gcse drama devising log

hi, i've just performed my devised piece last week and my teacher wants us to write sections one and two of the devising log, so i was just wondering what marks my answer would get so far?

Section One:
My group was presented with five different stimuli, all centred around the theme of homes. One stimulus was a video from BBC Media Action titled “Your phone is now a refugee’s phone.” The video showed a first-hand perspective of the desperation and conflicting feelings of a refugee in the digital age. They received messages from both family and strangers, telling them where they should go to find safety. While they deliberated on who they could trust, their phone is running out of battery. Although this wasn’t the main stimulus we chose, we still wanted to incorporate some aspects of it. For example, one of the characters is Andy, a father at war, who describes the conditions to his daughter, Maggie, through letters which she reads and replies to throughout the piece. When the letters stop, he is assumed dead. I thought the idea of war and conflict in this stimulus would create a contrast with the happier aspects of the piece. My group and I also thought that by showing the first-person perspective of both Andy and Maggie we could show how war can affect not only those fighting it, but also those who experience the fallout.
The stimulus we did choose was a video from the children’s charity, Barnardo’s, entitled “Diary of a Foster Child.” It was a video diary of a young girl, Abi, recording herself each day of being in her new foster home. During the first couple of weeks, she appeared quiet and fidgeted with her hands, mentioning how surprised she was with her new parents’ patience and hospitality. As the video continued, she visibly became more open and confident in herself and the bedroom she records in becomes more homely and personalised. This led my group and I to a similar idea for our piece, following a foster girl, Maggie, in her new family. One of the first ideas we had was a scene where Maggie writes letters to her father about her new home throughout the piece, as it documented how her feelings and general outlook changed as she settled into the family, similarly to how Abi keeps a video diary in the stimulus. My group and I felt that foster care was perhaps a more underrepresented topic and wanted to convey the positive difference it can make in children’s lives to the audience. We did, however, realise that the original stimulus focused on the positive side of fostering alone. We thought that an effective way of spreading awareness was to make the plot more realistic, not only following Maggie’s positive experiences but also the difficulties she faces, like getting on with her new sister and overcoming the absence of her father. We also thought it would be interesting to show the perspectives of the other members of the family to make the piece more authentic.
For example, in research, I found that an eighth of foster parents quit or regret fostering. I play the role of Martha, Maggie’s foster mother, so I want to be able to portray the stresses she feels about the new addition to the family, particularly through developing my tone, gestures, and body language. As Martha is a British mother in her forties, I also want to ensure my language reflects her character, using typically British words and phrases like “chucking it down” or giving Maggie and Katie nicknames like “love.” I will also need to develop a slightly slower, more careful gait and change my posture to show my age, especially as we want the piece to be as true to life as possible. One of my main aims is to control my speed when talking, as I tend to rush and forget to show clear diction. Another goal is to interact more with the audience as I have struggled in the past with looking at those in the audience while performing.
As a group, we decided on Stanislavski as our practitioner because his style focuses on fully immersing the audience into the story, so that they too feel the emotions of the characters. We thought Stanislavski’s method would work best as we wanted our piece to be as believable as possible to accurately reflect the experiences of foster children. By experiencing the characters’ emotions with them, the audience can develop a better understanding of those in the foster care system and empathise with them more, which was our main aim for the piece. One of the ways Stanislavski achieved realism was through emotional memory; remembering how you felt in a past situation similar to the one you are acting in. I hope to use this when I act as Martha as it helps bring out more genuine emotion when performing to add to the naturalism of the piece.

Section Two:
To begin with, our group planned to create an entirely naturalistic piece based on Stanislavski’s theatrical techniques. Despite iis authenticity, we found that this became a little monotonous and predictable over time and reduced the impact on the audience. As the piece developed, we began adding more scenes with Brechtian elements like physical theatre, specifically for the scenes where Andy and Maggie are talking. We did this not only to add more variety to our piece but also to give a slightly supernatural element to those scenes. This allows the audience to recognise that these are different from the other scenes; Andy is not physically with her at these points. We felt that this contrast between scenes solidified Maggie’s real-life experiences as well as illustrating her mental state and how her grief for her father changes through the piece.
One of our most important scenes is “The Dinner Scene,” when all the characters are together for a family dinner. We developed this scene to act as a turning point in our piece; Maggie is beginning to feel like she belongs in the family and Martha and her ex-husband, David, begin to put their differences aside for Katie’s sake. We also felt it was important to include all the characters in at least one scene together to clearly depict the relationships between them all, and demonstrate any changes in dynamics. The initial idea for the scene was for it to be relatively awkward at first, as David is not as familiar with foster child, Maggie, and Martha is still not completely trusting of David. However, when we performed it this way, it came across as flat and inexpressive rather than tense, as we had planned. Following advice from our peers, we began adding more movement around the stage while our characters chatted over dinner. For example, as Martha, I get up partway through the scene to collect the cups and plates, patting my daughters on the shoulders as I make my way around the table. Whilst we still ensured the dinner felt a uncomfortable to begin with, we relaxed our body language as the scene continued: uncrossing our legs or leaning on the table, for instance. This allowed the audience to clearly notice as each family member became more at ease.
As well as this, we began adding other elements to the scene, like having Andy on the side of the stage, writing letters, to show his importance to Maggie; he is always in the back of her mind. We also decided to match Andy and Martha’s body language in the scene – shifting position or getting up from their seats at the same time. This was to show how similar the two characters are and how Martha is beginning to take on the caring parental role that Andy once did for Maggie. This indicated how things seem to be settling down for her, and she is gradually starting to feel more at home with her foster mother and sister.
Another change we made to the scene was the transitions. Initially we moved the dinner table quickly onto the stage while Poppy and Brooke (playing Katie and Maggie) were birdwatching. However, after performing it to our peers we found that setting up the props in this way was distracting from the birdwatching scene and created a lot of background noise. Instead, we very slowly moved the table onto the stage during the scene, with the chairs arranged on top, which were gradually moved in canon. This was much less intrusive and also showed the passing of time in the background of the scene.
The scene I was able to develop the most was my monologue. I suggested to my group I perform a monologue as Martha so that the audience could better interpret her character and understand her relationship with David. To begin with, I performed the entire scene sat down, which didn’t allow me to exhibit an extensive range of physical skills and made little use of the stage. I noticed I was relying on vocal skills and facial expressions alone to convey Martha’s feelings. When I performed this to my classmates, they suggested I move around the stage more rather than limiting myself to upstage centre as I had done before. To change this, when Martha is “sick” of David’s behaviour, I chose to stand up with closed body language to emphasise my insecurity and show Martha finally standing up for herself after being mistreated. I also added wider hand gestures as I speak, especially as I become more and more exasperated at David’s lack of effort in the relationship. I also made use of longer, more thoughtful pauses to show her reflection on her past and further intensify her dissatisfaction. This made Martha’s indignance clearer, as if she finds it so intense it is difficult to express logically, so she has to take the time to process her thoughts. This also encouraged me to slow down much more and made it easier speak with clear diction, rather than rush through, which proved much less effective.