SDP: Final Evaluation

I said in my learning agreement, at the start of this project, that I hoped to gain a better understanding of styling for the camera and the responsibilities involved upon taking up the role of costume designer.  I have certainly achieved these, and the experience on this project has been entirely new and rewarding.  I found the idea of blogging quite hard to get used to at the start of the project but I soon settled into a routine with it and I think it utilised it well and it allowed me to reflect constantly, enabling me to evaluate and improve myself and my work.  For the first part of SDP I undertook a styling project and I feel that I defiantly improved my understanding of how to style a costume ready for camera and the difference it makes.  I am proud that I managed this half of the project without collaboration and that I can say the outcome is entirely my own, which again was something I specified in my learning agreement.  I was lucky in my sourcing and managed to find some really excellent garments, which I then manipulated to create the look I sought, and overall I think it is successful in re-creating ‘A Dead Soldier’ while completely changing the contextualisation but maintaining the main themes that drew me to the painting in the first instance.  I had to learn to see the potential in everything I did instead of seeking the finished product; for example in my sourcing I had to see what I could do with the garment, and even when taking the photo I couldn’t look to take the final image as it needed editing.  I was worried that this would be a big challenge for me as I can get caught up in finding the perfect finished product straight away but I managed to overcome this and I really think it paid off.  I am extremely happy with the overall result of the styling project, I think the photo looks really effective, and my editing skills have certainly improved.   My time management could have been better and if I could go back I would have tried harder to finish this part of SDP so that I could have spent longer on part 2.  I think I did do ‘A Dead Soldier’ justice and as an interpretation I think it works well against the original painting and I am very happy with the final photo.

Part 2 of SDP was a steep learning curve for me; the pressure of having to design creatively and also practically, knowing that my designs had to work, was a challenge for me.  The time frame for this project was also difficult to contend with; we didn’t meet the director until 2 weeks before our hand in and I didn’t feel as though I could properly begin designing until I knew we were on the same line as the director.  I could research and formulate a concept but I didn’t want to get too attached to any one idea incase he had something totally different in mind.  As it turns out he was very happy with the way we were going, which raised my confidence and allowed me to carry on, confident in what I was doing.  I found fabric shopping tough also, as I wasn’t just gathering samples as I would on a hypothetical project, I really had to consider the fabrics I chose to make sure they were in keeping with the medieval period and also think carefully about how the finished costume would look.  The medieval period was not one I had ever designed for before and this was a new and exciting challenge that I thoroughly enjoyed.  I struggled at first to get inspired but once I found my colour palette I felt a lot more confident and my ideas developed from this.  I enjoy researching and really getting to grips with the era I am working in and I feel I did research well and this helped my ideas.  I could have perhaps developed my ideas further but I had ideas for many of the characters from my very initial research and they didn’t change much from my first thought to the final designs.  I am happy with my final designs; I think they stay true to the period and that I have created a good feel for the piece.  I worked very closely with set designer Rhiannon, to make sure our ideas worked together and I think this helped both of us immensely and the visual design aspects of the play to work really well together.  I enjoyed the collaborative process and it was a good contrast to part 1.  I am confident that my designs will work well and I cannot wait to get on and bring them to life.  I think my SDP was successful and I have achieved what I wanted from this project and more, which I think will help me in my future aspirations.  I am proud of what I have achieved and while there are a few elements I would tweak I think overall, my work was successful and I produced the results I wanted to.

Final Designs

Final Design - Peter Abelard - 'In Extremis'

Final Design - Heloise - 'In Extremis'

Final Design - Heloise - 'In Extremis'

Final Design - Denise - 'In Extremis'

Final Design - Bernard - 'In Extremis'

These are a selection of my final designs for 'In Extremis'; I am happy with them overall and I think they work well together.  I think they have a medieval quality to them that I am pleased with and I think they do show what I set out to achieve.  The contrasts between colour and black and white will work out well on stage I think especially Abelard and Heloise who go from bold colours to monochrome will be particularly effective in visually showing how their relationship has changed over the course of the play.  I am very pleased with the result and I cannot wait to bring them to life and see them on stage.

Fabric Shopping

I have been to local shops in Bournemouth and Shepherd's Bush in London to do fabric sourcing and I have found some really excellent fabrics that have great potential to lend themselves to my designs.  I tried hard to look for fabrics that were all natural and avoided nylons and polyesters as much as possible, I mainly looked for silks, wool, linen, and velvet; this way I could also dye the fabrics to make the colours I wanted.  I found some truly beautiful fabrics and it was an interesting experience shopping for fabrics that are actually going to be used.  In my previous projects they have all been hypothetical so the pressure to really consider fabrics and whether they would really work as the designs was less, so this was a challenge.  I had to consider the drape and weight of the fabrics as to how they would sit on the figure and hang as depicted by my designs, this was a really interesting experience and it was very exciting seeing the potential the fabrics could offer me.  Now I have my fabrics I can finish my designs and accurately show what I want the costumes to look like, both in colour and style.  I am satisfied that my fabric choices will work well and they stay relatively true to the medieval period while working with my colour palette to create the visual effects that I wanted.

 

31/05/11 - Meeting with the Director

The meeting with the director was quite successful; he seemed to be pleased with the direction Rhiannon and I had been going with our ideas and designs.  His main notes to me was that he didn't want the play to end up looking comical as the medieval period can sometimes look a bit gimmicky with the pointy hats and excessively large headdresses.  I was keen to avoid this myself and I had already decided that I didn't really want to use such head accessories but I was keen to use hood for a softer, sometimes more sinister silhouette and the director said this was fine.  He also emphasised the importance of Bernard having a staff as Rhiannon was keen on him putting himself on a crucifix and the staff could help create this image if he held it across his back with his hands on either end.  An important note to remember is that the actor playing Lotholf is also playing Louis VI and the director was keen that his appearance should be totally different.  A fat suit could be used to alter his appearance and this would work well historically as Louis VI was known as 'le gros' (the fat king) so this would help create a change of body and also would make Louis VI seem bigger than others perhaps emphasising his position as king.  As Rhiannon's set is based upon scaffolding and construction the director suggested that there could be an opening scene with people working on the set and that they would need cloaks or hoods to look like medieval construction workers and then to easily remove them for the first scene, which is something I should research and remember in my designs.  Overall I am happy with the way the meeting went, it is reassuring to know that the director is happy with the way we have taken the play and that we can continue on our ideas.  He has also given me some interesting things to research and look into which I shall enjoy doing while continuing to develop my ideas.

Idea Development and Inspirations

Two medieval paintings that helped inspire my colour palette

 

My chosen colour palette

One of my initial ideas

  

These are some of my key inspirations for the project; I think the paintings at the top are perfect for the colour scheme I want to encapsulate in my work.  They have wonderful earthy, natural colours that also look fiery and could resemble hellfire.  I think the idea of the colour palette being earthy but bringing in the colours of lust, anger, passion and danger will work really successfully.  It is also the colour of blood which is very relevant to the plot of 'In Extremis'.  I am pleased with the initial drawing I have done as I feel it works well against the colour scheme and the simplicity of the dress allows the colour to speak for itself.  I am very happy with the colour palette I have created and I think it will work really well with the play and also the set that Rhiannon is working on.  I need to find fabrics that work as well as the paint does and use texture and colour to create a beautiful array of costumes that have little pattern (I only really want the king to have pattern to show his affluence) and allow the colours and textures to speak for themselves and not distract from the action and script.

27/05/11 - Tutorial with Adele

I arranged a tutorial with Adele as I was struggling to find inspiration and I felt as though I had hit a bit of a wall in my development.  It was an extremely useful tutorial that allowed me to leave feeling inspired and like I was back on track.  I showed Adele my sketch book and she recommended that I look at paintings from the medieval period to really get my colour palette accurate.  She said that currently the colours I am using and some of the images I have used as inspiration are too 'electric' for the period; in some examples she showed me I saw that the colour palette was much duller than that which I had been using.  The colours were muted, with deep, rich tones but not particularly bright and I need to bare that in mind when designing.  We also discussed the fabrics I should use and that they should be natural; silks, wool, leather linen and also perhaps velvet as it started to become popular a bit after the period of the play but I think it would look very effective, especially silk velvet.   I feel more confident in where I need to take my research and development following this tutorial and I now need to go fabric shopping and try to find some fabric to inspire my designs.  I also need to do some more research into medieval paintings and the sort of colour palette that they had and the colours that I should be using.

Discussion with the Set Designer

Following our tutorial with Will, Rhiannon and I decided to get together to discuss what our inspiration had been so far and work out a concept together.  We both wanted the set and costume to work really well together visually so we shared our ideas to create unity between our designs.  We had similar feeling about the script and how we wanted it to look which made the collaborative process quite rewarding and we were both able to bounce ideas off each other and develop our initial ideas further.  The two of us both felt that religion should be extremely prominent in our designs and the symbol of the cross was in important image to both of us.  Also we both really liked the idea of using earthy tones to show the grounded nature of the characters and freshness of ideas expressed within the piece.  We both wanted to look at fairytales and bring in a more fantasy element to the piece without making it look too 'floaty' and 'light' and the subject matter is hard and will perhaps be quite difficult to watch at times.  It was rewarding to know that we were both on the right track and we have decided that our research should be collaborative so that our ideas really stay in tune with one another, to make sure the set and costumes harmonise well and one does not overpower or detract from the other.