This week our kids did not show up. I was actually kind of sad because I wanted to see their drawings and talk to them. We sent an email to the program director, Aaron, and he said there must have been some connectivity issue and he was not in that day. Obviously with so many moving parts and the complexity of technology, we expected some hiccups. I am a little nervous about getting the kids to finish everything for the next time we meet but we just have to roll with the punches so to speak. I’m looking forward to finishing everything up and finally watching our video and the other group’s acts!

This week we did not meet with our group. No one answered our Google Meet Call and we emailed the teacher. Hopefully was just a mix up and we will be able to week with them for meeting 7! Our last meeting we need to finish the pictures and get the pervious ones they drew.

I will be 3 hours into an appointment at the dentist while my group meets this week, but I am making up for it by being responsible for all voice recordings for the final project, as I will be with a group that can do all of the necessary voices.

As for my pre-show entry, I am very excited for our final product, as we are going to have more active audio than visual. However, our visuals are provided all by the kids, which makes them special. We plan on basically having a slideshow of their drawings (that go with what is happening/encapsulate each scene), and then have a voiceover of the actual scene’s dialogue set to it. Maybe we will need to add music to make it more lively, but so far we are excited for how it will turn out!

This was another very productive meeting with our students. To start the meeting, the teacher pulled several of the students aside and finished up the backgrounds for most of our settings. While they were doing that, we were able to work on the script a little bit more and finish some things up. After they came back, we got one of the students to read the script, and he did an amazing job, with some great dramatization. The students gave some feedback on the script that we’re going to take into the next meeting. We also offered the students a chance to incorporate some tik tok dances into the script/visualization because of their constant singing of tik tok songs in class and they were on board. We feel really good about where we’re at and we’re excited to start putting this whole thing together.

Unfortunately, technology issues prevented us from meeting with our group on Friday. This was very disappointing as we were hoping to film more scenes this week. Instead, we will have to try to film the rest of our scenes next Thursday. I’m honestly not sure if we’ll be able to get it done.

I don’t really have much else to add because we did not get a chance to actually meet. The group did use the time to plan what we would do next week, especially given the time crunch. I am hoping that we are able to quickly film the rest of the scenes so that we have all of Act V completed by the end of the semester.

We did not meet last week because our group never showed. We are not meeting again today as we are not in Richmond. We will finish next week!

We had another productive meeting this week with the kids. The more productive and effective teacher was with the kids again, which really helps the kids stay focused and on task. We went through the script with the kids, with each of them reading a different part and hearing their feedback on different ideas. The kids really liked reading through it and seemed excited about the script. They offered some ideas and changes which we should be able to implement and now we are just waiting on them to finish up making the last couple of scenes. Otherwise, I think we should be able to start recording and editing the scenes and speaking parts together over break, which would be great. The whole group feels good about where we are and we have plans to meet so we can work on it together this week. We are all looking forward to seeing the final product!

This week we worked on recording the play. We did not get a final recording, but the kids were able to get into character, and add their own flair to the script. As we read through the script I began to notice where the dialogue was more natural, and when it was more stilted, which was good to know. Hearing the dialogue out loud has made me really appreciate the “Drunk History” style of narration. It makes it more intuitive to include important plot points, rather than including it in the lines of individual characters. We made the discovery that we had not included any lines for Hero, which was wholly unintentional. But it was so ironic that we did not make lines for the character that is the least developed in the play. That gave us the chance to add lines back in, and the kids had a lot of input about the lines. It was really cool to include them in the process, and see what they wanted Hero to be like. 

Although the students did not come online this week for some reason, as a group we were able to assess what needed to happen next. The week after Thanksgiving, we will have the students audio-record their lines and then we will put it together with the pictures they send us. Until then, we have to create the script! That will be a job for the next week. I’m looking forward to seeing the kids again the week after next!

I unfortunately was not able to meet with the group this week due to some wifi issues from home, but my team members were able to bring me up to speed with how it went this week. Originally we were going to start recording, but then it was decided that they would finalize the drawings for the play and do a few practice runs of the script. One of the kids noticed that Hero did not have any lines in the first act, so they added in a few lines for her. Still, we did not want her to have too many lines as we wanted to keep true to her original reserved character from the play. Overall, it appears it was a successful week! I was sad that I was not able to join but I am looking forward to recording the play after Thanksgiving!