Victorian Bedroom

Second Interior - Victorian Bedroom - I am going to start by looking at existing four poster beds and pick out what is key in the struture and how I can try and replicate one, without spending too much money. I also want to include a lot of drapes in both interiors, especially the bedroom. I've looked at an artist called Henry Fuseli, who draws a lot of women in bed with bed sheets draped everywhere and often flowing curtains as well. His work has inspired me, and I love the style.

This piece titled ' The Nightmare' stands out in particular, as the shot in the bedroom is when Babooshka is having a ceasure after being bitten by a Vampire. So I think the devil represents the dead, which is essentially what Vampires are. Also the woman looks distressed and the drapes are all around her which is what I want to create on set.  I have looked at several other paintings of Fuseli's and I love the colours used and how they all seem to have a gothic feeling about them.

I need to start developing my knowledge of Victorian furniture and look at what colour pallets I may use. As well as starting to source props.

Lambeth

This was my second experience in working in film, it was a Graduation film for the third year Film students at my University.


A third year costume student needed some help with dressing actors and checking continuity for this film, and I wanted to gain some more film knowledge.

 The details were given to me and when I heard it was a period film set in the late 1930's around the time of the Blitz, I thought it would be a great chance to learn more about period costumes and how to go about sourcing them etc.

Costume Assistant was the posistion I would be undertaking and I was so excited at the idea of going on location to film and staying in a bunkhouse with all other crew members. It  knew it was going to be both informative and fun time!

The shoot was the 28th Feburary - 7th March and it started with a 3 hour drive to Plymouth via Torquay to collect the last few costumes. However before we left for the shoot, I helped the Costume Designer source some of the costumes she needed from a local costume house in New Milton.

Setting up and meeting the actors was so exciting. We arrived at Royal William Yard at 4pm on the day of travelling ready for the first day of shooting.


Working on set was so much fun, I got to meet so many new people, and it was so good working along side fellow students to produce a film altogether. The third year costume student helped me to get to grips with how a costume designer would work on set of a film, and how to check contiunity of the costumes etc. The actor were mostly from London and some from more local areas to Plymouth, the director also did some street casting for extras which was a fun experience, but prooved a challenge when we had to dress people from the clothes we had and hoped we had items to fit.


On set was definatley the most exciting part of being there, bonding with the actors was also fun, but actually seeing it all come together, and watching it from the otherside of the screen, with all the lighting set up in the built locations was surreal.

Caroline the main actress

Continuity was key and we had to make sure images were taken of every actor before and after they went on set. Here are some images taken for our records:

Air Raid Warden



Civilians



Nurse Caroline



 We also had some special affects like blood and burns which make-up assisted on, and we worked together to keep them looking the same in each shot.





Bloody Nurse

 The set's that were built were incredible and when on set it was so much fun to see all the crew working together.

I loved every minute of this film shoot, and I met so many new people, I had such an amazing time and has made me realise that I am very interested in persuing this side of costume in the future.

I can't wait to see the final film complete, got a few months to wait yet!!

The Lair

First Interior - the Lair. Research is going to help me get far more of a feel for this project and looking at old films and images may help me decide the style I want to create. I've  so far looked at Dracula, Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and The Lost Boys.  I have found some amazing images and looking through the photos, brilliant shapes and shadows were created using light, I would like my Vampire's Lair to look like a space rather than a room with four walls.

This image stands out to me as the shadows are so unbalanced and it creates a completely different space using light.

In my sketchbook, I'm going to look at more similar images and see what I like about each one and start to pick things out I could try and create in my Lair.

I need my interiors to contrast eachother greatly, in several ways, including colour, shape and feel.

Self Directed Project

On Thursday the 23rd February I had my first Production meeting with everyone involoved in the vampire film, including the Director, Producer and Designer. We dicussed all aspects of the film from location to make-up and what inspired the Director's idea . Kate Bush's music video Babooshka was shown to us all and the Director pinpointed what he liked about the video, for example the quirkyness of it and how he took her lyrics and made it in the storyline for this vampire film.

The Director also looked at this poem and said it inspired him as well:

The Bride of Corinth ( 1797) Johann Wolfgang Goethe

'from my grave betimes I have been driven

I seek the good I lost, none shall me thwart,

I seek his love to whom my troth was given,

and I have sucked the lifeblood from his heart'.

Locations:

I was able to dicuss with the Director what was expected of me within this project and what his image of the locations would be. The description given to me was as follows:

1. Exterior: Should feel timeless so a church and graveyard

would be good (although not sure how christians would feel about aload of the undead running around...) I would love to get permission to film on the beach- that would be amazing.

2. Interior: we have to mock up 2 enviroments.

    a. Vampires lair - with a writing desk - could be very gothic and old.

    b. A honeymooners bedroom - think Victorian.

I am going to look at some original vampire films that were suggested by the Director to inspire my ideas:

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari 1920

Nosferatu 1922

Dracula 1932

I am also going to look at some more modern takes for example:

The Lost boys 1987

Interview with a Vampire 1994

True Blood 2008-2012 (TV series)

I will need to research Victorian furniture and the Gothic era to see what I could use to dress my locations.

Road - AUCB Theatre Production

Set construction

I helped build the set for the University Production of Road, we started from scratch and has several working professionals guide us with both building and painting the set. I worked along side a current 3rd year student to build the set, and was able to gain a lot more experiance in hands-on construction work.

Nailing in the top layer of the road

scenic painting

Final Set

Mother Courage and Her Children - AUCB Theatre Production

This is an insight into one of my Univeristy unit's called Concepts in Context. It started on the 6th January and opening night was the 9th February.
For this project my role was Set Assistant, this involved helping the Set Desginer in anyway she needed, I began working from day one of the build until the opening night. 


We started by offloading the delivery lorry of wood, and cracked on for two 9 hour days and managed to get the foundations of the set build. This was my first experiance of building a set for a live production.

This photo is the model box the Designer had made in 1.25 scale. When I saw this I was able to grasp what we were to work towards and it became more realistic after reading the script.

Building was extremely fun and I learnt quite a few new techniques and how to use several tools.



Building the gravestones



Carving the polystyrene covering on the gravestones



The cart foundation finished



Breaking down props

These images show some of the stages that were involved in the making the set, we had a full weekend of building and a full weekend of painting. I learnt several painting techniques including how to paint a floor cloth with a gravelled effect, and also how to make metal look rusty and of cours ehow to make polystyrene look like weathered gravestones!

I also used illustrator and a laser cutting machine to produce the stencils for the replica ammunition boxes. Also re-visited my sewing skills to make the harness for two actors to pull the cart along.

The set in action