Chantal's Hollywood Adventures

Hi There, For my last term at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama , we are expected to complete a unit called 'Reflective Practitioner'. The aim of this unit is to produce a fifteen-minute presentation to the rest of the year, discussing our experience on the course and how we will use our skills in the future. This particular unit is one that I have been dreading since the beginning of my final year. I have learnt a great deal about drama as a whole and have loved every minute of my applied theatre course, however, the truth is, it has made me realise that I don’t actually want to become an applied theatre Practitioner, all I want to do is perform. I don’t want it to sound selfish as I would still love to work with communities, however, at this stage in my life my career goal is to become an actress and hopefully run my own theatre school.   For anyone that does not know what applied theatre is, I will give you a brief description, based on my opinion. The la...

Hello my lovely reader and fellow bloggers,  So.. I've been a little flaky with my blog recently as I've been so busy finishing up my third year at Central, but today I finally handed in my dissertation, so I can return to blogging about all the things I love 'theatre and acting'.  On Sunday evening  I went to see a performance of The Railway Children at Kings Cross Theatre in London  The show is primarily aimed at children and family audiences. I've seen other theatre companies recreate this well known story but none quite like this. The moment I walked up to the theatre I instantly felt immersed in the exciting story. The theatre had been completely transformed into an old style railway. From the moment I walked through the doors I was transported to a waiting room in an underground railway complete with station platforms and ushers dressed as railway staff. Even the stairs approaching the theatre were designed to act as a railway tunnel compete with ...

Hello My Lovelies, My mission to AADA is well on it's way. My excitement has taken over and I've already started to prepare my acting folder, making room for lots of new monologues and am attempted to polish up on my American accent (you know, just in case I may need it). I am so excited to know that in four months time I will finally be able to ditch my thick woolly jumpers for some cute little dresses and shorts. I have also managed to meet many of my fellow class mates (via Facebook of course!) and everyone seems really cool, which lets me know already that it is going to be an amazing year (or two). There is quite a diverse range of people in the class, coming from all walks of life, which is amazing. I can also finally share my excitement with other people now, rather than annoying my friends and family by going on about AADA and moving to LA 24 hours a day. It's nice to be able to share your thoughts and feelings with people that understand you and know what you go ...

Hey Guys, A while back my friend from university told me about a television show called 'Once Upon a Time' by ABC Productions. It follows the story of Disney's Snow White and Prince Charming. In the first few episodes the Evil Queen, also know as Regina played by Hollywood actress Lana Maria Parilla, along with Rumpelstiltskin played by British actor Robert Carlyle create a curse as a revenge plot which banishes all the fairytale characters to a town called Storybrooke in a new world called... Yep you know it 'Earth'. Whilst on earth all the characters will have no memory of their previous lives and will no longer be able to use magic or so they thought. I couldn't seem to find it anywhere until recently when I saw it on Netflix. I am quite a big fan of both Disney and Fantasy and since I had already watched almost everything on Netflix, I though I may as well give it a go. I put on the first episode and from that moment I was hooked. I ended up watchin...

Hello my Lovely Readers, Today in this blog post I will be exploring the uses of character development through a piece of educational theatre to create a relevant and believable character that the audience will be able to connect with. As I mentioned in my earlier blog post I am currently working with my new theatre company called 'New Reflections' on a piece of educational theatre as part of a unit for Drama School called 'Student Led Project' at RCCSD . The performance that we will be presenting is called 'Like Me? Follow Me..' and has been hugely influenced by Brecht. The performance focuses on body image in teenagers and the impact that social media and celebrities has on them. The story follows the journey of two teenagers Perpetua (Pep) and Hudson (Hud) as they struggle to deal with the harsh ideas surrounding the Perfect body.  As a group we were adamant that we wanted to incorporate many of Brecht's techniques as we believed that they w...

Hey Guys, Today I'm going to be reviewing the latest movie 'Fifty Shades of Grey'. After reading all three books I was quite excited to discover that it would be finally being made into a Movie. I wasn't really sure on what to expect, so as soon as it came out I decided to book a ticket to the first showing, the day before Valentines Day.  For anyone that has not read the books I will give you a quick recap without giving away too much.  The story follows the tormented relationship between college Student Anastasia Steele and profound Businessman Christian Grey. Mr Grey's sexual fantasies are revealed to Miss Steele in a binding contract. But is Anastasia ready to share his provocative secret with him?  The movie is directed by  Sam Taylor-Johnson  and stars Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele and Jamie Dornan  as Christian Grey.  In this review will display a combination of positive and negative as...

Good Day my Lovelies,  So today I'm going to be reviewing the movie Expelled, directed by Alex Goyette. The movie follows the journey of prankster and troublemaker teenager Felix, played by popular Viner Cameron Dallas . When Felix gets expelled from school he decides he needs to hatch a plan to avoid his parents finding out.  Cameron is joined by fellow Viner star Marcus Johns , who plays the role of Ben, Felix's brother.  Looking at the trailer for Expelled on Netflix I wasn't entirely swayed by the quality of the movie or the storyline. Regardless of this I thought I'd give it try considering I had watched nearly everything on Netflix already.  From the first scene I could already determine the type of movie this was going to be. It was very much aimed at the younger audience, especially around the tweenage to teenage years.  First for the negatives- I wasn't too keen on the way the lead character Felix was involving the audience so much...