Shy, Alison and I are deep in Super Ruwaxi land, and we are in the middle of trying to figure out the different visual looks for the different worlds in the work. These worlds include Ruwaxi's home, her school, the club, the world of her arch nemesis (Fedora Boy/Lexie Luthora), and Urvashi's mythological world. In addition to the live feed projection and audience interaction that we already set up in the initial version of the work, we are also planning to collaborate with Adnan as an animator. In addition to identifying different looks for the different worlds, one of our biggest challenges is that certain scenes have many more characters than we have performers for. This is one such scene.
The following scene is set at Ruwaxi's school. It takes place after an initial exposition on the Middle Kingdom (Ruwaxi's home), where we find out about her close friend, Nana. It also takes place after Ruwaxi has accidentally transformed the sleazy Fedora Boy into a female-bodied person at the club. Fedora Boy has transformed himself into Lexie Luthora and now works at the Gender Police. Lexie has been assigned to go undercover at Ruwaxi's school to start a female-only program of internalized self-hatred, but she does not know that Ruwaxi is the person who transformed her into a woman. This video uses mudras as hand puppets to embody multiple characters, which I (as Ruwaxi) would respond to as a live body. For the moment, you hear Ruwaxi's lines included in the voice-over, but not my body responding to the hand puppets. The narrator is also not embodied in this video.
password "pepper"
Feedback Questions:
(1) Do you find that the hand puppets offer enough scope for a rich acting performance, particularly for the character Nana -- or does their mediatized and pre-recorded nature take away from the liveness of the acting and complexity of the relationships?
(2) Can you follow the scene, or do you get confused about who the characters are? Do you need different voices and different people's hands to play the different characters? Shall I give the different hands different outfits (nail polish, rings, etc.) or faces? Initially I was going to concentrate more on the different characters' aharya abhinaya; I was also considering having individual fingers or pairs of fingers play a single character -- but these foci seemed to limit movement possibilities, so I focused on expression through movement for this study.
(3) Would you prefer that Shyamala play Lexie (as she will in other parts of the play), or do you prefer Lexie as a hand puppet?
(4) Do you like the visuals as they are (knowing that I would have to fix the second half so the hands do not overlap with each other), or would you prefer them to be mixed with animation?
(5) Other thoughts?
The following scene is set at Ruwaxi's school. It takes place after an initial exposition on the Middle Kingdom (Ruwaxi's home), where we find out about her close friend, Nana. It also takes place after Ruwaxi has accidentally transformed the sleazy Fedora Boy into a female-bodied person at the club. Fedora Boy has transformed himself into Lexie Luthora and now works at the Gender Police. Lexie has been assigned to go undercover at Ruwaxi's school to start a female-only program of internalized self-hatred, but she does not know that Ruwaxi is the person who transformed her into a woman. This video uses mudras as hand puppets to embody multiple characters, which I (as Ruwaxi) would respond to as a live body. For the moment, you hear Ruwaxi's lines included in the voice-over, but not my body responding to the hand puppets. The narrator is also not embodied in this video.
password "pepper"
Feedback Questions:
(1) Do you find that the hand puppets offer enough scope for a rich acting performance, particularly for the character Nana -- or does their mediatized and pre-recorded nature take away from the liveness of the acting and complexity of the relationships?
(2) Can you follow the scene, or do you get confused about who the characters are? Do you need different voices and different people's hands to play the different characters? Shall I give the different hands different outfits (nail polish, rings, etc.) or faces? Initially I was going to concentrate more on the different characters' aharya abhinaya; I was also considering having individual fingers or pairs of fingers play a single character -- but these foci seemed to limit movement possibilities, so I focused on expression through movement for this study.
(3) Would you prefer that Shyamala play Lexie (as she will in other parts of the play), or do you prefer Lexie as a hand puppet?
(4) Do you like the visuals as they are (knowing that I would have to fix the second half so the hands do not overlap with each other), or would you prefer them to be mixed with animation?
(5) Other thoughts?
(1) Do you find that the hand puppets offer enough scope for a rich acting performance, particularly for the character Nana -- or does their mediatized and pre-recorded nature take away from the liveness of the acting and complexity of the relationships?
ReplyDeleteI think the hand gestures that occur between Ba Nana and Ruwaxi are interesting and complex and add a layer to the words and characters (I also like how they reference things we’ve seen before, like the middle kingdom gate). When lots of characters are represented by the hands, I start to loose the thread of who is who. Nana is originally from the middle kingdom, so perhaps she can be hands, while the other girls are the school world and can be animated. Though I really love the cheerleading legs, and lipstick brigade walking in unison!
(2) Can you follow the scene, or do you get confused about who the characters are? Do you need different voices and different people's hands to play the different characters? Shall I give the different hands different outfits (nail polish, rings, etc.) or faces? Initially I was going to concentrate more on the different characters' aharya abhinaya; I was also considering having individual fingers or pairs of fingers play a single character -- but these foci seemed to limit movement possibilities, so I focused on expression through movement for this study.
I already know the story and it still took me a couple of watches to figure out who is who and whar was going on. Yes different voices would be good and different looks or different hands would be helpful. And haracters saying each other’s names when they’re talking to each other. Or as I suggested above: Nana is hands, and everyone else is animated, Lexi and Ruwaxi are live.
If Nana (and Rambha) were always more developed/expressive hands, perhaps there’s more that can be played with in terms of dancing with them (I’m thinking of how the hands interact with Ruwaxi in the intro, as wings, or pushing her down, etc.)
(3) Would you prefer that Shyamala play Lexie (as she will in other parts of the play), or do you prefer Lexie as a hand puppet?
I think it’s confusing if Lexie's a hand here and then live later. If we want it to be clear who she is and that she’s there, I think it’s best to have her live or Animated to look like her.
(4) Do you like the visuals as they are (knowing that I would have to fix the second half so the hands do not overlap with each other), or would you prefer them to be mixed with animation?
I like mixed with animation, so that we have a whole world of visual info to evoke the football field etc. Then perhaps the narrator doesn’t need to say so much, and I think the different characters might be clearer.
(5) Other thoughts?
I appreciated and was sad for Nana, how she wilted at the end. I think there’s a lot of expressive possibilities for her as hands!
Thanks for your comments, Shy -- super helpful! Right now there is only one Lipstick Brigade girl other than Lexie in this scene...would that be weird to have only one animated character? Or should I reintroduce Vanna and divide the lines between her and Minx?
ReplyDelete(1) Do you find that the hand puppets offer enough scope for a rich acting performance, particularly for the character Nana -- or does their mediatized and pre-recorded nature take away from the liveness of the acting and complexity of the relationships?
ReplyDeleteGreat job! You really persisted and found some really rich material here, particularly around movement expression. I found that the hand puppets worked more for me during specific moments though I'm still trying to decipher why. Here are the moments where I felt connected: the intro cheerleading scene, when Nana is crying and walking - you found an emotional timbre in the movement and sound here that is touching, school was always more important to you than our friendship, when the lipstick brigade walks in and out. I feel like there is still room to find more emotional character possibilities for Nana -- maybe the description gestures take me out? Meaning narrativizing what is being said through hands but missing the facial/emotional qualities? How do mix both? Or does the film set design take care of some of the descriptive gestures? Also, the frontal view without expressive movement for Nana/kapitha where the mudra takes me out. I wonder if trying to find more "emotional" movements for Nana in particular might be a focus to try to get Nana as a hand puppet more emotionally complex?
(2) Can you follow the scene, or do you get confused about who the characters are? Do you need different voices and different people's hands to play the different characters? Shall I give the different hands different outfits (nail polish, rings, etc.) or faces? Initially I was going to concentrate more on the different characters' aharya abhinaya; I was also considering having individual fingers or pairs of fingers play a single character -- but these foci seemed to limit movement possibilities, so I focused on expression through movement for this study.
I get slightly confused when all the characters come it. I would like different voices for different people. Try that first. Maybe different people' hands? But I would try different voices first. I like the eka aharya abhinaya idea to keep playing with because expressions through movement feels rich and surprising.
(3) Would you prefer that Shyamala play Lexie (as she will in other parts of the play), or do you prefer Lexie as a hand puppet?
I think I would prefer Lexi be live. I'm still conflicted about Nana being live because she is such a rich character! But I think you have found some great stuff for her already and there is still room to find more emotional qualities for Nana the hand puppet
(4) Do you like the visuals as they are (knowing that I would have to fix the second half so the hands do not overlap with each other), or would you prefer them to be mixed with animation?
I would like there to be a visual scenery to indicate time and location. So having a set design for the hand puppets to live in would be great in my opinion.
(5) Other thoughts?
YAY!
FROM BABLI:
ReplyDelete(1) Do you find that the hand puppets offer enough scope for a rich acting performance, particularly for the character Nana -- or does their mediatized and pre-recorded nature take away from the liveness of the acting and complexity of the relationships?
I don’t necessarily think that Nana should be live (unless you are planning to have her be live at other points in the piece…. I rather like the superhero and supervillain live (Ruwaxi and Lexi)- the Urvashi as live feed but on screen, and other characters as established here on screen as hands….. I like the way u use the hands to not just tell her story, but be her character. It reminds me of the Hasta Yoga video- and since you will be collaborating with Adnan in the iece- that resonance makes even more sense.
That said, I do feel that one could play with maybe having Lexi be live- it could reinforce the meeting and tension between superheroine and supervillainess.
So I wonder if both you and Shy (on stage) could interact with the hand (Nana) on screen, but not with each other (on stage).
The lipstickbrigade is fun as hands, but could also be a repeat of audience interaction?
It strengthen that, thogh Nana is interesting, the main relationship that is developing is Ruwaxi and Lexi- if that is what you guys want-
Ok, now after all that- if you want Ruwaxi to continue being in the center of the narrative as a sole protagonist, then Lexi and Nana on screen is fine. But for a superheroes genre, its usually not a singular narrative, but a dual (hero-villain) that’s why that makes more sense somehow…. (but one obviously does not have to go for “that which makes more sense”
(2) Can you follow the scene, or do you get confused about who the characters are? Do you need different voices and different people's hands to play the different characters? Shall I give the different hands different outfits (nail polish, rings, etc.) or faces? Initially I was going to concentrate more on the different characters' aharya abhinaya; I was also considering having individual fingers or pairs of fingers play a single character -- but these foci seemed to limit movement possibilities, so I focused on expression through movement for this study.
It did take me a while (I could not figure out sometimes if Lexie is talking to Nana or Ruwaxi – also who is is fighting with in the beginning (who did not recognize her, made her wait at the dock, etc)- so ya, different voices or hands might help (though also one or two live bodies interacting at points, or framing the video could clarify.
The thought of decorated hands does not resonate with me at this point. I think I resonate more with your idea to focus on the aharya abhinaya of the live bodies.
I do like the overlapping (foreground/Background) hands though- and in that case actually I like that it is ther same person’s hands (I.e. suddenly there are three of your hands on screen)- that I really like – it adds another surreal dimension- the hands clearly stop being hands and become vessels for the story there…….
So, that moment I would really miss, if you worked with more than one person’s hands earlier….
Maybe more than one person’s voice?
(3) Would you prefer that Shyamala play Lexie (as she will in other parts of the play), or do you prefer Lexie as a hand puppet?
see question 1
(I think Shy)
(4) Do you like the visuals as they are (knowing that I would have to fix the second half so the hands do not overlap with each other), or would you prefer them to be mixed with animation?
I am unsure about the background. And the floor.
I think with a more purposeful background/floor its fine (drawn background Adnan style could evoke the school setting though).
(5) Other thoughts?
Really excited by this direction- wish I could see the full show!