First Meeting with the Group

Yesterday was the first time all the designers for the autumn productions met up as a team, with a tutor leading us. We had a wonderful morning doing budgeting excercises which involved estimating a budget for our rather grandiose set designs fro mthe previous project, with mine consuming an estimated budget of £4.5million!! We then had to re-imagine oneanother's set designs to fit to a £1000 budget and to be set in the Studio Theatre. This was a very interesting excerise and was useful in teaching us how to pare-down sets to the bare minimum without comprimising the design-concept.

We also played an interestign game where we learnt how the rest of the group would sumarise eachother's personae. I made some interesting discoveries-

The colour that best represents me is Red,

The city is San Francisco,

The animal is a Cat,

The film genre is Film Noir,

The  piece of furniture is a Chaise Longue,

and the character from Winnie the Pooh is Owl.

So there you go, WHO KNEW?

We then got onto the discussion of who would design what play. Our tutor seemed keen to mix-up the roles a bit, but I think we'd all got into our heads that we were either doing set OR costume, and that was that. I had already been assigned 'Much Ado' but problems lay ahead...
The Set Designers happily split the plays between them and it worked very well, leaving me Zoe to design Much Ado, which I was very pleased with as I know her and her work very well, I am very confident in her design abilities and we are both familiar with eachother's work, having worked together before. Not to mention she is an extremely calming presence and it would probably do me the world of good having her around. In saying that however, I do not know the other Set Designer very well so I could have had an equally marvelous time working with her, who knows.

The problem was with the remaining costume designers in that no-one really wanted to take-on Canterbury Tales (which, to be fair, would have been my last choice also). So in order to make the role more appealing, the tutor decided to shake things up a bit, and as a result, my role has now changed.
Apparently 'Much Ado' and 'Canterbury Tales' are the 2 shows out of the 4 that will require the most minimal sets- low budget, pared-down, mainly props etc. SO the costume and set designer for these 2 plays will be the same person!! So I am now the ONLY designer working on 'Much Ado' and I will have to consider set now aswell!!!

I am mega-chuffed! I doubt I'll get an opportunity like this ever again, or atleast not for years and years. Not only that, but it was revealed to me that my director (who I have yet to meet with, but he sounds delightful) is quite open-minded as to when and where I would like to set the play.

This was music to my ears and I am now going to work on developing a few concepts ready to present to him for next week.
I AM SO EXCITED!!!

At the moment I am thinking that I'd really like to set it in India, perhaps during the British Raj era just after the end of the first world war. I have many reasons for this, here are a couple:

1. I wanted to set it in a context that I am relatively unfamiliar with as I think this will help to inject some excitement into a text that I feel like I've done to death.

2. It HAS to be set around a war, as an important part of the atmosphere of the play is about the troops' triumphant return from battle.

3. The climate is right. Although the speech in 'Much Ado' makes it quite a quintessentially British play, the whole atmosphere is very hot- and unsuitable for the changeable English climate. All the action takes place outside, and you can hear the heat in the words of the play- everyone's a bit hot under the collar...   In fact, I think this is an essence of the play that Kenneth Branagh's film mastered very well.

The main thing I have to consider is I need to have first and foremost, a very good reason as to why I am not going to set it in it's original context, and then secondly, if I'm going to change the context, why not update it to the present. I need to have a think about it, but I'm pretty sure I can answer these questions.

Furthermore, I need to do a lot more investigation into this era. I want to know how many Brittons were actually LIVING in India at this time. What their relationship with the native Indian people was. Whether it was a comon occurance to have British troops returning from war to India alongside Indian troops. These are all considerations I have to research, and if it's not right, it's not right, and I will not hesitate to ditch it. I know the play so well that I simply have no excuse to produce a shoddy adaptation of it that fails to represent the feel of the original text.

I just think it could look so lovely- all the warm colours and the soft fabrics... all the cream and beige and muslin and ooh it could be lovely. Throw in a couple of white, rusty, wrought-iron gazebos- job's a good'un.

But like I said, research is key. I refuse to get carried away with a  concept  that ill-befits the play.  Plus I need to think of a few more to propose to the director next week, and hope that he likes one of them.

I spent today doing a highly amusing read-through with my friends and housemates- with some make-shift costumes and masks, and it has certainly reignited my love for the play. I hope to do a script breakdown tonight- spreadsheets AHOY

As a reward for reading today's rather long blog-post, I give you this beautiful picture of a British Raj polo team....

rad.