Part 2 - TASK ONE - My Production Role - The Wizard Of Oz

 My production role this term for the wizard of oz was head munchkin. For this role I looked at costume, makeup, hair, movement, behaviour, chant, voice and character development.

COSTUME 

For munchkin costume we decided to keep it to how it was described in the book rather than the movie. in the movie the munchkins wear all different colours in all different styles however, in the book the munchkins only wear shades of blue. We thought it was best to keep it all different variations of one colour for many reasons. One reason was to make them recognisable. if they're all in blue, no matter the outfit they are all connected by the colour they're wearing to make them seem like a team or a family. In the movie they wear more normal realistic outfits whereas, for our show we requested people to wear some realistic things but also we want some people to wear tutus and patterned tops and trousers or sparkly things. We want to show lots of different personality and characterisation to make it fun and exciting for the audience.

MAKEUP

for makeup we wanted to go for something big and fun and not something you'd normally see EVERYBODY wearing in a village. we didn't want these characters to be realistic. we wanted them to be cartoony or animated, basically straight out of a fantasy book because they are. lots of us brought in makeup and Nina gave us some too. And makeup gave us sheets with the makeup design on so we could follow it. I did lots of peoples makeup to help them out and get them ready to go on stage. I did makeup for me, Emily S, Emily H, Connor, Morgan, Callum, Harvey, Aiden, Bailey, Alaia, Jamie, Jack + more. the makeup was normal dramatic stage makeup with either blue eyeshadow or blue eyebrows or both. you could decide based on your character. 

HAIR

for munchkin hair we wanted to keep everyone different so we didn't set a certain hairstyle. we knew that since everybody had been doing lots of character development on their munchkin characters in their own time that they would know what hair style their munchkin would wear and how they would wear it. I got some fabric that Kelly brought and cut lots of it to make make ribbons to put in peoples hair and shoes to really bring the characters together and be the cherry on top. the most popular hairstyles for girl munchkins were pigtails, half up half down and and half up half down pigtails. we wanted most of the hair to be fun. I did quite a few of the girls' hair if anyone was unsure or needed a hand.

MOVEMENT/ BEHAVIOUR

we wanted all of  the movement for the munchkins to be big and bold with very dramatic behaviour. for an example when they're scared they shake and whine a lot. when Dorothy is sad they all cry. When they're happy and excited they'll clap and jump around. they have to be very childlike and very reactive so they're extremely easy for children to read and so they are very unusual and unique. 

CHANTS

as a whole class we went over the chants originally with Kelly just to help us learn it. At first it was hard to get used to so after break me and the other girls in our production team all got everybody together so we could become more familiar with it before tom came in to help so he'd be able to re-direct because that would make it easier. Since we weren't allowed to have any music in the background Tom written a piece to go int he back that we staged the into to the munchkins to and he was also planning on putting music into this piece however, eventually we decided against using the piano at all because it was changing the vibe of the scene and giving it the wrong feeling. i had a solo line in the chant.

VOICE

My munchkin has a high voice that is quite weird and squeaky to highlight the fact that they aren't normal people and this isn't an ordinary place. Again were adding quite childlike qualities to the munchkins whether they're supposed to be adults or not.

I think I did well helping everybody get munchkin-afied before the show. I helped a lot with hair and makeup since Nina's class understandably didn't have enough time. I was lending people costumes and sorting them out last minuet if there was an issue. Which was helpful. It was quite stressful trying to round everybody up and make sure everyone was ready on time because people would come to me literally five minuets before asking for their makeup done. Also, there were times were people wouldn't show up for certain shows so if the had a solo line I had to make sure someone could step in and do that line which was quite stressful but we managed to get it sorted.

I could improve upon working in all aspects of my role. for an example, Ash and Bailey decided they would take control of the costume aspect of the head munchkin roll however I think it would've been beneficial to the team if there was a few more of us on it as on the show days people who had said they had costume were desperately looking in the costume room and lending clothes of me and others which caused unnecessary stress. so if I joined it with that aspect i could've asked people to show me what they were planning on wearing so we could make sure they definitely had a costume. It would've just made the munchkins more prepared. 

OZIANS

I wasn't part of the Ozian production team however I helped out where I could. For an example, there was multiple makeup sheets for ozians so everyone was very confused as to which they were supposed to do so I did a certain look then went to Nina and she told me to have everyone do it like I did. So I spread the message and had people lined up asking me to help them with their makeup which I of course helped with because were all a team. Me and another member of the munchkin team gathered everybody together to do vital runs of our Ozian sequence.