Blog Feed

In our English 1 class, we read Macbeth for a majority of our second quarter. My partner,Tyria Brown Smith, and I decided to make a theatrical playbill to display what we read in the play. On the front page is the cover. I drew three mouths to represent the three witches, who influenced Macbeth’s decisions throughout the play. There is an ear ,at the side of the cover, that is a symbol for Macbeth’s ear . I drew the words “Macbeth” in a speech bubble starting at the ear to the mouths to indicate the witches whispering to him. Tyria did the summary of the plot. She explained how Macbeth went from being one of the most honorable person in Scotland to the most hated tyrant.

We made this project because we thought it would be easy to understand and we could do alot with it creatively. There was much room for us to be imaginative. For example our character list had pictures next to every character, Some characters looked more serious and some were completely goofy. All the characters had different shaped heads to make it more interesting.  We also used word play for the advertisements to make the playbill more commercial.

   Chris Jacobs and I, had a great time doing this project. Our video project is a “vlog” or “video blog” based on Act 5 Scene 1 of the play written by Shakespeare’s, “Macbeth”.  Act 5 Scene 1 is the scene that has Lady Macbeth's doctor and her gentle woman watching as she sleepwalks around and talks about all of the many murders Macbeth and her have been responsible for. We decided to make this parody scene a video because we feel as though that's the best way people will understand it and take it in. Adding comedy into the scene will make it more interesting and understandable compared to if we just read in old english, verbatim from the book. This scene is very important because it shows how Lady Macbeth switched up from being nonchalant about the murders to been guilt stricken in her sleep walk. It's also the scene that she confesses her murders accidentally. The scene takes place in her bedroom where her caregivers are watching afar as she walks around talking to herself about the murderers and goes to wash her hands of all the “blood” that is there in her mind, which is a call back to an earlier scene where Macbeth was trying to wash his hands of all the “blood” that represented his guilt about the murders. The blood isn’t physically there, but metaphorically because they feel as though the sin of murdering those people will never go away and they’re stuck with the guilt forever.  This scene affects the rest of the play in a not so significant way in the actual book, but shows the audience why Lady Macbeth committed suicide in the movie even if its skimmed over in the book.  

We decided to do a parody because we found that if we read the lines verbatim it would honestly seem really boring and nobody would want to watch someone just read that considering that scene in general isn't all that visually appealing. We will give the scene a comedic effect so it can actually have something for people to look at and really understand deeply. We tried our best with the environment and props to make the scene as realistic as possible. In drama we learned the different skills of acting so we applied it to the scene. Some of the skills are facing the audience, establishing the environment, having a goal, and projecting our voices. Our favorite part of filming this is how we completely changed the language of the scene from old english to modern American English. We switched up the words a bit so that it still made sense in the context that the original version was, but in a way that more people would understand without it having to be explained. We designed it in a vlog type of video because that’s what a lot of people are doing these days and we feel as though it would be a lot funnier that way.

Justine and I made a board game that related to Macbeth. In Macbeth, many characters are fighting to be king. Some make noble decisions, while others take the dark path to the top. Macbeth chose to take the sinful way to the top which resulted in his downfall. Macbeth heard of the prophecies and decided to force his way up. He felt that he had no choice because of his “vaulting ambition”. So he went down a horrible path which ultimately resulted in his downfall. He killed the prior king, King Duncan, and blamed it on his servants, then killed them too. Duncan’s sons decide to flee because they were afraid for their lives and they thought they would be next on the murder list. No one suspects Macbeth and he is crowned king. Of course, there are always repercussions for evil choices. So, Macbeth realized that although he would be king, his children won’t be king because Banquo’s children are destined to be king. Again, Macbeth decides to do a sinful thing to get what he wants. He kills his best friend Banquo. As Macbeth was doing all these things, he failed to rule his kingdom properly which resulting in his own people rebelling against him. He loses the fight and dies. This is one example of what could happen after making bad choices to get what you want. This is the whole objective of our game, as six players race on the way to Dunsinane. Malcolm, who was the king’s son, and next in line, became king because Macbeth was killed. He did not kill anyone to become king, and he was more noble about being king. So, in our game you can either be more noble, somewhat like Malcolm, or you can be evil, like Macbeth and kill everyone in your way.

Some of the cards that we have in our game, relate to many things from the book. Someone of the cards relate to 3,because 3 is a recurring theme in Macbeth. There are also a lot of cards that can hurt or aid you in the ways of slumber. There are also more exact cards that relate more towards the book. One the of cards talks about the porter and how he was drunk and how that related to the player. Most of the repercussion cards (the cards you have to pick up if you choose the evil path) are all something that might have happened to Macbeth. Macbeth saw the ghost of Banquo, someone he had killed, he that is somewhat similar to one of the cards in our game.  All of the cards relate to the play in someway. It might be a bit more abstract than others, but they are related. Also, the idea of fate cards are related to Macbeth, because Macbeth is either letting fate lead him or he is fighting fate. Some in our game, the fate cards lead you in the way it wants to lead you, because it is fate. Our game is related to Macbeth, because of the overall idea of the game, to become the king of Scotland first, and all of the cards that come from something in the play.

In this project I worked with Karima  and we decided to make the cover the way it looks because we wanted to symbolize important parts of the play. We were inspired at the fact that the best playbills always have one of the important parts of the play as a cover page.We put a bloody sword through a crown and that symbolizes one of the most important parts of the play which is when Macbeth killed King Duncan and took over the kingdom. We also chose to put a crown because the crown symbolized  Macbeth's goal in doing all the crimes he did. Our rough draft had too much design (even though it was great) but we thought about it and came to understand that too much design, although it symbolizes a lot of stuff, it should be basic enough to tell a big part without giving too much infor of the play. The purpose of this project was to chose what project you wanted to do and we chose to do a playbill because me and Karima decided that a playbill would suit us perfectly. We chose to have play be performed at the Globe Theater because it's Shakespeare's theater and since Macbeth was written by Shakespeare's then we might as well have it be performed in his theater.

Summary

The play Macbeth is about,  A loyal man who fought under the king of Scotland named King Duncan, life turned around. This man was known as Macbeth. He became the opposite of what he was after 3 witches had given him and his friend Banquo prophecies that fortelled their future. Hearing that Macbeth would be king gave Macbeth a greed for power. After telling his wife the prophecies given to him, they decide to kill the king to have the power for their own. They take over the kingdom but, can they maintain it for long?

Characters Costumes

In the play Macbeth we will have characters wear amazing costumes that will make them look like the character they are meant to be. Macbeth at the start as a warrior will have a cape and grey armour with some leather boats. He will have his sword on the side. When he becomes the king Macbeth will wear a crown and long heavy clothing with the color of black because the black represents the bad king he is because of the way he achieved his position. Lady Macbeth will wear a dark color grown, since growns we're common use for the queens. The color of the grown would be black as well because she was the reason Macbeth did what he did. Since Banquo is a soldier he will wear grey armour and some leather boots, black pants, and will have his sword at the side of him. King Duncan will wear a crown, armour, and a cape of the color bright red. His cape will be bright red because the bright red will represent King Duncan's death. MacDuff will wear gey armour, black pants, leather boots, and will have his sword on the side. Macduff will wear this because since he's one of the thanes, he is like Macbeth right man and is a soldier. The three witches will wear black robes and will be bare foot because since they are witches they have to be spooky and scary looking. Malcolm and Donalbain will wear green robes and will have a sword on the side of them. The reason I say that they will wear green robes is because since they are princes they have to look fancy but not too fancy to which they look scary, they have to look nice.

Casting

Jason Statham will play Macbeth because Jason Statham is known for playing as the bad guy.

Dwayne Johnson will play as Macduff because he is always the hero who creates justice.

Paul Walker will play Banquo because he is a good friend and died.

Beyonce will play as Lady Macduff because she’s a lady and she is liked by everyone.

Kevin Hart will play as King Duncan because he is a likeable guy and everyone thinks he's great.

Vin Diesel will play as Fleance because he skilled and he escapes from places all the time and doesn’t get caught.

Adam Sandler will play as Malcolm because he acts like a coward but at the end he redeems himself.

Steve Carell, Will Ferrell, and Ben Stiller will play as the three witches because they are weird.

Will Smith is Young Siward because he is a character who has to build up their life again.

Tom Hanks will play as Donalbain because he has a good voice for someone who seems afraid.

Mark Strong will play as the Third Murder because he is an evil guy.

Jennifer Lawrence is Lady Macduff because she is nice and likable.

Driven to Death

  Answer Key

Duncan “Dismayed not this our captains, Macbeth and Banquo

Macbeth “From this moment the very firstlings of my heart shall be the firstlings of my hand.”

Malcolm “Let us seek out some desolate shade and there weep our sad bosoms empty”

Donalbain “What should be spoken here, where our fate, hid in an auger-hole, may rush and seize us?

Lady Macbeth “They met me in the day of success, and I have learned by the perfect’st report they have more in them than mortal knowledge.”

Banquo “If you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow and which will not.”

Fleance “The moon is down. I have not heard the clock.”

Macduff “What concern they? The general cause, or is it a fee-grief due to some single breast”?

Lady Macduff “He had none; his flight was madness. When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors.”

Lennox The night has been unruly. Where we lay, Our chimneys were blown down.”

Ross “Your castle is surprised, your wife and babes savagely slaughtered.”

Mentith “The English power is near, led on by Malcolm, his uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.”

Angus “Near Birnam Wood shall we well meet them”

Caithness “Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies. Some say he’s mad”

Siward “This way, my lord. The castle’s gently ‘rendered. The tyrant’s people on both sides do fight,”

Young Siward “No, though thou call’st thyself a hotter name than any is in Hell”

Rules:

1. Nobody is allowed to reveal their character until the time of that characters departure from the game announced by the moderator.

2. The players have to tell the Moderator their character based on their quote and if they guess wrong they are out of the game.

3. Everyone in the game has to follow the timeline read by the moderator.

4. The goal of the game is to guess who Macbeth is. If you guess wrong you will die. If you guess right the game is over. You report your guess to the moderator. If Macbeth guesses wrong the game is over and the other players win.

5. Once a person is out the game they will announce their character.

6. Minimum players is 10 in addition to the moderator. Maximum players is 17 moderator.

7. Ages 12-99

8. Reading or watching the play is heavily advised.

9. Macbeth, Siward and Macduff will carry a sword at all times during the game.  

10. The dots on the cards mean how hard the quote is.

For our project, Isabella and I decided to make a diorama of one of the most important scenes in Macbeth: the soldiers from Malcolm’s army marching up to Dunsinane castle using Birnam wood as camouflage. Throughout the play, Macbeth repeatedly makes his decisions based on prophecies that three witches give him. After Macbeth becomes King of Scotland by murdering the King Duncan, he worries that his rule might be taken from him by King Duncan's heir, Malcolm. He confronts the witches and demands they give him the answers he seeks, and the witches tell Macbeth "be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are. Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him.” (IV.1.103-107) When Malcolm’s army uses the forest for cover, Macbeth sees Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane castle and knows that his time as King is now limited.

We decided to recreate the scenes with the soldiers holding trees marching up the hill with tiny trees and gluing some foliage onto their backs. The hill is made out of styrofoam, play doh and felt. We decided to make the background get darker as it neared to the castle to symbolize that the castle was an evil place.

recently finished reading Macbeth in English Class. Once we were finished with Macbeth we were assigned to do a creative project. For our project we chose to make a playbill. This playbill would be pretty simple so that we would have time and room to add on some extra elements to make it more realistic and convincing.

I mostly did  the written elements while my partner Jasir did the artistic components. To make the cast list I looked for actors who were known for playing characters with similar personalities to those of the characters of Macbeth. One exception to this rule was casting Ian Mckellen as Macbeth. I chose to do this because he is an actor who is known for his spectacular portrayals of Macbeth. The summary of the play is pretty self explanatory, I just gave some background information about the show. I omitted any pieces of information that could ruin the ending of the show. The artwork for the Macbeth playbill came with great ease when picking the cover I wanted to in capture the true meaning of the play and what better way for the title to be the star of the play.

What I changed And Learned

Usually in past presentations,  I have made my slides “Boring” as Ms. Hull would say. But thanks to her constructive criticism I have tried using some new things such as different colored words to make the presentation more attractive , I highlighted important topics and included pictures. I also gave some of my sentences colored borders. Plus I Used Word Art. When presenting to my fellow group mates I took the following things they said into consideration. Hector told me that I should change the background color because it made the text harder to read. Caresten said that I should use less words. I changed both things and I think that the slide does look much better.

With the board game, Scotland's War, Me (Nasir), Tyler, and Jacob based the game in Macbeth on Act 5 scene 6 to Act 5 scene 8. What happens in those scenes is Macbeth and Macduff are having a war and so my group decided to make a board game based on that. On Macbeth team there you have doctors, archers, soldiers, and the 3 murderers. We added those characters on his team because his thanes left him to be on Macduff side so we decided to to add them since they were the only loyal characters left to Macbeth. We also added the three murderers because they had helped out Macbeth with killing people like Macduff family and Banquo. On the England side you have Macduff, Ross, Young siward, Malcolm, KIng Edward, Siward, and doctors. They are all on the England side because Malcolm couldn’t trust Macbeth so he went to England, Macduff wants revenge on Macbeth for killing his family, Ross felt as though he was not a good king so he went with Macduff team, and Young siward, Siward, and King Edward are helping Macduff killing Macbeth.

We also added chance cards as well so people can have some advantages and disadvantages. Some chance cards works really well with some players and don’t work well with other players. With the chances cards if Macbeth picks up with cards that have Lady Macbeth, the 3 witches, ghost banquo, 3 murderers, and Dunsinane (Macbeth Castle)  then he gets a advantage on the other team and for Macduff if someone picks up the card for Birnam Wood, doctors, and the bad witches then Macduff gets a advantage as well so it makes the game fair.

We decided to do a game board because we didn’t feel like doing a playbill and all the other options because they were boring so we decided to go with a fun game that can have people interested in the game. We had a little trouble on what to name the board game but everyone else had really good names for their board so we had to think hard about till we finally thought of the name of the board game, “Scotland’s War” which made it a good name for it since Macbeth and Macduff in the play were having a war. What made this board unique is that we made sure that every character and setting was right.We made sure  the game can be perfect and we made sure it was really based off the book because we didn’t want to change anything that happened in the book so we made sure exactly that everything was in place. Also of course the game has rules to them always like every other board so it can be fun and fair for everyone to play. So, with this board game it would be really great to try it out and if you do try it then we are pretty sure you’ll love the game a lot. So, that's how we made the game.

Our Macbeth Creative Project was a Playbill.  My group decided on a playbill because we could express our ideas about the play with it. The first thing you see when you look at the playbill is a bloody sword and a crown. We chose this as our logo due to the play being about a bloody fight to the crown. After this, you see the title “Thane of Cawdor”. This title was chosen since Macbeth got promoted to Thane of Cawdor in the beginning of the play. Once he got promoted it started his downward spiral into insanity.

Another very important part of this playbill is the color scheme. Macbeth is a very serious play and to represent that is why we chose red and black. Below this, you can see our list of characters and actors. I am not going to tell you why we chose each actor for each specific character but I will give you a quick summary. I chose Liam Neeson as Macbeth because of his voice. I believe his voice has a more serious tone to it. For the porter, I chose Jim Carrey because he can act like he's drunk anytime.

The next section of the playbill is the costumes. We decided to go for a  more modern vibe in our play so we added the car and suites to our play.The second to last part of our play was the stage. One of the ideas that we came up with was actually recreating the stage from the Globe theater. By have the stage shaped like the Globe's we add a layer of authenticity to the production.

Our final area of our playbill is the ad for the Incredibles 2. This explanation for it is fairly simple. If you are going to watch a play, it is safe to assume you are more likely to want to watch a movie. This is due to movies and plays being similar. This add would target people who are likely to watch movies.

In this presentation I learned a lot about how to make a slide appealing. I learned that having a good selection of colors and big text helps the reader see the information. Something else I learned through research was to keep fewer words on the slide and explain more. That is why I did what I did, I chose the colors black and yellow because they are opposites, black is a dark base color and the yellow is very bright and makes the words pop. I also chose to make the circle bleed off the page a little to catch the person's eye. My whole design of my slide was based around what I learned, I made sure I had few words but the words I did have stuck in your head and made you think about them.

For the Q2 Benchmark we had to come up with a creative project that will reflect on the book Macbeth book we are reading. Me(Vincent) and my partner Sam decided that we we going to recreate one of the Macbeth scenes Act I Scene III to be specific, and we went to Coxe park to film our short skit/// scene recreation. We had the help of our SAT Nat, and we also had the help of filming from Nickell.

We decided to film outside because we felt that the best thing to portray the actual scene had to be outside. We had our witches dress in ponchos and a hat because that's like the stereotypical way a witch would dress. For Macbeth and Banquo we dressed up as knights and later on with a crown, but overall everything was smooth and I feel we did everything to the best of our ability. One thing that you will also notice is that our acting is decent and that our scene it twisted to fit Macbeth into the office theme.

For our creative project, we chose to do a board game. By we, I mean David Forgrave, Hayden Myers, and myself. We started out with a simple design with the concept of the players starting at Birnam Wood and racing against friends to get to dunsinane and take over Macbeth. This connects with act 5 scene 4 when the English army  starts in birnam wood to hide themselves from macbeth as they make their way up to his castle. Up to four friends, playing either Macduff, Malcolm, Siward, or Young Siward would roll dice to see how far they go in the conquest against Macbeth. However, after planning this out, we realized that this board game was way too simple for our liking so we decided to add another interesting and creative component into our game.

We decided to add power cards into our game. What we wanted these cards do have is power up that you can use on yourself at any time to give yourself an advantage, but we also wanted to add power down cards that that could be used on any opponent that is in the lead, or just a friendly rivalry. These cards can be used at any time to give an opponent some sort of disadvantage.  We connected the cards to Macbeth by taking certain situations that happen in the book, and turning them into cards. For example, We took the scene when Lady Macbeth jumped out of the window, and turned it into a power down card that you can use on friends. There is a prince of cumberland card that will give a very good power to whoever owns it, but is able to be cursed by the dreaded “Macbeth” card. These cards are retrievable all over the map, on any yellow space.

For the board we didn’t want to have just one straight path going to dunsinane. Therefore, we added multiple paths that intertwine with each other so the players are able to land on opponents, while choosing their own route, and collecting cards independently. We decided to do this because we felt that one road was going to be mundane or boring. However, with multiple paths, there are some strategy aspects, and the game would become a little bit more interesting. When we designed our game we  wanted to have a party aspect to add to our game so it would look like a silly, cartoony kind of game, mixed in with things that happened all throughout Macbeth We decided to do this because we felt that one road was going to be mundane or boring. However, with multiple paths, there is some strategy implemented in the game.

In conclusion, we think that we designed the game that we wanted, and we have come out with a strong game that displays the ideas of Macbeth, while being able to give whoever is playing it excitement and a fun time with friends. We all worked very hard to design this game, and that hard work shows through in our final product. My entire group is very proud of our game, and we can’t wait to see what people think about it.

Each of the colors of the game pieces symbolizes 4 different things in the play. Red symbolizes the blood from Macduff’s wife and child, he will be the red player. Blue symbolizes Neptune’s water that couldn’t wash Macbeth’s hands after the murder of Duncan, he will be the blue player. Yellow symbolizes the crown for the Prince of Cumberland, Malcolm will be the yellow player. Last but not least, pink symbolizes all the perfumes of Arabia that couldn’t take away the smell of blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands, she will be the pink player.

We chose to use this name for our game because it relates to the theme. All of the characters are fighting their way to the top. The character closer to the finish line is the one closer to peace, which, everyone is dying to have at the moment. For each character, peace is different. For Malcolm, “peace” is vengeance for this father and to rule Scotland the correct way. Malcolm wants to restore peace for his people and carry on his father’s legacy. For Macbeth, “peace” means to be free from worry and anxiety. For Macduff, “peace” means justice/vengeance for his family and to have Macbeth wiped off of the face of the earth. For Lady Macbeth, “peace” is to be free from all of the guilt from accompanying murder and keeping the secrets of Macbeth’s murders to herself. As long as these four are cautious on their journey, they will be able to finally be at peace. So, who will be the one to get the peace that they so desperately want?