Mime and Silent Film Scheme of work

EXPERIMENTATION:

Moments from an exercise to produced ideas for a silent movie scene 
TASK: Set in a kitchen making a pizza students experimented with non-verbal communication and status

FINAL PIECES:

Four pieces of drama performed in the style of Silent Film and based upon research
 into the life and death of Charlie Chaplin.

Documentation: Investigating the style of Silent Film, mime and non-verbal communication

One week, for homework, we were set the task of researching Charlie Chaplin. The next week, with this homework we gathered our knowledge in groups and began to form a short performance about an element of his life. This performance had to be silent and use non-verbal communication: facial expressions, levels, status, posture, body language, proxemics, relationships to communicate mood and story.

Just a week before beginning on this performance we had begun to perform our ‘pizza performances’ which were also non-verbal performances. In groups of two or three we were to act out the making of a pizza, whilst carefully including the clocking of the audience, relationships, status (posture and levels) and body/facial language. They were to also include still images at some points in time to ‘mark the moment’.

We did these tasks because we were exploring non-verbal drama. Through doing these tasks we learnt how to create a performance and characters without relying on the voice, sounds and costume / props; but rather to be able to create a piece of drama with solely facial expressions, body language and mime. This could only benefit us in future drama since it has taught us that a piece of silent acting or still acting is just as effective as drama using voice and sounds if it is used correctly.

Our performances needing a large amount of planning and preparation. Isaac had the idea of having a scene at the beginning, in which Charlie Chaplin’s mother could be shown mimicking passers-by out through her living room window (as at an early point in Charlie’s life, she was taken to a mental asylum), providing a cause for her to be taken out of Charlie’s life as well as a reason for Charlie’s reaction to drama and theatre. It helped the drama because it helped to explain some of the scenes which we planned to do later on (why Charlie would mimic other passengers on the bus and why he met her in the mental asylum), but it could also explain where Charlie got the idea of mimicking others from (his mother) and where his mother got it from (a passer-by – which is not necessarily true, but put into the performance under artistic licence). However, this idea was later edited to take place in a supermarket in order to make the situation easier to present as we were not using any props.

I had the idea that the mental asylum could be staged as just a room containing Charlie Chaplin’s mother and other people with mental issues, fully showing the extent of their issues to explain to the audience where Charlie’s mother has been taken to. Using exaggeration, physical movements and posture this can help the drama by assisting the audience in understanding the change of location. Our group used this idea in a way that we believed the audience we were presenting this to would give a positive reaction.

Kieran came up with the ideas for his characters: a panicked shopper, a mental patient and the bus driver. The panicked shopper would rush down the supermarket aisle only to be mimicked by the mother of Charlie Chaplin, immediately he would telephone the police / security who would take her to the mental asylum. This role was dependant on his use of body language which the short tasks we did in our lessons helped to develop our ability to mime and use body language to express our emotions. In the asylum, Kieran would play a mental patient whose posture and status levels would help define his situation and the activity inside the asylum (such as how he felt when another patient started to flirt with him). His role as a bus driver was given a great deal of effect by his facial expressions – which we developed in our ‘pizza performances’ by trying to express our moods and status through these expressions – as a bus driver, the audience could tell a great deal about his character simply by his behaviour and facial expressions (for example: his greedy grin as he accepts bus fares suggests that he is greedy and not the type of person to waste money). This also makes him a target for Charlie Chaplin to mimic. Therefore, he helped the drama by providing many of the moods surrounding the performance.

The Performance

I think it was effective the way that we created two main characters for the performance (Charlie Chaplin and his mother) before creating multiple roles for the other actors, hence creating a wider picture of the situation, rather than restricting the entire performance to solely five characters (and enabling us to cover for actors being absent, as on the day of the actual performance Chris was absent). Seth who played Charlie Chaplin created a credible character via his levels which indicated his status (low as a child and higher as an independent teenager / young adult) and his proxemics as he was often close to his mother, but further away from the other characters which presents his relationships with them.

The characters were well defined because due to exaggeration in their movements yet control and concentration in the gestures, it is easy to tell the fundamental roles of the characters – whilst using typical stereotypes (like the posture of a bus driver or security guard). I particularly liked it when Charlie Chaplin (Seth) began mimicking my character of a passenger on the bus because it has such a great deal of proxemics, body language and facial expressions from all the characters from our performance which does not occur in such detail elsewhere. For example see the image below of part of our performance which is annotated to show examples of different skills and techniques.

Unfortunately, some moments did not work out so well. The moment in the image following, shows what did not work and what we would do next time, or would have done if we had more time. From this performance we learnt that positioning of characters is very important in order to make the performance seem more professional and to grab the full power of the expressions and actions.

Above is an image of a moment in which Charlie Chaplin’s mother is imitating another shopper in the supermarket. I have annotated the image to show the problems at that time of the performance.

When evaluating our performance, some other groups mentioned that they found it difficult to understand what was happening in areas of our performance. This taught us that we may have needed to exaggerate our body language and facial expressions when miming, but to ensure that they remain controlled. It was also mentioned that we blocked other characters at some points which hid some of the non-verbal communication that was being displayed and potentially have blocked eye contact between characters or between characters and the audience; to avoid this we should have taken more care and attention with our timing and proxemics.

Evaluating the Work of Others
Another group, consisting of Daniel, Srivatsa, Peter, Cameron and Mithu, gave a performance about the grave robbery of Charlie Chaplin’s body. I particularly liked it when the robbers (Daniel and Srivatsa) began robbing a grave whilst somebody (Peter) was mourning at a grave nearby.

I found it tells the audience a large amount about the importance of the characters, their relationships and personalities. I have annotated an image on the next page to describe this. I find it interesting the manner in which they use facial expressions to convey their emotions and personalities in such an exaggerated way that it was remarkably clear and even seemed to make them actually become their characters to such an extent that I struggled, when I began to watch this, to figure out who some of the actors were!

The image above also represents one of the best moments in the performance. I thought it was effective how they focused this on only two characters at a time: Cameron and one of the robbers. The image shows him greeting the higher status robber, and it is effective because he shows his facial expression and body language, whilst he clocks the audience which gains a reaction from the audience and the robber. The hidden message behind this scene is also very interesting as it suggests that crime is weak, feeble and small before authority or justice.

Conclusions

In conclusion, this task helped me to enhance my understanding of developing and performing a character by teaching me that how a character is performed is not just about the props, costumes, voices and words used but also his or her facial expressions, body language, concentration, the gestures used, movement, posture, status (needs levels), relationships with other characters (relates to proxemics), eye contact / clocking of the audience and its reaction. I have learnt that still images can be used to ‘mark the moment’ and gather affect. As a consequence of studying this area of drama, I shall focus more on the non-verbal aspects of drama than I would have done, should I have not studied it. It will probably be useful to me with my future drama work as I will be able to understand how verbal acting is not necessarily always the best form to use and that non-verbal acting is just as effective. I can now also understand why people see drama as a type of art because silent performances / movies can convey emotion, a story and describe a time or a location or a person just as well as a drawing or a painting or a sculpture can.

By Callum Crockford 10T