The beginning of the process: 

 

From the start, our theatre company wanted to do something different, to create something that people hadn’t seen before. We had always wanted to base our ideas on a traditional fairy tale, however we wanted to twist it and again, make it something people hadn’t seen before. We went from Sleeping Beauty, to Snow White and then settled on Cinderella. Cinderella is such a well known fairy tale that people already hold an opinion and an expectation of it when they see it somewhere; so we wanted to take this expectation away and form something completely unexpected! As our theatre company is made up of 8 women, we decided to use this to our advantage and show that Cinderella doesn’t need to meet the prince to result in a happy ever after like in the original fairy tale, and that she can be a strong independent woman, this is also known as the Cinderella Complex. ‘The concept of women’s emotional, financial and other dependency on men from The Cinderella Complex can be interpreted in different ways in today’s society and culture.’ (Weaver,2016). We therefore decided to base the play on Cinderella’s relationship with her sisters instead of it all being about the Cinderella going to the ball and meeting the prince. Originally, we wanted to base the play solely on surrealism because of Cinderella’s dream world, however, we realised that it was too hard for us to portray on stage; therefore, we still kept the dream like world, but we just took out most of the surrealism so that it would be more simple for Kay Moseley to write the script, and so that our play would make sense to an audience, even if it didn’t make sense in Cinderella’s mind! The structure of the piece, we created by using different film genres such as: Film Noir, Western, Horror, Silent Movie and  Telenovela.  By using the different genres, it helped with creating a dream like world, because in a dream things keep changing and one minute you can be in one place and the next moment you’re in another place and you don’t know why. ‘Influenced by the writings of psychologist Sigmund Freud, the literary, intellectual, and the artistic movement called Surrealism sought a revolution against the constraints of the rational mind; and by extension the rules of a society they saw as oppressive. ‘(MoMa Learning,2016).

 

 

 

 

The role of Lighting Designer: The Process/Research

 

I have taken on the role of lighting and sound designer before at the university, when I took the Shakespeare module. I was therefore thrilled to be able to have the chance to take on the role again for our theatre company.  When we got the general idea of the play, and had some context of the scenes, I then began to decide on what colours I wanted to use. For the opening of the show, we had our puppet show; therefore I only needed the back light to aid us in making the shadow puppets work against the screen.

 

 

 

The genre of the first scene was Film Noir. I then researched images of the film Noir nature, and also looked at videos to help me get an idea of how the era was represented. However, of course, Film Noir is presented for the screen, so I had to get creative and think of a way that I could portray this to an audience and to make it work on stage. During my research I came across two significant images that I have wrote about in my previous post, these images helped me to get into the mindset of how Film Noir was portrayed.

 

 

 

For our show, I used dim, blue wash lighting and used the haze machine to create the mist; I wanted to create an atmosphere for the actors and the audience. For scene two, the genre was Western. For the western, I used orange and yellow to create a warm feel; I wanted the light change to change when Cinderella said ‘I feel the heat warming me up…’ (Moseley, K.2016), in her recorded monologue, so that it could create the illusion of her thoughts being revealed to the audience so when she thought of the heat warming her up, I wanted to show the audience this too; and perhaps the audience felt a part of the western atmosphere, this is what I would have liked to have created- so that the audience felt part of the show. The third scene was that of the genre of horror. Consequently, I used white and red together so that the red wasn’t too overpowering, but it still created the scary eerie atmosphere, I also used a black light when hiding Cinderella’s character from the audience.

 

 

The strobe light was also a choice that I felt would be good for making the characters on stage look as though they are running in slow motion; this could increase comedic value and also gave Cinderella’s character time to walk behind the Ugly Stepsisters to make it creepy when she then went and touched one of the sisters shoulders. The fourth scene was the silent movie scene. I used a warm wash of lights, mainly light colours to try and create a sepia effect. The fifth scene was the Telenovela style; I used a pink and white light, as this scene then ran into the Fairy godmother and Cinderella scene where they first meet, but it is actually in fact the last scene of the play. I kept the same lighting state because I wanted to show the continuity of the scene. Over all, most of the lights in the show were LED’s I felt were the best choice because of how I could mix the colours and the variety of colours that they held.

 

 

 

 

The Role of Sound Designer: The Process/Research

 

Being the sound designer for Twisted Ivy Productions has been a brilliant time for me. I have always thoroughly enjoyed music and I am glad to have taken on the challenging role of sound designer so that I could broaden my research and learn new things during the creative process. Primarily, to begin the process I needed to make sure I was going to get the clarity and best sounds I could for our performance, therefore I used iTunes. By using iTunes, I knew that the sound would be the best quality for the speakers in the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre auditorium.  When I got into the process of searching for the sound effects, I began to really enjoy it- just by discovering the different versions of sound effects for example, it was an interesting process. However at times, the process was difficult, because I had to make sure I was finding the most suitable sounds and sometimes this was easier said than done; nevertheless I used my determined nature, and I kept searching.

The house music for the show was a fun process because I could choose any song I wanted, however I wanted the songs to relate to the themes of the performance to create the atmosphere for the audience and the actors. Each song I selected related to either the themes of the show or the show in general. The songs I chose where: Sia-California Dreamin’, Radio Head- Daydreaming (Radio Head, 2016), Fleetwood Mac- Dreams (Fleetwood Mac, 1977), Queen- I’m going slightly mad (Queen, 1991/2000-Remastered), Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams (Are made of this) (Eurythmics, 1983) and Poison- Every Rose has it’s thorn (Poison, 1988). From looking at the songs I selected, it is clear to see that most of them relate to dreams, and the process of going mad and losing yourself (Queen-I’m going slightly mad). The song by Poison –Every Rose has its thorn, I chose because of the title of the show, Every Rose… The title is open to interpretation but I felt the song related.

 

The show opened with the Shadow Puppet theatre, for this I chose an old Victorian music box track to underlay the voice over; as the company wanted the puppet show to have a Victorian feel to it, to differentiate between Cinderella’s reality and what was going on in her mind.

The first scene of the play was that of Film Noir. I had previously been watching video’s of Film Noir sound tracks on YouTube, so that I got a general understanding of the style of music used.  A video that I looked at which was of great help to me with understanding the style was this:

 

(Youtube,2012).

 

After researching the sound of Film Noir, I found a track on iTunes that I felt was fitting with the scene and with the genre. The song being: Film Noir by Pop Art. (Pop Art, 2008). The next scene was the Western genre, for this scene I felt an appropriate song would be The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Soundtrack. (Ennio Morricone, 1966). Other sound effects I used were a gunshot and a steam train. I researched guns that were used in Western’s, and I found that a common type of gun was called a Remington model ‘Nevertheless, the Remington cartridge guns carved a niche in western history’.(Adler,2014). In addition, I wanted to find a Remington sound effect for the scene, because if I used a modern pistol, it wouldn’t have the same effect and it wouldn’t be in the correct context; I wanted it to be justifiable.  I did the same for the train sound effect, I wanted to use an old fashioned steam train so that it was appropriate for the Western.  The third scene was the genre of Horror. For this scene, I found sound effects that I felt portrayed an eerie atmosphere for the horror, such as: Circling crows, a thunderstorm and an angry growling wolf. With the Circling crows and the Thunderstorm sound effects, I edited them using the Audacity software, creating a horror soundscape. At first, I found the editing a little difficult as I hadn’t used the particular type of software for a while, however I managed to get the gist of it and I enjoyed editing the tracks. The fourth scene was the Silent Movie scene. For the scene, I chose two contrasting songs, one was very up beat and the other was slow and ‘sad’ in nature; as I wanted to portray the two different parts of the scene; (The fast, up beat track for the sisters and the slow song for Cinderella). The fifth scene was a Telenovela style. For this scene I only used one sound effect, because I wanted to help create the comedic effect of when Belinda dies very dramatically, therefore I chose a dramatic Timpani Drum sound effect, (Serious about sound effects,2010). The last scene was the scene when the Fairy Godmother is introduced for the first time in person to the audience, (I also had the role of the Fairy Godmother which I loved portraying). For the scene, I again, used one sound effect of a magical chime, that sounded like the shake of a Fairy’s wand. I wanted to keep it simple because it would become to over-crowded with different sounds that the essence of the scene may have become lost.

 

 

The Final Performance

On the evening of Wednesday the 18th of May 2016, as Twisted Ivy Productions, we put on our first show. Overall, I feel that the final performance went brilliantly. We have received some very positive feedback which we are very happy about. Every member of the theatre company have worked really hard and I feel that it definitely showed on the night. I am happy with how my light and sound worked out, I gave it my all as a lighting and sound designer, so I hope that the audience liked the lighting and sound and that it fitted with the scenes correctly from their perspective. I of course enjoyed playing the role of the Fairy Godmother too! To conclude, it has been a tough yet very exciting process.

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited:

Adler, D. (2014) Top 12 Western Classics [online] Guns of the old west.com Available from:http://gunsoftheoldwest.com/2014/10/top-12-western-classics/ [Accessed 12 April 2016].

Crow, P. (2016) Every Rose Photo Album [Online]. Available from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/61839232@N02/albums/72157668477406316/with/26490512614/ [Accessed 19 May 2016].

Digiffects Sound Effects Library (2016) Steam Train Start, Ride, And Slow Down with Horn and Whistle. [CD Track]. 2 minutes. 3 Seconds. Train Sounds.

Ennio Morricone (1966) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Titles). [CD Track]. 2 minutes. 42 seconds. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Original Motion Picture).

Eurythmics (1983) Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) [CD Track] 3 minutes. 37 seconds. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) [Remastered]. A. Lennox & David A. Stewart.

Fleetwood Mac (1977) Dreams [CD Track] 4 minutes. 18 Seconds. Rumours. Stevie Nicks.

Hibbard, M. (2014) Lighting Tips for Film Noir [online]. Available from: http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/lighting-for-film-noir/rella-complex [Accessed 1 May 2016].

Moma.learn.org (2016).Surrealism Available from: https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/surrealism/tapping-the-subconscious-automatism-and-dreams [Accessed 10 May 2016].

Moseley, K. (2016) Every Rose… [Script]

Open Culture.com (2006-2016) 60 Free Film Noir Movies [online]. Available from: http://www.openculture.com/free_film_noir_movies [Accessed 1 May 2016].

Poison (2006) Every Rose Has Its Thorn [CD Track] 4 minutes. 20 seconds. The Best of Poison: 20 Years of Rock (Remastered).  Poison.

Queen (2000) I’m Going Slightly Mad [CD Track] 4 minutes. 9 seconds.  The Platinum Collection. Brian May, Freddie Mercury, John Deacon and Roger Taylor.

Radiohead (2016) Daydreaming [CD Track] 6 minutes. 24 seconds. A Moon Shaped Pool.Radiohead.

Rami Khalife & Franesco Tristano (2008) Film Noir [CD Track] 3 minutes. 41 seconds. Pop Art. Rhami Khalife.

Serious About Sound Effects (2010) Timpani Drums Bass Drum Drama Dramatic Horror Tension Circus Scary Timp Sound Effects Musical Instruments and Sounds Drums-Timpani. [CD Track]. 0:39 seconds. Serious About Sound Effects.

Sia (2015) California Dreamin’ [CD Track]. 3 minutes. 36 seconds. San Andreas (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). Andrew Lockington.

Sound Effects Library (2012) Hand Gun – Remington New Army 1858, .44 Black Powder Revolver: Single Shot, Close Perspective 1 Handgun, Pistol & Revolver Firing. [CD Track]. 0:07 seconds.  Hand Gun sound effects. Hot ideas & inc.

Weaver, R. (2016) Psychology behind the Cinderella Complex [online]. Available from: http://www.empowher.com/mental-health/content/psychology-behind-cinde [Accessed 20 May 2016].

YouTube (2012) Jazz Music (Film Noir) [online video] Available from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwvVhXItl1w [Accessed 23 April 2016].

 

Being the sound designer for Twisted Ivy Productions has been a brilliant time for me. I have always thoroughly enjoyed music and I am glad to have taken on the challenging role of sound designer so that I could broaden my research and learn new things during the creative process. Primarily, to begin the process I needed to make sure I was going to get the clarity and best sounds I could for our performance, therefore I used iTunes. By using iTunes, I knew that the sound would be the best quality for the speakers in the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre auditorium.  When I got into the process of searching for the sound effects, I began to really enjoy it- just by discovering the different versions of sound effects for example, it was an interesting process. However at times, the process was difficult, because I had to make sure I was finding the most suitable sounds and sometimes this was easier said than done; nevertheless I used my determined nature, and I kept searching.

The house music for the show was a fun process because I could choose any song I wanted, however I wanted the songs to relate to the themes of the performance to create the atmosphere for the audience and the actors. Each song I selected related to either the themes of the show or the show in general. The songs I chose where: Sia-California Dreamin’, Radio Head- Daydreaming (Radio Head, 2016), Fleetwood Mac- Dreams (Fleetwood Mac, 1977), Queen- I’m going slightly mad (Queen, 1991/2000-Remastered), Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams (Are made of this) (Eurythmics, 1983) and Poison- Every Rose has it’s thorn (Poison, 1988). From looking at the songs I selected, it is clear to see that most of them relate to dreams, and the process of going mad and losing yourself (Queen-I’m going slightly mad). The song by Poison –Every Rose has its thorn, I chose because of the title of the show mainly, Every Rose… The title is open to interpretation but I felt the song related.

 

The show opened with the Shadow Puppet theatre, for this I chose an old Victorian music box track to underlay the voice over; as the company wanted the puppet show to have a Victorian feel to it, to differentiate between Cinderella’s reality and what was going on in her mind.

The first scene of the play was that of Film Noir. I had previously been watching video’s of Film Noir sound tracks on YouTube, so that I got a general understanding of the style of music used.  A video that I looked at which was of great help to me with understanding the style was this:

 

(Youtube,2012)

After researching the sound of Film Noir, I found a track on iTunes that I felt was fitting with the scene and with the genre. The song being: Film Noir by Pop Art. (Pop Art, 2008). The next scene was the Western genre, for this scene I felt an appropriate song would be The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Soundtrack. (Ennio Morricone, 1966). Other sound effects I used were a gunshot and a steam train. I researched guns that were used in Western’s, and I found that a common type of gun was called a Remington model ‘Nevertheless, the Remington cartridge guns carved a niche in western history’.(Adler,2014). In addition, I wanted to find a Remington sound effect for the scene, because if I used a modern pistol, it wouldn’t have the same effect and it wouldn’t be in the correct context; I wanted it to be justifiable.  I did the same for the train sound effect, I wanted to use an old fashioned steam train so that it was appropriate for the Western.  The third scene was the genre of Horror. For this scene, I found sound effects that I felt portrayed an eerie atmosphere for the horror, such as: Circling crows, a thunderstorm and an angry growling wolf. With the Circling crows and the Thunderstorm sound effects, I edited them using the Audacity software, creating a horror soundscape. At first, I found the editing a little difficult as I hadn’t used the particular type of software for a while, however I managed to get the gist of it and I enjoyed editing the tracks. The fourth scene was the Silent Movie scene. For the scene, I chose two contrasting songs, one was very up beat and the other was slow and ‘sad’ in nature; as I wanted to portray the two different parts of the scene; (The fast, up beat track for the sisters and the slow song for Cinderella). The fifth scene was a Telenovela style. For this scene I only used one sound effect, because I wanted to help create the comedic effect of when Belinda dies very dramatically, therefore I chose a dramatic Timpani Drum sound effect, (Serious about sound effects,2010). The last scene was the scene when the Fairy Godmother is introduced for the first time in person to the audience, (I also had the role of the Fairy Godmother which I loved portraying). For the scene, I again, used one sound effect of a magical chime, that sounded like the shake of a Fairy’s wand. I wanted to keep it simple because it would become to over-crowded with different sounds that the essence of the scene may have become lost.

 

Works Cited:

Adler, D. (2014) Top 12 Western Classics [online] Guns of the old west.com Available from: http://gunsoftheoldwest.com/2014/10/top-12-western-classics/ [Accessed 12 April 2016].

Digiffects Sound Effects Library (2016) Steam Train Start, Ride, And Slow Down with Horn and Whistle. [CD Track]. 2 minutes. 3 Seconds. Train Sounds.

Ennio Morricone (1966) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Titles). [CD Track]. 2 minutes. 42 seconds. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Original Motion Picture).

Eurythmics (1983) Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) [CD Track] 3 minutes. 37 seconds. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) [Remastered]. A. Lennox & David A. Stewart.

Fleetwood Mac (1977) Dreams [CD Track] 4 minutes. 18 Seconds. Rumours. Stevie Nicks.

Poison (2006) Every Rose Has Its Thorn [CD Track] 4 minutes. 20 seconds. The Best of Poison: 20 Years of Rock (Remastered).  Poison.

Queen (2000) I’m Going Slightly Mad [CD Track] 4 minutes. 9 seconds.  The Platinum Collection.  Brian May, Freddie Mercury, John Deacon and Roger Taylor.

Radiohead (2016) Daydreaming [CD Track] 6 minutes. 24 seconds. A Moon Shaped Pool. Radiohead.

Rami Khalife & Franesco Tristano (2008) Film Noir [CD Track] 3 minutes. 41 seconds. Pop Art.  Rhami Khalife.

Serious About Sound Effects (2010) Timpani Drums Bass Drum Drama Dramatic Horror Tension Circus Scary Timp Sound Effects Musical Instruments and Sounds Drums-Timpani. [CD Track]. 0:39 seconds. Serious About Sound Effects.

Sia (2015) California Dreamin’ [CD Track]. 3 minutes. 36 seconds. San Andreas (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). Andrew Lockington.

Sound Effects Library (2012) Hand Gun – Remington New Army 1858, .44 Black Powder Revolver: Single Shot, Close Perspective 1 Handgun, Pistol & Revolver Firing. [CD Track]. 0:07 seconds.  Hand Gun sound effects. Hot ideas & inc.

YouTube (2012) Jazz Music (Film Noir) [online video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwvVhXItl1w [Accessed 23 April 2016].

 

 

 

I have taken on the role of lighting and sound designer before at the university, when I took the Shakespeare module. I was therefore thrilled to be able to have the chance to take on the role again for our theatre company.  When we got the general idea of the play, and had some context of the scenes, I then began to decide on what colours I wanted to use. For the opening of the show, we had our puppet show; therefore I only needed the back light to aid us in making the shadow puppets work. The genre of the first scene was Film Noir. I then researched images of the film noir nature, and also looked at videos to help me get an idea of how the era was represented. However, Film Noir is mainly film, so I had to get creative and think of a way that I could portray this to an audience and to make it work on stage. During my research I came across two significant images that I have wrote about in my previous post, these images helped me to get into the mindset of how Film Noir was portrayed. For our show, I used dim, blue wash lighting and used the haze machine to create the mist; I wanted to create an atmosphere for the actors and the audience. For scene two, the genre was Western. For the western, I used orange and yellow to create a warm feel; I wanted the light change to change when Cinderella said ‘I feel the heat warming me up’ in her recorded monologue, so that it could create the illusion of her thoughts being revealed to the audience so when she thought of the heat warming her up, I wanted to show the audience this too; and perhaps the audience felt a part of the western atmosphere, this is what I would have liked to have created- so that the audience felt part of the show.  The third scene was that of the genre of horror. I therefore used white and red together so that the red wasn’t too overpowering, but it still created the scary eerie atmosphere, I also used a black light when hiding Cinderella’s character from the audience. The strobe light was also a choice that I felt would be good for making the characters on stage look as though they are running in slow motion; this could increase comedic value and also gave Cinderella’s character time to walk behind the Ugly Stepsisters to make it creepy when she then went and touched one of the sisters shoulders. The fourth scene was the silent movie scene. I used a warm wash of lights, mainly light colours to try and create a sepia effect. The fifth scene was a Telenovela style; I used a pink and white light, as this scene then ran into the Fairy godmother and Cinderella scene where they first meet, but it is actually in fact the last scene of the play. I kept the same lighting state because I wanted to show the continuity of the scene. For all of the lights in the show, LED’s I felt were the best choice because of how I could mix the colours and the variety of colours that they held.

Whilst researching about Film Noir, I found that I have come across many different images of how we could adapt this style for the stage. I will attach the two images that I am fond of, and would love to re-create something similar, not exactly the same of course, but just something to give the same effect of the Film Noir style.

For Image 1: The picture with the woman and man and the smoke, I feel we could create something like that, with the Haze (mist) , except it wont be as extreme. I feel that if we could create something along the lines of this, it would create a mysterious and eerie atmosphere for the audience.

For Image 2: The picture with the man and the shadow on the wall, could represent the ‘dark figure’ we have in our piece, as I think he looks quite suspicious and creepy.