Staging and improvisation

In my group's performance we were locked in a little cabin because the storm was about to begin.

However, when we first started devising our piece we wasn't too sure about the amount of space we should have been using, so what we did is ask if we could start working in one of the music booths so we could start getting more of an idea of what size we would actually be in if we were stuck in a cabin in real life.
By doing this it allowed us to feel more isolated and it also helped us build tension and awkwardness because we were all in a very enclosed space.

There was a problem with working in the music booth though, the problem was that we were not projecting our voices loud enough, because we got so used to working in a music booth where we didn't really need to project, so when we'd perform in front of our class we'd forget to project.
What we did to stop ourselves from talking too quietly is we'd also rehearse in the drama studio as well as rehearsing in the music booth-(we mainly rehearsed in the music booth) so that we then got used to talking loudly and also being spatially aware of how to move around thing etc.

Before we even started devising our actual end performance we had to do a lot of improvisation to see how each of our characters would react in this scenario-(Jake cheating on Katina with Maria while they were on the party boat and then they all end up in a little cabin together for ages with Maria's incredibly drunk friend who isn't making the situation any better.)

One of the first things we improvised was all of us on the top deck at the party and then Jake and Maria catch eyes and Maria recognises Jake from the other night and Jake doesn't recognise her.
Once we had done that two or three times, we then came up with the idea of us all being locked in a cabin together, we improvised this loads because we decided quite early on that we wanted that scene to be our final performance.
In the process of making this scene, we changed all of our entrances on stage, we also changed the staging- almost every lesson because we wanted the audience to see everything we were doing on stage so they got the full benefit of our performance.
When we first started devising our performance we all sat on the floor quite far away from each other, so it didn't really look like we were stuck in a cabin instead it just looked like four people all sat on the floor, so what we did to change that is we tested a few things out.
One of the things we tried out is all of us sat next to each other on the floor, ridiculously close to each other to see how that would work out for our piece. Once we'd done that we sat ridiculously far away from each other to see how that would work.
In the end we decided that sitting really, stupidly close to each other would be the most effective, because it makes the situation even more awkward and also it shows that we're in a very small, enclosed space so we have no choice but to sit so close to each other.

Also while we were in the process of deciding where we all should be on stage, we came to the conclusion that we definitely shouldn't sit on the floor because it just kills the performance completely. So what we did to change this is we managed to get hold of a sofa and we used that instead, it ended up working a lot better as well because it gave us no choice but to sit close together.
And another thing that was good with having the sofa was the levels we could have on stage to make our piece look more interesting, because we could have someone sat on the floor- (Beccy usually) and we could have some people on the sofa and we could have someone stood up, so by having the sofa it made our performance look a lot more interesting and busy, but in a good way I think.

Also another thing we did in our improvisations was take notes about what we thought went well, so in the end we ended up with all of the lines and movements we liked for our end performance.
For example we kept the line/movement Jake and Beccy do, Jake leans over Beccy to talk to Katina and before he even starts to speak Beccy interrupts him and says "Hey! Just because you got on them two, don't mean you can get on me!"
When Michelle first said that line straight away we all said that we have to keep it because it's funny but it doesn't sound stupid because it goes well with her character.