St Edmund's

La La Land – Day 4

After breakfast we return once more for a workshop with Samantha and Xavier who welcomed us like family. The children felt very at home, excited to see the rushes of the film they made a few days earlier. This led onto exploring how to create stories, learning how the germ of an idea can grow from something very everyday, without the need to force or contrive. We all watched as stories emerged from the most basic scenarios. There was some wonderful snapshots of acting, including some of our foreign pupils who found a wonderful freedom in performance, especially when acting in their own language. It was experimental, improvisatory and enlightening.

After another trip across the road to our new favourite, Amazon Fresh, we spent lunchtime lazing in a nearby park, eating pizzas, salads and sushi whilst basking in the warm LA sunshine before boarding the coach once more to head for a tour of Sony Studios, the American television and film studio complex which is home to iconic films like ‘The Wizard of Oz’, ‘Men in Black’ and ‘Spider-Man’, where, amongst other things we saw where the game shows ‘Jeopardy!’ and ‘Wheel of Fortune’ were filmed and took photos with Walter White’s RV from the hit series, ‘Breaking Bad’ and the Ghostbuster cars.

The highlight of the day, unexpectedly perhaps, came that evening when we arrived at UCLA to watch the home team play Minnesota. Americans do sport better than anyone else. It is a cultural phenomenon that bursts at the seams with tub thumping entertainment from start to finish. Sport, cheerleading, dancing, patriotism, media, freebies, fast food, chanting, passion, you name it this had it all and we loved it.  A lot.  I mean a lot lot.

Howard Sykes

Assistant Director of Drama