Final Evaluation

 

On reading over my Learning Agreement for this unit I can see that I have achieved many of the goals I set out. Firstly, the issue of my lacking confidence which I hoped to address and advance throughout this unit. Although I didn't have to pitch my idea, I have had to work closely with a Director and hence, I have had to coherently explain my ideas to him in a confident manner so he also has confidence in designing ability. I have definitely achieved this and seeing his interest in my ideas has given me a confidence boost. Furthermore, having successfully to present to the whole year and a board meeting has only aided my self belief. Seeing the positive response to my work and being questioned about my thinking, in both these situations, has also helped my ability to think on my feet and has shown me the value of reflecting on my work, so I truly understand why I have made certain choices. Working with Doug as a Director has been really interesting especially as the production is actual and not theoretical as previous projects have been. I have welcomed his perspective as an actor and director and this collaboration has been great. Having a Director to communicate with has allowed me to develop my ideas in new ways with his alternative point of view and the influence of his ideas. It has also been helpful for my self motivation as I have arranged meetings with him throughout the project to ensure I am upto date with work. The meeting I attended on the 13^th of May where I was introduced to all members involved in the production got me very excited for the collaborating ahead. Working with both the make-up and film students will be new to me and hopefully I will learn from them both, particularly as this production is small scale and intimate. If anything I wish this could have been sooner so I was aware of what was involved and possible collaborations earlier on in the project.

Another task I set myself in this project was to use Photoshop in my design work. I included the programme in both creating my figure templates but also to render my final costume designs. It is extremely helpful for creating figures and means I can produce costume sketches quickly and accurately. However, I enjoyed rendering the more textured designs such as the Narrators suit and the Soldiers trousers as opposed to the Princesses skirt. In this instance I found it difficult to represent the chiffon's texture and lightness, I felt that the watercolour was much more successful at illustrating this texture. What is more, the red colouring of her hair also came out far too bright when printed which detracted from the overall look of the character. I did further hand rednering over the designs to draw them back to my vision. Despite these problems I am content with the progress I have made in using Photoshop and I am extremely happy about the look of my final designs from using the program. I have chosen to present my current design work in a folder to clearly show the thought process within each designs progression in a neat and professional format. This runs along side my sketch book which is also clearly organised so I could easily use it to present my designs. I wanted to make sure this all looked very professional as it will create a good starting point for next year but is also in response to comments I had in lack of organisation in CIC.

I have not gathered research via gallery visits as much as would have liked. I did visit the Tate Modern but this was lacking in historical content and was more for inspiration in colours and silhouettes for both set and costume. Considering my set I am satisfied with the stage it is at but I could have achieved more if I had been aware of the Orchestra space required at an earlier time, however I used the contacts I had and there was nothing I could have done to solve this. The Orchestra were very happy with the plans so from here I plan to develop the set decoration, scene changes and technical elements of the design on level 6.

To conclude, in this unit I have successfully addressed aspects of my personal skill and portfolio that needed to be advanced to aid my design work and professionalism. I have greatly enjoyed this project and I am most excited about seeing the production come to life in Level 6 as it is a role I am completely new to!

Final Designs

Below are my final designs for the four main characters of AST:

I am very happy with the success of photoshop in this design as I laid the pattern of my scanned in fabric under the shading and additional texturing of the design. This fabric is perfect in representing the Narrators homely, family role with a soft texture and pattern but is interesting to look at as are his stories. I have allowed lots of pockets so he has many places to pull out exciting props to play with usch as his pipe, glasses, hip flask and book. The shoes and hat are smart and indicate his important status as the storyteller.

  If I were to do this design again I would hand render it only as I am not entirely happy with the photoshop finish. Its does not represent the chiffon fabric well at all as the ink conveys a solid quite statis material. Looking at my original hand drawn, rendered image the watercolour looks far more like chiffon. A further comment about photoshop here is colour use - the hair scanned in and printed much brighter than I intended. I have tried to dull it down a little with crayon and pen after printing but some of her delicacy is lost. This garment is most definitely suited to a princess with beautiful, elegat flowing fabrics to enhance her dance movements with the silk belt, brooch and metallic detailling adding luxury fit for a fairytale princess. The red hair adds a little seductive element as the Soldiers is obviously very attracted to her. This could potentially be a more expensive, time consuming outfit due to the delicate drape needed by the fabrics and cut.

 The Soldier outfit I had lots of fun creating on photoshop, in particular the trousers where I tried out lots of variants of the brush too lto achieve this texture and range of colours. I feel he is well represented as youthful, slightly naive and his origin is clear. The fabrics I have chosen could do with some further breaking down especially the trousers which could do with dome dying to make them darker also. I have added little hints of red in the braces to suggest the Devil's presence over the Soldier's soul.

This is my favoruite design due to the impact of colour and huge variety in texture. The cloak, with the fabrics I have chosen, will move in a bewitching manner. There will be little bits of mould spreading onto this scarlet cape from the Devils skin (costume). The sleeves and legs will be coloured cotton lycra suggesting mould and litchen from his never ending presence as part of the earth. The roots of wool will also show how the Devil is bound to her ways and evil is a neccessity of humanity (indicated also by the bare,human hands and feet). The hands and feet will also be make-uped to look like garment is Devils skin. The central part of the garment is deep red to signify the traditional Devil and grab attention, this will be dyed in a mottled way and blended with black to link in the leavy textural layers. The furry, twiggy arm pieces again relate to the earth and creatures, the twigs adding a harsh texture to contrast with the fur and mouldy softness. These arm pieces along with the textured neck piece, cape, textured waist piece and headress will be added as part of the Devil's dramatic transformation. I still want the garment to look as one so the technicalities of this garments structure will have to carefully considered. The headdress uses the bold yellow eyes that I wanted and antlers in place of his traditional horns. I am not sure if I am entirely satisfied with the look of the headdress - I would like it to have more height and be more textural but I shall experiment with this next year when it is being created.

White Card Model

My White Card Model for hand in:


Front (audience) View




Aerial View



 Above are photgraphs of my White card model (still in progress) for hand in. This is the format I have decided upon for now and I will show Doug at the beginning of Level 6 to get his perspective - understanding better how the actors will use the space and whether it works with the ideas he currently has. The structure for the proscenium arch is simple and will remain so but I shall add some decoration and colour in the final design as well as some more characteristics to its silhouette next term. It fits well within the space
and the arch has a great height which adds to the 'puppet theatre' feel. This idea of fantasy and puppetry will be increased with the decoration of the arch and how the scene changes are approached. A the moment I am swaying towards using flats in a traditional painted style to increase the theatrical, nostalgic feel and relate to puppet theatre further.

I have tried to allow space around the outsides of the arch so actors can walk around the outside also, as the Orchestra space might be slightly over sized this walk way space will hopefully be increased. Placing the arch in this location I am hoping will provide decent space both in front of and behind it for action to take place.
This set up gives a fair amount of attention on both the Orchestra and Action which will mean the production will be well balanced. I wanted to have focus on the orchestra as the music is so essential in portraying the story. Plus as they will be costumed they are part of the story - continually setting the political context of war.

I have left my current idea for the projection sheet in the model box however I understand that the fabric is not to scale and needs shortening. Using the sheet along the back wall will provide ample room for a clear, large projection visible to the entire audience. As I have mentioned in my sketch book I also had the idea that rising/lowering the sheet could be acted as part of a military operation.


Reflection:
It has been quite difficult balancing both costume and set designing in this project due to time constraints as well as discovering the Devil's additional costumes. However, I feel that they do come hand in hand and it was necessary to consider both at the same time and the overall look of the production.I am happy with the current stage of my white card model but am looking forward to adressing the decoration and scene changes next year. This model is basic but has helped me understand what is technically involved with this design eg. pros. arch height and space allowed with Orchestra. I would have liked to have more time to spend developing this model prior to hand in but despite my efforts to contact the orchestra and find out their required space I was only made aware of it on May 15th. If I were to embark on this project again I would therefore like to have been involved in the initial meeting so I could be put into imediate contact with Orchestra so communication would not have been an issue.

Make Up Meeting

Met with Sarah, who's the make-up student assigned to the production, today to discuss our ideas for make-up for all characters and the orchestra. Sarah said, despite the up and coming summer show, she's had alot of ideas. We started by discussing the 4 main characters, from this we agreed:

• Narrator - Try and get John to grow a moustache to try and evoke this homely, grandpa figure. Sarah suggested some subtle aging as John has such a strong face but nothing too much.
• Princess - Pretty, natural look. Warm the skin tone a little. As for the hair we decided to try an up do of the era but distress it a little to look like shes slept in it in her fever but still suggests the era.
• Soldier - Want to try and persuade this actor to cut his hair in a military WW1 style. It might be good for him to grow a moustache however, we decided we wanted to maintain a youthful look to make his naivity obvious.
• Devil - For this character make-up decisions are quite difficult due to the time allowed and the fact that it's on stage. We decided upon some speedy contouring with black eyeshadow at the cheekbones and darkening of the eyes - creating quite a gaunt face - as if the Devil exterior has taken over and sapped the strength from her body. That was all we decided upon but Sarah wanted to call in the actress and do some experimenting with latex and make-up techniques to practise with time and what's affective. We agreed that attention should remain on her face and the headress - make up didn't want to be too OTT. As for the hair Sarah suggested the idea of setting the hair in rollers during the interval. Doing this would allow her  to create a slick up/ androgynous look for the violinist and then release the hair for the devil as huge full curls - which sounds perfect.

Devil's other characters
Again here, time is a serious constraint. Here are the ideas we had for the characters so far:

Old Man - age lines, synthetic brows
Cattle Merchant -experiment with synthtic beard
Clothes Woman- Some curls from beneath bonnet (previously concealled by hats)
Violinist- Androgeny


As for the Orchestra, we decided upon giving Nick and email to see which of the men would be prepared to grow their own moustache. A natural moustache would be best as it can be emphasised with powder and a sythentic moustache may be difficult as all the men except Mark play wind instruments. Hair might not be such an issue depending on their opinions on hat wearing as hats will be part of their uniform. This also worth querying. As for the women we decided quite a natural look, understated but also to do their hair in an authentic style. Sarah suggested a 'land army' look which is perfect - a little rough around the edges eg. mud on cheeks to suggest their in put in the war effort.

Reflection:
This meeting was great to get a fuller picture of each character with Sarah's ideas and know how. As Sarah has worked on a lot of AUCB shows she has great experience and is very familiar with the actors which will hopefully mean she can persuade them to change their hair! It's going to be great seeing our expertise to come together and form the character. From this meeting we decided to set up a  facebook group for the actors and ourselves so we can discuss our ideas openly with them and see how they feel about our suggestions. As well as this we can arrange meetings to try out some different make-up affects.

Kokoro Rehursal and Performance

Yesterday I went to St.Peters Church in Bournemouth to view both a rehursal and performance by Kokoro and an accompanying choir. The rehursal was great in giving me an estimate of the space they required which I could physically see as well as the Percussionist giving me details on the space required for percussion for AST. As it is only drums mainly used he thought it would be about 2m by 6ft roughly plus seating for the musicians. I also managed to grab some photos of three members of the orchestra who will be in AST, both a full length shot and a face shot not only for my records but also to give to Sarah in charge of make-up so she can begin her ideas for them.

As for the evening performance it was firstly nice to do something different, I have seen live music before but not for a long time and I have never seen anything classical yet so modern. The church setting was beautiful and the space created great acoustics. The piece 'lux' was my personal favourite along with the Choral work also conducted by Mark, which were just heavenly to listen to. I enjoyed the interval with a nice glass of wine and speculated with my housemate as to the variety of people in the audience. Also had a brief chat with Mark who passed on that there was a lot of excitement buzzing about AST already which is great news and very glad I haven't put them off by showing them the WW1 uniforms!

Reflection:
This was a very worthy experience. It was great to say hello to the members of Kokoro who I will be working with in future; who were all extremely lovely about having their photo taken! Not only did I benefit by finding out an estimate of measurements to then create my set but also to see the orchestra in action. How they operate in their performances and arrange themselves. They were all stationary and seated for the performance which I will need to consider in my set - seating, spacing etc. It also reminded me of the power of the music and how integral it is to AST and how this needs to be reflected in my designs. They are a great group of people and watching them perform has got me even more excited for the projects development next year!

Meeting with Orchestra and AST Team

Today was an official meeting for all involved with the making of A Soldiers Tale, including members of the film course who will be making a documentary about Stravinsky and the making of AST, a student from make-up, Orchestra members and the University Principle. It was suprisingly laid back as we ate lunch and discussed arrangements such as budgets, future meetings, general organisation, performance dates as well as me sharing my designs with the group. I was worried about how daunting this might be but due to the nature of the meeting there was no need for the aprehension! The designs were very well recieved especially by the Orchestra members who had no problems with being dressed in full WW1 gear which is great! Doug was also happy with the design decisions particularly with the Devil since we last spoke. The Narrator's costume we both agreed should be a suit, as well as giving the character a real sense of being a storyteller and try and build this into his costume -by giving him props such as glasses, books and possibly a pipe. It was great to see how enthusiastic all members involved were and I hadn't realised quite the extent to which the film was involved. However, it seems a fantastic idea as it will be used to give context to the performance production to the audience before they watch it. This brought about some set issues as this will need to be projected - using a sheet was suggested to be in keeping with the era but perhaps also with using fabric to transform settings throughout the play. This is something I nees to further consider when creating my set design. Concerning set also, the idea of a false proscenium arch was also popular as it will give the production balance but not detract from either the players of the orchestra. I have arranged to go and meet the Orchestra tomorrow during their rehursal to disucuss the space they need and see how they operate. I will also take photographs of all the players for the make-up student so she can begin plans for them. There was discussion about making them look as authentic as possible such as false moustaches etc. which would look fantastic.


Reflection:
This meeting was great to understand the amount of in put from each member and the effort and communication needed to put a production together. I feel I have gained some confidence in myself being able to present my design ideas to a large group who I am unaquainted with, a task I find quite intimidating. I look forward very much to being in contact with both make-up and film as the project progresses as collaboration is something that particularly drew me to this project. It also appears that is essential to meet with people as opposed topurely contact through email/ over the phone to really get things moving. The passion that each person had towards this project was unbelievably clear and its that passion for music and performance that I want to not only drive my work but match it to their ambition to create a truely stunning and individual performance.

Year Group Presentations

The prospect of presenting my ideas and work to the whole year... alone..... was very daunting! Especially as at this point in time my final designs are coming together and my set is yet to be produced as I don't know Kokoro's required spacce as yet! However, I accumulated what I had done into my allocated three slides - demonstarting my key ideas and presenting the story and its themes. My go arrived a slot early which unnerved me a little but I forgot what a supportive year group we have. Although with the lime light on me I panicked a little and missed quite a few crucial elements of the play out which I was very cross with myself for. However, although I have presented before it has never been to such a large group and I know I performed better than I would have done in the past. It was a great opportunity to see what the rest of the year have been busying themselves with and all the work looks superb. It has made me feel quite happy about the level of communication, budget  and realistic thoughts in my project!!

Reflection:
This task is all about why I chose this SDP project which is to encourage my presentation confidence. Altthough I was panicked I did present my ideas coherently, I can now see how comfortable I am in one on one situations on comparing this experience. However, it is all part of the learning cerb. Having seen how some members of our year can hold the stage I have realised that it is not scary - it's all about being relaxed which I shall implement when I next present. I am happy to have used this to increase my confidence and practice of being in such a situation - I can only get better.

My Slide Show Presentation

Meeting with Will

I met with Will for a further tutorial today just to clarify my work was looking substancial for hand in  and to get another designers (and more importantly experienced designer) opinion on my designs in progress. He liked what I had done but wanted me to focus on the four designs for hand in agreed in my learning agreement instead of the Devil's transitional costumes in such detail. He gave me some great ideas about the transition process particularly when it came to virtuouso violinst whos costume we could create in pieces and attach with velcro so this can be dramatically ripped apart for the Devils transformation. He understood about my issues with the set about not knowing the neccessary orchestra spacea and how I can't really create my design in my model box until this is known. (Which will hopefully be the case after the meeting on friday.) We also discussed fabric use for the designs and in particular the Devil's outfit. He very much liked my ideas about the Devil relating to the Earth and the initial sketches I had done for this. He suggested experimenting with these designs and seeing how a 'natural' twig like feature could be added to give the Devil height and stage presence. We agreed a mask would be a great idea for the Devils transformation as it would be quick but also give impact in a sudden change in appearance. In addition to this we both agreed that the actresses face should still be seen beneath so it is clear to the audience she was the Devil all along.


Reflection: This meeting was extremely benficial helping me to direct my work into the most neccessary areas before hand in. It's great to hear from someone who has practical experience in the field to help out with technicalities but also to have positive comments which really help with my self motivation. After this meeting I feel alot more confident in my design choices and designs and the stage of my model box for hand in.

Third meeting with Director

Today I met briefly with Doug to bounce a few more ideas around and see how my designs were coming along. We looked through my designs for the Devil's transition through different characters which he was happy with, we need to consider how the actors face is going to change as their character does. As the Devil will now definitely be female we need to decide what we give her to build her character one for the 'old man' for instance- we could add eyebrows, age lines but this will need to be changed before she becomes the 'cattle merchant' which will need to be very swift. From this we decided that it would be good to get make-up involved as they are most knowlegable on materials to do this successfully and efficiently. The Devil's costume is progressing well but Doug suggested that the revelation of the Devil could be on stage - this will be technically difficult to arrange but the dramatic effect could be excellent. It is for this reason that I intend to focus the Devil's costume around a body suit so it can be worn beneath the previous costume and can then be added to be on stage dressers. This also brings about another issue with the Devils make up. The face definitely also needs to transform but fast, a latex mask may be possible but this is another topic to discuss with make-up.

We also discussed the set a little further - from the research into puppet theatres/ proscenium arch theatres I had found we both prefered the most simplistic desgins of a basic shape and minimal decoration. These set the scene but do not detract from the action but also give an aged feel to suit the historical context. Considering budget is also important so a simpler design will be more cost effective and less labor intensive.

Reflection: From this meeting I understand my designs are meeting the directors needs but I need to experiment further with the Devil's outfit and mask/facial change. I need to fully look into the transition between the Devils costumes to ensure the production will remain seamless and fluid as well as consider the Technicalities behind the Devils metamorphosis on stage.