THE SHOW!

Last night, at Meyrick Hall in Bournemouth, was the Remix Gold show! This was part of the 10 year anniversary show for the larger company that Remix Gold is part of, Diverse City, and alongside the Remix Gold performance there were screenings of films of Diverse City and Remix show, and films and poems from David Young, the resident Poet and Activist with the company. Among the screenings in a blast from the past was a video of the Breathe and Battle of the Winds performance from the Weymouth venue's 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony! It was odd and nice to watch each part of the film and remember where I was backstage at each point.

But enough nostalgia, and on to the show!

Remix Gold's performance was in the second half, and with the five new performers is till being progressed and modified to be performed again in April.



The backstage area was a large café style room, with comfortable sofa's and plenty of tables and space, which made it a nice space for the performers to hang around in during breaks and while preparing to go on stage.

Having had limited time to fit the costumes on a couple of the performers, it turned out that one of the performers costumes was too big. This was the purple skirt and the shortened black shirt. Thankfully it was a relatively easy job to alter them by hand and I made sure that I got to the venue before the performers to get everything set out well in advance to devote as much time as possible to alterations and repairs should they be required. Above is the hand altered shirt where it was taken in.

As with the show at the Southbank Centre, I was assisting with hair and make-up backstage.

THE NEW PERFORMERS

 Before the performers went on, I got a photo of each of the new cast members in their costume. I'm particularly happy with how Becca's rhinestones have come out, from the audience and on camera they are very effective!

The fundraiser was organised by AUB Arts and Events Management students, and as part of the set up they had blackboards placed by the doors for people to leave their comments and the feedback was fantastic! Their were pledges made to the company and the performers had an incredible time and loved their costumes. There are a few costume maintenance tasks to be done, where they have gotten dirty, damaged or some of the embellishement has come off during the performaces, its hard to believe that I first gave them the costumes last September at the Southbank Centre for their 'Unlimited' festival and since then Remix Gold have performed the show at the Lighthouse Poole and for the Inside Out Festival! With the next performance booked for April, I can't wait to see where they're headed next!

Last of the prep work!

With the show tomorrow, the last of the prep work is finally done! Tomorrow morning it will be a last minute iron of everything and packing the costumes up before heading over to the venue to get there for 1, an hour before the performers arrive so that I can set up the backstage space for costume, hair and make-up.

The last jobs were making and finishing the purple skirt, and rhinestoning the pink shirt and blue shirt

No matter how prepared you are, I've always found that the last night before the show is always one of the latest. There's always something to check (and double check) extra embellishments that you can add! But the show is tomorrow (well today now) and its time to say that its all finished!
Until tomorrow if there are any problems or extra fitting alterations to be done.

Its been two and a bit weeks, and with the show tomorrow the 5 costume turn around is nearly complete.

REMIX GOLD UPDATE!

With two days before the show its all steam ahead, and now I'm ahead of the schedule ever so slightly I've decided to take 10 minutes out to update you all on how the costumes are going for Remix Gold! It has been a busy and incredibly productive few days steaming ahead with rhinestoning and alterations! With two days left to go, and this morning spent finishing rhinestoning the last of the shirts, this afternoon is for making the purple skirt.

And then after that more rhinestoning...

With limited time to write this, I've decided that adding photos taken over the course of the last few days is probably the most effective way to show what I've been up to!

Emily and Jessica's Skirts

Rhinestoning and alterations



Becca's Shirt

Rhinestoning

There was an issue with the rhinestones for this shirt as in terms of getting purple rhinestones, to get a vibrant, clear purple is incredibly difficult. I'm sure in the future I'll be able to find some but after finding three different sets online that all looked purple, all called themselves purple, and all, when they arrived, were let just say NOT purple, I have decided to improvise. Making an almost mosaic like pattern of the three 'purple' rhinestones has formed a beautiful and interesting effect on the shirt collar. It is a small area so it will not be glaringly out of place amongst the other costumes, while still be visually interesting and pleasing.

Ben and Kierans Shirts

While this may seem like the quickest and easiest of rhinestone tasks, these rhinestones are the smallest I have used and so a lot more of them were required. The reason I went for the smaller rhinestones was, I knew that in terms of ordering in bulk if I had gone for the larger rhinestones I still would have ordered the same amount, being that there is a company online that you can order 1440 rhinestones of a single colour and they are of excellent quality. They were not as expensive as the larger ones as, even 1mm smaller, the glue became workable a lot faster then the larger rhinestones, and because of the lengths that I needed to cover even a second per rhinestone makes a very big difference!

The to do list is now shrinking rapidly and its wonderful to see the wardrobe of finished costumes expanding!

Alterations and Customisations

With the arrival of the last shirt (though sadly not the trousers) today I started on the alterations and customisation of the costumes for Remix Gold!

The jobs for today;

-Altering the blue shirt that arrived yesterday

-Removing the sleeves from the black shirt

-Rhinestoning the black skirts - the larger skirt with blue rhinestones and the smaller with pink

The alterations to the shirts were straightforward. After cutting the sleeves of the blue shirt to equal lengths it was just a case of keeping them the same length while finishing them and creating a sort of mock 'cuff' which will be rhinestoned in black. For the black shirt, I simply removed the sleeves.

 Rhinestoning in process

Finished Rhinestoning- Pink

                     

In process Rhinestoning - Blue

Rhinestoning is a simple but incredibly time consuming job. I have managed to get all of the pink rhinestones (est. 350 in total) and half of the blue rhinestones also completed. I'm using 3.9mm hot fix rhinestones as I've found, personally, they're the best size to work with - smaller and you have to use vast amounts for any visible coverage from a distance, any larger and the glue takes so much longer to fix the extra time just isn't viable.

Usually I would keep going until I had completed the task before I called it a night but in this case, the rest of the alterations are fairly straightforward and the skirts are the largest rhinestoning tasks. The last time I did the Remix Gold costume, I ordered some slightly darker blue rhinestones then the ones I ordered for the costumes this time and I never used them, they ended up being unnecessary last time. This time however I believe I will be incorporating some of them onto one of the costumes this time around.

Filming Day!

Today was the day for 'Sleep', the first of four days of filming! With this as the only day to film all the office scenes, we were on a very strict schedule! With it being the office scenes, only one of our three main performers was required - our 'Ruth'. Thankfully for me, director Iona Smith had the scenes being filmed in order, which made things a lot simpler in terms of knowing which changes were needed when as in the office scenes there are eight changes. It did still, however, present multiple opportunities to gain experience in costume and set continuity. It went incredibly well, the scenes ran mostly to time, everyone was in good spirits!

The call time was 8:45 to be taken to the site, with my two bags of costumes - I arrived a little early and used the time (and a cheese grater) to finish breaking down the shoes for 'Seduction'. At 9 we headed to the site and our actress went straight into make-up while the technical people went about setting up the lighting and filming equipment and I laid out the wardrobe.



With the first scenes filmed, we had another last minute addition arrive! The extra to play 'Ruth's boss, when he arrived I requested a couple of changes to make him look a little more like an office professional (removing a wristband, not wearing the jumper over his white shirt and not doing up the very top button of the shirt) and with that done, we were all set to start filming again.

After getting 'Ruth' into her first costume, it became apparent there was a minor hitch in an extra arriving, and a stand in was needed - yes, I have a very small cameo appearance near the beginning of the film! The director requested that I fill in.



It was fascinating to watch the difference between interior and exterior filming. Considering lighting, ambient deflect and direct, with shadows in odd places because of it, sound levels, the minutae of shot continuity and costume continuity it was a busy day, with every scene shot and reshot for angles and for a better take for either sound or visuals.

The idea of the costume changes between scenes that all followed on from each other by action and purpose was to be to show her progression through the week getting more and more dishevelled, exhausted and haggard as her insomnia progresses. This was the third costume change, where 'Ruth' has started to go from being just rumpled to uncaring about her appearance - she's not checked her shirt and there's a button gapping, her shoes are sThis was the team filming the dropping of the handbag in close up. The problem with this shot was that in order to get it to focus properly it had to be dropped to a precise point, but as the shot was being done close to the ground in close up using tape to mark the spot wasn't an option, so a penny was used as a more subtle, commonplace marker.

After this scene we moved into the kitchen, where a more immediate action was to take place that directly involved costume! There needed to be a spillage, done to an exact location and way to the dress that 'Ruth' was to be wearing. Due to budget, I had three dresses for this, one pre-stained for the accommodation shots to be done the following day, and two for the action shot today - one and a spare in case it went wrong. Due to the fact that there were only the two dresses and so two chances to get the take right, I will admit I was nervous.  

The spillage was meant to be red fruit tea, very symbolic, needed to be spilled and soak into the dress at a certain point. The first time this was tried, the tea was not only too weak, but it failed to soak into the dress at all but instead glanced off and onto the floor. This meant that while the take was unsuccessful, the dress was unmarked and therefore good for a second take! This time myself and director Iona mixed in a cross between multiple fruit tea bags and fruit squash to try and get the colour strong enough to be effective.
The second take was attempted, and once again failed to soak into the dress. This called for more drastic measures as we were now at risk of seriously running over time. I took the pre-stained dress and re-wet over the stain to try and make it look fresh, but other then making it look wet, the stain did not look fresh. Because of this, while the actress was wearing the costume I had to use one of the fruit tea bag to make the stain fresh.
This worked to not only make the stain more authentic but will mean that it will match perfectly in continuity when they continue the filming with it tomorrow as it will, in fact, be the same dress! The stain, despite looking more pink then I would perhaps have preferred, did look incredibly effective on camera.

Now the costumes are all handed over, with all the rest of the costumes self explanatory and requiring a minimum of costume changes, and its back on to Remix Gold with exactly one week to go until the show!

Sourcing Day for 'Sleep'!

IN 9 HOURS the crowdfunding page for 'Sleep' will finish its purpose and go offline! That means that, among other things, the in depth information on this film will no longer be available, so if you're reading this and you would like to have more information on what this is actually about, please follow the link below! If it is after that, there is a slightly less detailed but just as interesting facebook page dedicated to it on the link below that!
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sleep
https://www.facebook.com/sleepdrama?ref=br_tf

As you can imagine, the name of this post is fairly self explanatory! Today was the day that I needed to get pretty much all of the costume except shoes for the film 'Sleep' from charity shop sourcing. For this I chose the local hub of charity shop that is very much supplied and frequented by students from Bournemouth University and AUB - and since a lot of that tends to be costumes and contemporary clothes used in student films and productions was perfect for what I needed.

So between the online sourcing and todays sourcing trip;

Ruth

- Grey Skirt

- Black Skirt

- Navy Skirt

- Trousers

- Grey Shirt

- White Shirt

- Green Top

- Grey Cardigan

- Navy Shrug

- Green Scarf

- Cream Coat

- Black Flat Shoes

Seduction

- Black Jeans

Puppet

- Shorts (to be modified from trousers)

- Bow tie

- Braces

With an extraordinary amount of bags, that is the vast majority of costumes sourced, so now all that's left to get is;

Ruth

- Black Flat Shoes

- Black Heels

- Grey Tights

- Pajama's

Puppet

- White Socks x2

- White Shirts x2

Seduction

- Black Heels

I am not happy at the moment with the buttons I have on the Ruth coat, so I am going to change those. Other then that I am very happy with the results of todays sourcing! All is very much on target as the shoot starts in five days - so tomorrow is time for the Puppet cross-bar building. For this, as it needs to be light, look effective and manoeuvrable as well as in budget, I have decided that mache is the best material to use for this costume prop. The last time I painted wood effect was the black stool for 'GI Joe In Dorset', so it will be nice to create that kind of effect again.

Remix Gold - Arrivals time!

After ordering the vast majority of the costumes online the day before yesterday, today the first of the costumes arrived in the post! Six packages in the post and an extra one waiting in the post office, and I am currently only waiting on the trousers and the blue blouse for Jessica in terms of online orders - considering I only ordered everything the day before yesterday I am very impressed! The first costume fitting is scheduled for early next week, and in the mean time, while sourcing for 'Sleep' today I stopped by a fabric shop and picked up the purple poly cotton, zip and thread to make the final skirt. This will be made from the same pattern as the orange skirt from the previous performances, so that they will match.

The pink shirt arrived today and while it is paler then I would have preferred, with the fast turn around I needed the shirt to be a stretch fabric in a strong pink. Having the shirt be of a stretchy fabric is, in this instance, more important then having the stronger colour which I cannot currently find in budget. For the blue shirt, finding a blue shirt in a stretch fabric in budget has also been an issue, so I have decided on a larger size of shirt, that I will tailor to fit the performer but because of the larger size, will have a large enough opening into the sleeve that it should not impede movement in any way.

An issue that I have noticed - finding purple HOT FIX rhinestones is a real problem at the moment! Finding any other colour, cheap and in bulk, is a relatively easy thing, amazon stocks pretty much every other colour from a variety of different sellers but purple? Nope. I have found a couple of good websites for them, but they are nowhere near as cheap as the other colours from the amazon sellers and you can't seem to get them in BULK anywhere! If you're looking for non-hot fix purple, you can find those cheap in bulk fairly easily, but hot fix is the real problem.

REMIX RETURNS!

It is wonderful to get an email from people you've worked with in the past asking you if you're free for some more work! As of this week I am now back working with Remix Gold, the acrobatic disabled/abled company with the show 'Touched' that I designed and made costumes for last summer. This year they have added five new members to the company and are performing 'Touched' again locally, incorporating the new members into the performance. So I am designing, making and sourcing five new costumes to fit in with the rest from the previous show, and all in - eep - just over two weeks!

Here are a couple of photos from the last show!

It has already been very fast, within 48 hours of being offered the job, I was measuring the new cast members at a local rehearsal, and less then 24 hours after that I had the new designs finished and approved and had started sourcing! That was the day before yesterday, and now its on to sourcing again in earnest!

Here are the five new designs - as there is such a fast turn around on this show it was a case of getting idea's across quickly and so I have for now left the hair and makeup design for later in favour of getting the costume designs approved and the sourcing started as soon as possible. They were done very quickly as the situation necessitated so the image quality is not as good as I would have liked. So with that in mind;

The designs were approved yesterday and today I have spent the day sourcing costumes and decorations and am delighted that all the costume pieces are now ordered - with the exception of the shoes and gloves that I will need to source locally to make sure that they fit exactly, and Becca's purple skirt that I will need to make!

With everything set to arrive any time between tomorrow and the end of next week, its a tight turn around but should give me enough time to get all of the embellishment done!

Sleep - Sourcing time!

I am delighted to say that my designs have been approved by the director and with the final costume budget confirmed its a green light to start sourcing! And with that in mind, with the quick turnaround on the costumes as they're needed by the 12th which gives me less then a week I've already gone ahead and ordered two of the costume items online! The bowtie and braces for 'puppet', considering colour, were going to be two of the most difficult items to get anywhere but online and were thankfully well within budget, so they are now on the way. I have a slight concern about the braces arriving in time but if they look like they are going to be late I will go to plan B, cancel and go for a slightly more expensive pair that can be sourced locally - having them in time for the shoot is crucial.

With 24 more costume pieces left to find, its time to start finding and ordering the multiples and sorting out a charity shop sourcing day!

Costume Designs and Costume Bible - Complete!

Well the script breakdown is done, the designs are complete, and the costume bible is all prepared to start getting the wardrobe together! In total this makes eleven complete costumes, and three partials which are doubles to account for 'action' during the filming. One of the dresses is going to need two more doubles as stand-by's, just in case the take needs repeating.

It has been a while since I did anything to do with filming, so I'm refreshing myself as I go on how the requirements differ from theatre! For example, if damage was going to happen on stage, it would most likely be a costume that was prepped to be 'ripped' on stage by loose tacking or poppers, so that no more or less damage was done then required and so the damage could be reset for the next show, and if it was dirt it would be something that looked effective on stage but was easily cleaned out for the next show. On camera, there is a lot less leeway for this as people can see the costumes close up unlike theatre where there is almost always a certain amount of distance, and the time between takes needs to be as quick as possible - you can't hold up the shoot!
Filming starts the week after next, which leaves me a little over a week to make a to scale puppet cross-bar, source, breakdown and alter all the costumes required. Its going to be a busy week!