Titania!

Chance meeting with Helena in the studio's resulted in getting the first glimpse of the toille for Titania's 'skirt'. This is a skirt, but it is to be attached onto the body suit in such a way that is seems to be growing out of her rather then simply attached to her. After putting it on the practice body suit kindly made up for us by Lucy, I was able to correct a misconception from the design. Whereas the skirt Helena had created was flat at the front, on the design there were gathers at the side that ruched the front. However, with the colours and tone in the design these were difficult to discern. This is one of the reasons it is so important for makers and designers to have a close working relationship. After I had shown Helena what I wanted, she was quickly able to modify the toille so that this will be something she can fix before the initial fittings and save time.

Budgets and Maker time!

9:30 - Meeting with the supervisors!

This morning Sarah and Grace met to go over the budgets and form a cohesive idea of costs for sourcing and budgeting for all the costumes and costume groups. We have been given our final budget for the show - £3000 for all the costumes. This may seem like a lot but this it goes down quickly as the costumes pile up. They have worked out between them an initial divide on how much is going where.

 

 

2PM - Meeting with Makers.

 

Following this was a meeting at 2 with Helena and Dannielle to catch Danielle up on what she had missed from the meetings and from our fabric experimentation in the dye room the previous week. This also gave me the opportunity to see where they were both at so far. While Helena has made up her pattern already and has already begun her toille, I am concerned that Danielle has not gotten her measurements yet from the session with the actors, however she has assured me she is using the rest of this week for pattern drafting. 

This gave us the first real opportunity to discuss in depth the look of the fairy costumes and the techniques that might achieve the overall look that I want for the costumes, in particular for Oberon and Titania as they are the two main principals and most detailed fairy costumes. I asked both to bring in any research they had done so far for the textural work. While both had amassed some technique research, Helena had made up a sample that was precisely the look and texture that I want for the fairies. She had achieved this using a combination of water soluble fabric and the shibori mushrooms created during our dye room session. This is the technique that we will be using for all the textural work on the fairies.

Costume Breakdown - again!

SUPERVISOR MEETING

Grace, my supervisor for the fairies and Athenians met with me today to discuss the fabrics for the fairies and the costumes for the Athenians that needed to be sourced in more detail. She came in with a very clear grasp of what needed to be discussed - including multiples of costumes, specifics on colour and fastenings, and this gave me the opportunity to make sure that we were very much on the same page with what was needed. It was very reassuring after the wait to get propperly into the project to be able to sit down and discuss the costumes in more detail and make sure that everything was progressing and that what the designs and director and requires is understood. Going through the fabrics we decided that while I am very clear on three specific fabrics from the first set of samples for the fairies costumes, on rest others I am prepared to be flexible if we find something similar for a better proce elsewhere. For this myself, Oliver and the supervisors are headed up to London this week for a clearer fabric reconaisance.

 

Also in this meeting we discussed the lycra issue! With two of our actors being very dark skinned - one needing a full body suit the other needing only a pair of 'shorts' - getting the right colour for the lycra is essential for these costumes. After speaking with Lucy - our assistant maker who out of our team the one who has worked with lycra the most - she has assured us that while lycra can be dyed it is unlikely we will be able to dye it to the right depth and shade. With this in mind Lucy is going to dye a selection of lycra samples to see if we can achieve the tone needed while myself and the supervisors continue search for the right colour in the shops to see not only if it can be bought but which would be better for the budget.

A suprise meeting

Today maker Helena found me in the costume studio's for an impromptu meeting about the Titania costume. Since it was assigned to her, she has already begun making a file of research and techniques that she thinks may suit the costume and came to me to discus her thoughts and to go through the techniques with me to see which I would prefer her to try.

After looking through her very thorough research file we discussed and agreed on a selection of techniques and both came through with a very firm grasp on what the effect on the costume should be. This was also a great opportunity for myself as I have not had the experience of working as a designer with a team of makers before, and was a fantastic experience to be working with someone who is full of enthusiasm in working closely with you to make your design a reality in the most imaginative way possible.

Schedules away! 2 meetings and a whole lot of measuring

Our first meeting to form the begining of a concise schedule for the next few weeks is now complete! We now have a basic plan of future meetings, when we hope to get into the dye room, initial costume completion schedule etc.

 

I am meeting tomorrow with the supervisor for the fairies and Athenians to discus fabrics, and the suits that need buying.

 

Our second meeting of the day was a surprise, a meeting with the head make-up artist Louise and our first production meeting with Rebecca and Gareth since we presented our designs to Ken weeks ago. It went well, on the whole, Louise is thankfully not only incredibly excited about the project but is a henna artist! This is going to make the fairies costumes and 'look' so much.

 

There was also a relief when it came to the 'wigs'. For that there are only a few wigs for definite now, the main being for Ethan (Theseus) as he has long hair and is not willing to cut it. As in Greece at that time it was a taboo to have long hair - especially to the lengths of Ethans - he needs a shortened wig. Also in terms of the fairy wigs, the dreadlocks, I had a thought that they might be able to be dreadlock extentions fixed into the actors hair. I was delighted to have this confirmed by Louise that not only would this be easier but it would also be cheaper!

For the body suits, though I had spoken to my makers and we had agreed that the best course of action was body suits, the tutors believe that it is, for some of the fairies, unnecessary to have full body suits and would be best to have make-up do the henna and growing-mossy effect. While I am willing to let this happen with parts of Oberon and for some of the other fairies in terms of having sleeveless and kneelength body suits, it was suggested that Titania's costume be a top and bottom and I am unwilling to cut out the midriff part of Titania's body suit. While having her body suit more like a leotard with arms would be pheasable and may indeed work better, as Titania is going to be very active, due to the nature of the visual effect to cut out the midriff of her costume in order to have henna directly on her stomach would not only be a unnecessary risk of a costume slip, it would also this would mean an obvious seamline across her back.

For the fairies that have gold henna, and standard dark brown henna that will not be on the suits, Louise has assured me that makeup would be able to do this on the very physically active faires.

 

After the meeting I had the opportunity to sit down propperly with Louise and discuss the fairies in more depth.

 

In terms of Puck, Robin Goodfellow, the actors physique, as Puck is meant to be a very physical creature she is going to try and 'highlight' the muscular abdomen that I have drawn into my designs - though we do not know yet what kind of musculature the actor has. After discussing with my makers Puck will also only be having 'shorts' rather then a full body suit of lycra, but he still has the growing foliage coming out of the curve where his neck meets his shoulder. I discussed with Louise the possibility of using latex to create the growing effect and she is very keen to try it out. This is an effect that we also hope to use on Oberon on his face, where the foliage comes out of his face and beard. 

For Titania, on my design I had given her a stylised gold and turquoise blue peacock feather that sat in her parting, mimicking traditional Indian jewelery, and Louise is very keen to work on it.

 

 Louise also had some problem solving idea's of her own when it came to prosthetics. After speaking with Ken in the meeting he broached the idea again on using prosthetics on the faces of the mechanicals when they are transformed into fairies. While I am hesitant to have prosthetics on their facea when none of the other fairies will have them, Louise had the idea of prosthetic ears that could go on all the fairies quickly and easily without compromising the overall look. I have asked her if she can draw up what she has in mind and email us and am very excited to see what she will come up with.

 

 

THE ACTORS

 

At 1:30 a group of the actors came in to be measured by our group of makers, and as Louise was keen to get working and needed to find out who is allergic to any of the make-ups that she will need to use or prosthetics glues, I suggested that she come in and speak to the actors while they were there - a sugestion she immediately took me up on!

 

This led to an intense but fascinating half hour of co-ordinating actors, makers and make-up so that everyone who Louise needed to speak to who was present got to speak with her, and so that all the males present bar one was told not to shave their facial hair or cut their hair - the exception being Walter(Lysander) who will need to be clean shaven but have relatively long hair for the period. They were all surprisingly receptive to the idea. One of our actors will need to stay shaven for a couple more weeks due to his current production - Spring Awakening, another AUCB show - but as that ends in less then a month he will have more then enough time to catch up with the others in terms of facial hair.

 

This also gave me the opportunity to actually discuss aspects of their costumes with the actors that they may not be comfortable with. I had hoped to do this before the design process was complete but due to the actors not being permitted to find out who they were playing in the show until right at the end of term I was unable to do so. Thankfully, the actors that I have spoken to have no problems with any of the pottential issues I have raised.

 

While I hope this is not the case, the only actor that I can see having any issue with the hair for his design was not present today - the reason I am concerned that he may have qualms is that in my design he is bald. When he comes in for measurements later this week I will be able to find out from him for certain.

 

 

 

Actions from today's meetings;

• Email Puck actor about willingness to shave his head
• Write up todays meetings for production journal
• Finish designs for the Greek band (5 members)
• Prepare for tomorrow's meeting with supervisor - fabric file etc.

Mad Hatters - The first of the final designs!

Here we are with the first of the finished Mad Hatters designs - these are slightly different from the hard copies as I had to photograph them, which meant photoshoping them to get them fixed for uploading and getting rid of annoying shadows on the paper and colour changes from photo exposure.

 

 

Mad Hatters Final Designs Section 2

Here are the next of the final designs courtesy of the wonderful A3 scanner so that I wouldn't have to spend two hours photographing and photoshop correcting each one!

Dye Room Day 1

Myself, Helena (maker for Titania), and costume supervisors Sarah and Grace headed to the dye room today to begin the experimentation for the fairy costumes. I hope to be very involved in this process and collabourate closely with my makers due to the very specific effect I want for the costumes.

 

These are six body suits and a modified pair of Lycra shorts.

 

Courtesy of my fabric sourcing for my designs I had more then enough samples of the fabrics I want used. Thanks to this we managed to get a good amount of experimentation done and got to have a much more in depth discussion with Helena about what effect I want for the fairies. I now feel that she has a very clear understanding of what I want the costumes to look like and the feel of the costumes, and on the whole the four of us got on very well working together.

Using a mixture of materials and effects - heat gunning, soldering, shoe polish and shibori - we created a variety of effects that created interesting visual patterns.

For the next time in the dye room, Helena and myself discussed bringing in organza, vanishing muslin and silk paints to work on creating the 'growing' effect that I want for the body suits.

 

 

Actions from this meeting;

 

 - Discuss fabrics from fabric file created during the design process with the supervisors

 - Co-ordinate with the supervisors and makers when we can go in the dye room again

 - Due to Danielle's absence, catch her up on what she missed.

FINAL DESIGNS!

 

Here they are, the two fairy principal designs for our lord of the fairies - Oberon - and Queen of the fairies - Titania.

Their hair will be dreadlock wigs or fake dreadlocks woven into their own hair, while the costumes themselves are body suits worked onto and into.

Meeting 2

Making Costume Division

• Main maker - Kim; Pyramus, Thisby and textural work for fairies
• Main Maker - Helena; Titania, Robin Goodfellow and textural work for fairies
• Main Maker - Danielle; Oberon, Hippolyta's Wedding Dress and textural work for fairies
• Asst. Maker - Lucy; Body suits, alterations
• Asst. Maker - Elizabeth H; Breaking down, alterations and textural work for fairies
• Second year helpers; Breaking down and general assistance

The makers are keen to get started as soon as possible, so with that in mind I have booked us time in the dye room next Thursday to begin fabric experimentation for the fairies while assistant maker Lucy is making us two prototype body suits to experiment on.

PRODUCTION JOURNAL!

Today is the first day of term, the first official day of EMP and the first day of my production journal! This is the longest project of the course, 17 weeks from today to hand in. One of the comments I recieved when presenting my designs last term was the absence of seam lines and some of the fastenings drawn in, which since having them returned to me yesterday I have made an effort to remedy on my designs for the benefit of my makers.

First Meeting with the Makers
Myself and Oliver met today with our three main makers, two assistant makers, and two supervisors to talk them through our designs and concepts. The reception of the designs was good, and all of them are excited about getting started, already with preferences on what they would like to make. Our next production meeting is on Wednesday to discuss it further. Our supervisors now have a copy of all of the costume designs and are keen to get on.
 

Meeting with our project head, our tutor Rebecca, we have been instructed to go full ahead into the project. With that in mind I have gone through the costumes that I have designed by garment to sort which are makes, buys or sources. 

 

From this there are;

14 full costume Makes (including 1 fat suit)

28 Buys (by garment including multiples)

29 Sources (by garment, including multiples)

 

Oliver and myself also met with our director, Ken, who is also excited to get started so all in all there is allround optimism going in to the production countdown.

SHUNT - Dissertation performance 2

Today was the second immersive performance, this one a pulic performance in London. Not a murder mystery I hasten to add!

A SHUNT performance, advertised by the National Theatre and staged in a National Theatre building, this performance was certainly one to see, but not for the faint of heart and I would definitely recomend not to see it alone!
I will not give too much away and risk spoiling it for a potential audience member, but there was a good blend of the live and the digital, and of humour and fear. It played on some of the most primal fears that we have, in very obvious ways for the most part but in the build to the climax a very subtle sense of threat so that even while you are almost expecting a frightening climax though you have no idea what it will be, and when it arrives you have been relaxed by the humour enough that while you are expecting it, it is still a very frightening experience.

Looking to the coming term

With less then a week until the new term starts, I have been thinking towards the work that lies ahead for A Midsummer Night's Dream. Before I go back next week, and am able I hope to retrieve my designs, I wish to make a better set of fabric experimentation samples to work with, for the benefit of my costume supervisor and makers. I was only able to do a small, initial experimentation sample before hand in and wish to go more in depth in my experimentation. Of the fabrics I wish to use for the fairies, knowing that I needed to experiment with them, I bought a minimum of half a meter of each, which leaves me a good amount of fabric to play with.
For my currently submitted sample I was experimenting with cutting leaf shapes from the different types and weights of fabric, piecing them together with the most sheer and 'light-weight' fabrics at the top, getting to the heavier ones going down, from sheers to pleather and velvet. tacking them together and working into them with paint. I want to use the time I have before we start back to work more with larger examples and working more into them, I also hope to experiment with the effects of working into them with heat guns and other materials.
I am hoping to get a lot of different textures and colours into the costumes, while not making them too busy or jarring with the 'rag-rug' set. I feel I am finally very much on the right track with the fairies. I need to work further on the Athenians, in particular the fabrics that I wish to use. While I am happy with the colours and silhouettes of the designs, there are still issues that need to be addressed, such as the seam lines and drape of the fabric on the figure. I know the effect that I want the costumes to have but I need to work more on the communication of this. I want the costumes to be very straight and unforgiving, to have little to no softness about them - which means using very inflexible fabric, in different degree's depending on character. Theseus and Hippolyta need to be in much more flexible costumes due to the fact they will be dancing, requiring a much larger range of movement then stiff fabrics will allow. This is an issue that I need to explore more thoroughly.

For my secondary project for EMP I am submitting 10 principal costume designs for a Tudor set production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. I have done a little preliminary research over the last term, but due to the demands of A Midsummer Nights Dream I still have much more research that I need to accumulate.