Nottingham Playhouse | Making Columns

When I first started playing with shape inside the model box I felt, quite quickly that I liked the idea of height. I imagined the Duchess and her family as very well of people who lived in a space that showed off money and status.
I liked the idea of using column like structures and started off with the arrangement of one side of a rib cage, curving in at the sides creating a cage like feel to the set. Representing the Duchess's life which is already written out for her by her family and society values.

Moving on from the rid cage, I played around with the arrangement of columns in the model box. I like the idea of depth of field and persecutive and looked at a few different artists.
Salvador Dali

I decided to play more with the idea of persecutive rather than ......        as I wanted to work with the columns to make a space that appears that it expanded on forever at the sides.

Creating the pillar took a long time as it took several different methods of using card and wood to finally get the overall aesthetics I was after. I am looking at the 1930's era of Art Deco and choose a simple design for the shape of the columns.
One of the major themes for me from The Duchess of Malfi is death. I feel as though death was a subject that was taken lightly during the original writing of the play as in 18...  people didn't live very long. From here I began looking into macabre artworks with lead me onto thinking about the Caracomb of Paris, a whole labyrinth of tunnels under the city walled by human bones.

Development of the Columns

I started looking for column inspiration by researching into the different style of columns and their decorative features.

I used this picture a a reference and started out creating the shape of the columns. 

My first attempt started with card. I measured out the sections that I wanted for the circular shape of the columns and then scored down the lines twice to help form a gentle curve in the card. Unfortunately this method didn't work to well as the card frayed and pulled away from the main body of the card. 

I then began experimenting with the columns and figuring out how to make them. I originally wanted to have the chance to have light shine through the bones and skulls. I tried to use acetate to stick the bones and skull too. However it was very difficult to get the plastic to stick to the acetate. 

Over the christmas period I tried using wooden suer sticks to create the columns. this worked a lot better than the paper columns and had a better finish. The wooden sticks stuck together better and the skulls and bones stick a lot better than the acetate. 

After working on the other columns and building up the number of skulls and bones I made the back columns  entirely out of skulls and bones. The out come worked well and with a light coming from below, the skulls are very effective and gives the set an entirely different atmosphere. 

If I were to re done the columns I would have painted the bones before sticking them onto the columns. 

Nottingham Playhouse | Influential Research

Catacombs of Paris 

With the development of my design idea I tried looking for some inspiration.

Looking into 'Death Cult' and 'Death' I found Kutná Hora Sedlec. A cemetery church with a hidden beauty. In the Ossuary there are thousands of bones created to form outstanding decoration. During the 13th and 14th century many people wanted to be buried here, the abbots has to be creative with the bones they kept receiving and so created coats of arms and a large chandler in the centre which holds all the bones in the human body.

Back in 2012 I went to Paris and visited the Catacombs of Paris. A labyrinth of tunnels underneath the heart of the city of Paris, 20 metres underground and 2km long, there are meant to be approximately 6 million Parisians, transferred there gradually between the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries as graveyards were being closed because of the risk they posed to public health.

Puppet Making Workshop | The Hands

Creating the hands was very interesting thing to do.

I started by drawing my hand in the position that i wanted the puppet to have his hands in. First from the top view and then the side.

From here I separated the shapes of the fingers from the side drawing, this then allowed me to place each individual finger onto a block of styrofoam big enough for each finger then cut them out.

Once all fingers were cut out, apart from the thumb, I shaped each finger then filed the sides down so that once glued together I could carve them to create the tapering shape down to the wrist.

The thumb I cut out form the top view. This gave me more material to carve with.

After gluing all parts together I began to carve the palm and knuckles.

Puppet Making Workshop | The Body

Using the body template that I drew I cut out single shapes to make into the different sections of the body. Marking out, in black pen (like in the bottom picture) I drew shapes which wouldn't interfere with the movement of the limbs. I repeated the same technique of cutting the shapes out on the band saw. I use a sharp knife to take of chunks of excess Styrofoam and then using a rasp i shaped the parts of the body. Finally using sandpaper to curve the surface a bit more. 

Where the two sections of the arm connect, on the inside of the elbow, I carved away to create a flat surface so that the arm can bend. I repeated this on the back of the knees so that they too could bend for kneeling and better human like movement.

Nottingham Playhouse | Influential Research

Da Vinci - Anatomy

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) 

Recto: The skeleton.

(Creation 1510-11)

At the beginning of this project I thought about constructing a set from bones within the body. I wanted to look at the back and the spine as well as the rib cage. Further development of research and design has moved me onto using bits of the body but on a smaller scale than originally planned. 

Da Vinci's drawings or the human skeleton helped with initial ideas, looking at the rib cage and visually seeing the shape of the bones. 

I feel after looking into the human skeleton and in particular, the rib cages, it has helped me develop my ideas. I am now looking at columns and pillars which was a result of the rib cages. 





Recto: The cranium sectioned. Verso: The skull sectioned

(Creation: 1489)
2 halves of a skull, showing relations of the different facial cavities, cheek and nose seen from in front. 

Looking at Da Vinci has allowed me to get a better understanding of the anatomy of the human skull and has shown me how there is many variants of the skulls shape. 

I like the idea of Skulduggery within the Duchess of Malfi, and I feel that I should look at research around human remains and in particular human skulls. 

Model Making Nottingham Playhouse | Playing with Shape

I am very interested in columns for my design, for reading The Duchess of Malfi I get the idea of upper class, in a world of their own, spacious image. 

I feel that the characters are effectively a small part in a bigger world and there for I felt that the column would emphases space and luxury. To much space than what they know what to do with. 

I like the idea of space and I would like the set to focus around the Duchess' world. For example, whilst the play is following the high life of the Duchess I want the set to be bright and airy, plenty of welcoming space for her, Antonio and their three children. However as the Duchess' world begins to crumble from under her feet I want the set to get darker.

Each section from the set above would have its own lighting rig. When the Duchess falls her world gets darker and one by one the portal blacks out. Up until the Act 4, scene 1 where Ferdinand tortures the Duchess. For the prison scene, I would want one spot light, cold and blue down stage centred on the Duchess. Ferdinand hugging the edge of the light whilst torturing the Duchess.

Model Making Nottingham Playhouse | Playing with Columns

With the columns i want to have the option to have light shine through the skulls. I've tried using acetate to allow for light to shine through. However this didn't work out to well as the plastic of the bones and the clay of the skulls did not glue and stick to the acetate very well, they kept falling off at the slightest knock.

I need to find out how else I can make four columns consisting of bones and skulls.

Wood?
Styrofoam?
metal support?
clay?

Puppet Making Workshop | The Head

During this last week we have been working hard in the workshop to design and construct a puppet.

At the beginning of the week we were asked to bring along a 1:1 scale drawing of a head, 20cm by 20 cm.

I chose to do a male character for my puppet and this was the final chosen design.

We used the profile and front view to create the head out of styrofoam block. Cutting out the profile view first as it gives you more surface space to cut out the face and for carving. This was done on the bandsaw.

Using the drawings we have to keep referring back to them to make sure that the facial features are in the correct places and for the eyes in particular, make sure that they are far enough back in the head. To begin carving the head, we used large kitchen knives to cut alway large sections to create a basic facial shape. We then go in with a scalpel to do the finer details before smoothing it down with sandpaper.

Skulls and Bones

The bones were 3D prints and I had to print of around 7 sets of 25 bones. This was a very time consuming thing as each set took about 40 minutes to print.

Thankfully the bones turned out really well and the surface was ideal for painting in acrylic paint. 

The skulls I made from milliput and a cocktail stick to make the holes for the eye and nose. 

Some of the skull were made hollow as to allow light to shine through them.

3D printing the bones 

The bones printed and taken out of their case. Aprox 1:25 scale

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