Starting my character work

Over Easter Ben test us the task to find an animal that represented our character to help us with of physicality. This is called animalphism. I did this in term 1 at school and I found it really helpful to start exploring different ways of how I see my character. For Marcus I thought he should be because he loyal to Titus and is the mediator out of all of the other characters.  As there are many different types of dogs I started looking at different breads and I came across a Bernese Mountain Dog which I thought would be perfect because he is a big dog with strong that other respect. I think this is similar to the play Titus Andronicus because I think all the other character respect Marcus as he is Titus brother.

I found the Bernese Mountain Dog a good dog to start getting characters from. I watched these videos a number of times and analysed how the dog walked and reacted to situations.  Things things I found out I released where: 

they are light footed

there front legs and back legs both move at the same time one another. 

has a slight rythm to way they move

Is always looking around

Follows someone or something

has a deep strong powerful bark that gets attention 

cares about there young ones

After I anaylised the dog a couple of times I started act like a dog around my living room. I did this to fully committee to being a dog as much as I can. At first it was really weird (and uncomfortable) however I found it really interesting to play the extreme of the characteristic and explore how I can use theses elements. For example, when I started humanising the dog I started walking light footed and when my left leg went forward my left arm followed. I found this is interesting as I am naturally heavily footed and when I walk my opposite arm always follows. I did find this different to sustain and at times I did start to gain my natural walking past. This is something I can work on and try to develop more so it is feel natural when I am playing Marcus. In addition to this, the dog is always looking around this is something I think would be good for the character Marcus as I have said before he is the mediator in the group who doesn't want war or death. Finally, something I really struggled with was barking like the dog as the dogs bark is really low and powerful however I naturally have a higher pitch voice. My voice is always something I need to work on as I struggle to find it match my physically and to find the right vocal choice for the character. However as I know exactly what I want I can start to work on my voice. The exercise I think that would be helpful are breathing in for 10 and breathing on a loud r sound. Every time I do the R sound I need to change my pitch and tone to help me improve on my vocal colour.

Overall, I am really happy with progress I have made on my character and I can keep doing this by working out my actions, objectives and given circumstances and applying them to the play.