Finishing off the Scenic Flats Doorway and Window + (Canvasing Time)

After completing the easy flats we moved onto constructing the Doorway and the Window/Fireplace (we choose Window). These worked the same way as the other they just had extra sections of wood that needed slotting into place and they were alot more fiddly than the rest. But again we managed to assemble them at a good speed because we all helped eachother out and all worked together. 

A trick that we used to make it easier to assemble these 2 flats was we put out some chairs to it was raised up this allowed for us to rest the small fiddly sections on the chairs instead of juggling 101 different pieces of wood, this work in our favor massively and helped speed things up.

Now that we had completed the construction of every last scenic flat we had to complete the job and canvas the front of them so that the can be painted time and time again for many shows other than The Wedding Singer.

This was going to take all of us working together to get this right because it needed to be pulled tight over the framework and then stapled into the frame with heavy duty staples.

In the photo (Right) You can see all of us have a section of the canvas that we are holding, I am putting some staples in at one end of the canvas as like a point at which we start to stretch from. After this we all stretched the canvas as much as possible and then staples down the sides holding it in place.

Finally we trimmed away the waste canvas and folded it all up and placed in a pile to be used elsewhere if needed (some of the spare canvas was then used to cover the sinks instead of using plyboard).

We then repeated this process over and over again until all the scenic flats had been wrapped in canvas, I think we did all feel like we had done alot over the last 2 sessions we had been working on them for and Ii personally could see the set coming together bit by bit.

This wasn't the end, well for me... I decided that I wanted to sort out the canvas that covered the window and also the doorway. To do this I had to cut around the inside of the section that needed to be opened up leaving enough fabric to be tucked around the wood, this would mean it would still keep all the canvas stretched.

After doing this I proceeded to stretch and staple this fabric back to the flat, and when completed on both you had a window opening and doorway and neither of which had messed up the stretch on the rest of the canvas.

(This is me inside the window cutting around the inside to form the bit of fabric that looped around.

Arrival and Construction of the Scenic Flats

Finally the arrival of the scenic flats meant that we really could get a start on making some serious progress towards the finished set. The whole Scenic flats came flat-packed so the first job was for us to unpack everything and organize it all, Dan one of the HND students took control of this, which was good because it then meant that I could clear the space needed for us to have room to move when assembling them.

Once I had cleared the room and shifted all tables, chairs and bags etc.. to the end of the room there were several piles on the floor of different types of wood. The company hadn't sent us the easiest set of instructions either but we managed to figure out the basic concept on putting one of them together. Dan's approach was for us to put together one of the 1.75m x 3m flats to start with to see how they are meant to be constructed and then do the rest. We also made the decision to leave the Doorway and Window/Fireplace till last as they had a couple of more complicated aspects to them.

The first scenic flat definitely caused us the most problem and headache and seemed to take forever to get together, but once we worked out certain things to do that make life easier we finally managed to get it done, there were several steps to putting together the standard flats:

• Drill in each corner section at each end of every 3m piece of wood
• Then screw in the middle shoes dead center at 1.5m (this we used a measuring tape, and then marked center with a small pencil mark).
• After this was done you had to put wood glue within each corner piece and middle shoe sections.
• you then left this for a couple of minutes before getting the cross sections and slotting them into the appropriate slots.
• and finally clear up waste glue and then lay the flat down for the glue to harden.

 After we had worked out the process of constructing all the flats in a effective manner, I sort of gave everyone certain jobs and we unintentionally created a production line building the scenic flats, we had:

• Hannah and Amy = They were in charge of firstly marking out the center mark (1.5m along the wood) on the sections of wood.
• Me and  Danielle = While they did this I placed screws into each corner section and middle shoes, and then screwed them were they were meant to be positioned, Danielle helped with lining up the middle shoes and holding the pieces of wood in place while I screwed.
• Mark (Also with the help of Hannah and Amy) = then applied the glue to the corner sections and middle shoes.
• Then All of us including Dan (HND) = Slotted in the cross sections to one of the side panels, we then stood this up and finally slotted the other side panels down onto the cross sections.

They then got layed down on-top of each-other with a section of wood between each one and left so that the glue could dry. We then moved onto the next flat and so on.

After we had completed all of the big 1.75m x 3m Flats we moved onto the other differently sized flats, because we now knew what we were doing we managed to fly through these using practically the same system we used for the big flats.

 Here is some examples of the set-up we had for the differently sized pieces, we flew through these and this was down to us all working together and by all full filling the role that we had been given.

The Star..... of DAVID!! (Jewish Bar-Mitzvah Scene) and a Trolley sink thing.

Over the last 2 Thursday practical sessions we have made progress on 2 main thing really, because we are still waiting for the scenic flats to arrive. There were two pieces of set that we knew we would be able to build quickly and check them off the list of things to do. We came to this conclusion because we had alot of wood left over from a piece of set used during 'Dracula' that were perfect for the Star of David and we already had spare pieces of wood that were right for the construction of the trolley being used for sinks.


The Trolley: (Unfortunately I only have 1 photo of this, and its of a wheel!)

This one piece of set is used during 2 scenes in the show, both time they are meant to look like sinks, as a group we decided that putting the whole thing on wheels would make it so much easier to bring on and off of stage. We just drilled on 4 dolly wheels that were stripped from the piece of set the wood originally was used for. These were easily fixed onto the frame work that I built. I worked on just the concept of constructing a basic frame.
I found this image on Google when looking at possibilities. I used this as my basic guide and it worked out for me because I managed to get the whole frame measured, cut to size, and assembled within 2 hours. I stuck to this design pretty much just adding on some extra supports along the top of the trolley where the sinks were going to be glued just for extra support if someone decided to lean on it. We managed to find some ply board in the cupboard for the top and the side pieces that we needed, we then cut this down to size using a jig-saw.
When it came to using the jig-saw we clamped it safely to to of the work benches away from everyone else in the room, I then wore protective goggles and a mask to stop any dust getting in my eyes or mouth, after cutting out the piece I packed the jig-saw away and unplugged it so no-one hurt themselves.
The plyboard was unfortunately bent and warped so we placed them on the floor and placed heavy tubs of paint on them to try and flatten them out, this worked out for the 2 top sections but didn't work for the sides and front sections which were to warped and were refusing to flatten out.
(In the end we had spare canvas left over from the scenic flats which we then used to cover the front and sides of this piece of set.)

(Here is me using the jig-saw and then me trying to flatten the plyboard before cutting it)

The Star..... of DAVID:
This massive and also essential Star of David is used during the Jewish Bar-Mitzvah Scene, it is there purely to show the audience that it is a Bar-Mitzvah. When it came to the construction of this because it was a case of finding stuff to do instead of wasting production time we used what ever wood was available to us.
In the end we plan to paint the Star a light blue, with possible some white to it as well, first of course we will give it a base coat of white because the wood is black at the moment.

Thankfully there just happened to be enough wood to make a complete star. We layed out all of the bits of wood swapping them around so it looked vaguely symmetrical  we weren't going to put hours of work into this because it is on for about 2 minutes during the show. Once we had sorted out the shape of the star we went about glueing each bit of wood together at the joints, we used wood glue because it is strong and is 1 million times better than PVA.
After we left the glue for a couple of minutes me and mark went around drilling screws into each joint as well to give it that final support. We experienced alot of cracking of the wood when we were drilling but we resolved this by putting wood glue into the cracks and letting it harden, this then strengthened the weak spots.

 (Here are me and mark working on the construction of the Star of David)

Showing the Finished Set Design to the Cast + Talking about Costume and Props

One of my jobs because of the fact that my set design had been picked to be used, (Although we had actually created a brand new set design in the process of making the alterations), meant that I had to go talk to the cast and walk/talk them through what we had planned and explain to them all the aspects of the set and then if needed answer any questions (no questions were really asked).

This went really smoothly and they all seemed to appreciate the amount of effort that we had all contributed to bringing together the final design.They also were amazed at parts at what we had planned including the 'Robbie's Bedroom Section' and other parts as well. We did have to explain in detail that this was a complicated show in terms of production and alot of time, hard work and effort will be going into getting everything done and completed in time for production week.
I had to explain about the amount of technical equipment e.g sound, lighting etc.. that is also going into getting the whole show sounding good and also looking good.

While we had the whole cast in front of us we went on to explain that we are only a team of 5 Students and a HND Student, so we all had 101 jobs to do, because of this we asked that they look at the Prop requirements and tell us if they have any at home or know where to get a certain item, also we asked that they sort out their costumes and if they had spare items to share and help others get their costumes.

Finally we have a finished set design, plus we go internet shopping! (Well the tutor does)

After hours, days, weeks, months, years.... Ok well after what felt like years we finally stopped destroying models and sat back and decided we had a finalized set design for The Wedding Singer. We had a long list of set that needed building. But at the same point we had to work out how other aspects of the set would come together.

In the end our Tutor went online and bought a scenic flat kit for us to construct that would give us flats to paint on and use as walls to create backstage space during the show.
This is the image they provide on their website (Right), (http://www.stagesuperstore.co.uk/) and it shows you the basic set-up of what you get. We would have to build them all ourselves but this is something that can be reused and reused for shows to come after this one. The best thing in my opinion about the package is that it comes with different sized flats, including:

• 4 x Kit A (1.75m  x3m)
• 1x Kit C (2 Flats) 1:(0.5m x 3m) 2:(1m x 3m)
• 1 x Kit D 2 x (0.75m x 3m)
• 1 x Kit E (Doorway) (1.75m x 3m with a doorway of 0.75m x 1.9m)
• 1 x Kit F (Door) (0.75m x 1.9m)
• 1 x Kit H (Window/Fireplace) (1.75m x 3m with a gap of 1.2m x 1.2m)

The scenery kits come ready to assemble, they are very stable and have corner pieces and stretcher shoes that maximize the strength of the scenery flat. The flats then get covered in canvas which is stretched and then  stapled to the scenery flats ready to be painted.

The Designs: The Painful Process/Destruction of Model box (PART 2)

Like I mentioned previously these designs were a process we went through to figure out the best way to include a full live band onto the stage, we also had to get the directors approval and make sure the designs were possible.
This period of time was incredibly stressful and many of our model boxes went through major surgery and reconstruction to create new set designs and figure how we were going to make it possible, we also had to take into consideration the amount of Sound equipment that would also have to go onto this platform to power and be able to mix the band.

As I said most of our model boxes had some surgery and alterations done to them, but most of all mine and Danielle's, mainly because they included the vital parts to the set. It was a period of time were we were having to think very hard to get things right and we all had to work as a team to get the new models made so we could evaluate each design and figure out if it was right or not.



Design 1:

The first of the designs is shown in the picture (Right) and it was the fist in the raised platform idea, this is pretty much the design that Danielle used in her set design just we double the amount of platforms used. We placed them in the T shape because of the effect we wanted to make, allowing set/cast/crew to come on from the sides and also for set it sit flush up against it. The platform is 2 meters tall, this allows for people to walk underneath it, this would mean that cast could come onto stage via this 'walkway' and also make transitions between scene changes faster because it allows a quick exit off stage. We then said that we would plan to decorate and create flats to fit onto the raised platform decorating but also supporting the whole structure, we would be able to decorate to whatever fitted best (personally the Wedding Venues corridor).
In terms of Health and Safety for this idea we knew that railings would have to be used to avoid band members falling off of the platform (these would of added an extra £15 each to the price). The Scaffold legs that would hold up the platform would be 2 meters high and have bracing down the sides, also there would of been a set of stairs down stage right allowing for everyone to get onto the platform.

Design 2:

The second design as you can see is just a slightly altered version of the first design that I showed you, this actually came first and really is the prototype to the one above. The reason behind the 2 Level platform was to allow for the whole band to be seen by the audience and none to be hidden behind others. Of course by lowering the first set of platforms by 0.5 meters meant that there was no access to come out from underneath it but there was the possibility of using it as a backstage walkway with the sides covered by flats. The block that is positioned in front of the band stand is purely for set and visual purposes. This was for the wedding singer band to use during certain scenes, in the end this was not needed and just a waste of space.

Design 3:
Hard to explain without a picture (Oops) but this again ran with the concept to a double raised platform this time to the stage left of the theatre, this still allowed for access through the doors for cast/crew and also would of allowed for set to merge into the structure.

After the director said yes to looking into the designs we phoned and email Impact Productions with questions about the designs and found out that they were possible, the downfall came when we got the quote through to do DESIGN 1 and it came in over the quote for all the lighting, sound and microphones at £1,000+. If we had the money we might of proceeded with the idea and then use of these designs but it was just far to much money.
So in the end we went with a much more basic, affordable and really more sensible and realistic design, the

Design 4: (The Chosen One)
This literally was Design 1 just with it legs chopped dramatically down to only 0.25 meters. We still had the same T Shape and the same amount of platforms just at a much lower level. (In the end this worked out to be very practical as the amount of sound equipment/work that went into setting up the live band was huge and was easier when they were down low).
This change in design didn't seem to effect the look of the set design when we placed it into the model box and it fitted together nicely.

The Painful Process of Figuring out how to get the Band Stand to work/altering (Destroying Mine and Danielle's) Models (PART 1)

One of the hardest parts to this Production process was trying to figure out how to get the Band Stand/Stage in the right position on stage so that the audience could see them, they could see the play unfold so they made there visual cues and so they didn't take up to much stage space or got in the way of the Actors and scenes.

In my original design I hadn't included a band stand/stage in my model because it wasn't made 100% clear to me that the band was needed to be visible. When I found out of this change that needed to be made I instantly went to Danielle who had included a concept for the band stand/stage that was visual to the audience. Her design was based on the concept of the band stand/stage being on a raised platform approx 2 meters high, set would then come from under the raised platform to form certain scenes while the band play above the cast.

I liked this idea from the minute she started describing the concept to us all so the minute I had to rethink a band stand/stage I started thinking about a new design using the concepts she had created, also something that was key was making sure that it was possible in terms of implementing this final concept onto the stage for the show. At this point we had a total of 12 Musicians to cater a space of including:

• 3 Vocalists
• 3 Guitars
• 3 Keyboards (Including the Musical Directors)
• 1 Bassist
• a full Drum Kit
• and then finally a Reeds player (Saxophone and Flute) who needed a bit more space than the others.

Because of this we had to provide a large amount of space but also try and save as much space as possible, we as a group worked out that we would need 8 Steel-deck sections (8m x 4m) and this would give us the most amount of space possible without having to cut band members.

We came to this of using 8 Steel-deck sections conclusion by testing out the spacing within the model box of the Woughton Theatre that was made for this show so we had the ability to test out spacing and concept that we thought of and have a visual representation of what we wanted to do.

In the end I tried about 4 big set designs for the Band Stand/Stage, 2 of the 4 Designs were very similar with just a few changes but then the other 2 were very different. Unfortunately in the end the design that was picked was the most boring/easiest of the 4 but this was due to the others being possible but to expensive to construct for the production that we were putting on.

The first 3 design/concepts that were drawn up, built to scale all worked on the concept of having the band on a raised platform above the cast with set/cast coming from under it, of course this would raise health and safety but we contacted Impact Productions who were hiring us the Lighting, Staging and some Sound Equipment about their policy and if it was possible. The response was a YES it is possible they would just need bracing and supports so we included this when we were figuring out designs.

ASM Theory Lesson 1 (Props List)

One task we had to complete as one part of the ASM Role for the Wedding Singer, this task was making a props list for the show, this list would then be forwarded to the Director so that he can select which and what props he would like to actually be used in the show.

To create the Props list we had to read through and look through the entire script, reading the stage directions picking out props that are mentioned. I used Microsoft Excel on windows because it is a spreadsheet software so it allowed me to create the list really easily. I had 5 main headers and a 6 section of smaller headers.

1. Prop - Here I put the name of the prop that I found within the script and listed it here.
2. Page - I placed the page number to help me with finding the prop again in the future if I needed to look at the scene.
3. Scene - Again so it made it easier in the future for me to find it I listed the Scene, also this will help with prop logistics on the show.
4. Character - This is for production week mainly, because it will help with logistics on the show and helping us get the right prop to the right character also the fact I know the scene that prop is in helps us even more.
5. Description/Details - We added this header so that when it came to either making, finding or buying the prop we had a vague description on what it should look like/be.

The 6th Section was made up of 6 mini sections:
Make,
Find,
Buy,
Borrow,
Hire,
Done,
These mini sections were created to be like a checklist to help with keeping track of what progress we had made in terms of props. When we made the props list we would tick off what we would do to get the certain prop be it Make it, see if one of us or a member of the cast had one and borrow it for the show, buy from charity shops or ebay. we did this purely to give a ruff guide to how we should go about sorting the Props out.
When it came down to getting the props down, Hannah took the lead role in sourcing and sorting out the props for the show, we all helped in certain ways but Hannah was the leader in making sure we had everything on the night.