Brief:

You will be required to complete a drama reflection on the shadow puppet performance. You will outline what you did, how you came up with your ideas and how you made your puppets. You are encouraged to use photos and videos as examples. Below are reflection questions which will need to answer, these need to be answered in detail with examples. The final version will be uploaded to your e-portfolio.

1. Explain how you came up with your performance idea. What inspired you?

We had a few different concepts when thinking about our original idea. The first part of our idea was to think of the story that we would use. We chose the Sun God’s castle story because Ms Beatty had read a short segment of it, and we liked how it sounded. We then read the whole book and decided that it was the story that we would use. We originally wanted to use the big screens for up puppetry. This is because we watched some videos and got inspiration. We liked how people could create shapes with their bodies and wanted to do that our selves. That was how we came up with our idea.

2. Did you have any issues to overcome during this process?

We had 2 main issues in our Shadow Puppetry process. The first challenge in the process was that lots of the time one or two group members were away. This affected us as, we were less efficient in puppet and script making, and when we had made our puppet’s, we didn’t have the right amount of people to run the performance. We overcame this through having a good communication system, so the people could still do some work, even if they weren’t there. The other issue is the actual puppet screen. We worked out halfway through the lessons that we had to go with the puppet approach rather than acting behind a screen. This is because since our story line was so complex, we physically couldn’t run the performance with the people that we had. We overcame this by using the puppet screen and making lots of puppets. This enabled us to show maximum detail in all of our scenes. That was some issues in our process that we overcame.

3. What would you do differently next time?

I think that next time I would try my hardest to go into a group of 4. This is because the group would be more efficient. This is because with more people working on a task, it can be completed faster. Having 4 people is also very helpful as if one or two of your team members are away, you still have other to help you out. I would do this because having 3 people in my group, we lacked efficiency at times and, suffered when other group members were not at the lesson. That is what I would do next time, if we did the same assessment.

4. How did you use critical thinking during this task?

One example of how I used critical thinking was when we did presentation part of the assignment. This is because I had to think about all of the different elements of the performance. Some examples of the things I had to think about were, the sound effects, when the sound effects would be played, how our performance would be, placement of the puppets and much more. All of these topics made me think a lot and do critical thinking to come up with the best solution for all of the topics. That is how I used critical thinking in this task.

5. How did you collaborate and communicate with each member during this process?

I think that I communicated/collaborated with my group members both in person and virtually. This is because when my group members were here, I could talk to them, but when they were away, I could talk to them via Microsoft Teams. I think that I used effective communication because I was able to express my ideas to my group members, and make sure that they understood what I was saying. Having people that wasn’t here was a disturbance, but because of how I communicated with those people we were able to continue progressing in our task. This helped our group thrive over this project. That is how I communicated and collaborated during this task.

6. Did you show leadership skills or resilience during this task?

Yes, I think that I showed leadership and resilience skills during this task. An example of my leadership is when my group wasn’t here, and I couldn’t communicate with them. I used my leadership skills to take charge and do as much work as I could so my group wouldn’t fall behind. I also think that I showed my leadership skills as I helped give lots of ideas for the project. An example of me showing resilience is when we were making puppets. We had made puppets, but they weren’t very good and were falling apart. I could have given up, but instead I used my resilience and made new puppets. This helped my groups production look much better. That is how I showed leadership and resilience.  

7. Were you and your group organised?

I think that are group was a little bit organised, but we didn’t have much time in the end. I think this because we did well in creating our puppets and our script. This is because we put time and effort into it and so we got them done reasonably quickly. Although we completed the physical elements quickly, we had to retake our sound recording on the afternoon of the performance. This is because we wanted the quality to be great, and the previous recording wasn’t too good. This put us under stress, but we ended up completing it on time for the performance. That is why I feel that our group was semi organised.

By Eli Saratsis