Think of a happy place…

So Mr Borbs is away… For the week… And in  his own words, he’s gonna be ‘freakin pissed’.

Nahh. He’s not. Everything’s really coming together so well. We’re so cool. Monday we did a couple of solid run-thrus then started the spray painting of our clothes (including maddddd FUBU pants thanks to Susan Swan!!) and we did well considering Alyssa’s voice was near death and everyone was feeling a bit self-concious in front of Mr Hill and Ms Beal (even despite Ms Beals previous experience in completing VCE Drama herself).

But, once we got going, damn yes we were going, and everyone is now at the point where we all know our lines and our characters are coming through strongly, it’s just the last stage, the fine tuning and polishing.

I better let out what happened to me, not many people know, no-ones mentioned it. About a week and a half ago now I was playing basketball for HT Heat and I got king hit in the back of my head, giving me concussion, putting me in hospital and making me lose weeks of memory. I thought we were down, I thought we were out, I thought ‘dammit i’m letting down the team.’ But, as is the DRAF way, we pulled together and now we’re closer than before, I managed to retain all my lines (they were obviously just drilled into me so much that they’re impossible to forget) and even came into school just for drama haha, i was feeling pretty crappy sitting at home with my memory loss but yes, im that committed. i was like a celebrity, coming in to school after my stint in hospital, everyone was like ‘ohhh i hope you’re ok’ and ‘i miss you’ and ‘i love you.’ It was kinda distracting really from the main task of completing my VCE Drama ensemble performance. But its all good..

Coming up we rehearsals on Thursday Friday and Saturday, doesn’t get much better than that, and hopefully by then we’ll be good to go and can just relax and enjoy our happy performance.

And we’ll all be clubbin and and pumpin it

like 50 cent

[50 Cent]
Go, go, go, go
Go, go, go shawty
It’s your birthday
We gon’ party like it’s yo birthday
We gon’ sip Bacardi like it’s your birthday
And you know we don’t give a fuck
It’s not your birthday!

[Chorus] (2x)
You can find me in the club, bottle full of bub
Look mami I got the X if you into taking drugs
I’m into having sex, I ain’t into making love
So come give me a hug if you into to getting rubbed

[Verse]
When I pull out up front, you see the Benz on dubs
When I roll 20 deep, it’s 20 knives in the club
Niggas heard I fuck with Dre, now they wanna show me love
When you sell like Eminem, and the hoes they wanna fuck
But homie ain’t nothing change hold down, G’s up
I see Xzibit in the Cutt that nigga roll that weed up
If you watch how I move you’ll mistake me for a playa or pimp
Been hit wit a few shells but I dont walk wit a limp
In the hood then the ladies saying “50 you hot”
They like me, I want them to love me like they love ‘Pac
But holla in New York them niggas’ll tell ya im loco
And the plan is to put the rap game in a choke hold
I’m feelin’ focused man, my money on my mind
I got a mill out the deal and I’m still on the grind
Now shawty said she feeling my style, she feeling my flow
Her girlfriend wanna get bi and they ready to go

[Chorus] (2x)

[Bridge]
My flow, my show brought me the doe
That bought me all my fancy things
My crib, my cars, my pools, my jewels
Look nigga I got K-Mart and I ain’t change

[Verse]
And you should love it, way more then you hate it
Nigga you mad? I thought that you’d be happy I made it
I’m that cat by the bar toasting to the good life
You that faggot ass nigga trying to pull me back right?
When my junk get to pumpin in the club it’s on
I wink my eye at ya bitch, if she smiles she gone
If the roof on fire, let the motherfucker burn
If you talking bout money homie, I ain’t concerned
I’m a tell you what Banks told me cause go ‘head switch the style up
If the niggas hate then let ‘em hate
Watch the money pile up
Or we go upside there wit a bottle of bub
You know where we fucking be

[Chorus] (2x)

[Talking]
(laughing) Don’t try to act like you ain’t know where we been either nigga
In the club all the time nigga, its about to pop off nigga
G-Unit
we’re cool, dawgs…

]   

swanny xox

so 2 weeks to go, or something crazy like that

its gonna be an interesting 2 weeeks, lol im so ready for every body to get completly sick of me and hate me, but hey if we get our ensomble, i rekon it will almost be worth it,

good on u david for being so like i donno comming for school just for drama, afta everything, thats heaps awesome of u

so mighty draf team, hope we can like work together and all that stuff, and make our happines ensomble worth all the work that we’ve put in cause it would be a pity to like slack of, or much around now, when were like almost there, but i guese on our, omg all day weekend rehersal, this sat and sunday we can just work our asses off and just get there

love ya all mighty draf, fi xo

 whoa what a year it’s been so far…

full of action, excitement, fake tears and big smiles. from the hours spent on my computer (good ol’ lappy) (it’s normal to have a name for your computer isn’t it? lappy, short for laptop? ey? you dig?) researching and developing ideas to the hours spent running through scenes again and again, getting things right and perfecting movements and actions.

it’s not over yet though, no, we’re still a ways off as there’s a few weeks perfecting (and in my case, learning lines, but, hehe, that’s almost done…) and getting everything set to ensure an A+ performance.

i think when we worked seperately, at the beginning of the journey coming up with ideas etc by ourselves it perhaps wasn’t as effective as when we all get together and collaborate on things. that’s probably what I’d change if I could ‘do over’ this whole experience, I’d make sure that our ideas, our individual scenes, flowed together better and we worked more in tandem instead of coming up with our own things and trying to fit them all in together, which fortunately did end up working for us (and it must be said we still did do a lot of group work it’s just some people had different ideas in their own minds as to what was going on and what the finished product was going to look like).

most effective was when we stood around in a group, discussed what we wanted to happen, what we wanted from the scene and just did it. it may not have worked every time, it may not have turned out perfect, but we got things done quicker that way through improvising and throwing ideas around. being active and proactive is a big part of drama and i think complacency is the enemy as far as achieving our goals goes. i’m so lucky to have such a good group though, i was thinking about it the other day and it could’ve been way harder to achieve such a top performance, we could’ve been stuck with some apathetic, lazy workers who didn’t really want to be there in the first place.

but, luckily for us, we’re all energetic, willing kids prepared to put in the hard yards, go away for a couple of days if necessary (at the beach, geez, what a drain) (not) and give it our all!!

RHYS is awesome

FIONA is awesome

ALYSSA is awesome

MR BORBS is awesome

I am very awesome

and everything’s going great

what’s left now.. now is just the easy part. well, easy? no. metally easy, yeah, but now its just ‘practice practice practice’ as they say and turning what we’ve got at the moment and polishing it and perfecting it until it’s so polished and so perfected that anyone who watches it, their heads will explode. and their arms will fall off.

it’ll be that good

so hours and hours left of full run-throughs and practices and eating but that’s what it takes!! and it’s gonna be worth it when we get there, thumbs up team..

and when we’re done… when we’re finally done and feeling HAPPY it’s a party at my place..

then an after party, also at my place.

i’ll DJ if that’s alright with everyone and I’ll play ‘One More Time’ by Daft Punk and it’ll go like this

One more time
One more time
One more time we´re gonna celebrate yeah
Oh yeah all right don´t stop the dancing
One more time we´re gonna celebrate yeah
Oh yeah all right don´t stop the dancing
One more time we´re gonna celebrate yeah
Oh yeah all right don´t stop the dancing
One more time we´re gonna celebrate yeah
Oh yeah
One more time
One more time we´re gonna celebrate yeah
Oh yeah all right don´t stop the dancing
One more time we´re gonna celebrate yeah
Oh yeah all right don´t stop the dancing
One more time
You know I´m just feeling
Celebration
Tonight
Celebrate
Don’t wait too late
You know
You don´t stop
You can´t stop
We´re gonna celebrate
One more time
One more time
One more time
Celebration
You know we´re gonna do it right
Tonight
Just feeling
Music´s got me feeling the need
Need
Yeah
Come on all right
We´re gonna celebrate
One more time
Celebrate and dance for free
Music´s got me feeling so free
Celebrate and dance so free
One more time
Music´s got me feeling so free
We´re gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance for free
One more time
Music´s got me feeling so free
We´re gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance so free
One more time
Music´s got me feeling so free
We´re gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance for free
One more time
Music´s got me feeling so free
We´re gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance for free
One more time
Music´s got me feeling so free
We´re gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance for free
One more time
Music´s got me feeling so free
We´re gonna celebrate
Celebrate and feel so free
One more time
Music´s got me feeling so free
We´re gonna celebrate
One more time
Music´s got me feeling so free
We´re gonna celebrate
Celebrate and feel so free
One more time
Music´s got me feeling so free
We´re gonna celebrate
Celebrate and feel so free
One more time
Music´s got me feeling so free
We´re gonna celebrate
Celebrate and feel so free
One more time
Music´s got me feeling so free
We´re gonna celebrate
Celebrate and feel so free

it’s gonna be awesome!!! and you can all dance with me. actually i’m thinking it’ll probably something like this party

that’s enough from me, well more than enough from me, have a good one and gooooooo draf!!!

swanny

I’m excited about this thing too. It’s finally coming together. Having the whole script is really comforting. We went through a lot of stuff to get here. Thanks to our extensive research we knew what we were doing– exactly what happiness was according to those who thought they knew. I wasn’t exactly sure that I knew what it was, but we wrote our Statements of Intention anyway, and more ideas soon flooded in. Now we knew pretty much where we were headed. Improvising, workshopping etc didn’t really work for us although we did try it a few times. We found that we didn’t really know where we were going once we started and it all just ended up repeating itself and we just sort of stopped, having got nothing constructive done. So the scripting came before the ideas of exactly how it would go. Once we had a basic idea for a scene, we acted that out and then somebody would have an idea and we would add that or decide on something else, depending on what was appropriate. After many extended due dates for our working script, we finally had one. Much aditing happened after that (and is still happening occasionally when we find something doesn’t really work eg props etc). the major rehersals have just begun. Now is crunch time and we really need to get cracking and rehearse this thing to be the best that it can be. Apparently it’s and A+ script, so the rehearsing is what is going to make or break our marks. I really need to work on my expressive skills to improve my performance and not get embarrased about things so easily. We can do this thing if we put our all into it and I know we can!

Alyssa

WELL…..
its been a long few months. some highs and some lows. some yelling and some hitting. but its finally looking like things may work out.
three weeks to go and the script is finalised and the full rehearsals have begun. no goin away this w/e. or next w/e…or next w/e..
or last w/e for that matter… but it wii\ll all be worth it. not long to go now.
looking back it feels like aaages ago when we first begun our research and started improvising on scenes, to see how far we have come is really a surprise. when i spent the few hours time on my research and reading on “happiness” i didnt really think of how much work it would actually be. countless hour have been put in by everyone including mr borbelly. even by some of the group. thanks to Fio for putting the final product together and dave for lending us the beach house for the weekend and letting us get some real work done! (thanx Susan Swan love you)
throughout the play we hav been basically blocking scenes and improvising with ideas. now, our rehearsal scedule is pretty tight. GOOD FUN!
AND NOW THER IS NOTHING COMING BETWEEN THE MIGHTY DRAF! AND THE BEST F@#$ING DARN PERFORMANCE THAT ANYONE HAS EVER SEEN!
The next three or four weeks im sure will be tuff! but im willing to put in my all! and as long as the group stik together ive got a mighty force behind me!

wish us luck yo!
rhysie

omg drama

sooo intense

but soo way awesome

its kinda weird, cause i feel like we’ve just started, but then i was like thinking, and i realised we’ve got a full script, we just got our marks back from our sack (hell yeah) and its like 3 weeks till we perform our ensomble. omg im freekin my self out just saying that.

although after saying that, you’d really hope we’d be up to now, afta all that work put in. spending all those hours researching, and then converting the facts in to something thats actually interesting, (hm, not that im saying that nirvana and science stuff isn’t interesting ). i’ve gotta say though, i don’t think that we would of got half the stuff we have in our ensomble,  if we hadn’t spent so much time brainstorming and workshopping small ideas as a group, and then expanding then and actually forcing our selves to commit to an idea.

we’re now at that, important, but omg soo frustrating stage, of refining our ensomble, cracking down at every lil detail. since we’ve only got, omg 3 weeeks ahhh, i guesse we just gotta do it again and again and haha guesse what david, again. im allready at the point where i never want to hear the word happiness again, (our stimulus) in saying that, omg im gonna be so happy when we finish this and apsolutly kick bum.

 lots of love dra (no f for now) and mr b for all yor awesome help from fi,

Gettin’ there..
Monday February 12th 2007, 5:41 pm
Filed under: Progress update

Ok so after having spent the good bulk of my weekend doing research and thinking about the upcoming ensemble performance, I think I’m really starting to appreciate how much work it’s going to take over the next couple of months.

Having officially said goodbye to my Monday afternoons, I’m anticipating at least two or three more to go before the task is done. But that’s what it’s about, its a Year 12 subject after all and I’m certain the great reward at the end will more than make up for the hard yards. And yeah, part of me is missing Year 10 Drama with its’ constant, well, not bludging, but prac work and lots of improvising (and when we did slapstick, yeah that was a laugh, i liked that). But there’s something else great about drama now, it’s very different but I’ve got a feeling it’s gonna be just as fun. Especially when that curtain opens for the first time on the big night and it all comes together, I’ve got no doubt you’ll see a big smile on myself and my classmates faces (and not just because the stimulus is happiness, don’t get the wrong idea!).
But yes given the stimulus of happiness and a number of different dramatic elements to incorporate (as well as things like a montage), at the moment me and the rest of the group (class of 4, it’s nice and cozy) are just throwin’ around various ideas and plots, and forming the base of our performance. And hey with a great team and a pretty damn good teacher as well, everything’s lookin’ good. Fun times ahead. Hard.. but fun times.
But oh this is just the beginning….

I’ll be in touch.