Cross-Cutting

What is cross-cutting?

A technique used on stage where actors act out different scenes in a story that are going on at the same time but in different places.

Moment from the scene:

Our short play was about a bully trying to cover up the fact that he is bullying and and a victim of the bully. The bully comes into his dad's room with his friend (who is also a bully) while the victim is sat curled in a ball in front of a mirror at home, crying. The bully pretends that he is a victim and he only bullies because his classmates bully him. In the moment before the cross-cut, the friend of the bully whispers to him, "aren't we just doing this for fun?". Then hear see the victim asking herself, "do they really think it's fun and games?" which suggests that she is taking this as a very serious matter. We can see that the bully does not fully realise how much he is hurting his victim but does know there is a consequence and tries to deceive his way out of the situation. We used different levels when the audience could see the victim sat in a ball, representing how small and powerless she feels against the size of the bully and his friend who is standing full height on the other side of the room. 

Improvements

What we could have done better in our scene is creating a clear scene so the audience knows exactly what is going on in the play. The fact that the bully was telling his dad that he was being bullied and the victim not projecting her voice enough, there was confusion as to who was who in the play. It is understandable that the victim would be whispering into the mirror but the audience needs to know what is going on through her head. The bully wasn't able to be audible enough for everyone to hear and his crying was quite unrealistic. My group didn't have a clear script in mind and we improvised some parts. We could have made use of the skill of projection that practiced through vocal exercises in the past lessons.