Acting Students take part in new project Invisible / Visible with Rosemary Hill
In the Performing Arts department at MK College we have been keen to work with Rosemary Hill again since a successful collaboration with Grid Arts on Home Sweet Home kick started the academic year in 2016 and made a huge impact on that years cohort of students. Many of the students of that year group continuing on to work with Rosemary in her following projects, gaining invaluable industry experience.
Rosemary Hill is an inspirational local Theatre practitioner with a wealth of knowledge and experience to share with our fortunate acting students. Rosemary is Artistic Director of The Plays the Thing Theatre Company who have been granted Arts Council funding to realise the Project ‘Invisible / Visible’
Acting Course Team Leader Mandy Clayfield has been able to weave the live project work in with required unit assessments for the second year actors who have been responding to the theme ‘invisibility in society’. The project explores how age, race, gender, disability, socio economic status and our career choices can all directly affect how society perceives us, and why certain people and roles in society are ignored, taken for granted, isolated and forgotten. Now the recent lockdown has led to a renewed respect and awareness of so many key workers. How can we encourage society to retain these wins, and to work to a future that nobody needs to feel invisible in society again?
“It has been an absolute joy to work with MK College Year 2 Acting students on this project". says Rosemary. "Mandy and I discussed early on that we would like to give each student the chance to work on their own monologue on a subject which they felt strongly about. The students liked the idea too. The students have really risen to the challenge. The resulting monologues are very different – some are personal, some deal with wider issues in society and all are very engaging. The students have also been learning about camera shots and angles, working with a green screen and how to use music to tell their stories. It’s been a wonderful journey. We can’t wait to film them in the next couple of weeks.”
Of course in the current situation there were additional safety measures to put in place, and social distancing has been maintained between Rosemary and the bubble of the acting students, face masks are also worn in all communal areas and in any closer proximity situations.
Acting Course Team Leader Mandy feels the experience has been invaluable; "the students have found it so interesting to learn about camera angles and the differences between the preparation required for stage work and for film work.
They have begun to think about what viewpoint they want, and how they may layer their piece for a film viewer, it has been the perfect content for an Acting for Film unit, and a great learning experience for these young aspiring actors"
The students are one of the four strands of this community engagement project. Each one will be digitally broadcast and distributed.
Read more about the progress of the other groups working on Invisible / Visible here