Today I traveled to Winchester to meet with Director Ryan,
assistant director Charlie, and to watch one of the drama sessions- meeting the
cast for the first time.
I decided this would be a good time to show Ryan and Charlie
my initial thoughts on the concept of how to do the play- showing them all my
sketchbook development stemming form my previous post. It’s always so
nerve-wracking, when I look back at the creative process I always omit that
feeling of dread when showing the director your ideas for the first time,
because you’re always 100% convinced they’re going to hate them, and will
regret hiring you, will have expected you to do more etc. etc. etc. And
sometimes this is true…
Luckily for me, today was not one of these times, and when I
talked through my ideas with Ryan and Charlie about having a sense of 1940s
glamour with the witches, replacing the ‘skin-removal’ with just the removal of
their dark glasses, having the set and costumes made form household objects, so
the audience can see how everything has been put together, with cardboard
featuring prominently. They both seemed to really like everything I said, which
was such a relief, because I’d worked myself up as usual, convinced I hadn’t
done enough, convinced I was really behind, convinced that my concept was poor
and would be immediately rejected. Luckily I think I’ve gotten quite good at
hiding these insecurities, and talking about my ideas in a confident
self-assured fashion, which I’m sure helps other people to have faith in them
too.
After this initial session, the drama group arrived and I
was introduced to the cast.
I don’t think I’d quite ascertained in my head quite how
small some of them would be, and yet equally some of them would look like
proper teenagers… and then there’d be others who adopt a mixture of the two-
they look like a tiny child, but when they open their mouth a 40-year old man
comes out and startles you. Ryan gave me an opportunity at the start of the session
to take photos and do measuring (which obviously due to the fact they are
minors, I can’t post on here). I had prepared for this happening by making all
the children signs with their names on (making use of a catastrophically inept
sketchbook I’d recently bought for a suspiciously cheap price) took a photo of
them holding their giant name-tag and then wrote their age, clothes-size, and
height on the back of each… I was actually quite pleased at what a good idea
this was, sometimes I surprise myself! What’s great about measuring children’s
heights is that you don’t need to stand them up against a wall or anything!
Almost all of them (bar 2 or 3) were smaller than my 150cm tape measure (and
also my arm span) so I could easily measure them using just the tape and my
arm, with no real problems. They were all approximate measurements, and it
occurred to me that I might need head circumference at a later date to help
with hats, wigs, scull-caps etc.
I then watched the group rehearsing the last scene of the
first half- where the witches are all at the conference. I say! There are
certainly more witches than I thought there were- at least 18!!! That’s a lot
of children to make look like 1940s-style monstrous old ladies… It was very
useful to see how Ryan and Charlie had blocked the scene, I know it has to be
simple as they are young children and very fidgety, but equally I will talk to
Ryan about changing it ever-so slightly, something that would be more effective
from a set and staging perspective.
I did some drawings and made some notes, hoping to bring the
encircling witches into more like a horse-shoe shape so that they don’t all
have their backs to the audience, put the head-witch on a podium, and place the
table under-which ‘girl’ is hiding, at the very front of the stage with the
white table-cloth cut-away at the front so we can see the action under the
table.
A few potential problems arouse…
How does the mouse escape and run towards the witches?
My answer: tie it to a pull-back toy car…. A remote control
car could also work, but I think the sudden and fast movement of a pull-back
car could be very funny.
Another problem….
How does the Grand High Witch cause an explosion and
set-fire and kill the other witch??
Sometimes you read a script and think… is this really
appropriate for the kind of budget I have? How did this version of the play
ever happen without a massive technical effects dept. and a huge budget?
This would dishearten some people, but for me I feel like
it’s a really satisfying challenge, encouraging me to problem-solve and think
creatively, something that I enjoy and have strengths in.
Although in saying that, this whole explosions thing has
stumped me. I was going to make it non-literal, maybe make a ‘bang’ sign…. But
I think that’s too naff, and the children would be so disappointed…. But then
again… fire+explosion+smoke+cardboard and wool costume= very bad idea.
I’m thinking I might watch some of George Melies' films,
some Michel Gondry, maybe even a bit of Forkbeard Fantasy, as these are artists
that I associate resourcefulness with. It might give me some ideas.
One thing I did come away with was the vision that the
children are going to look BRILLIANT as the witches… especially the boys, some
of them are so tiny, and I think it’s just going to look hilarious to see them
with their eyebrows penciled in and smothered with make-up. I’m of no doubt
that it will look ace. I don’t thin kit’s the costumes that will be a problem;
it’s the special effects and the scene changes that are going to cause issues.
Ryan and I had agreed that we should scrap the ‘pulling
their faces off’ idea as defined in the script because it would look weird
having them all in masks and would be too difficult to do. So I showed him some
of my alternate ideas…
Keep the wigs… but make them out of cardboard and wool,
maybe attached to a hat.
Maybe their eyes have a weird reaction o the light or look
strange, hence the dark glasses all the time?
Maybe they don’t have eyebrows and they’ve all pencilled
them in a bit too high-up?
Ryan liked all these ideas, and I don’t know quite how
important the blue spit and no fingernails bit is… might not translate anyway
when the auditorium is full to the back.
I think some of the children were a bit frightened of me
(maybe I looked too much like one of the witches? Haha) but one of the children
showed me a costume design she’d done for a princess dress and shoes and was
clearly so delighted to receive my positive feedback about it that she came up
to me and thanked me for coming afterwards.
All in all I have had a really lovely, really positive day,
and it has reminded me why I wanted to do this sort of work… not working with
children… just working in general. I am so much happier when I’m out in the
real world and doing my own thing, when suddenly the trials and tribulations of
university life seem ridiculous and insignificant. I think this means I am
ready to graduate.
I also talked to Ryan about the timescale for the costumes
and he said that as long as he knows what they’re going to look like, he’s
happy to wait until 2 weeks before the performance to get them, which gives me
about a month after hand-in to get everything together, which suddenly seems SO
much more reasonable than getting them ready for the first week of June.
So I am happy now. Very happy.
As always though, the grass is greener, and I kind of want
to be doing the other play too. When Tassie, the designer, was talking me
through it on the train to Winchester, I thought it’d be such a lovely idea to
do it a bit like a ‘black-light-theatre’ having all the actors in black but
then using neon paint and UV stuff to create a whole new silhouette and
creature on each character, so you’re not as constrained by the ‘human’ form
AND could build something magic on a really small budget- do UV male-up too and
you could create all sorts of crazy characters. Plus I do like designing
fantasy… so I am a bit wistful. But Tassie will do a much better job than I would, and then again… I’m sure that the witches will
be amazing, and after today I am even more excited to be working on it. Plus everyone’s response is the same when
I tell them what I’m doing, which is ‘awww, that’s going to be so much fun’…
and I’m sure they’re right… it will be!
^ Black Light Theatre ^
