Lion King Sunderland & Backstage Tour

Last week I went to go see The Lion King at the Sunderland Empire Theatre and had a backstage tour at the end of it by one of the cast members. I found that when I went to go see the show, I was just as captivated by the costumes as I was by the actual show. I thought that the costumes were very inventive and well thought out, and managed to make even minor objects like grass and ant hills into costumes like they were actual characters.

The masks I thought were very well designed and added to the show and helped to portray the characters in a way that just normal make up wouldn't have been able to do. I liked the fact that it wasn't a conventional stage production, where everything happened on the stage, in this show it made some of the songs more dramatic when the characters would enter from the back, this in a way engaged the audience, because they were looking around during the songs to see where the other animals would enter from.

After the show I was lucky enough to have a backstage tour with two of my friend that I went to go see the show with, by one of the cast members that was in the ensemble. She showed us around the backstage area where they kept the props and we were allowed to hold some of them. We were also allowed onto the stage itself, and I found that everything was a lot bigger up close and personal than it is when you’re watching from the audience. The last place that we were shown was underneath the stage, which was where the ensemble had to change costumes. This space was very cramped for the amount of people that had to change there, there was also all through the backstage labels on the floor for where other characters had to get changed in the hallways. 

Walking around the backstage I realised that working on a theatre production could end up being very fast paced and quite stressful. However, this does not put me off wanting to get experience in that field on work. 

                                                The Lion King West End Show Trailer.

                                          

                                    Scar & Mufasa from the stage production The Lion King

                           

                                    Timon & Pumbaa from the stage production The Lion King

Halloween costume: Part 1

As Halloween is approaching in a few weeks, I have decided to make myself a costume this year, as I have never made anything for myself before and I feel like it would be a good challenge to do in order for me to improve my skills in costume constructing.

There were many possible costumes that I was considering going as, some of them were; a female Jigsaw (Saw films), a female Joker (Batman villain), a doll as well as other characters from film and TV. I finally decided to make a china doll costume, as it allows me to have more originality within the costume and some sense of design, because  I was able to look at different styles of dolls such as; a raggedy Anne style doll, Voodoo doll, china doll and a rag doll. After looking at the different doll style, I chose to go for the china doll style, because I felt I would be able to make the whole outfit look creepier.

I started to look Lolita dresses, as they have a very Victorian style to them, which is the era of which I wanted my doll costume to from, so that this would give me the chance to make it looked old and distressed. I started to look for dress patterns that had a distinct Lolita look to them.

This was the pattern I ended up choosing for my costume.
                                                                           

Rock of Ages Theatre Show

On the 25^th of June, I went to go see the theatre show Rock of Ages. When watching this show I not only enjoyed the music of the show, I also found that the costumes were very detailed and helped to make the show more enjoyable and helped with the whole story.

I also found myself comparing the costumes that were used in the theatre production to the costumes that were used in the film. I thought that the costumes used in both versions were a vital part in telling the story.

                                                 The Rock of Ages show on Broadway.

                                                       Rock of Ages film poster

Wicked

In the summer of 2012 I went to go see the musical Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London. Seeing this show solidified my passion for costume design and reaffirmed that this would be something I wanted to do for a career. I found that the costumes were very detailed and, helped to portray the character that they were playing. The colours that were also used I found represented the characters personalities quite well and the audiences perceptions of those characters, with Elphaba and Nessa wearing black as they are supposed to be evil and the ‘Wicked witches’, and Glinda wearing white, as she is meant to be good and pure.

After going to see this show, I then went to research the costume designer behind the show, to see where they got their inspiration from and if they had done any other shows. I found that she was called Susan Hilferty and had designed for shows such as, Annie, If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet. I also found that she drew her inspiration from the time period in which the Wizard of Oz is set. She also looked at the Edwardian era and gave it a twist by having dresses with asymmetry and twists in them. 

All of these pictures have been taken from Susan Hilferty's website

Photoshop Work

For my Design and Illustration project I had to design the costumes for a whole play. The play I chose to design for was The Rivals. As part of this project I had to do some design work on Photoshop, which is a way of designing that I have never used before, so it was a new challenge for me do have a go at. I found that using Photoshop was a very interesting way to design, as it was very simple and easy to change one design into another one.

Costume Designer- Jenny Beavan

For professional studies I have been looking at designers within the costume industry.  One designer I have looked at is Jenny Beavan, who designed for films like the King’s Speech and the Sherlock Holmes films.

 http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/entertainment/articles/2011-01/12/gq-film-the-kings-speech-movie-mens-fashion-on-colin-firth-and-sherlock-holmes

Reading this article about her work on the king’s Speech was quite interesting, because it gave a good insight as to the kind of things a costume designer does while working on films.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0064746/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

these are a couple of images of work that Jenny has been apart of.