For my final project I chose a poem 'Cinderella' by Roald Dahl to do as a monologue. I was having a hard time discovering a poem or short story that I could perform by myself for more than 5 minutes before I found Cinderella by Roald Dahl. The poem is very rhythmical because of a lot of rhyming words. Also, the author reinterpreted the story of Cinderella very frankly which attracted my interest. And I thought it will be really funny if I act it in one man show.
To do this project, I needed to think about stage, filming, lighting, blocking, and props all by myself. Eventually, I asked Charlotte for some help and I could figure a lot of parts out. The biggest thing that was helpful was filming part. I thought it was impossible for me to act and also use the camera at the same time. Also, there were a lot of props that I could use i n Charlotte's house such as extension hair which I used as a wig, barbie dolls that I used for ugly sisters puppet, mask that I wore when I acted as a narrator, and weird shape of chopstick that I used for magic fairy's wand.
While we were filming it, there were a lot of trials and errors. There were lots of scenes that I needed to break down because I made too many mistakes when I tried to speak my lines in one take and there were a lot of parts that I needed to change my roles. So, I decided to film it lines by lines and then connected all of them by editing. To cover the awkwardness disconnection between the lines, I used sound effects and music.
In this project I had to do a job of actor, staff, director, and editor. It was possible to complete this project because of grateful help from Charlotte. By doing this one man show, I could learn the necessary preparations and abilities of all jobs involved in the production. As an actor, I needed to be more prepared with my lines, as a staff, I needed to organize the props so that the filming process could be smoother and faster, as a director, I needed to have more specific and clear idea of whole picture of the production so that I could give a quick and clear order to Charlotte who was filming it, and lastly as a editor, I needed to film all the scenes that I needed earlier so that I could have more time and make the production better. It was really great experience to approach the production as many jobs. I was so tired and frustrated during the process because I thought I couldn't complete project, but the completed production was totally worth it to go over all that time.
In this project I had to do a job of actor, staff, director, and editor. It was possible to complete this project because of grateful help from Charlotte. By doing this one man show, I could learn the necessary preparations and abilities of all jobs involved in the production. As an actor, I needed to be more prepared with my lines, as a staff, I needed to organize the props so that the filming process could be smoother and faster, as a director, I needed to have more specific and clear idea of whole picture of the production so that I could give a quick and clear order to Charlotte who was filming it, and lastly as a editor, I needed to film all the scenes that I needed earlier so that I could have more time and make the production better. It was really great experience to approach the production as many jobs. I was so tired and frustrated during the process because I thought I couldn't complete project, but the completed production was totally worth it to go over all that time.
