Silver In the Sky
Hello friends!
I hope you're doing well and still striving as bravely as you can through the difficult times we are all going through at the moment.
I'm doing as best as I can :)
I've got something pretty cute for you today!
I have made yet another Wee Film, especially for the Little Angel Theatre. Silver in the Sky is another lockdown collaboration between myself and Iain J. Scott made for the Little Angel Theatre's Creative Writing Week, which you can catch on their website and social media.
You can watch Silver in the Sky here and then, if you fancy afterwards, have a look below to read how it all came together.
Silver in the Sky came into being from a very unexpected place.
It was late January, on a Friday afternoon and I was auditioning at the Little Angel Studios, for their production If Not Here... Where? (Spoiler alert I got the role!). We had been put into pairs as the project would require a lot of close teamwork, so it was also where I met Aaron Spendelow who (Spoiler alert!) would join me on the amazing tour of If Not Here... Where? around the UK.
Anyway, that's another story...
The audition flexed our puppeteering and performing skills and we were asked to explore how we could interact as a puppeteer with a puppet and also as a caring human facilitator. For one task, I had to help the puppet (being manipulated by Aaron) who had gotten too cold while trying to sleep in a (very sweet!) puppet-sized bed. After grabbing the puppet a blanket and tucking them back into bed, I had the sudden panicked realisation that I had solved the puppet's problem far too swiftly to really show my stuff as a helpful human. I had to think of something to do, something extra and I had to do it quickly.
From out of no-where, I started to tell the puppet a story about a dragon.
As I improvised a gentle and soothing story, the puppet reacted, wordlessly, with both excitement and worry and I responded with encouragement and reassurance. Together with the puppet, and it did really feel like it was something we were creating together, we wove a beautiful story. It culminated in me puppeteering the bed to become the dragon with the blanket transforming into the dragon's wings and the puppet riding on top!
Once the story came to an end, I was surprised by the story that had appeared almost fully formed and how Aaron had followed me so closely, as we were both carried away with it. There was something special in that story, something that had us both listening so closely to each other.
I have no idea where the story had come from, it wasn't based on any story I had heard, read or written before. There is something quite magical and beautiful that can come from trusting the story will come.
Psychologists often call this being in "flow" state, where one is fully immersed, focused and enjoying what they are doing. It is a very wonderful place to be as a creative person, I'm always chasing that feeling. So, when it comes it's a very precious experience to have and even more so to have entered a state of flow during an audition.
AFTER THE AUDITION, I EXCITEDLY TEXTED MY LOVED ONES SAYING "I'M NOT SURE I DID THE RIGHT THING BUT THE THING I DID I DID WITH A LOT OF ENTHUSIASM AND COMMITMENT"
For me, some of my best ideas and stories come from being playful, having fun, responding to what others are doing and seeing where a story naturally wants to go. Once it's out, then is the time to edit it, or to find the best ways to adapt it into a more shareable story.
That's useful to remember when I'm staring at a blank page or screen.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, I wanted to find small projects to help coax my creativity into action and to give me achievable goals to focus on while riding the rollercoaster of emotions I found myself on. I knew the dragon story was one that would want to be told again, it had settled itself in my heart, snuggled up as a wonderful memory of feeling connected through storytelling.
So, first I wrote it down. Well, it was more of a combination of words and drawings, more like a storyboard or a comic. My stories and ideas tend to come to me visually and quite vividly as drawings or animation in my imagination. So, I have found more recently that I very rarely write down stories or scripts in my puppet and theatre work. Instead, I draw pictures of the characters and see where it takes me. I find it's much easier to find myself in a state of flow, to feel connected to my imagination when I'm drawing and writing down any bits of text, such as dialogue and notes to myself.
My drawings don't even have to be that good! If anything they get more scrappy, smaller, more of a gesture of an idea. I just get too excited and as the ideas start flowing, I find myself (happily) frantic to get them all down. At the end of the day, as long as I understand what they mean when I'm finished, or using them as a storyboard for a film, that's all that matters.
After drawing my storyboard/comic, I set myself the tasks of making the dragon puppet.
But that's another story... ;)