final performances!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/suonnlqzqu5ahmo/zWMAJD6VJs#/

After running through the story a few times with small audiences that seemed to be very positive about what we had created I felt confident about showing the story to the target audience of the children. There were moments that I wondered whether it would work wit an audience there e.g. the moving trees I thought that they would notice straight away but they were amazed both times. I thought that the final performances went really well it all came together and the children really enjoyed being part of the story, on the second performance however there was a cue that went wrong but it was covered very well and the audience didn't notice which I think showed that we knew the story well enough to be able to carry on.
This project has taught me a lot about the design process and also about audience experience, I've really enjoyed all the processes and think it went a lot better than expected I feel this project has brought our group closer and we have managed to balance ideas and everyone's opinions to create a very good piece of performance.

Lighting

For the main performance I am part of the tech team that is working on doing lighting, today we managed to get a lot of the lighting rigged and patched in that we need for the forest and were able to angle there we needed to give them best effect. I have learnt more about the lighting desk and how we are able to programme channels on to main switches to make it easier for the main show and allow for easy location of the lights needed to make the performance smoother.
I've been working with a lighting bar plan allowing me to make a note of the plug that the light is being plugged into then follow this onto the patch board and then onto the lighting desk. I Have enjoyed the process of working with the lights and I feel I understand the process and what would go into lighting a show.

I found it useful to learn how to programme lights together into a group so that it makes it easier to locate for the performance and means that we can move through the sequences easier, I have enjoyed working out the cues alongside the script allowing easier transition.

duck!

 

To finish the ducks head we added a few layers of gum tape making it a strong outer layer that we were able to paint onto, the gum tape gave us a really nice looking texture to the head which we decided to dry brush using white and grey tones. This picked out the raised areas adding highlights and shadows. The beak was painted with darker grey to add shading and this made the brown paper look more orange lie a beak, the eye was painted in black. I really like the way that this had turned out it makes the duck really stand out and give it a character.

Viewports

For this lesson we learnt how to create a title box using attributes and text. We were able to save this allowing us to add it to all future drawings with ease so we don't have to create one every time. We also learnt how to make multiple viewpoints in paper space and setting them to different scales to be able to focus on different parts of the drawing.

painting the floor

For the floor we decided to paint the pathways that we wish the children to follow, we started by adding a thin layer of basecoat to indicate the areas and allow the others layers to show up better when painted on top. We then added layers of colour on top, for the first house they were warmer tones such as yellow and a warmer brown this also led into the first path which became greyer in the clearing and the second path. The gingerbread house section was a lot greyer and dark brown to create a colder environment compared to the first house. The sides of the path were blended into the colour of the existing floor colour using darker browns and the colour of the main floor itself. These will be blended even more with the use of cardboard leaf litter.

Duck and house floor

The focus today was carrying on with the development of the narrative for the gingerbread house section and the river with the duck. We wanted there to be a suggestion of a duck rather than a complete physical duck. So we started to develop it as a head and wings that were quite large to allow us to change the size depending on whether we have the children on the duck or just Hansel and Gretel. The wings were created form the same fabric as the trees we have, this was because of colour and the way that it moved when we attached it to the wire, it is a bit heavy however so we might have to have two people holding the wings and one person on the head.
Paper feathers were added along the material to create more of a wing effect and it creates a really nice sound when moved. The head needs layers of paper to make it stronger (paper mache).

The floor of the first house was also developed, similar material to the forest paths was added to the floor t make it look more incorporated into the forest.

 

Developing the narrative

 

We started to develop the story/narrative of the forest and what will be said and done in the forest. We developed the narrative from the first house into the clearing and how the children/audience will move within the space. We worked on what we can get the children to say as a recording that we can play as they travel through the space and also the sounds that can be played, the clearing was where we developed most of the story with looking possible ways of creating forest sounds and how this can be achieved.

Hansel and Gretel also acted out the parts within the space and how this helped the story and flow of the narrative, we developed the idea of how to move the trees to allow it to seem as if they were getting lost, this moved into people being inside the trees animating them whilst the actors moved around.

websites found whilst looking into fear in theatre

http://immersivetheatre.com/about/

 

Immersive Theatre is all about creating participative theatre experiences in which audience members give up their “observer’’ status to become co-actors and co-creators within the narrative. Our audience members are action wise performers who direct the story by taking decisions, choosing from infinite options and negotiating the process.

Combining text, movement, video, objects, sound, lights and visuals, we aim for a ‘total experience’, for ‘transportation performances’ that result in rendering powerful emotions and eye-opening adventures

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23329899

 

'Then things began to get strange. Hecate seized hold of my wrists, leading me into a pitch-black forest, forcing my hands against a series of branches, telling me the haunting story of a child lost in a wood. Her hair fell into my face; her hands were tight against my shoulders, her lips close enough for me to feel her breath against my cheek. I wondered – half-dazed – if I was being initiated, or perhaps murdered; was I expected to spend the rest of the performance wandering the space, unmasked, in collusion with Hecate's subservient witches? Instead she wept in my arms, her nails digging into my skin, and my fear gave way to a stronger impulse'

 

http://www.wsd2013.com/blog-category/this-rise-of-immersive-theatre-puts-design-in-the-spotlight/

Knee-knocking terror is a sensation more often felt by actors than the audience. This is partly due to the limitations of the medium, but it's great to see companies trying to break the boundaries and scare us.
The creation of terror requires the absorption of the individual into the story, and a precise manipulation of their senses in order to generate a sense of security which can then be swiftly undermined

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/03/immersive-theatre-and-anxiety-choice

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2008/jun/18/stagefrightcanyouevokefea

http://www.inyerface-theatre.com/archive7.html

forest development 2

 

We started off by roughly mapping out on the floor the pathways that will possibly be present to help the children navigate the space. This then allowed us to mark them out with small pieces of ripped up cardboard giving the effect of many leaves. We also hung more of the fabric trees in the and around the gingerbread house section. This allowed us to get a sense of the whole area and how the sections would fit together. I feel that we developed the forest quite a lot and that we have been able to achieve this with very few materials so

far.

Hotel room auto cad

As an extra practice exercise of model making and auto cad drawing I decided at the end of last year to make a small  piece either of set or of existing objects etc. I settled on something that was existing and chose to make the small hotel room that my mum had stayed in within Nottingham. So I took as man measurements as I could and started plotting them into auto cad.

I started by putting the measurements of the walls and anything that was part of that view point I also made a plan to get the idea of where everything is in the room.

 

 

I also put all the drawings into paper space (A4)

 

This is the view of the bathroom and the chair that was in the room.

All of these drawings helped me to start making a 1:25 scale model from card etc.

leaf experiments

 

 

I was looking at what we could possible do for the floor decoration so decided to create a small scale version of the fabric trees to get the rough aesthetic of the shape and how the leaf litter would work within the roots of the trees. I made the trees from strips of calico sewn to make them tubes then hung on string and roots made from twisted paper, the leaves were just ripped up bits of paper which was quite tedious to do at this scale so don't know if on a larger scale would take too long to create the amount we might need. I really like the look it gives the trees and feel that we may not necessarily need a huge amount around the trees themselves and its quite effective at the suggestion of leaves. Another option for creating leaf litter is to use leaves themselves so I collected a few leaves from the arboretum to see what they would look like around the fabric trees.

 

Forest development

We have started to think about other materials we can use to make the forest and after feedback we wanted to look into creating a forest that looked as if it had transferred from the table top stat of the story and to make it look like it had been made by the children (Hansel and Grettel) themselves.
We created a section of hanging 'tree' created from small ripped up bits of corrugated card linked together with elastic, this create a really nice aesthetic and the sound works really well for when the children are able to move through them. They also create interesting shadows.

Trees!

We developed more of the trees today by adding more of the fabric to see how multiple trees would work in the space, we also started to develop the idea of journey from the house to the clearing and also to the gingerbread house to allow the children to feel lost in the forest. There is an idea for a maze.

design ideas

we started today by experimenting with ways of making trees because that is the biggest part o the section we are designing for and feel that once we have that concept then we can build the forest.
We started by making trees out of materials we could find in the theatre mostly which were paper, o that we did try was a tube of fabric suspended from one of the lighting bars. I felt that this was quite effective and was a simple creation of a tree and it gave us something to work with, we slowly developed the idea of adding paper etc to the inside and casting light inside to create shadows. We also added roots to the bottom made of paper and other fabric.

school trip

We visited a primary school as part of our research process to be able to develop the story and design process by asking the children to draw moments of the story of Hansel and Grettel. We worked with the children in groups and asked them to draw a moment that stuck out to them, the table that I was working on chose to focus on the gingerbread house scene and the witches relationship to the children characters.
It was interesting to see how the children viewed the characters in relation to each other and some of their reactions weren't what I expected  for example a couple of them did not see the witch as a threatening character. I found the process of allowing the children to draw the story very interesting and a good way of helping the design as this process has influenced the deign of our production quite a lot.

 

 

Photoshop 2

 

 

 In todays session we used layer masks to be able to add highlights and hues to the picture of the snow house. We selected ad area on the layer over the picture to be able to add a lighter patch on the snow from the window, we played around with layer formats to soften the light and bring colours through to the top layers. We also applied a setting to the picture of the snow falling that removed the black and allowed us to see the house beneath, then added a gradient to create the mood of the sky.

We then played around with brush textures with the light and dark setting (this is shown in the image of the boxes) I wanted to create a rough painted texture to them I think it makes it look more like cardboard.

Forest trip notes

For our trip we had to explore the woods finding areas that were useful to tell the story and that could help us develop a design to be able to tell the story of Hansel and Gretel. We found some areas that would be useful with the shape of the trees or the density of the trees, we placed a couple of the props we had in the areas to see how they would fit. I found this really useful to give context to the story and very useful to help with developing a design and thought process.

Forest trip