Hi blog! I have a new story to tell you about a project that includes everything from learning the story of an overly ambitious Scottish murderer to playing a vengeful 1950’s woman in our class’s movie.
(Driving Question)
Yes, a movie! This project where the whole class had to work together on one final film stands out from other work we’ve done this year. I love movies and storytelling, so seeing this project come together was really cool. I think we should be proud of what we accomplished in this project, and you’ll see why in this post.
“The Scottish Play”
Many people know of The Tragedie of Macbeth, not just because it’s by Shakespeare, but because there’s a lot of mystery and superstition surrounding the play itself. Understanding this play’s theme and small details like how the characters change throughout the story, was important because we would be retelling it in our film. Thinking about why Shakespeare made this play (the message or point of the story), helped us know why we were making our movie.
“…I am in blood, Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go over” (Act 3: 4: 162-164).
Part of my analysis of Macbeth was diving into this quote to figure out what it meant in terms of the character Macbeth, the plot, and the theme. This was an in class assignment, but I spent so much time thinking about the quote at first, that I finished writing it at home (this is where having more permanent/ literature notes would have helped).
(Some notes from the project)
There was also an opportunity to revise my work. I was happy to revise and because I did, this analysis was some of my best work in the project. Revision and expanding on my writing is something I talked about in my MPoL, so I’m glad I got a chance to do that. I chose to write about this particular quote because I was interested in the idea that it was Macbeth’s point of no return. Doing this thinking helped me identify moments in the play, that if not for them, it would not be the same play; basically the key moments of the plot. These plot points being included in our movie is what would make it a version of Macbeth…..even if it takes place in a different point in history (I’ll explain that next).
The Cold War
Last year, two projects focused on life in the 1950’s. Because of this, I already had some knowledge of what was going on at the time. This year we looked at the more political history of the years after The Second World War, the Cold War. From lectures and more notes, we started to get an idea of the events that led to the Cold War, which would eventually be applied to our 1950’s Macbeth story.
To bring together Macbeth and the 1950’s, everyone came up with their own vision of if Macbeth took place during the Cold War (before a final story for the movie). For mine, I imagined Macbeth working as an agent in the CIA. I made a literature note in preparation for this, about the creation of the CIA and how spies were used in the Cold War.
I also researched into topics like Mccarthyism because I wanted to get a better idea of what life was like at this time and what life would be like for the characters in our movie. I feel like we could have gone a bit deeper (or I could have researched more) into the history of the Cold War with things like events that occurred later on, and the impacts of the threat of nuclear war. If we did this, we would be more informed on the setting of our movie and our audience could’ve been fully transported to the 1950’s when they watched it.
Production
The most enjoyable part of this project was getting to see our ideas come together in the process of making our movie. The project started to go by quickly once we assigned roles for the production. My “behind the scenes” role was production designer, I was responsible for visual aspects like set designs and props. Once we had a fully formed story to tell, the art department (Meg, Emily, me) got to work on making sure we had all the stuff we needed for each filming location and setting up the sets. We were successful at this as a group thanks to great organization skills and that shows in our final film. My only regret is not putting more creativity and attention than I did into the role, but looking back this is mostly because I had a second role.
While being in the art department as production designer was definitely a familiar and comfortable role for me, my other role (an acting role) definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone. I’m glad I tried something new and challenged myself though! I played Macduff, in our movie she is a co-worker of Macbeth who eventually is the one who kills him in the climactic ending of both the play and our movie. For me, both roles were really fun and creative ways of helping to bring our class’s vision to life.
Ok, hopefully after all I’ve said so far about making the movie, you actually want to see it! The film is really what answers the driving question, so here it is:
(Not yet available, come back soon!)
Be sure to watch the credits at the end too! They show how we collaborated on this project, with many different roles and departments.
The biggest challenge of this project was to find as a class, those parts of both the Cold War and Macbeth that somehow overlap. These connections would create a strong story for our film. When I think about this, some of the first lessons we had in class stand out to me. The title of this project is “Hide Your Fires”, meaning not letting a hidden truth show on the surface.
“Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires”
In the first few classes of this project, we talked about appearance vs. reality. In the 1950’s and Macbeth, appearances could be deceiving. The 1950’s there seemed to be much effort going into seeming perfect and conforming to society. Underneath this though, of course people were not perfect and although World War II was over, the tension of the Cold War was present, and in the west people were even suspecting neighbors or coworkers of being comunists. In the play Macbeth makes a constant effort to cover up what is really going on, hiding his ambition, brutal acts of murder, doubts, and realization of his fate from the people around him. In the movie, our Macbeth “hides his fires” in both of these ways.
The reason we did this big ambitious project was of course, to learn something. So what have I taken away from it?
- Working on BIG Projects
- Teamwork!
- Flexibility
This was probably the largest scale project I’ve done in PLP because of the amount of people working on it and our high expectations for the outcome. I think after high school, working on things with lots of people involved will become more common, so I’m glad I got to see how it works. That kind of project requires a certain mindset where you’re not just focusing on one small thing in front of you, you’re looking at the big picture (kind of like “begin with the end in mind”).
Teamwork is a skill that has been important since kindergarten, and it always will be. Working with this many people on one thing was daunting, but what helped was that we already knew each other and we all wanted this movie to be great. Everyone had amazing ideas and skills to offer and accepted other’s ideas. At the beginning of the project, I decided that a core competency I wanted to focus on was collaborating, and this project turned out to be a very extreme form of collaboration. The size of the group meant that there was no way of knowing how it would turn out, unlike individual projects. This unknown was sort of stressful, but being flexible through every stage of the production was the best thing to do. It was our first film as a class so it wasn’t always a graceful production; one day the filming schedule and script would be one way, and if the next day it changed I just had to do my best with those changes.
These skills we practiced are all vital to many aspects of real life.
I’m really impressed with what our class can do when we all work together. Thanks for looking back and reflecting on it with me!