Friday 5 July 2013

Set designs and backdrops

This weekend promises to be very busy. Tomorrow will start off with Anne recording in my studio, before we will take the kids of the Aladdin cast to see the Wizard of Oz. This is a fantastic production, starring our own Michael Brownhill as the scarecrow.

For the set, Startimers uses a very clever idea. The backdrop is made up with a huge "book" that fills the whole stage back. During scene changes, the book's pages are simply flipped behind closed curtains. It is very quick and allows for a large number of different scenes, each with a different backdrop.

The day after tomorrow (Sunday) we are getting together at the warehouse to start planning the set for Aladdin. Aladdin will also require a fair number of different scenes, and we may consider the same idea. Alternatively, we may go for the more traditions idea of a large canvas backdrop.

Our previous production, Bottoms up, needed only one set for the whole play. All the scenes were played out inside a living room of a flat in downtown Liverpool. For that production, we designed a "box set". This means we've built the room onstage, complete with doors, cupboards and furniture. A box set allows for far more realistic scenery and more intricate details.

Below is a story board presentation of act 1, scene 1, from the musical, The exile, with the opening song, Freedom day. It shows my idea of the backdrop for this scene.

The exile will require a fair number of different backdrops for the different scenes. The idea of a book as backdrop, as used in the Wizard, may just work very well.


 

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