimmick”. Will Gore writes in his article in The Guardian ” I fear the impact of this exciting genre is in danger of disappearing as it gets sucked into the mainstream.” Gore worrys that the term is to broad and wants theatre companies to take the genre seriously before making thier own interpretation of site specific he writes “When theatre like this is done properly it can been revelatory: the true shared experience that so many theatremakers strive to provide. My wish for 2012 is that theatre companies think long and hard about what it really involves.” I just hope our site specific performance meets the write requirments.
Work Cited:
Field, A. (2008) ‘Site-specific theatre’? Please be more specific’, The Guardian, 6 February [Online]. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2008/feb/06/sitespecifictheatrepleasebe (Accessed: 7 May 2012)
Gore, W. (2012) ‘When site-specific theatre is just too vague’, The Guardian, 9 January [Online]. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2012/jan/09/site-specific-theatre (Accessed: 7 May 2012)
Show time.
Today is the day we show our short site specific film, after hours of editing it has finally come together. I think that we have worked very well together, I feel that we have all shown and interest to the piece and the work has been divided equally. I am very happy that we get to show our project today, even though I feel it could be improved with more time I also feel it is the best possible quality it could be with the time we have had. My contribution to the film is this, I spent most of my time behind the camera filming but I have also done my fair share of getting filmed, when it came to the editing Cassie and Casey knew how the software works but as I did not know how the software works I sat behind and gave opinions and gave an input to the final production. I think we have worked very well together and hopefully our film shows this.
History of Lincoln.
As Lincoln is our chosen sight it would be wrong if I had no background knowledge of the city. Just by looking up Steep Hill you can see a part of Lincoln’s history but by researching and looking it is amazing how much you can find just by looking. I found this information on a website called http://www.localhistories.org/lincoln (accessed: 3 May 2012) “Lincoln began as a Roman town. The Romans conquered Lincolnshire in 48 AD.” The Population in Lincoln was between 6000 and 8000. In the middle ages In 1068 William the Conqueror built a wooden castle at Lincoln to make sure the townspeople behaved themselves. He destroyed 166 houses to make way for it. In the 12th century it was replaced with stone. The keep of the castle was called Lucy Tower after Countess Lucy. In 1072 the Bishop moved his seat to Lincoln from Dorchester. He built a cathedral, which was completed in 1092. This first cathedral was severely damaged by an earthquake, which hit Lincoln in 1185. It was rebuilt after 1192. This is just a small amount of what happened and I could write novels on the history of Lincoln, but if not taken the time to research what has happened these past events could be forgotten.
I found it necessary and enjoyable to take the time to research the city, it is truly inspiring to find out what has shaped the future for Lincoln.
Work cited: Lambert, T. (date unknown). Available at: http://www.localhistories.org/lincoln (Accessed: 3 May 2012)
Progression.
It has been a very stressful process changing our site-specific performance but instead of moaning about it we have been getting the job done. After discarding the stories we could not use, we went in to the town to start filming for the stories we could. This was an easy job but time consuming and it has taken a couple of weeks to complete. We have sent emails and received a reply to go into the castle chapel to record more footage, the staff at the castle required a risk assessment before allowing us to film within the castle. We started to re-do some of the stories by recording ourselves, replacing the person that gave us the story, for the reason that there was to much background noise when we recorded them. By doing this it gave us a very accurate idea how long we will need to film the site being specified.
The filming is in completion and the editing has begun, it is a very slow process but my original fears about our film being boring are erased. It’s looking to be a very good piece of work. I am very happy with our work and hopefully either today or tomorrow the film will be complete.