Gangster Nation Analysis

One of our stimulus materials was music. Our teacher played 2 songs to the class, one of them was “Gangster Nation – Ice Cube” and the other one was “The Rumble – West Side Story”, both very different, but both about Law & Order. “Gangster Nation” is a more modern song and that is why it had a lot of drums and effects in the song, on the other hand “The Rumble” is a song in a musical and musicals rarely use drums, they mostly rely on the piano and maybe strings. The first song was very stereotypical all of the people wore baggy clothes and it had a number of gangs, but all of the gangs had a leader, however in “The Rumble” it was made unclear who was the leader in the gang, because all of the actors / characters were moving in unison and they

kept on changing places so that no one stays in front for too long. This was very useful, because then in the lesson my group decided to say our motto in unison, to show the audience that our gang is together and there is no clear leader.
For the Joyriding theme our stimulus material was a poem called “A Joyriding tale”. It talks about how four kids that are just messing about and having fun can end up in a disaster that affects not only them, but a lot more people. Before we read the poem my knowledge of Joyriding was limited, I have heard the term before, but I was unsure of what it definitely meant. After we read the poem and we had a class discussion about it, I understood what Joyriding meant and how dangerous it was, because it does not only endanger the people driving the car, it is also a big threat to just normal civilians or other people on the road.
When we did our still image, I think the other group’s idea was quite vapid. I think they made it very naturalistic and basic. They didn’t show a very high variety of skill, because it was quite simplistic and they didn’t use a lot of explorative strategies. They lined up in a pyramid shape and showed that the person at the front was the leader as he said the gang motto and everyone were lower than him. However they used levels, to show the leader and also Daryl used pitch when saying the motto, his voice went really deep when he said the word ‘die’ to emphasise how dangerous being in a gang is.
In our group we decided that we won’t have a clear leader, just like “The Rumble”, but since we are not allowed to move, because it’s a still image we had to think of other ways of making it unclear. At first we thought about standing in a circle, but that would still show that the person in the middle would be the leader, so then we came up with the idea of making an arm chair using our bodies. We had two people on all fours to act as the seat, two people on the side acting as the hand rests, two people behind to act as the back of the chair on which the person will lay back, two people on the side acting as gang members and finally a person sitting on the “chair”. We thought that it will make it unclear to the audience who the leader is, because if only one of us leaves, the chair will break. This portrayed to the audience that in the gang the workload was equal. Our motto was “Shoot straight don’t look back! SSDLB!” We decided that we will split into two’s and each ‘couple’ will say one word of the motto, but we will come together on the “SSDLB” part, that made it clear that our gang was together and we were united. This also made us as a gang look and sound quite threatening, because we said it really loud so it came like a shock to the audience.
In the intimidation piece we used levels to intimidate the audience, because during the preparation we decided that people are intimidated when they are looked down on and when someone is standing over them, that is why we decided to make the audience sit down, because then even the smaller people in our group can look down on the audience. We used levels, to show them that we think they are lesser than us and that we are the leaders, but when we got really near them we bent down and got really near their face, because if we were standing up straight and we were that near them they would not feel as pressured. We managed to build to a climax by moving towards the audience members with a very slow pace, that way the closer we got, the more tension was created. Space was also included because we started of faraway showing the audience we are not together and then we got closer, until we were almost next to them, to make them feel pressured and insecure. Another element of space we used was, we put the audience quite far away from each other. There was at least a metre of space between each audience member, that way we made them feel alone and insecure. We also used vocals very well, because throughout the whole piece we stayed silent, so that we can build up tension that will lead to a climax. After we got near them we made a sniffing noise, to demonstrate that they are ‘fresh meat’, after that we circled them and stood behind them doing nothing for about 5 seconds. Then in a cannon like feature, one after the other we began banging on each person’s chair, as soon as we did nine taps, we shouted out ‘Hey’. This way we made the audience scared, because it a sudden raise of volume, that was unexpected by them. I think that the way we used all of the mediums, we created an intense atmosphere that made the audience very stressed and tense. I got told by one of the audience members (Rae) that the way we used space and pace really made her feel pressured and anxious, because she was unsure and worried about what we will do next, because of how slowly we were walking. On the other hand she said that she only felt very intimidated for no longer than 5 seconds and she said that if we made the piece longer and added a lot more pauses it will create tension.

After that we did a ‘Gang activity ‘piece, we were allowed to bring a stimulus material of our own choice.

In my group we brought 2 newspaper articles, a song and a poster. One of the newspaper articles was talking about a drug bust and the other was talking about a shooting in East London. A song called “Bitch better have my money”, which we decided to use. The song really helped us, because it gave us the idea of someone stealing money from the gang leader (me) therefore leading to the statement “Bitch better have my money”. We decided to mark the moment when the high status character realised that there is an insufficient amount of money. We used a freeze frame, levels and thought tracking to make it clear. When the gang leader found out some money was missing, everyone went into a freeze frame, except 2 of the characters (Imogen and Kim). They were the ones that stole the money and when all of us froze they started talking about where they left the money and how the gang leader noticed that the money is missing, that made it clear to audience who stole the money. We used levels after the gang leader realized that someone might have taken the money, I, being the gang leader came really close to one of the actors (Harry) who played a gang member that was new to the group, and he and all of the other characters surrounded me, I was in the middle of the circle and they kind of bent down forward so that I stand out. That made it clear to the audience that I was in power at that time and everyone were scared of me. I used facial expressions to show that my character is calm most of the time, but when I got angry my facial expression changed completely. Also my voice was really low and I was speaking slow, but as soon as I found out the money was missing, I gradually started raising my voice, but I still kept my pace the same, so that it sounds like I’m suggesting that the other gang members are dumb and they don’t understand what I’m saying. To make it better I could

have used more gestures to evolve my character.