I had to cram cram cram a lot in today as different departments needed me for different things.
I arranged the rough structure of the day as follows:
MONDAY
am- sit-in rehearsals- first read-through make design notes.
Lunch- meet up with Costume Supervisor and Costume Buyer- brief them on fabric choice for Leonato.
After lunch: Do Costume and set presentation for actors.
pm: Measuring actors
pm: Sit in on rest of acting session
pm: Talk to Kirsty re. groundplan.
Eve: Look at Scenic Artist's painting samples
Night: Compile full props list for DSM and ASM with pictures.
First Rehearsal: Notes
-Various acting notes to be discussed with Director. (please no Indian accents).
-Act 1 Scene 2: Music?!
-Talk to 'Hero', see if she has her nose pierced and whether she'd mind dying her hair dark.
-"Stool and Cushion for the Sexton" Act 4, Scene 2 (prop requirements)
-"Doublet and hose" Act 5, Scene 1
-"Put on other weeds" Act 5 Scene 4
After the rehearsal there were a few script points to bring-up, interestingly they had a different version of the script to me and there were a few typos in theirs. A few of the things we decided to change for renewed contextual reasons:
- Any reference to 'Italy' we change to 'The Empire' e.g. 'Finest man in the Empire'.
- Hero and Margaret's exchange about the details of the dress are to be cut for costume purposes.
-"Doublet and hose" to be cut.
I was actually really surprised by the director's attitude to Shakespeare. I thought that typically the way that director's approached Shakespeare was with a vague attitude of 'Don't mess with Shakespeare', which will often end-up in entire scenes being cut rather than lines individually being changed and cut in large volume. However, Doug's approach has been quite different. I thought there might be some issue in cutting the lines that conflicted with costume, however, a lot of them were in sections to be cut anyway, so it wasn't a problem. I like it how my director is trying to make it accessible to a wider and more modern audience, but on a personal level, I am sad to see some of the archaic metaphors go.... but it has to be said that not everyone has had the luxury to have studied the play and that a lot of the lines that Doug has cut, could have been baffling and ambiguous to a modern audience who don't know the play.
Fabric Briefing
During my lunch hour Sarah and Emilie agreed to meet with me so that I could go through my fabric sample book with them to brief them about the sort of fabric they were looking for. My idea was for them to stick around directly after lunch to help me get the rest of the actors measured and then for them to jet off to local fabric places and see what they could find in terms of appropriate fabric for Leonato's tunic. So I made sure I gave them as clear instructions as possible, showing them my 'ideal' fabric sample (priced way out of reach at £69 p/m) and then also showing them the currently most viable option from Goldhawk road. I was very clear about the colour more than anything, and my main rules being that the fabric is not 'modern-looking' and specifically "free from any garish and modern shine". I gave the little sample book to them to have as reference on their trip and then rushed off to have some lunch.
Costume and Set Presentation
Having been so so busy with all the other preparations, getting the 'costume and set presentation' as seamless and professional as possible was not at the forefront of my mind, let alone at the top of my priorities list. This is mainly because I have been in contact with most of the actors through-out the design process, posting pictures of the set and costumes as and when they were complete. So there really were very few of them that weren't aware of the concept.
First I did a little speech about the set and the design concept, followed by a run-through of the costumes.
A problem being that the CAD pad has only just been accessible as from today, so I have been previously unable to print out my designs in a good size (the library printers destroyed my colour-scheme), so I just asked for those who hadn't seen the designs, to gather round my laptop as I talked through them. Not ideal, but it still worked.
It was lovely to see how excited the actors were and how complimentary they were of the designs. It's a good group and I got very positive vibes from them. After fielding a few questions like "Is it a real tree?" etc, my costume team were able to whiz through the rest of the measuring schedule whilst I went round and talked-through the designs to the actors individually.
Measuring Session
For optimum speedy measuring, I had asked the whole costume team to join me. It was very kind of Emilie, Lucy, and Anna to come and help, as it really isn't their responsibility to do it, but many hands make light work, and we had the entire cast done within 30mins.
We also used this time to try-on the white jacket we got for Conrade/Borachio. Interestingly, I got an email last night informing me that Doug had decided to swap the cast around and now Borachio, Friar Francis and Antonio had all swapped round. I knew everything happens for a reason- the new Borachio is a COMPLETELY different shape to the previous actor, and if that bad day earlier in the week HADN'T happened, and we HAD managed to order the 'patrol jackets' from Denny's then we would have got one completely the wrong size. So it was a good thing in the end that we had an unsuccessful sourcing mission for those jackets or else there would have been trouble.
Unfortunately, there still is potentially a bit of trouble....
The actor playing Conrade is incredibly built and muscly, which can be an incredibly difficult frame to dress in uniform if it's not being made specially, as the ratio between broadness of chest/shoulders and the narrowness of the waist makes it difficult for ready made items to fall properly. We tried the jacket on him, and although he said he felt comfortable (how lovely to have a co-operative actor!) the sleeves were very much on the short side (which could easily be remedied) BUT the whole shirt was way too tight across the shoulders and the upper arms. Lucy thinks that if worse came to worse she could put in a panel near the armhole, but I guess we'll have to see what happens about sourcing the other one.
We also tried it on 'new' Borachio and I was much more pleased with how it fit. No matter who ends up wearing it, it certainly needs to be taken-up, preferably tapering to a point at the CF, falling above the hips. And the buttons will need ageing or replacing and the collar stiffening.
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| Conrade in the Jacket. |
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| Conrade's fitting showing where jacket should end. |
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| Way too Short on Conrade's wrist. |
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| Better on Borachio- hangs much nicer, like the design. |
Lucy then helped me measure for the balcony laser-cut facade- this was something I had o do in real life, rather than on sketch-up or the model box, firstly for accuracy, but also because the screen doesn't cover the whole lighting-deck edge, just between the two ends of scaffold on each side, so it had to be measured specially. But I now know that the laser-cut board should be 560cm wide and 130cm tall.
The Rest of the Afternoon
For the rest of the afternoon Doug asked me to stay and witness the actors' character developments, but I tried to get some work done at the same time. I'm not sure how useful it was for me to be in this part of the session, as I kept on having to leave to answer my phone to the Costume Team (on sourcing issues), Kirsty (on groundplan issues) and my housemate Jess, who had kindly offered to look through the Textiles catalogues to find me the fabric that I want for the washing. I hated feeling like I was being rude or disruptive, but I felt at this point I really needed to prioritise my team over the actors, as it was mainly them just walking around in the space in character.
Emilie and Sarah phoned me to let me know that they were stuck in traffic and therefore only made it to Fabric Land before closing time- which was somewhat predicatably, unfruitful.
The Production manager had been keenly on at me today to get the groundplans to him by the end of the day, which meant in turn chasing-up Kirsty who had said she was coming over to meet with me yesterday but never turned up. In the end I found Kirsty and she got the groundplans to John in time, so it was all fine in the end.
The Woes of Paint Selection
After ensuring that the groundplan was successfully delivered to the Production Manager, I then cycled to the Scenic Artist's house to have a look at some paint samples she had done for me.
Having been so confident in our colour choice in the shop, when I saw the painted-up samples, my heart sank as none of them were 'perfect'. Emily had done a brilliant job. She did one set of samples that showed the difference between using a white base and using a black base, and from this is was very apparent as to which worked better (White for sure, 100%). Then there were some colour sample pieces that she'd painted up so I could select the right blue. Then there was a third set of samples where she'd taken the colour she thought I was most likely to pick (the Windsor blue from Crown/Brewers) and used it to show me some experimental painting techniques for the 'stone' of the seating rostra. Emily has been amazing.
Unfortunately, none of the colours were quite right. The one I thought was closest at first was actually the one 'colour-matched' by Dulux, but as soon as I got out my paint sample form my model I realised that the Dulux colour was way too purple. The one with the closest tone/hue was definitely Windsor Blue, but I had realy issues with the saturation. It was hard to tell for sure (as it was a very dull day and we were in a poorly lit room), but Windsor Blue completely lacked the luminosity and the saturation of the Ultrmarine from the model. Obviously by this point I have moved away from teh actual colour of Jodhpur and the image that was my inspiration originally, but now I feel it's so important to try and match the colour that I've been using, as that's what we're matching the costumes to too. For me it was a tough decision between Crown's City Blue and Blue Windsor. Blue Windsor was the right sort of blue, but was too pale, and I was worried that the lighting would wash it out EVEN more. The City Blue had a lovely glow to it, and was a much deeper colour but it wasn't the right hue- too greeny, too harsh.
I didn't really want to choose any of them, because none of them were right. But having looked at the prices for Rosco Supersaturated Ultramarine paint (£127 for 5litres) I knew that there was no alternative at all.
So after A LOT of deliberating and holding samples under different lights, I uneasily decided to go for the Windsor Blue, as it was cheap, but also because I think that in terms of the costumes working with the set, the HUE of the colour is more important than the depth... if it's the wrong shade of blue then the costumes could so easily look wrong.
I left with a decision made, but not remotely confident that I'd made the right choice. Emily gave me the paints to take with me so that I could do some samples for my own use.
Props List
When I finally got home after this incerdibly long day, I took some time to have a break and eat some food. After a short while I made an Illustrated Props list for the ASMs and DSMs and sent it to Dominique (the Stage Manager), John (the Production Manager), Doug (the Director), and Zoe (my Set Assistant) with the following message:
Hello Everyone!
John, the document attached features the visual references for the 4 swords that we will need, which I think you said you'd be ok to source for us?? Let me know if any problems.
Here is a prop sourcing sheet, with Visual References.
(I tried to attach it to the email but the file is too big, so it is a dropbox link, hope it works)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uqau2ovhet0gkf0/Props.pdf
Verity or Dominique- please could you distribute among relevant DSMs etc. cos I don't have everyone's email.
Hope it's clear, any questions feel free to find me/call me/email me. Prop-sourcing team, please can you make sure that I see a photo of everything you have found before any purchases are made- that would be ace, and liaise with Zoe Rolph re the budget for props. I'm really grateful to have you all on board- sorry the props are so specialist.....
Thank you so much in advance- you've all been so great already!
See you soon,
All the best,
-Eleanor (Designer)
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