Posted on No Comments on An Introduction to Set Design; Initial Ideas and Concepts

An Introduction to Set Design; Initial Ideas and Concepts

When first adopting the role of set designer, I was quite daunted by the lack of knowledge I had when it came to being in a production role and what I had to bring to the table in terms of props and set. To prepare for this role I attended regular Set Design masterclass ran by the Technical Designer for The Lincoln School of Fine and Performing Arts. This was extremely helpful as we covered topics such as different types of set, ground plans, director’s briefs and budgets. Being taught that as a set designer you have a responsibility for the stage to reflect the performance as best it can.

We worked on case studies and began to understand how a budget and the directors brief can either restrict ideas for shows or whether anything the imagination lets is possible, all depending on budget.

From these sessions I approached our director, Michael Woodhall and the rest of the design team to relay any ideas we had about the production side of our show. We came to the conclusion that because we were exploring an emotional and sensitive topic, memory loss and its effect on couples, relationships and their lives, it would be sensible and look atheistically pleasing to have the technical side, set and lights to reflect the science side of memory loss.

From the conception of our ideas to focus on memories I had a vision in my head of hanging objects, these could be personal objects or objects that would somehow become relevant in the show. However I was unsure of how this fit into keeping the technical side clinical.  From research such as articles on memory loss and scientific viseos and descriptions on how the brain and memory works, the idea of storage came into mind, and then the idea of storage boxes and memory keep sake boxes. My head flooded with images of boxes littering the stage full of objects that have meanings and memory attached to them.  To link it with the science of memory loss I drafted sketches of boxes littering the stage with ‘cables’ connecting them. The idea was that these boxes would represent the different compartments of the brain that store memory and the ‘cables’ would be the nerves or synapse s that connected each part. This idea stemmed from research on how the brain works, ranging from YouTube Videos to academic articles. Link below;

These snapshots below are the images that stuck with me when designing.

Screenshot 2015-05-23 13.20.28

Screenshot 2015-05-23 13.20.15

Posted on No Comments on Pure Imagination

Pure Imagination

In the past week I’ve been doing a lot of research into memory loss and specific case studies. After our talks about people’s stories and what they have achieved, memory seems to have been something that has resonated with the company so we all decided to focus on memory and specifically memory loss. The first thing I did was to explore the science behind memory loss which has been incredibly fascinating. One case study I came across is of a patient famously known as ‘HM’. I found out the following:
“His global amnesia for new material was the result of the loss of both hippocampi, and meant that he could not learn new words, songs or faces after his surgery, forgot who he was talking to as soon as he turned away, didn’t know how old he was or if his parents were alive or dead, and never again clearly remembered an event, such as his birthday party, or who the current president of the United States was” (Ogden, 2012).

Another case study I found talked about which part of the brain were responsible for memory loss and about associations between different neurological conditions: “the hippocampus, which is responsible for forming new memories and for retaining old ones is vulnerable to a wide range of neurological conditions, including not only head injury, but also Alzheimer’s disease, encephalitis, epilepsy” (Rath, 2014).


This brought my attention to the disease encephalitis, it was the only one in the list that I hadn’t heard of before. Before now if anybody had asked me to name diseases associated with memory loss, encephalitis would not be an answer, however it seems to be an incredibly severe disease are there are many famous case studies of people suffering from it.
As well as doing lots of research we also took part in an imagination workshop led by Michael W. this week. The point of the workshop was to come up with a nonsense story as a whole group (it was a very emotional tale of a poor pig who had bad breath and had no friends, but ended up with a wolf best friend). We then split off into two groups and developed it into performance. I worked in a group with Alice D., Naomi, and Rachel. What we created was very different to the other group although we both used a physical style. Another issue this exercise flagged up was that although we both had the same source material, the stories were represented slightly differently. This showed us that we need to be very careful if we are going to use case studies that we don’t change facts or misrepresent anybody.

 

 

Fill In The Blank Theare, 2015.
Fill In The Blank Theatre, 2015.

 

Works Cited

Rath, A. (2014) From One Man’s Damaged Brain, A Treasure Trove Of Research On Memory. [online] Available from: http://www.npr.org/2014/12/28/373657735/from-one-damaged-brain-a-treasure-trove-of-data-on-memory [Accessed March 1 2015].

Ogden, J. (2012) HM, the Man with No Memory. [online] Available from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/trouble-in-mind/201201/hm-the-man-no-memory [Accessed March 1 2015].

Posted on No Comments on Workshops: Making time to play and use our imaginations!

Workshops: Making time to play and use our imaginations!

This past week, I have been leading some creative workshops to get ideas flowing and to get the company comfortable working as an ensemble. Some of the workshops have been focused on the stories we hold as a group. As we are interested in interviewing the public and visualising personal stories, specifically related to memories and regrets, I felt that it was important for us share our own stories first. This would then make it easier to know how sensitive we need to be when dealing with external material.

One exercise I gave our actors was to write a letter they would like to send to someone but for some reason, they can’t. They then paired up and picked one of the letters at random and each pair physicalised the narrative of the letter. I asked the performers to think about the emotion behind the letter; apart from that, I had no direct instructions for them as I felt I needed to give the performers opportunities to have a creative input, ‘by setting tasks you allow your performers to offer much creative input into the devising of choreography without burdening them with the responsibility of creating the whole show.’ (Graham, 2014, p. 15) I then merged some of the sequences together and played around with music which resulted in a short physical piece which myself and Rachel, our choreographer, can carry on developing further.

Rehearsal photos

(Katherine Copley, 2015)

The Frantic Assembly book of devising theatre has been a key tool which has inspired a couple of my workshops. At the beginning of their devising process, Frantic usually divert from the topic of their piece as they feel it can restrain the imaginations of the performers. This is something I wanted to implicate into some of our workshops, a good example of this is when I asked our designers to gather some props together; the performers all chose a prop at random and were asked to create a short improvised piece where they were to use these particular props but not for their original purpose. This exercise has been essential for the development of our show as I am particularly interested in using objects and props to aid us in our storytelling. Additionally, the exercise has allowed the performers to spend time being playful and expanding their imaginations which I feel is essential at the beginning of a devising process as ‘it’s when you’re most playful that you create the best work.’ (Mcdonnell, 2015)

All of the material from the workshops has been recorded on film and has begun to inspire me with more creative ideas resulting in a stronger framework. I cannot wait to see the piece develop further over the next few weeks!

Works Cited

Graham, S. and Hoggett, S. (2014) The Frantic Assembly book of devising theatre. Second edition. Oxon: Routledge.

Mcdonnell, J. (2015) Career advice from The Paper Birds Theatre Company. [interview] Interviewed by Michael Woodhall, 12 February.

Posted on No Comments on Creating a ‘Cyber-Community’…

Creating a ‘Cyber-Community’…

Whilst forming a marketing strategy, I uncovered that our main audience are member of the University of Lincoln School of Fine and Performing Arts. This meant that these audience members were between the ages of 18 and 25 (approximately). I decided that the two main ways to marketing ‘The Man Whose Memories Fell Out’ to this audience were online and on the university campus.

The advancement over the past decade or so in technology has meant that cultural organisations have had to also advance the way that they communicate with their audience. The social media platform allows us to have an ongoing presence and gaining an online audience means there can be constant communication. Bonita Kolb states that ‘because of the ease of communication of words and images over distances, today a cyber-community is just as “real” and, therefore, as valid as a physical community’ (2013, 2). As a theatre company made up of artist who are already part of this ‘cyber-community’ (Kolb, 2013, 2) it was important for us to gain an online presence quickly.

Upon finalising the name of the company, I created online social media profiles to represent it. I decided that the two main platforms that we would reach our audience on were Facebook and Twitter are the most popular social media sites. The audience that we intended to reach were student between the age of 18 and 25 and using these sites allowed us to communicate with this audience.

‘The experience where artists communicate their vision to an uninvolved audience, but must develop a means through which the audience is able to communicate the ideas and even engage in the creative process’ (Kolb, 2013, 1).

This idea in which the audience are involved with the company is one that at the beginning of our process was important to us as we intended to use the research that collected from the public to create our show. This changed as we developed as a company as we found that this was not a way of creating theatre that suited us. Instead, as marketing manager, I decided that the way to keep our audience engaged was to allow them to see parts of the creative process that could only be viewed online.

‘Individuals are engaging with culture in many new ways: they are able to modify creative works to personalise and customise, create their own content, file-share with a like-minded community, and adopt a critical perspective through blogging and twittering’ (Hayes and Roodhouse, 2010, 52).

Online social media platforms have become places for audiences to share their opinions on the work created and they do this whether their opinion is good or bad. Cultural organisations were once the ‘traditional gatekeepers and informed the public of what was good art versus bad [but] have been replaced by anonymous bloggers who share their opinions whether informed or uninformed’ (Kolb, 2013, 3). Although these opinions can be problematic, creating a platform where audience can share their opinion upon the work as, well as being a good marketing techniques, it serves as feedback for the company. It is better to give the audience a way of giving feedback and in doing this the audience become more informed.

This means that a cyber-community will aid the company in two ways. The first is that it will be a good marketing strategy and the second is that we will be able to inform our audience so that they are able to give us feedback that will be useful.

Works Cited-

Hayes,D. and Roodhouse, S. (2010) From Missionary to Market Maker: Reconceptualising Arts Marketing in Practise. In: Daragh O’Reilly and Finola Kerrigan (ed.) Marketing the Arts: A fresh approach. New York: Routledge.

Kolb. B. M, (2013) Marketing for Cultural Organisations: New Strategies for Attracting Audiences. 3rd edition. New York and Oxon: Routledge.