Final reflection: Improvement throughout the process

  With the completion of final recording, the whole final project drew to an end.

  Recalling the first draft of the play, it didn't go so well. At the beginning of the project, we faced a lot of problems; First, two of our three members including me, did not watch the movie until it was decided to be transformed into play. So we couldn't have sufficient understanding to the work. I took us quite a while to comprehend the general idea and theme. So the plot designing process was slowed down, and we have to work faster than others to write the script. Well, nothing is going to come out well with a higher pace. The script was a mess and the audience couldn't understand the play.

  It was such a frustration to us and arguments started to occur in my group. Different group members had his own idea of how to change the plot. The main problem was the transition between the scenes. In our play, there are five scenes of present time and flashbacks, the alteration between the past and present is the main theme of the play. In the movie, the transition between the scenes were quite smooth, and audience are able to understand because of the change in characters(actors). For example, little Jamal can just performed by the child character. On contrary, our play has to utilize all sorts of costume and acting changes to show that time has traveled back.

  Another issue was the scene selection process. The components of the movie's plot is quite complicated. Jamal Malik(Performed by me) is involved in a show which can make him a millionaire. And he used all the knowledge from his experiences to answer the question, which were presented in the flashbacks. Each question that the host asked has a corresponding flashback scene for explanation purpose. Of course, we can't pick all the scenes from the movie, or it will be too long for a play. Therefore we had to pick the ones that best represent the concept, and abbreviated them. Eventually, my group picked six scenes, and they connected quite well.

  During the process of discussing and solving problems, the group members got the chance to communicate, and a good teamwork atmosphere was built. The later process was smooth and our play got much better.

  For me, my character appears in every scenes, and shows up as both adult and child. It was quite a challenge for me. Firstly, I had to change costume quickly between the scenes, since the alternation of old and little is frequent. Also, I had show different characteristics on different age of Jamal. When he is little, he was always afraid of the darkness and dependent on his brother Salim. But the Jamal at the show is brave and confident. He had been through all of the conflicts and finally became a man who owns real wealth - which is experience. I think I did so much better at the end, because the starting was not good at all. The lack of emotions was my biggest short side.

  Generally, the play was a success to us. It's probably the hardest theme to perform in the entire year, and we made it! There are a lot of improvements shown in the play, the actors had grown too. It's a great treasure for us.

Final project link

https://youtu.be/cY3jpLdsx4g

Project reflection

  For the project, my group and I have already finished the script, stage effects and the first draft of filming. These combined together took us one week.
  It's really been a tough process for my group, especially at the beginning. Most of the group members were lacking understanding to the movie, and I have to admit that I'm still having troubles comprehending a few parts of the plot. Movies are usually consist of complex scenes, and our chosen work is a great example of that. The combination of flashbacks really made our scene selection process hard. Each flashback moment is related to one of the question that's been asked in the show. There were so many scenes that could be used but we have to gave up some and arrange for the best. Another problem was that it was hard for us to come up with ideas of designing details. We tried to mimic the movie as much as possible, but I still think my group's performance lacks creativity and thoughts. It's hard to describe cultural aspects when we don't know about it. There's a gigantic gap between our performance and the movie. The movie was full of depressed emotions and scenes that make people reflect a lot, while our performance is plain and bored. Lastly, the issue that's bothering us the most is that we are not able to show how the flashback scenes are connecting to the questions. In the script, my group cut too many scenes that might well-explain the plot's logic. For example, one of the questions was "Which U.S president is on the one hundred dollar bill?". The main character - Jamal was supposed to answer the question from recalling memories that appeared in the flashbacks. But we gave really vague explanation in the flashback scene, since it's much shorter than the original scene. Many said that they could not get the idea.
  However, there are a few things that are going well for us.  Cooperating is essential for a teamwork. There's almost zero conflicts in our group and we feel comfortable working with each other. So new ideas are keep coming out and we really are trying to improve this project. The first thing that we have to solve is the comprehension problem. How the audience are able to understand our work? We started to create lines and scenes that can help explaining the connection. For example, in one of the "present" scenes(during the show), Jamal will whispering that "I remember when I took the money.." to connects to the last flashback. Another new line that shows the identity of flashback scene was added in when Jamal says: "I remember when I was little..." And actually turns to the audience and think. I felt like this works better for the transition part.
  For me, individually, I think my acting skills are still not utilizing well during the performance. My group did not practice efficiently before the actual filming, so that's something that we have to make up later. I need to remember my lines better and be more emotional. These are really the most basic things for performing but I'm still doing a horrible job. I can admit that a great part of the reasons that the show is not good enough is because of my wrong attitude.
  I believe that we are going to do better in the rest of the time, since we still have great team spirit and atmosphere. It just take each one of us more time to reflect and improve.

New impression of comedy

  The first thing I thought of when I saw the title was that the show is going to be funny, but I didn't know that it's such hilarious. A lot of the moments just made me shivering on the chair, they were absolutely great. My favorite scene was the morning meeting one, the impressions of different teachers couldn't be better. I can tell that the designing crew really put a lot of efforts in mimic the teachers' language and signature actions. Other scenes were quite impressive too, such as the beginning scene, which is a fantastic demonstration of the prevailing political campaign in U.S. Just like the meeting scene, the play and the actors were just experts in mimicking different people and events. This element plays an important role that connects the audience and what's going on at the stage closely. The audience can understand the plot better while laughing crazily.
  Another good thing about the play is that the props were used suitably and efficiently. Expressing the atmosphere of the scenes and very simple. The backstage staff were being very professional and adept at switching everything on the stage. I was so impressed by it because I realized how much work they had to put in during the practices.
  However, there were also some scenes that were not such appropriate, in my opinion. Well, the idea of cross-gender acting was an issue. It worked fine for some places, but I don't like it overall. It might be fun to see a male actor to perform female characteristics, but this theme lasted for over half of the show. It wasn't really presenting the strength of this form of acting but decreasing the audience's interest in the show. I believe that in quite a few scenes, cross-gender acting was really not necessary. Female characters could totally played by female actors. Take an example of the swan and alien scenes, where all of the female characters were played by boys. There were already several places like that already, so the idea was not fresh anymore, the funny part therefore did not play its role.
  Overall, the performance went well and I really liked it!

Music

Jamal thinking about the answer - Darkness new version
Show host ready to say answer - drum sound effect
Audience Cheering - Applause sound effect
Jamal and Salim escaping - William Tell Overtune
Salim ready to kill kidnapper - Western duel music(The good, the bad and the ugly theme)
Hindi and the crew discussing about the intrigue - in the hall of the Mountain king(Grieg)
Jamal winning the money - Chariots of Fire theme

One of the question's song - Darshan Do Ghanshyam

Gun shot sound effect

Confused progress

  My group and I have encountered a few barriers that are keeping us away from designing the performance fluently. To me, Jamal Malik is a total stranger few days ago, and maybe he still is. Most of the group members only got the chance to went though the whole movie briefly, since only one of us have the resource. The lack of detail and understanding to the movie makes me nervous and becoming short of ideas. In the first step, which was the distribution of characters, each one of us had an idea of what we prefer to act so it was decided pretty fast. But problem came immediately: how are we going to demonstrate the characters that we don't know that well. I really need more time to digest the figures in the movie that represent the author's ideas. One of us suggested that we don't need to follow the movie completely, I can just insert my own understanding into the performance.

  My role in the play is Jamal Malik, the character that shows up most frequently. It may be a tough experience for me, because I don't know much about Indian culture. But I would say Jamal's character is definitely not the hardest to perform, since his characteristics generally remain stable. Unlike his brother, who evolved from a smart kid to a killer, to a criminal, Jamal is always like a piece of white paper but covered with ink - reflecting India's most bottom parts of society's darkness while remains white and pure inside. It's going to be hard to perform all that, showing his fear as well as strength. How humble he is when facing all the treasure in front of him, because of all the darkness he had witnessed.

  Lastly, we are still trying to decorate the script, to make it vivid. It's taking longer than the original plan, since we are making a decent amount of changes from the movie. But I really enjoy the process, because I get to know the story better and it really interests me.

Character development

Jamal Malik - play by Ben
 
   - In our performance, his character appears in different ages, because of the flashbacks. But the general development of Jamal goes from a little orphan who is accompanied by the brother, to a incredible game winner. In Jamal's childhood, he had a vagrant and dark life among india's streets. As an orphan, he and his brother begged for life. The criminal kidnapped the two naive, innocent child, and their lives were no longer the same. However, Jamal's pureness still remains in his heart, comparing to his brother. When the scene flashbacks to where they came back for revenge, Jamal didn't touch the kidnapper's blood. He uses his experiences as wealth instead of changing by it. This "wealth" brought him extreme pains but eventually turns into true assets. His character at the show was still the little Jamal, innocent and tough.

Salim Malik - played by Joseph

   -  Salim's character went through the most changes in the performance. Starting from his childhood: as Jamal's older brother, he was protective and tough. His characteristics were reflected by every moments. When they were trapped by the kidnapper, Salim was extremely calm and intelligent. He used the acid to made the kidnapper blind, and brings his brother out of danger. However, because of his belligerent personality, Salim changed into another person while growing up. He went back with his brother to the bad guy, and executed the pathetic kidnapper. Violence grew in Salim's heart at that moment. Later, Salim chose to walk the path of criminals and became a negative character. It's a contrast to his brother who remains innocent.

The "Millionaire"s Host - played by Leo

   - The host did not have such significant changes like Salim throughout the play. He is consistently excited by Jamal's answer, whether it's caused by show effect or true excitement. The host is also hypocritical dramatic - There's a controversy in the process of designing Leo's acting, that as an upper level(rich) TV host, he held discrimination deep inside of his heart. But we can't really show that in the performance, because his identity of TV host requires his respect to Jamal. In the movie, the torture and interrogation of Jamal showed how people are skeptical about his knowledge, but we will delete that scene in our performance, and therefore the people(including the host)'s despise to Jamal can't be demonstrated that well. Finally, we decided to keep the part where the host mislead Jamal to the wrong answer to show how insincere he is to the poor young man's success.