UNIT 2 Proffesional practice in peforming arts

07/10/15
In this unit I have been notetaking all of my information and ideas in to a document  to be typed up when all information ii gathered.  Some of my idformation has come from the following: theguardian.co.uk prospects.ac.uk www.bbc.co.uk  I have also taken information from the stage times and from footage of theatre proffesionals speaking to my peers.

11/04/16
Freelancing
Megan Barker is a freelance play writer. We asked her some questions about her career.  Megan's mum had a big influence, and she took Megan to see shows, and got her in to theatre. She liked writing plays and stories.  She attended university  to study History and her playwriting first began there. Her first semi-professional production at the Glasgow Arches was a commission. She always uses  commissions as they pay her  although it is in quarters.  Her first commission  was with professionals  but as unpaid. She continued getting jobs by networking around her. With playwriting, and freelance, you have to do some unpaid work. This helps with networking and finding work. She moved on to a paid commission, after her non paid one.  Her university friends and contacts still influence her career today. Megan works in many genre, she can write whatever people want her to write, this is open minded and doesn't impose her own style. She does enjoy darker plays, her preference. She tackles challenging topics like death row. Her favourite play was in 2006, named pit, about death row and other difficult challenges like poverty. She needed a lot of research for  this. She writes mainly for adults, but she did a children's Christmas play. She finds this hard as it doesn't come naturally to write for children. She does like writing her own. However, publishing plays is hard. She's had one work published  by Methuen.  Older plays are more regularly published. She's paid royalties for her plays.   Her influence over casting can vary depending on the director.  Megan advises pe9ple not to take playwriting as a career as the pay isn't good.  She formed a play company so could have an impact on casting. This was called Feral. She works with a director, Estelle. She is the writer for the company. She enjoys seeing her plays when she sees none of the rehearsal process. If she hasn't got any work, Megan does teaching or goes off to workshops.

11/04/16
Session Musicians
If you want to be a session musician, in hindsight, are interpersonal skills, read a situation easily and a person so that you can fit in with any set up. You also cannot annoy people paying you. You must work with anyone, despite any reservations. You have to adapt to each new situation, you may have been booked and you'd have to playing it a track they play you. You need a good ear, making parts and harmonies. You have to create genre specific parts to fit the music. Yo u Mayo go in, learning play a completely new part. You must be an all round good musician. It's important to be punctual, and if they call you you must turn up promptly. For to and radio these are set in stone. As a session musician, you have to be self-contained, patient, and in TV especially there's a lot of waiting time, for example  doing make up and camera checks. There are rehearsals for lights, and each time you must perform. Prepare for not working in a job. You need to have a bit of savings.  Finding work When you begin, this is the key to your reputation. You need to network. There are networks to find talent. Start off with little bands or mallet scale work. Cara, the session musician, joined a big reggae band called Steel Pulse. It was an important musical  opportunity. This helped develop the skills. Despite the criticisms, this was constructive. It's important to listen to the band and working as an ensemble. Through another singer, she heard of an audition and went, it gave a platform to become more successful. It was important to answer adverts to get you new jobs. Word of mouth was regular. While working öith one group, every few months which wasn't enough for Cara. At the same time she auditioned from a music paper. She had a good contract giving a fixed rate even when not working. It was 100 pounds, when not working and this doubled when working, this was a retainer contract. It retained musical services for the whole contract. This included making an album. This meant you had to move. There  were world shows, and television performances. Also there were pop videos. Cara's next job was due to those in which she networked with. His manager praised her and then the contract with Egbt ended. With six months of unemployment, this changes your life. You never know when the next work will start. Bully Brag's manager offered Cara a job. She rehearsed in London, learning songs, doing gigs. They planned a six week tour in America. There are no contracts with this. This is not common. This meant planning pay. It's uncomfortable but eventually there was a set rate. It was 300 pounds a day in studio, and 500 each week. This was also a lot of recording. This still had a flat rate. She had to write the piano parts. Bully got I'll, Cara had to find more jobs in a newspaper. She sent them a cassette of some tracks. There was a lot of auditioneees. You had to learn all the lines and play them. In the first audition she learnt 7 pieces, and it was fast paced. They were not committing.  There followed a second audition between Cara and someone else. There was more on the spot learning. THE other girl auditioned, and it was rather competitive. "They gave her the job. They asked her the fees she asked of. On the top, they toured an album around. They did lots of tv work. Also Also many live shows. They knew the band band would succeed. Cara's pay went up to 2000 pounds a week. You must be negotiable with money. 22 May There  are many different contracts available for freelancers  to help them manage in employment, manage finances and deal with their rights in employments. One key example of this is a retaining contract. This gave freelancers a constant injection of payment, and this increased when the artist was working. This meant that when an artist worked, they had more pay, and were more devoted to their employer. This prevented  the artists from working somewhere else. Also if there was no work, the artist would still have some pay to live off. Another common contract is the heads of agreement which can outline work dates, duties, hours, expectations, pay, and length.  This prepares the artist for the job and what it entails and your responsibilities. There are also MU contracts which help musicians and bands or other freelance artists to deal with any arrangements or sort out incidents with contracts or agreements. This offers basic support to freelance artists within their jobs. Contracts are also put in place to help artists live and have the support they need in work, for example, artists may have to work last minute, or auditionnnnn.n.  

22 May  Freelancing.  There are many important aspects of freelancing. If you take on a freelance role, you must be very interested in this role. This is because freelancing needs complete dedication. You need to have a passion for the type of work you do, if you don't really want to be a session musician or play write, then don't do it. Another important thing to remember, is the pay. At first, you need to build on networks and a reputation. As soon as you start the job, you won't have a high payed contract. Freelancers soften work for nothing at first, so they need a way of getting income. Also, if you are a play right, like Megan Barker, you have to write plays that the public want, even if they go against your style. Freelancers also need to juggle their child care. Cara was lucky to take her children on tour with her, however, Megan had to deal with her childcare and home life. Freelance artists are often needed on call, actresses like Jenny-May would be needed for jobs whenever rehearsals took place. Claire from Open Skies among others gained  passion from childhood experiences and passions. At one point, Claire lost motivation and felt that she could not properly achieve anything theatre related. She and Jenny-May, also took an opportunity to train in India and France, which may broaden ideas or freelance opportunities. Estelle often has to  travel a lot, because although her pantos are Hereford based, most auditions are held in London, and directors need to see who they can work with. Freelancers must be competitive, when Cara auditioned for roles she had to go through many stages, and had a one versus one audition at the end. Jenny-May and most of the other practitioners went to university, in order to properly train. Megan chose her path carefully, working with semi-professional theatre groups. This helps freelancers build up their experiences and climb the employment ladder. Claire from Open Skies writes scripts as well as acts, and employs Jenny-May, uniting themselves and their skills in to a team effort. As Estelle directs, and Megan writes, they also collaborated as Feral productions, as they both could help each other. Freelancers need to save money and try and have a good income, in order to survive between jobs. Although this is a difficult position it is manageable, but each of the five practitioners advise others to not take this job due to the amount of risks.