9.6. Transitions

TARGETS:

• 3-4 Transition
• 5-6 transition

Today's focus was to finish working on our transitions, so that the next time we run the show, we can really try them all out and see if they work together with the show, creating a united and smooth show. We only had a couple of the transitions left, so we decided to also run some of the scenes around them, to make sure they fit the mood of the previous or next scene.

For the transition between scenes 3 and 4, we decided to go with the same theme of the transition before it, since both of the scenes are involving in the world of money and business. We would have the same music as well being the 'Gold diggers 1933 - We're in the money'. Instead of having the newspaper people get the remaining blocks off of the stage, we will have Sav, Robin and Liam, the last three people on stage, to go and get the blocks in a rushes, slapstick kind of style. Robin and Liam will run to stage, running past each other and blocks only to notice the blocks after Sav has taken one of them in a showgirl style.  This is a very good quick transition, since we do not always need to add entire dances in between scene. A good quick transition keeps the story going forward and not distract the audience, yet keeping them energetic and alive.

   We also did scene 3 again to freshen our mid about it, but also to try out the transitions before and after it. We noticed that the transition going into scene 3 didn't work entirely, since we did have a way to get the blocks on stage, but me , Chloe and Harry remain at the end of the thrust. Since the transition song is about money, and scene 2 ends with Dogsborough making a deal with the Cauliflower trust about buying the docks, we thought it would be a funny way of showing Dogsborougs greediness by having me and Chloe whip out fake money out of our pockets and fan around the money in front of his face, leading him off the stage. This way we get of the stage in a  natural way and I can them simply go back on with my newspaper and change of costume to become part of the chorus. 
   During the scene, Siou pointed out to us that it isn't very clear yet that we are at the bookie's office. We decided to add in a radio noise of a race of the time, which also gave us background characters something to do, listening to the race and reacting. Using Yo Ha Kuy learned from Yoshi Oida, we can really get the progression of the race believable and have our characters react accordingly. I am going to start by being overly confident, probably telling others how much I've bet on my horse and how I am going to be rich by the end of this, move on to higher tension, with hearing the other horse catching up and end up in utter rage and desperation since I have just lost a lot of money. I will need to find a way to show this all in silence, since we cannot take too much focus from Roma and Ui, who are talking on the foreground. 
   We also had a discussion of whether or not to have alcohol in this scene, and what kind of representation of alcohol it will be. Of course, at this time they in prohibition, which meant alcohol was illegal, but if the bookmakers was an underground one like speakeasies were, the characters could have alcohol present. I did a bit of research into this and found out that before the Great Depression, gambling had been deemed illegal, plummeting the popularity of horse racing. But since the falling economy and desperate ways for finding revenues, horse racing seemed like a good choice because of its previous popularity. So, bookmakers and betting on horses were legal, but the government put huge taxes on the revenues, which meant gambling was more expensive with lesser winnings than before.  This really answers our problem. This most likely wouldn't have been an illegal office, but rather a public building, meaning that we could not have alcohol present. 
   I think me, the other newspaper chorus and Ragg could have more interactions with each other, to create more of the bookies feeling, but also to show natural interactions between people. Our newspaper section is getting along quite well, but I really want to react better to the action between Ui and Roma, so that our snooping and reactions would enhance the plot and show the audience this is something they want to be listening to. 

   Next we worked on the transition from scene 5 to 6. This transition really needed some choreographing, since it a chance between me and Yunusa, Ui switching actors which we are trying to make clear to the audience, who is Ui. To start to create a base for it, Siou simply put the music we had all decided on having and we would all individually make our own dance or movement to it. The results were varying, but I think it help us to create a good transition. This transition follows Bowl's death, and so we wanted this transition really to be something contrasting to it, humorous even. Sophie and Greta liked very much how Robin was making every movement very cartoon like, clear and every movement being precisely done, and we decided to follow that on our chorus. Me and Yunusa started playing around with finger clicking and simply going down and up while swaying our arms with the music, Yunusa then suggested doing this foot game to bring in a bit more movement into our change. I thought this was a brilliant idea, and think that once we have done this a couple of times we could make it even faster and snappier.