170 Days – Devising

an image of several index cards with questions written on them around the themes of the show - things like 'a story about cycling' or 'what does it feel like to break a bone' or 'strong vs. weak'
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One of the main strategies from devising this week is a question game Alex set up on the first day. After sitting down and discussing all of the thoughts I’d had so far about what the show might or could be about, Alex wrote around 25 index cards with questions/prompts. He thought it might fill the afternoon, but actually some of the questions took up to an hour to answer, and they’ve been throwing up really clear sections of show. Each day I have picked around 8 of them and just spoken/researched something in response.

At the moment the form of presentation is kind of a live research method.The screen of my laptop as I sit at a table and pick a card is mirrored to a 4x3m screen behind me. You sort of follow my research through my google searches, looking through old photos, event results, memories as they are online, and I talk about them. Sometimes I will come away from the laptop and just talk about a memory. Sometime I will show you a place or a route on google maps. Sometimes though I just pick a background and tell a story. This has made 7-10 clear ‘sections’ which we could try together as a form in the first WIP showing. It feels nice that this is reflecting a bit of the heart of the show which is how much I live online, but how whole and offline sport is.

Another big thing is although this is only day 4 of 10, this is actually the last day of making – all the rest are showing days, or work with the scientists or the documentary maker – so really, that’s a lot of interesting but very rough content that we’ll work out how to test in front of the audience on Thursday and Friday (book your free tickets here!) Alex goes away the end of this week to work on another project, so after the interviews I have one day alone to try and put some of the science together to fit in with it. Eek!