Poppies, Tower of London

The poppies were created by Paul cummins, and Tom Pipe was the stage designer for the setting.

These images of the poppies at the Tower of London automatically hit you with emotion. The bright red from a distance with the flow in the layout is an immense way to remember all the deaths and sacrifices in world war one, with an instant thought of blood loss.

Up close however, the poppies look so beautiful and delicate and I think it's a great way to represent all the soldiers, individually looking quite delicate or naive, but all standing together creating a large intimidating force with 888,246 individual ceramic poppies.

The tower of London during the war was a recruitment site for troops and also an execution place for spies.

Over 1,600 City workers swore an oath of allegiance there as well.

It also acted as a military depot, storing arms and munitions.

It's nice to think that perhaps they are remembering the significance of both the soldiers during the first world war, but perhaps also the significance the Tower of London had as well.

All the ceramic roses were sold and have sold out. They sold for £25 per rose. They were clearly very popular and successful as they have completely sold out. I'm not surprised how popular these poppies were, with how significant and thoughtful this project was.

colleen atwood

These are some images from the 2012 film Snow white and the Huntsman, that I absolutely love. The sketches are gorgeous and show so much character in the facial expressions but also in the costume. You can see in the stiff, dark costumes with pointed frills that they are designed for a particularly evil character, where as the lighter colours with flowing materials automatically represent the costume ideas for a nice warm character. All the designs flaunt femininity often through the patterned details which are quite floral, but also in the fitting of the dresses. The long skin tight black dress design flaunts sexuality and immediately smacks you with the idea of a powerful woman. The white dress on the other hand portrays a younger, girly, loving character with the flowing white dress which in history would often represent purity.

The costumes themselves flaunt many of the characteristics that the designs do, however the white dress here portrays more power with the large puffed sleeves which is similar to what previous Queens, or women in power would have, which now makes this character appear to have more importance, than say the more naive design. The details are amazing in all the dresses and all speak for how the characters are. She is a costume designer I definitely admire.

Here are some more images I love from the classic Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. The Queen and Alice's costumes are so vibrant which suggests two powerful characters, and the bright red can also suggest that both characters can be quite dangerous. In addition to this, The Queen of Hearts's dress is longer which suggests a more mature lady, and again has the puffy sleeves and large collars which would be worn to portray power and wealth in the past, like wise to Queen Mary/Bloody Mary which was a big inspiration for this character. Unlike this, Alice's dress is shorter and therefor portrays a younger character and the white strands on her dress suggest purity and perhaps that she's naive, although the bold red suggests that she's a lot more powerful than perhaps is initially thought. The white Queen's costume is long which suggests maturity and is also completely white to imply purity and a good woman. The dress again exaggerates the hips and small-ens the waist which was fashionable to powerful women in the past which suggests that not only is she in power as well, but also wealthy and fashionable.

 These are just some designs by Colleen Atwood from Dark Shadows which I just think are gorgeous and are full of character. The colours and details even in her designs are just incredibly beautiful.

Theater Language Break A Leg

So today I have been learning the language used in theater and I have found out a lot of new terminology that I'd not known previously.

One of the most interesting one's which is commonly known is "break a leg" which means good luck. I found out that this could have came from many different reasons. Some people believe it could have came from:

• The Elizabethan's- when they liked a play they saw they would stomp their chairs and sometimes break a chair leg.
•  "Archaic slang for bowing or curtsying; placing one foot behind the other and bending at the knee 'breaks' the line of the leg".
• The Greeks- they didn't clap, they stomped their feet, and if they did it for long enough they may break a leg.
• The 1865 assassination of Abraham Lincoln- when John Wilkes Booth broke his leg leaping to the stage after murdering the President.
• The side curtains- the actors should rush onstage through the curtains to take a considerable amount of bows, therefore "breaking a leg (side curtain)" while doing so.

There's still several more I've not mentioned, but these are the one's I found particularly interesting.

First post

I've recently started the course Production design and contextual influences. This is my first time using blogger so I'm a bit apprehensive. So far I've had an introduction to the workshop where I learnt how to use all the different machines safely and how to keep the environment safe for me and the others; for example keeping the guards down and sweeping up dust afterwards. I also got to try out all the machinery such as the sanding machine, the band saw and others, so I could start getting the hang of them; which was pretty useful.

I've then been studying the play "the Importance of Being Earnest" and analyzing the characters and the setting, in order to decide which period I could set my version of it in, including the sets and costumes. I've decided to stick closely linked to the original version and keep it Victorian based and the characters a wealthy family. I've explored and researched different Victorian buildings and interiors and different Victorian clothing. I also looked at how people previously interpreted "the Importance of Being Earnest" through set and costume to collect more ideas and inspiration. I found some of the information quite interesting such as how men originally would wear detachable cuffs and matching, stiff, detachable collars worn up to 3 inches high and then how the females eventually took on the phase. I'm currently exploring the set more so as I have to make a mini set completely from hardboard and I have to use a 1:25 scale ruler to do so; which I have also just recently learned how to use. It's a lot simpler to use than I imagines and is also really useful. Here's some images I've researched for making my mini set.