research, ideas and all that jazz!

As we are going to be working extremely closely as a group, and from pervious experiences of working like this I thought it best if we had a way to communicate thus I created a Facebook page called 'girls like that!' so that we could remind each other of rehearsals, post videos of scenes and dances, ask each other questions and just keep everyone up to date and involved.
as the page is on secret/private I am not sure if you will be able to view the page but here is the link:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/280597935421744/

on the Facebook page we all shared suggestions of things we had seen previously or things we had researched, Louise suggested we all watched the YouTube video of Amanda Todd, we decided to all watch this video together so that we could discuss it afterwards. The Video is Amanda's version of a suicide note, it tells us the tale of how she was bullied because of a picture of her and how she changed schools yet the bullying followed her and thus continued, this is very like the tale of Scarlett and Girls like that, therefore one of the questions we would like to ask Evan Placey is whether he used this video to inspire him. We then watched the reaction people had to Amanda's death and it was really surprising to see the people who were being interviewed in tears saying how awful it was that she was treated like this and how bad it got, yet it made us beg the question 'what did any of those interviewed do to help Amanda?' and 'were any of those interviewed part of her torment?' much like we see the group of St Helens girls in the play who are all tormenting Scarlett by joining in and creating gossip and rumours and then create a candlelit memorial service, it made us think about how people are in real life and whether Evan Placey was trying to tell us something about our society today and how people treat others.
Amanda's story is horrific which is why at first many of us didn't believe the video to be real but after watching the news videos that followed we knew it was unfortunately and unbelievably true. Evan's play 'girls like that' is based on many of the issues Amanda talks about in her video these issues are really quite sickening and it is horrible to think that in true life a young teenage girl had to experience such pain that we as actors have to try and act and relay to an audience. Therefore i think that it is really amazing that a playwright is able to create a play out of such a horrific event and that Evan has the power to change such a devastating story into a play to inspire and educate.
Amanda Todd video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOHXGNx-E7E
Response to her death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_smLYQo3TuA

I suggested after watching the film 'CYBERBULLY' myself that the rest of the cast should watch it as it tells the tale of a girl called 'Taylor' who is cyberbullied and it all revolves around the nastiness of teenage girls and effect of boys, crushes, lies, rumours, lack of friends and attracting attention to yourself. As a group we all watched the film together so that we could discuss what we were watching and gather ideas about the types of characters that are involved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkVzUMH6sI0

Hannah Marns suggested we watch these sets of youtube videos by dancer/choreographer Yanis especially the ones using the tracks we are dancing to as part of the play. the videos allow us to all think about the amount of sass and attitude we need to put into all of the routines as well as giving us ideas of small things we could do when waiting between steps for example in our 'Beyoncé- who runs the world' routine we have a few small gaps when Ben has directed us to ad lib and improvise being teenage girls.

Beyoncé style-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-v3omXF_4I

pink-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc6UOkTQXCE

dancing as a group-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk3iAyrQqUI

I wanted to do some more research into the extent and measures of 'sexting' and sending images around school so I wrote the following into google:
1. girl sends naked picture round school
the top results I got

 

one of the replies to a girl pleading for help: But nobody should ever take naked pics of themselves and send them to a male x) Its the girls fought for doing so. Ahhh, a girl at my school had a naked picture of herself on her phone, a guy got it from her and sent it round school. I mean, how do you not spread it around?! -this comment had been reposted as it had been previously deleted and the repost read the comment then '-you types of people make me sick. this girl is asking for help and you are mocking and blaming her.'

 

the yahoo questions asked relating to this topic are shocking and so are the rates of views. the  answers to these questions are just as shocking as the questions, young people are using a world wide internet everyone viewing service to plead for help and answers for something that they thought was purely innocent and for love that has been blown out of control and ruined many of their lives.

As I scrolled down google there were many websites to help parents of the sexting victims as well as advice of what to do yet there still didn't seem to be anywhere that could solve or actually fully help the problem. Which shows the importance of the play 'Girls Like That' because the play offers young people reassurance that the problem can be dealt with and the victim doesn't need to feel victimised because there are people there to help.