Minor Subject - Costume

For the past 5 weeks we have been in our minor subject allocations, I was half excited to get back into costume and learn more sewing skills, and half not wanting to do it because I knew I would miss design so much. Which I did! At the beginning of our five weeks we got put straight onto the two shows that would be going down to the Tron, 'Victory' and 'The Possibilities'. We wroked along side the second years, who at that point were managing the shows, and we spent the week working on notes, so taking up hems, doing repairs and such like, I learnt a few new stitches during this process which definately came in handy later!

The second week was spent on a cushion project, making cushions which involved using different techniques which we would need to know, so I learned techniques like; pinning, stitching seams, pressing, top stitching, overlocking, ironing, inserting a zip, applying bias binding, making and applying piping, machine gathering, catch stiches, tacking and attatching buttons. Some of which I had already known, but it was really great to do a project which included so much!

Once I had finished making my cushion, I started making a 1560's womans hat. I found this task paerticularly difficult as I had never made anything without having an example infront of me where I could take reference as to how it fits together, all I had was a black and which photo of a 1560's woman, and the pattern. I started by making a toile which took alot of time, but I managed to nearly finish it by the end of the week. During this week, we also got to stand in on a costume parade for one of the tron shows, it was long, very long, and i've definately learned a few things to think about when it comes to designing my costumes, and things to be prepared for in a costume parade because, personally, I think it could have run alot smoother, and not have been as long. It was a very good experience to watch something that i will need to do in 2 years time, so im grateful that we managed to go and check it out! of course, leaving the costume parade meant more notes for the shows had to be done.. so... roll on week 3!

The third week, and we were back onto doing notes for the two shows again, we also had the seonc of the two shows, costume parade, which went just about the same as the previous one. I have to say I found doing ntoes rather boring, but I learned quite alot from having to alter a few garments, though taking out sleeves, and putting new ones in is so annoying, I really was tempted to chuck it out the window! On the 4th week we were down at the tron helping with the two shows. I thought it was a really good experience and it was really fun to get to work in another theatre and get to know how it all works there!

Now on week five and at the moment I am in the middle of finishing off a crinoline cage which I am making for the west end parade, which has definately taken longer that I initially thought it would, but I am glad that we have been given the time so that we can finish it. Its Tuesday at the moment and we have another 3 days in the costume department, and I think, I will hopefully be able to finish making my 1560's hats, and we might be starting to make some of the costumes for the shows that are at the beginning of next year.Which will be fun and a new thing for us to learn!

I have put in some photos of some of the garments that I worked on, aswell as close ups.

D1- Figures in Action

For this task we had to create six figures at a scale of 1:25, they were to be in a girl and boy pair, all at differnt ages; so a young pair; a middle aged pair and an old pair. If I'm honest I didn't feel very motivated for this project and found I had alot of time. I made my old couple last and because I had so much time left to work on them I found I put more effort so ended up with an old couple that I really liked that had a better shape to them,  compated to my middle aged couple with round heads. I did have fun with this task as I did enjoy making model figures, but I think if i were to be given the task again i would have taken more time over the young pair and the middle aged pair so that they could have been of a higher quality. I did find the project very easy to do in terms of just being able to sit there and create somthing, so I think I will definatly continue to work on scale people which will come in handy for model boxes and such like.

I have included some pictures of the three couples I created.

D1- what makes good design? what makes great design?

I don't know what to say about this week other than it was a journey. Looking at this task I thought, okay so I have to figure out what good design is, but then was makes great design. Not going to lie, I thought this would be an easy task so i sat and watched 90210 for most of the first day. Second day came and I started looking closer into things and thought that I had cracked it! I know what great design is, knew this would be simple! About an hour later all of that was chucked out the window, back to the beginning again! All of the designers thought we would go out and see the city and try and get some inspiration by looking at Glasgow's architecture. So we went to the lighthouse in Glasgow city centre and looked at Charles Renee Mackintosh's work and also looked across the ciyy of Glasgow at all its landscaped. Must say I was quite blown away and I was definately influence. Getting back into Uni I decided I didn't know what great design is, and I probably never will. Great design, or design in general, is opinionated, comeone might love something and someone might hate it, all because of different tastes, so can you truly have a great design that everyone in the world loves? My answer would be no. What I ended up doing for this project was descriving what I thought could make a great design if everything came together. So I showed images of good designs, which were all good for different reasons, whther it be environmentally friendly, or aesthetically pleasing, to give the impression of what I think, collectively would make a great design.

D1- Inspiration

This task involved us finding a designer who works within the theatrw who's work intrests and inspires us in some way. I picked design Kai Fischer who had worked mostly with theatre company Vanishing Point. This task was a great opportunity to look into many designers work, whilst in the researching process I must have looked at 8 different designers, some I've heard of, some I've not. In the end I picked a designer who I knew and had already seen some his his work before. I emailed him a few questions that I wanted to know, not expecting a responce and actually got a reply. He explained he only had time to give me short reply's but his answers were amazing and if he thinkgs that was a short answer, I would love to see what his answe would have been if he had had the time to answer it fully! Sending emails to people I have never met before, in my opinion, is weird, bit I learned that it's not and that you can get alot out of somthing by stepping out of your comfort zone.

I was going to post my presentation onto this blog but I couldnt because it wouldnt convert properly, but this is a link to Kai Fischer's website which will show you some of his work, please love it as much as I do!

http://www.kaifischer.co.uk/

D1- Good Self Bad Self and Heaven and Hell

This was a task that I thought sounded really interesting to do as it was a step out from designing for a stage set, it was still a design but we had to look close into thing. It was really great to get a task, which personally, I felt, allowed you to be more creative. You didn't have to resrictions in terms of money or space that you would have to stick too if you were designing a set. what I did find amazing was that once I had finished and created my model without its restirctions, I imagined it if it were on a stage and what I would have to do to make it work on a stage. This made me realise that if you think out of the box to begin with and then pull it back in order for it to fit into its restrictions, it might end up more creative and more interesting to look at. I loved foing this task because I had a personal connection with what I was creating, and I loved that feeling of looking into ones self and creating an idea of you. From this task, I was introduced to a modelling material called Super Sculpey which is a bit like Fimo, but in my opinion better, it's smoother, and so easy to work with; only flaw with it is you can't buy it in shops, only online. I've definately been influenced to make more models from super sculpey and I started making a wee old man who will be about 15cm tall which I cannot wait to make!

Below are my good self and bad self 1:25 scale models.

Below are some images of my heaven and hell project.

 

I have also included a picture of the old man's head that I am making from Super Sculpey.

 

D1- The Greeks

It's the first week of design and I am so happy to finally be in my specialism! Our first project is 'The Greeks'. So we have to design a given Greek play, 'The Cheophori'. Being our first task it was a great way to get into the mode of design. Going through the whole process that you would go through for a design was a great thing to do. It's been a while since I've designed anything on my own so it was a really great project to get into. Going through all the aspects that you would be expected to do for a design, showed just how much work needs to be done but I think if you are organised and plan your time properly then it's so much simpler! Having never done any type of design presentation before, I was super nervous having to present especially cause I hate talking in front of people. I finally got the courage to present mine so I jumped as quickly as I could to present it before I got nervous again. Have to say got slightly distracted when one if my classmates burst a pen in his mouth and ink went everywhere and people were silently laughing at him, but I tried to ignore it and carried on. I think having done one presentation that went better than I thought it would, have me a confidence boost for doing presentations.

ICP Final Performance Project

For our second task of ICP we had to in our group put on a performance which related to an article from The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To begin this task our group read the declaration then met up to discuss what we felt stood out to us personally, some people had stronger opinions on some of the articles more than others, but very quickly we came to our conclusion of which article we would focus on. - “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” -  We brainstormed through quotes and letters and videos on youtube that all related to the topic and gathered together ideas which would incorporate our specialisms. We made sure that we met up every Monday so that we could discuss progress on what we have found and any new ideas. So far I felt like I hadn’t contributed much, I had yet to have my light bulb moment where I knew what we could do in terms of staging. So one lunch we snuck into the venue in which we would be performing and had a look at the space, and my light bulb moment came! I wanted to have three large roles of paper which would be hung on a scaffolding bar, I ran around the venue space explaining this idea to my group and it went down so well with everyone and I finally got excited about this project, I researched the cost and compared prices on different sites so all I needed to know what whether or not we could get a scaffolding bar! The final week of ICP and our performance week came up rather quickly and it was on that Monday that I found out that we could not get a scaffolding bar, the technical equipment that we had been given was it, and no budget so the roles of paper would be out of our own pocket. I must say I was rather disappointed at this as I felt very disadvantaged within my specialism, but looking back, I think it was a very good learning curve as it left me to think of something else, and put me in an environment where I was very creatively limited. I came up with a similar idea to the concept of the roles of paper which would allow me to collaborate with the DFTV student within our group, this idea just used a piece of paper with writing scrawled  across which could be filmed appearing, or disappearing. I thought that this might end up a bit boring so I went to research some images on Google along with one of the music student within our group and found an image which was of a paper building, then I thought that instead of a piece of paper with writing on it we could make a paper city which would be in a circle, representing the world, and then we could graffiti over it with words that connected to our article. We explained this idea to the group and continued to start on making it straight away. I brought some people down to Speirs Lock Studios to gather materials and make a start. I spent two days making the city and then set it up ready for filming, then myself and a few others from the group wrote down words that we think should be written over the city and then we filmed these words getting written across the city. Our day came where we could rehearse in the space but unfortunately would didn’t get proper use of the technical equipment as it had broken, but we did a run through of the dance, and our speeches, and our musical piece which all went really well, and we rescheduled our tech rehearsal for the hour before our performance to begin. The day of our performance came and I have to say I think it was this day that our group finally came together and our group dynamic came out, especially after our first performance. Our feedback that we got from the rest of our year who came to see our performances were really good and we knew we had done our job well when everyone understood what we were trying to convey and also when it started a debate within the audience… slightly awkward… not going to lie! Getting to see the other groups performances were also really interesting! Because every group had chosen their own article to base their presentation on we had a very varied performances and I learnt a lot about the world from going to all of them, which I feel was a very good experience to be part of as it opened me up to knew things! I think the two days of performances as a whole was incredible! Drifting from one show to another and seeing how completely different everything is was just amazing to do and so much fun!

ICP Presentation from Glas[s] Performance

Our second presentation was from a company called Glas[s] performance who are a company who work in Glasgow who also have a second company called Junction 25 which work with young people in collaboration with The Tramway in Glasgow. They came and spoke about their work that they have done in the past and their future productions. I have also linked in their website which indludes all their work, past and present at the bottom of this entry. I feel as though I don’t have much to blog about in terms of these presentations that we are being given, I can give you what they do as a company and such but I feel like that is all. I do know that from this presentation it has inspired me to look into more than just a design field in theatre. A few years ago I had wanted to start a small theatre company, I love putting on a show, I love the whole process of it, and I would love the feeling of being able to say, you organised this, you started it, so producing has had a lot of love to me, but I’ve never had the chance to experience it, and from this presentation it encouraged me to maybe look further into this and see what I can do. I do love designing and I know the role of a producer is not as much of a create role as a designer but I would love to be able to do both, I think it would be brilliant!

http://glassperformance.co.uk/main

ICP - Presentation on Cape Farewell Project

One of out first presentations of the second half of ICP was a presentation from artists Chris Wainright who was talking to us about the Cape Farewell project (I have included a link to the website below). The project is a creative response to climate change that brings artists, scientists, and communicators together to create art. The project was first launched in 2001 and has had many people from the creative industry taking part. Chris Wainright spoke of his personal experience of his jounrey which he took in 2008 when he went on the Disko Bay expidition where he and over 40 other international artists, journalists and scientists, visited the Disko Bay area of Greenland. He showed us his work that he had created from his trip which were a number of photographs of ice bergs that had been taken at night with a light with a coloured gel. He also showed us his work that he created in collaboration with another person who was on the trip which included making short clips of things being projected onto the icebegs and photographs of lights that spelling out something once the series was put together. He also explained through other work that people from the expidition ahd done, whether is was singally done or collaboratively witha mixture of people from the visit. I think I was more interested in the photograohy that had been created from the visit rather than the main point of Cape Farewell, although saying that, I do believe that the project is a very good project to help raise awareness. Though i did find myself really loving the photographs that had come from his trip, which maybe was the point cause it makes you question where the photographs were taken, and why. I don't actually feel as though I have much of a personal pinion from this presentation apart from the fact that I liked it.

http://www.capefarewell.com/home.html

ICP Presentation Project

Our first set task for ICP (Introduction to the Collaborative Practise) was to do a presentation based on a given person from the theatre industry, my group, group 21, were given Adiran Howells who is a performer who likes to do one-to-one work with his audience, his artistic policy is 'to create work that promotes intimacy and genuine exchange with an audience often in a one-to-one, autobiographical of confessional context, in a range of non-traditional performance spaces'. Personally I found that Howells is a very interesting person to look at in terms of the work he does which made me very excited to find out more about him. As a group we split into smaller groups and researched different parts and would later come together again to discuss which points we wanted to focus on and look closer into. Upon realising that he lived in Glasgow we emailed him and asked him if we could interview him to which he said yes. Throughout our discussions we came up with the idea of making a video asking personal questions to people around the Conservatoire. We would also ask Adrian Howells the same questions. We also wanted to incorporate somthing onstage which would resemble different things from a number of his plays that all had some significance to his connecting with his audience, it is in that part which I took control in, so we has a simple set of a chair witha blanket, cushions, some tea and biscuits and some photographs. Originally we had idea of gather together more items but due to lack of money and time we found that we couldn't.
For out interview with Adrian Howells, we had three of us interviewing him, so myself, one of the actors, and one musical theatre student who also filmed the interview. We had set out question's with out group beforehand so that we knew what we wanted to ask and made sure that what we got back would help us towards what we wanted to be in our final presentation. So I had put in questions which referred to his use of staging, set and props. I did find it frustrating when we went onto questions about backtage that the filming of the interview stopped because "that bits not important" which I found very unappreciative towards the area of work in which I specialise in, but I didn't want that to afffect my work in the group so I carried on and pulled together the small set that could be used on the stage to symbolise his work. We used his use of interaction with the audience in our presentation too. Obvioucly we couldn't do it one-to-one exactly how he would do it but we went into our audience and started talking to people about their day, huging them, and offering them biscuits, which when down rather well with the audience, expecially the biscuits.
During this first section we had two of our Monday's to look at everyone's presentations and I think this was a very interesting way to see how everyone else in the other group's took on this task! It was also a good point where we could look at the other topics that were given out and get a chance to look further into what type of theatre and practitioners there are out there.
I think from this first section of ICP I have become more appreciative of the work that goes on in the other courses and also found that I have become more interested at looking at different types of theatre and really try and broaden my horisons. Adrian Howells work is not at all like what I would go and see of even look into but I found myself truly fascinated, and although I probably still wouldn't go and be an audience memeber to that type of work it is still really interesting to look into.

First Year PAD 1 design rotation

First Year PAD 1 costume rotation

First Year PAD 1 swinging into christmas

First Year PAD 1 props rotation

First year PAD 1 scenic art rotation

First year PAD 1 ptm rotation

First year PAD 1 construction rotation