let the right one in. Films and play

The play of ‘Let the Right One In’ is based on the Swedish film ‘Låt den rätte komma in’, which is actually based on a book by John Ajvide Lindqvist. The play is about a 12 year old boy named Oskar. Oskar comes from a broken home and is constantly bullied by two other boys named Micke and Jonny. Oskar is all alone, until he meets Eli, a girl around the same age. At first Eli tells Oskar they cannot be friends but as time goes on they get closer and closer. Eli had just recently moved into the house next door to Oskar with Hakan, a man assumed to be her father. Around the same time that Eli and Hakan arrive in the small town, a spree of murders start. As the play goes on Eli and Oskar become very close friends. Oskar still thinks that Eli is a little weird but this is why they get on as Oskar is quite strange himself. In the film Oskar collects newspaper articles about murders and often pretends to be killing someone with his pocket knife. The murders in the town were actually committed by Hakan, who is not actually Eli’s father, but instead her protector. Hakan has been killing these people so that he can drain their blood to give to Eli, who is actually a vampire.

Eli rarely commits these murders herself; this is perhaps due to her still feeling guilty for killing. This is why she needs someone to kill for her. It is stated in the book that Eli is around 200 years old. This would mean that she has had many protectors like Hakan. Hakan is only around 50 years old so he would be her third or fourth protector. The reason she is befriending Oskar is because she needs someone to take over from Hakan when he is no longer able to provide for her. Throughout the play Eli tries to prepare Oskar for the job she wants him to do. She does this first by telling him to fight back against the bullies and tells him to use his knife.

The film and the play have some very different portrayals of characters. For example, in the play Eli is more loving towards Hakan, whereas in the film she is merely using him. This is shown in the scene where Hakan dies. In the play Eli is genuinely upset and hurt by having to kill Hakan. However in the film she doesn’t seem to care at all. This is shown by the lack of compassion she gives Hakan before she kills him and throws him out of the hospital window. Eli the goes straight to Oskar’s house and spends the night with him. She does this because she needs to build her relationship with him a lot faster now that Hakan is out of the picture.

Later on Oskar and Eli are spending time together and Oskar asks Eli if she wants to make a bond with him. He then cuts his hand and asks Eli to do the same. Eli’s thirst for blood over takes her and she leaps to the floor and tells Oskar to leave or he is going to die. Oskar runs off but still wants to be friends with Eli. This shows that Oskar wants to be with Eli even though she is this monster. Oskar starts to work out what she is but this doesn’t scare him and he continues to be friends with Eli. This is exactly what Eli needs as she needs Oskar to be prepared to kill for her.

Further into the play Oskar is ice skating with his class, presumably during a P.E lesson. When the teacher isn’t paying attention Micke and Jonny attempt to hurt Oskar and they threaten they are going to dump him in the water. In an attempt to stop them Oskar attacks Jonny and hits him in the ear and Jonny falls to the floor. In the Film Oskar takes great pleasure in this and smiles at the sight of the pain he has inflicted. This shows that in the film Oskar has some sadistic qualities. However in the play Oskar is more shocked at what he has done and feels extremely guilty for it.

As Eli and Oskar’s relationship builds Oskar becomes more and more attached to Eli. He spends the night with her and looks over her as she sleeps. This demonstrates that Oskar has now fully taken his role as her protector. Further into the scene he is even willing to kill for her when the police turn up to investigate Hakan further. However Eli doesn’t allow him to kill this man and instead kills him herself. This shows that Eli has actually developed compassion towards Oskar and doesn’t want to take over his life. Eli then leaves and makes Oskar stay and let the light in. She wants him to let the light into her house so that she can never return. After this Oskar isn’t quite sure what to do. He sits on the jungle gym and does nothing. This is when Micke appears and convinces him to come to strength training. Micke does this because Jimmy (Jonny’s older brother) wants to get revenge on Oskar for hurting his younger brother. When at the swimming pool Jimmy attempts to drown Oskar. However Eli appears and kills Jimmy and the bullies. This is again where the play and film differ. In the play Eli gets Oskar out of the pool and they say how they are glad to see each other again. In the film Eli and Oskar don’t say a word to each other. Instead Eli maintains eye contact with Oskar. This could be to shield him from the violence that has just occurred.

writing in role

What is Jimmy planning? He told me to make sure Oskar was at strength training on Thursdays and that if I didn't make sure he would show up I'd be in for it. I don't know what to do. Like Oskar hurt Jonny and deserves whatever Jimmy is going to do to him. But this is Jimmy I'm talking about. He's crazy. Jonny told me this one story about how a teacher failed Jimmy so Jimmy fallowed him home to his house and, well, that teacher ended up in the hospital. He done that to a grown up. What could he do to me. Im half his side and 6 years younger than him. I don't know what I'm meant to do. I've got to get Oskar and have him put in the hospital or not do what Jimmy says and risk being beaten up myself. Is this what Oskar feels like? Being this scared of going outside. Maybe i'll pretend to be sick. Jimmy can't blame me if I'm sick can he. I wouldn't put it past him.

I remember the first time I met Jimmy. I went to knock for Jonny to see if he was going strength training that week. And Jimmy opened the door. I remember that angry look he gave me when I asked where Jonny is. He called me a 'cunt' and slammed the door. I didn't know what was going on. I asked Jonny at school about it and he told me not to be a nosey prick. I asked around and was told about Jimmy. I heard so many stories about him. He was kicked out of the school when he was only 15 for hitting a teacher with a chair. Whenever I'm around Jimmy I try and make myself look big so that maybe he will think I'm cool. So far it has worked. I just make fun on other people and make sure I don't make Jonny mad.

It him or me, either Piggy suffers or I do. It's not my fault. I'm being made to do it. If I don't help Jimmy then I'm going to be in big trouble. Jimmy is a crazy. I don't want to end up on the wrong side of him. If I'm with him then whats the worst that could happen?

my character from another's point of view

Mr Avila's school report for Micke Slyvich

Micke is at the stage in life where he is trying to present himself as the alpha male. This is benefits him greatly in the strength training classes on a Thursday night. He is always on time for class but he is always slacking off with a number of other students. The smallest thing that Micke constantly does is wear his hat in class. Every lesson I ask him to leave it in the changing rooms but when he arrives in the hall, there it is. I confiscate it and tell him not to wear it to class.

Micke always tries his hardest when we do a sport for lesson and he has a friendly competition with Jonny and Freddie. This means that they always try to up each other and this means he always achieves his goals and more. Whenever I plan for them to play a team based game, Micke always pairs with Jonny. They have even created the team name 'The Pig Hunters' This is a great way to create moral for them and they always seem to win any sport I make them play.

The only aspect in which Micke is slacking is the Pummel Horse. Micke always jumps over it but he is always nervous about jumping it. If he keeps working as hard as he does he will be able to jump the Pummel without any fear. Micke also slacks when it comes to push ups. He always tries but he can never do more than ten before he starts to struggle. He isn't however bottom of that class which is good and he makes up for it from other aspects in class.

As Mickes form tutor I get a report from all of his teachers. Micke is slacking off in most of his subjects and needs to pull his grades up. This is his second year at this school and he needs to settle in more and try to stop slacking off and try harder in all of his lessons. If he studies more, hands in his homework on time and try to work hard in lessons he should be able achieve at least a C in all of his subjects. He has almost achieved a C in his English and Religious Studies. But he is failing Art and Citizenship, however he is struggling in Maths, History and Science.

English: D

Maths: E

P.E: B

R.E: D

Art: F

Science: E

Citizenship: F

History: E

death scene

In the scene where Micke, Jonny and Jimmy are killed by Eli the script was not very detailed on how the characters were killed. We decided that we wanted to have one final movement piece for the death scene. To create the scene we found a song that we wanted to use. We started the movement by deciding where we were going to stand and how Amanda could start. She starts off by grabbing us one by one and throwing us to each side of the stage. I go to the right, Danny is in the middle and Steve to the right. We then decided that Amanda should focus most on Danny at this point as he is the one whose character has had the most impact on Oskar. Eli (Amanda) drags Jonny (Danny) to the centre stage and grabs him by the neck. Steve and I then run in and lift him up. This is to demonstrate the strength the Eli really has. Danny is then dropped and falls to the floor. At this point I am standing over Danny and Steve is stage right. Steve then had the idea of Amanda throwing him over me as I bent over to check if Danny's character was alright. Steve rolls over my back and falls stage left. Then it is only me standing on stage besides Amanda.

I had the idea that Micke (My character) should reach out his arm and try to help Danny but he is then grabbed by Eli, swung around and thrown into Jimmy (Steve) This represented the fact that Eli can manipulate us and use our own strength against us, we are completely helpless and can do nothing to stop her. Steve and I then get up and run at Eli in hopes of attacking her. She then uses her powers and pushes Steve and I down by the chests. She then throws Danny over her back and all three of us try to run away. Amanda then stomps the floor and all three of us fall over. Steve is then dragged by Amanda (who is centre stage and doesn't actually touch Steve, instead acts like Steve is her puppet and pulls him by his strings) and throws him to stage right. She then does the same to me. We wanted to show here that Eli has total control over us and that all our efforts to escape are in vane. Amanda then puppets Danny and throws him into me. I am then spun around again and thrown towards Steve who jumps over me. Amanda then puppets Steve and Danny and throws them into each other from separate sides of the stage. I then get up and try to run to the exit. But my escape attempt is cut short by Eli, who grabs me and starts to strangle me. She then Snaps my neck and throws me to the back of stage left. When Amanda grabs me, I decided that I should struggle as little as possible but make it look like I am trying to escape. I wanted it to look like my character is completely helpless and is at complete mercy to Eli. This was to demonstrate that Micke never was actually as strong as he is made out to be. Throughout the play he bullies Oskar and tries to make himself look like a 'big man' But now he is shown to be what he really is. Just a young child who made some bad choices.

writing in role

Why was he in the sandpit? He knows that me and Jonny hang out at that park so why would he sit in a kids sandpit. He's too big for a sandpit. I tried to help him, I knew that Jonny was going to be there in a second, I had to get rid of him. But, I was too late. As soon as I told him to leave Jonny showed up. I don't know if he heard me tell Oskar to leave but he didn't mention it and knowing Jonny he would have started something if he did.

I don't want to be friends with Oskar, I don't. It just that day I just wasn't in the mood, I just wanted to get home and read the comic dad bought me. The only reason I was in the park was to kill time so that mum an' dad would stop arguing. They always argue when I just want to chill in my room. I can always hear them, hear my mum screaming 'I DON'T WANT HIM GOING OFF TO SUMMER CAMP, LAST TIME HE MET THAT ROTTEN KID JONNY!' Bloody hell they act like I can't hear them. They always look for reasons to argue. I didn't even meet Jonny at summer camp, I met him at strength training. Anyway Oskar was sitting in a sandpit throwing rocks that would cut the kids feet. Why he is such an idiot. WHY WAS HE IN THE SANDPIT! He got what was coming to him. It was his own fault.

character profile

Name: Micke Slyvich

Age: 12

Profession: School child

Hair colour: Brown

Eye colour: Blue

Interests: Swimming, Track, Ice skating

Dislike: Mr Avila, School

Friends: Jonny (best friend) Oskar (Old forgotten friend) Jimmy (Jonny's older brother)

Enemies: Oskar (Bullies Oskar)

Family: Mum and Dad (Only child)

Clothes: Often wears a, red checkered shirt, jeans, converse shoes, a red body warmer and a beanie.

Defining characteristics: Always wears his hat.

Micke isn't a very pleasant boy. He constantly bullies Oskar and even goes as far as to try and throw him into an iced lake. However Micke also tries to help Oskar which is shown when Oskar is in the sand pit and Micke tries to make him leave before Jonny shows up. Micke is not a bully by nature. The only reason he bullies Oskar is because Jonny does. Micke isn't necessarily scared of Jonny like Oskar is. Micke is instead worried by Jonny's older brother Jimmy. Jimmy is a very sadistic character. Micke and Jonny would never go as far as Jimmy does. The furthest we see Micke and Jonny go is making Oskar eat sand. They are more extreme than most cases of bullying but they would never go as far as Jimmy and try to kill Oskar. In the second to last scene of the play Micke and Jonny are distant from the attempt to drown Oskar. Even though they are both present neither would have made any difference if they weren't there. Micke clearly still wants to be friends with Oskar and feels that all three of them could be friends if Oskar would stop acting like such an idiot. Micke doesn't want to bully Oskar but he is always put in situations where Jonny will take advantage of the fact that Oskar is so helpless.

Key quotes:

'You don't help yourself, you know that?'

'We know you're in there Piggy'

'We all miss you at strength training'

'Don't struggle Piggy'

'SHIT SIR, SIR'

Writing in role as another character

Police report by Police commissioner Halmburg. Date: 20th March

Upon receiving a form from the local council. I have discovered a house has been recently rented to a man named Hakan Kolmstun. I believe that this man is directly related to the investigation. The dates on the forms show the man moved in only a few days before the first body was discovered in the woods. Upon further investigation of the bodies we found the blood had been drained from two different places on the neck. The first body had a clean cut to the front of the neck. We have received statements from the men who found the body and they have stated they heard someone running in the woods. We believe that this to be Kolmstun.

However the second body was very suspicious. Instead of a single clean cut to the front of the neck. We discovered a large hole in the right of his neck. The victim had again lost a lot of blood but there was very little blood at the body's location. We have believe the body was moved. Due to it being in a secluded, out of the way area, we believe that the body was hidden here temporarily and the murderer was planning on returning to the site to properly dispose of the victims body. However after a lengthy stake out no one returned to the murder scene.

I was on my way to question Mr Kolmstun when I received a call from the station. They told me the sports teacher from the local school has asked us send the police as their has been a break in and the children may be in danger. When I arrived at the scene I found a young boy unconscious being attended to by medical personnel and the suspect lying on the floor of the changing room who was also being treated. We discovered the suspects face has been severally burnt. We believe he used a form of acid to scar his face so we could not identify him. This leads us to believe that he has been working with a partner and has been seen with this person in public. I have a strong suspicious that this man is either Hakan Kolmstun or working with him. I wanted to take the suspect down to the station for questioning, however he required immediate medical attention.

It's hard to get around the wind evaluation

I feel that the song ‘It’s hard to get around the wind’ by Alex Turner relates very closely to the characters of Let the right one in. The lyrics of the song can be used to describe how many of the characters of the play.

I think the song this about a relationship that someone keeps chasing after even though they know it's not going to work out. Getting around the wind is pretty much impossible as wind gets everywhere. This is a metaphor for love. It is impossible to escape love; no matter where you are you will feel love unless you set up boundaries. Relating this to wind. The boundaries are a building that you build to escape the wind, to escape the love. This relates directly to Eli and Hakan. Hakan knows that he is never going to be able to escape the love that he has for Eli. He knows he is never going to get around the wind.

The first verse of the song appears to me to relate closely to Eli. "It's like you're trying to get to heaven in a hurry, And the queue was shorter than you thought it would be, And the doorman says, You need to get a wristband."

When Eli get turned into a vampire perhaps she had nearly died from an accident. The line ‘ It’s like you’re trying to get to heaven in a hurry’ suggests that Eli was going to heaven prematurely. To sae her from dying another vampire bit her and turned her into one as well. This also relates to the line ‘the door man says you need to get a wristband’ The ‘door man’ being saint peter. In the context of let the right one in the line means that Eli died when she became a vampire but was not able to get into heaven because she didn’t have a wrist band. Because she was turned into a vampire she was rejected from heaven and thrown back to earth.

One line that relates to Oskar is ‘did you get out and walk to ensure you miss the quicksand’ Oskar is trying to avoid the sand pit after being forced to eat the sand by Micke and Jonny. So instead of walking through the park he gets out and walks to ensure he doesn’t go near the sandbox in case Jonny and Micke are there waiting for him. I feel that this line is from Eli's point of view and she is speaking to Oskar.

Another line I feel relates to a character in the play is ‘Sabre-toothed mutli bowled confusion’ The sabre toothed part can relate directly to Eli and how she has sharper teeth that normal people due to her being a vampire, almost line a sabre-toothed tiger. The multi bowled confusion could also relate to how Oskar is confused by what Eli is.

The final Verse of the song is very similar very closely to Oskar and Eli and how Oskar can hear Eli and Hakan arguing through the walls of his bed room. In scene ten Oskars mum states that she can't hear them that bad in his room. This gives the impression that Oskar can hear Eli and Hakan very faintly. He can never tell which one is which because Eli always shouts back just as loud.

‘I can hear you through my window But I'm never quite sure who is who But they want the world on a dessert spoon It always sounds like they're fightin' Or as if that's what they're about to do It might not hurt now but it's going to hurt soon’

The line ‘they want the world on a dessert spoon’ can relate to Eli’s thirst for blood. A dessert spoon is something you use at the end of a meal if you want dessert. For Children who are the same age as Eli, a dessert is the ultimate treat. So if Eli wants the world on a dessert spoon. She could want the whole world to be her treat. Being a vampire she has the urge to drink blood whenever she sees it, as shown in Act two scene three where she drinks Oskars blood after he cuts his hand.

Let the right one in weekly evaluation 25-28

Tuesday: On Tuesday we focused on getting the set up. We got the climbing frame that Eli and Oskar spend a lot of the play set up. Getting this set up is going to improve our rehearsals drastically. Similar to the trees, having the climbing frame set up will give us all a sense of space. Due to all the movement pieces we have, we need a lot of space. Having an idea of where the trees are and how big the climbing frame is, gives us the ability to see if we will be able to do all of the movement pieces that we have devised. After setting up the climbing frame we started to rehearse the play starting from the beginning of act one. In the time we had left we managed to get to around scene ten. I feel that this rehearsal went well as I could see how well I know my lines and if there are any lines that I still have to learn. I am most confident with scene Eight. I know all my lines for act one but I am still learning my lines for act one. Wednesday: Today we started a run through of act two. We started at scene one of act two and managed to get to scene seven. I am a little disappointed that it took around fifty minutes to only do seven scenes. I think it took so long because as a group we are not as confident with the second act of the play. The more we rehearse the play, the faster it will be performed. In the second period of the lesson we were able to go off and do what we felt will benefit us individually most with the play. I decided to go off and do some coursework for the play. Friday: For the first period of Friday’s lesson we spent time in a computer room doing coursework. We were told to do a piece of writing that we felt would benefit us the most. I started to make a back story for my character so that I can get an insight on why my character might act the way that he does. The second period we rehearsed the play again starting from act one, scene one. In this rehearsal we got to around scene nine. I feel that this rehearsal went well as we have started to become really confident with act one and perform it extremely well. Goals for next week: Learn lines for act two. Learn all movement pieces Work on accent.

17-21 Nov

We have started construction of the trees. To make the tree's, we stuffed coiled metal with balled up paper. For the lesson, Connor, Steve and I went around the school to collect the paper we needed to stuff the tree's. When we returned with all the paper we could find, we started to stuff the tree's. At this point the class all worked together and split into two groups. One group stuffing the tree's whilst the other group made sure the paper was stuffed in securely. When we finished stuffing a tree, we had to role the metal until the tree became strong and secure. By the end of the lesson we had managed to make the basic structure of all four trees and place them into C5. I feel that this lesson was well spent. I think that the trees are one of the most important aspects of this play we need to accomplish as the sooner that we make all the trees, the sooner we can put them up permanently. When we have them all up we will be able to see the boundaries that we have when rehearsing. At the moment we use the entire room. However when we have all the trees up, we will be able to see what space we have and make improvement around this. Our next stage is to wrap the trees in mod rock and paint them to make them look authentic. On Friday we ran through all of the movement pieces that we have in the play. We started with the dream sequence we have after scene ten. In this movement sequence Oskar falls asleep and we all play Oskar's thoughts and fears. It starts with us rolling to our left then our right (symbolising the sequence of falling asleep) we then sit up to show that Oskar has woken up in his dream. We then stand up and throw Oskar up. This is meant to show that Oskar feels that the whole town is against him and want to hurt him. We then force Oskar down onto his knees and Jonny goes to break his neck. Oskar falls down and Hamburg drags Me and Jonny off. This is when Eli shows up and cheers Oskar up. However this is short lived as Hakan takes Eli away and Oskar is left alone. He is then picked up and falls back asleep. I feel that this piece of movements is one of the strongest we use in the performance. It was made in under an hour and symbolises a lot. The next sequence we done was the knife dance. Because we have rehearsed this so much it went fine. This is the same as the thought sequence where all of our characters battle their inner demons and try to come to terms with the hardships in their lives. The final movement we done was the final death scene. I feel that this scene went okay however it did not go as well as I would like it to. Because we hadn't rehearsed it in a while there were a few mistakes. We were a little out of time and a few of the movements went wrong. But this only due to us being out of practice. When we finished all the movement scenes we started to mod rock the tree's. I feel that fridays lesson went extremely well as we were able to see how well we can do all of the movement pieces. This gave the group a huge mural boost. I think that next week we should focus more on our individual characters and work in small groups to analyse our characters and how we can better ourselves as actors.

Jonny vs Micke

Jonny and Micke are the two children who bully Oskar. Jonny is shown to be the more aggressive bully however I believe that Micke is much worst. First of all Oskar never knows where he stands with Micke. One minute Micke is trying to help him and the next Micke is forcing Oskar to eat sand. At least with Jonny, Oskar knows what is going to happen. The first time we see Jonny and Micke they are hunting down Oskar (who is trapped in the locker room) in this scene we see how Micke bullies Oskar. Instead of just bursting into the room and hit Oskar. Micke uses some physiological torment by telling him ‘we know you’re in there piggy’ and ‘don’t make us hunt you’. These scare Oskar and force him to take refuge in his locker. When Micke and Jonny enter the locker room they open each locker individually. I believe that they are doing this to build suspense for Oskar. They of course know what locker he is going to be in because each locker would have a code on, so he would only be able to hide in one. The next time we see Micke he finds Oskar sitting alone in a sandpit. This is where we see Micke acting kind towards Oskar. After the events that occurred in the locker room Oskar probably wouldn’t trust Micke so when he started to be kind and try to help Oskar it would mess with his head. Then as soon as Jonny shows up Micke turns back against Oskar and again assaults him. Again in this scene we see that Jonny is the physical bully, always hitting Oskar and forcing him to humiliate and degrade himself. But Micke in this scene appears to try and help Oskar but I feel it is a bit convenient that as soon as Micke tells Oskar to leave Jonny shows up. I think that Micke and Jonny planned this to mess with Oskar’s trust and see if they can get him to trust Micke to further bully him. I feel that Micke is a lot worst that Jonny. As I’ve already said Oskar never knows where he stands with Micke. Also at the end of the play we can see why Jonny is a bully, we don’t forgive or think it is just, but we see why he does it. The only reason that Jonny bullies people is because of his background. In the final part of the play we meet Jimmy, Jonny’s older brother. Jimmy is a lot worst that Jimmy and goes a lot further than Jonny ever would, even attempting to kill Oskar by drowning him. This demonstrates to us that there is clearly something going on in Jonny and Jimmy’s home. We know that their parents are divorced and their mother has remarried so we know that they come from a broken home. However we do not get any insight on why Micke is a bully. We never even hear about his family or any relationships so we can assume because it isn’t mentioned there are no problems with his home life.

Writing in role: Micke

Oskar just doesn't help himself does he. I try to help him but no matter what I do he just acts like an twat and does something that stupid. I mean he was sitting in a sand pit. Why was he in a bloody sand pit. What did he think would happen. Little kids are supposed to be in sand pits. Not only was he sitting in the sand pit. He was throwing rocks. Doesn't he know that little kids play in there. The could cut their feet. I mean Jonny is right, the little kids could hurt themselves. It was our duty to punish Piggy. But, why do i feel so bad about it. I know I used to be friends with him but, I've out grown him. He still sits in sand pits and plays on the climbing frames. Jonny is a much better friend that Oskar ever was. I mean sure I had some good times with Oskar. Like back in camp when we hooked up that rope swing and he fell off or when we pulled that prank on Mr Avilia. Oskar felt so bad. He even turned himself in and ratted me out. Thats why I'm friends with Jonny, he will never rat me out. But, Jonnys older brother, Jimmy. I am so scared of him. The first time I met him, he called me a cunt and slapped me around the head. I didn't even say anything. I best stay on his good side. I don't know what he is capable of. Jonny told me once that Jimmy had a fight with this guy and ended up stamping on his head and putting the guy in hospital, Jonny said he only knocked into Jimmy and made him drop his fag. And now Jimmy wants me to get Oskar to go to strength training. I don't know what he is going to do. But I know that if I don't get Oskar to go he is going to do what he was going to do to Oskar but to me instead. Better him than me I guess.

2 november- 7 november

This week in Class we focused primarily on running through the play and fixing anything we thought was wrong. It took us ruffly two lessons to finish the play so the play it self should last around an hour and 40 minutes. On tuesday Miss Cordell gave us targets to work on for next week. My target was to fix my body language. So far I have researched what makes a child bully and what they think it is going to achieve as a way of seeing what a bully thinks and feels so that I can use these feelings in the performance. To do this I read an article online from 'www.bullying.co.uk' This article has given me some insight on what causes a child to bully. The pages lists the following reasons as why a child would bully. 1.feeling powerless 2.low self-esteem 3.trying to get admiration and attention from friends 4.fear of being left out if they don’t join in 5.not understanding how someone else is feeling 6.taking out their angry feelings 7.a culture of aggression and bullying 8.being bullied themselves I find numbers 3, 4 and 8 very interesting as I feel the directly relate to my character. I feel the only reasons Micke bullies is to seem big in front of Jimmy and to avoid being bullied and hit by Jimmy like Jonne is. To work on my body language I mostly rehearsed my lines in front of a mirror and I researched a lot into bullying cases and stories of child violence. I also looked at what I do when I am saying my lines. I noticed that I never really make eye contact with who I'm talking to. This is something that I have worked on again by running my lines whilst looking into a mirror. One book that really stood out to me when I researched violent acts committed by children was the book 'The lord of the flies' by William Golding. This book demonstrates what people are capable of when they are left without any laws or punishments. The book is about a group of children being evacuated during the second world war and their plane crashing onto an island. The pilot is killed and the children are left to fend for themselves. In the book the character of Roger is the most terrifying as he enjoys hurting others. He even goes so far as to kill the character Piggy by dropping a giant bolder into him from a height. I also feel that the character of Piggy is Shockingly similar to Oskar. Piggy is bullied by the group and is an outcast. The only friend Piggy has is Ralph who tells Piggy to fight back against the bullies. This is incredibly similar to Oskar and Eli, not only is Oskar called piggy by Micke and Jonny but Oskars only friend is Eli who tells him to fight back. Also Oskar is nearly killed by Jimmy who holds Oskar's head underwater. Jimmy is very similar to Roger as he enjoys hurting people and gets a power trip out of it. During fridays lesson we finished the play and we worked on all our movement pieces. I still feel that some of the pieces could be improved but most of them work fine as long as we keep rehearsing them so that we do not get out of practice.

knife dance scene

When we went to see Let the right one in, at the Apollo theater in London. The cast done a very interesting interpretive movement piece involving knives. When we started to rehearse let the right one in, we decided that we would draw inspiration from the West end version and develop our own interpretive knife movement. We have the music from the official trailer of let right one in as an undertone for the scene as we use this to keep in time with one another. Similar to the west end show, ours starts off with Oskar alone stabbing a tree. But as when he does the set of movements three times, two people join in, then when they have done the movement three times two more cast members join in and so on until the whole cast except Eli is involved in the movement. Everyone except Eli is in the scene and this suggests to me that we are all still our characters and the reason we are all doing the movement is to represent that as a town we are all scared of the murderer and want to be able to defend ourselves if we come face to face with him. This is pointless as whenever one of our characters comes in contact with the murderer we arent able to defend ourselves at all and this is shown by the death of Jocke right at the start and when Micke almost dies but Mr Avilia breaks down the door in time to save Micke. I personally really enjoy doing these movement pieces and I am looking forward to developing and rehearsing them in the future.

Mind map of micke

I have made a small mind map about everything i know about Micke. As the weeks go on i hope to make more mind maps. Each more detailed than the last.

How To Have A Scottish Accent

I have been using this video as a way of helping me Try and do a scottish accent. At the moment I am finding it very difficult. However this video has helped me with certain points such a rolling R's. I feel that if I keep practicing the accent it will come over time. However learning the accent is not my goal as of yet. At the moment i am focusing on developing my character and learning my lines first. When i know my lines the accent will be easier to do and i can focus all my time on learning how to do it instead of trying to multitask.

video of death scene

>For the death of my character Micke and his friend and friends older brother Jonny and Jimmy we use a movement piece where Eli picks up off and eventually kills us. The piece starts when Jimmy is holding Oskars head in the sink. Eli runs in and throws us all backwards one by one. I really enjoy doing the movement piece as it is very fast paced but the movement are so simple that we can all do them effectivelly. Watching the video of this scene really helped me as I can see it from a perspective that ive never been able to see it from. This helps me out as i can see if i can improve on anything. For example sometimes when i get thrown i hit a tree which will be a problem as it means that i may break part of the set. Seeing the movement from the point of view of the audience helps out and lets me anaysis every movement. The next time we rehearse the scene i am going to try and improve on everything i feel that went wrong the last time we rehearsed.

1) dont hit a tree

2) crouch down more so steve can roll on my back easier

3) try to hold breath more when i die

4) try to make my death look more realistic

5) try to stay still when i am dead.

This week in rehearsal

This week we work mostly on our movement pieces. So fair we have a total of four movement scenes. These scenes are a knife dance, a movement to represent the emotions of our characters, a snowball fight and the final death scene of Micke, Jonny and Jimmy. I feel confident in three of these movement scenes, the only one that I don't feel 100% on is the knife scene. I always feel like I am slightly off time and I can never remember when the movement ends. It ends when the music during the scene changes but because we have the music looped I always have to listen out for the end of the song and this always makes me feel worried because I think I might mess up the movement. We came up with the movement scenes ourselves as a class. I was mostly involved in the death scene at the end as this scene focuses on only three character, one being my character Micke. The final movement scene takes place in the second to last scene. This scene starts with Oskar washing his hands in a sink, my character Micke walks in and stares at him. after some dialogue Jonny walks in then Jimmy. Jimmy then threatens Oskar saying that if he can hold his breath for three minutes he will only 'knick him' with his knife, and if he cant then Jimmy is going to stab him in the eye. At this point in the play we realize that Micke and Jonny are actually no were near as horrible as we thought. When we compare them to Jonny's older brother Jimmy, we can see that they are actually quite calm and and reasonable characters. The furthest that they have gone is threatening to throw Oskar into a hole in a frozen lake. Because Oskar fights back and stops them before it happens we can't tell if Jonny and Micke were going to go through with this threat but we can guess that they would have because of how they made him eat sand earlier in the play. For the death scene we wanted a mixture of symbolism and realism. We wanted the deaths to look as real as possible but at the same time we wanted Eli to look like a capable killer and to achieve this we needed to break the realism factor of the deaths. We came up with the movements for the scene by thinking logically about what would happen next. At the start we are all standing in a line so naturally Eli would walk in behind us and throw us one by one away from Oskar. Jonny is then in the center so its obvious that Eli would go for him first. She pulls him forward and strangles him. To make this look more convincing, Steve ( Jimmy) and I run towards Danny (Jonny) and lift him by his legs. This creates the effect that Eli is lifting him up by his neck with ease. Next she targets Jimmy. This is because Jimmy is older that Micke and Jonny, so he is the biggest threat. For this movement I bend over and straighten my back. Eli then throws Jimmy and he roles over my back. I then reach out to help Jonny but I'm grabbed by Eli and spun round then thrown into Jimmy. She then attacks Jonny again, Me and Jimmy start to get up and we run towards Eli as we wanted it to look like we want to put up a fight so that when Eli does eventually kill us she looks stronger. We run toward Eli and she throws us both to the ground without even trying. She then throws Jonny over her back and we try to run from her. She causes to fall over and pulls Jimmy then myself and throws us against a wall. I then try to run away again but Jonny is thrown into me. I am then grabbed and once again thrown into Jimmy who jumps over me. Eli then slams Jimmy and Jonny into each other and they fall over. THis is when I see my chance at escape and try to get away again. I run past Eli but she grabs me and pulls me into her. She then grabs me around my necks and snaps it whilst i struggle. I wanted my character to struggle until the very end as I don't think Micke is the type of person to accept death. Also he is only a child, aging around 12-14 so he would be terrified of dying. Also this is the only scene where Micke is completely powerless so as a character he doesn't know how to react to being over powered so easily.

More character work.

I have decided that I dont want Micke to be scared of Jonny anymore. We have completed a read through of the play and I feel that the way i pictured the character in the beggining doesnt fit well in the script. I still want Micke to feel awkward and guilty about what he is doing to Oskar but instead of being afrain Jonny will bully him as well I have decided that Micke is now scared of Jonny's older brother Jimmy.

I picture the town that the play is set in to be quite small and that all the children, such as Jimmy and Micke all know each others whole family. Because Micke and Jonny have probably known each other for years, Micke is going to know exactly what Jimmy is capable of. Because of this Micke is actually scared of Jimmy and doesnt want to do anything that Jimmy might not like.

For the background of my character I have decided that Mickes mum isnt around anymore and he lives with his dad. When growing up Micke and Oskar were very close friends. This is shown by him asking Oskar about a summer camp. This shows that they have a history and used to be very gold friends but because Micke was oskars friend he used to be bullied. This was before he met Jonny. Micke eventually noticed that they were only bullying him because he was friends with Oskar. So he took his dad advice and also started to call Oskar names. This got the attention of Jonny who befriended Micke and made sure no ine bullies him anymore. This has caused Micke to look up to Jonny a little. That was until Micke met Jimmy. Micke soon realised that Jonny wasnt even bad compared to how messed up Jimmy was. Micke became afraid of Jimmy and tries eveything to make sure Jimmy likes him. For example at the end of the play when Micke says 'he squells like a pig.' Micke says this to show Jimmy that he is capable of being a bully and that he isnt going to chicken out and try to stop them.

Character work