I recently visited Warner Bros. Studio Tour Leavesden, The Making of Harry Potter (yes, again) to see their Behind the Seams experience. I got to see some of the characters costumes close up, feel fabric swatches and learn about the design process, seeing mood boards and costume designs. It was a fascinating experience and I even got to try on a Ravenclaw robe that was used in the movies! This inspired my next CAD illustration piece as we were shown the costume of a particular character, who got a very atmospheric introduction by the weather as a thunderstorm was raging outside.
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Having recently acquired photoshop and a drawing tablet of my own, I can further my skills in design illustration and practice completing CAD pieces in photoshop. Having just finished Fermented Honey I decided to draw one of my favourite scenes, a choreographed montage of Niamh and Bevan's characters falling in love, set to Bjork's All is Full of Love. It was beautifully performed and I wanted to capture it on paper. I created a sketch analogue and scanned it onto my laptop, then coloured it in photoshop.
Alongside doing my personal project designing The Iron King and the live project of Fermented Honey, I volunteered to collaborate with costume interpretation student Louise Fry in her major project. She was designing and making a gown based on Guinevere and Camelot and she needed someone to make a headdress. We had a meeting and she showed me her designs for the dress and mood board images for how she wanted the headdress to look. She wanted a gold headband piece with leaves and thorns on it I went home and started making tests. I tried a method of making wire leaves and dipping them in pva glue to fill in the middle, which I painted with nail polish when the glue was dry. It did work but was too delicate and the gold wire was turning green under the glue. next I tried to fill in the space with wire to try and emulate the veins in the leaves, I bought spiked beads online for the thorns, this worked but looked untidy to me and was a little spiky so wouldn't have been the most comfortable to wear. ,Then I found some sheet metal online 3cm wide, gold covered aluminium, and used this to cut out leaf shapes. I poked a hole on the base of the shape with a drawing pin and scratched on vein lines, I wrapped a small piece of wire through the hole to attach it to the band. These looked much better and balanced out the thorns which were quite thick. I decided to braid three pieces of thicker wire together to make the band stronger, I then also made some of the leaves out of the thicker wire too to add variety with the slid gold ones. This worked better and was stronger aesthetically. I then handed this back to Louise who added pearls, ribbons and felt leaves to match her dress.
In this production (major project part 2) I took on the role of Head of Running Wardrobe alongside Estelle Griffiths. The role included creating a running wardrobe bible with all the paperwork, organising the space in the theatre and running the wardrobe department during production. As well as collaborating with Estelle I also worked with the costume supervisors; Pippa Ebbage and her assistants Lauren Beeston and Namie Ma. We also had the responsibility of finding dressers and we had 4 in total making a team of 6 for production week. I thoroughly enjoyed this project as I had a lot of new experiences; taking part as a costume maker, being part of fittings and dress parade, observing rehearsals, taking part in a Get In and Get Out, Being in charge of the costume department and the dressers, working with a director during rehearsals and through production week, and being part of a physical theatre production. Before this project I didn't realise there were so many elements to being in Running Wardrobe. As this production was devised by the company, inspired by the writings of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Pablo Neruda, we didn't have a script, meaning we had to observe rehearsals to understand the story and make a costume plot. As it was a piece of physical theatre there weren't clear cut scenes and acts, they all blended to create a flow to the story therefore we did a plot based off the sequences more than scenes. This made it more challenging to judge timings for changes but we watched a recording of the run through to work it out. This is where I realised everyone has a different way of doing things as I do my plots scene by scene but Estelle does hers minute by minute, having both versions helped us in the end.
Making a costume garment.I found it enlightening being on the receiving end of the designs instead of being the one drawing them as it made me realise just how much information needs to be conveyed to the maker within one image, but I found it a fun experience being able to see a garment I made onstage. I volunteered to make an oversized tunic for the mother character, an oversized basic garment to go over a base chemise. I made a basic block pattern by tracing round an oversized sleeveless hoodie and lengthening it. I then used her measurements to make sleeve pattern pieces and made a calico toile as I know it wasn't the best pattern ever. At the fitting it fit Camille (actress) as required but the shape was too narrow, so after discussions with the designer and my tutor we decided to make it out of an altered chemise pattern so the shape of both garments would be the same so one would fit over the other comfortably. My tutor helped me alter the pattern so it was slightly wider and I then made the final garment. During the second fitting this fit her much better but the neckline was too wide, so we added a pleat in the front and back to bring in the neckline while keeping the shape. I completed these alterations while watching rehearsals. At the dress rehearsal it was decided that Camille's character needed to appear more undressed so the tunic was slashed open to make a robe that she could drape round her shoulders. I slip stitched the new edges while observing rehearsals. Then the costume was ready to use. Rehearsals.One of the best bits for me in this process (besides production week) was getting to watch rehearsals. I've never properly sat and seen rehearsals prior to a tech run before and it was fascinating to learn about the actors process, especially as they were devising the story. They would run through the story, adding in script when it was needed and working out choreography to portray things they didn't have props or set for. I watched them creating a contracting uterus for a birth scene, then become a forest, sounds and all, then they would work out how to transform into a library etc.. It was a real learning curve in physical theatre. At first these scenes seemed really weird to watch but the more you understand of the story and listen to the cast and director work out the emotional context the more it makes sense and by production week I couldn't imagine this show being done any other way. The actors really gave themselves to their roles and it was at times intense and slightly uncomfortable to watch them go to these dark places inside themselves but it was totally inspiring. It also meant I got more time with the actors and through observing them and talking to them in rehearsals I got to know them, which later helped me look after them during production week. It also meant I got to work with the director closer than I have done before, being almost a go between for him and the costume supervisors during rehearsals so everything got organised and the two departments were understanding what the other needed. This was great as I didn't feel as nervous going and talking to him or the production manager come show week which meant I got to make announcements to the cast about costume where needed because he'd give me the floor when I asked. He respected my role as I respected his and this was great for me as I still tend to see myself as beneath because I'm a student and they're professionals, it helped me to see myself as more on their level and be more assured to get on with what I needed to do. Production week |
AuthorMy name is Rachel and this blog holds the work I have done throughout college and university for a digital portfolio. Archives
June 2019
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