Campaigns Blog

STARX'D blog - Day 3

By Samia M

Day 3 was on the 23rd of January when we got down to business. As always, Belal wanted to start the day of with some games to "energize" us and make us wake up. Our first task was to talk about our week but we were assigned to say it specifically to different emotions. For example, Suraya, who was "quite" on time,  had to tell us her week as if she was angry, which I must admit, was very good.

Afterwards, we played with a ball; throwing to each other and saying each other names. I know it may seem babyish, but I was very proud of myself for getting to the last two for the first time and getting beaten by Fatima, the youngest and also the most competitive; I was gutted.

Anyway, this got us all alive and ready for the next, more competitive game; we separated into our teams and one person had to tell a truth about their life and their team had to act like it was their own story. Meanwhile, the other team had to guess who the story belongs to. At first both teams gained a point, whereas the next round none scored. 

By 11:30 Mehreen, the scriptwriter, arrived as we took our first glance of the script. For a first draft, it was a outstanding piece of writing in which we were all impressed. We then started assigning roles and therefore held an audition. Jamelia is going to be played by Zahra, and Rami is gonig to be played by Ijaz; as he is the only boy. Osha is going to be Jamelia's best friend.       

In the Script, there is only one scene with dialogue whereas the other scenes are voice-overs of Jamelia, so we decided to rehearse this specific scene. This scene consists of emotions and Jamelia's and Laila's good friendship has to be portrayed because it is Laila whom Jamelia turns to. Of course the start of the rehearsal was way different to the end results as it was hard for Osha and Zahra to show their relationship in terms of Jamelia and Laila. Zahra had to show signs of stress and annoyance whereas Osha had to show that she was there for her. Belal gave a good acting technique to Osha which was "imagine that Zahra is about to cry and you do everything in your power to not let one tear out and if she does then you have failed." I thought that this was genius and it certainly made a difference and although the process was tedious, the result was worthwhile. 

After lunch, we planned the what we were going to do the next day which was the locatios of the shoots. Therefore Mehreen and Ayesha created a shooting script and Zahra practised her voice-overs. Belal suggested that if everyone says the monologues then Zahra could see the different ways that she could approach it. After some time, she nailed it.

For the last hour of the day, we choose a backing sound to match the theme and mood of the story. I am not even going to bother pronounce/type the sound track but trust me when I say WOW.

Overall, this made clear vision of what we are going to achieve and how we will get there.