The Shoot

The shoot has been and gone. It was a really interesting day. Part of doing costume for film is most definatley learning to be patient! As our role is mostly in pre-production I did throughout the day feel a little at a loss. The whole concept of the film was that it was a group of friends just going to get their photo taken. There was a lot of laughter and fun on set however, the role for us as supervisors for the day didn't necessarily play a huge part in the filming, as they were wearing a lot of their own clothes. It was mainly just the blazers and ties that we had to keep an eye on for continuity. Furthermore as it was all improvised there was not a lot of character work that we had to get into.

However saying that I was hugely pleased with the overall effect of the costumes that we provided and being part of the film process I feel as if I have definatley learnt a lot about how the film industry works (and some new lingo!) and I feel that this will help me a lot in the transition into third year and the film industry. Furthermore i have learnt how to work very quickly and become resourceful.

And, that's a wrap!

Sourcing in Boscombe

Yesterday me and Fliss went to Boscombe to the charity shops in search of a Burgundy velvet blazer. We thankfully found a great one. Although it was a womens size 12 it didn't look to effeminate. And James had said that he wanted sue of the outfits to be ill fitting so we bought it!

Only tomorrow until the shoot now, although we have everything pretty prepared!

2nd Meeting with Director & Producer

Yesterday me and Fliss showed James and Sam what we had pulled from the costume store. They were extremely happy with our choices and what got. The next step was to find the burgundy velvet blazer as they were really keen on having that.


Furthermore, after a discussion in the previous meeting in which they said they didn't want the red ties, they changed their minds so me and Fliss pulled a selection from the costume store for the shoot.

The Director posted this video to give us an inside as to what he wanted to achieve on the shoot:


Černý Petr - taneční zábava (1.část)

The Costume Store

We went into the costume store all guns blazing and were pleasantly surprised by the amount of things that we found. Our priority was tweed blazers and blazers that stayed in the colour pallet and we found loads and had to narrow down our choices. Here are some photos:

D E S I G N S

Here are a few of my designs, as we only have a week to do everything they are just very quick pen drawings with some ink. I did a quick paint copy of the background of the original painting. Furthermore unlike my normal designs, we don't have actor/character names yet, so they have no names on them. nevertheless, it is a learning curb as a designer/practitioner as i'm sure in the future their will be some projects where I will have to get design source and create costumes in a very short space of time and I feel  being able to portray my visions in a quick design way is a useful skill to have.

Colour pallet & Research

I put together a colour pallet and some research to visually help me envisage the piece. And an autumnal colour pallet is one of the strongest things that came out of the meeting. From my sketchbook. 

Some research on suits worn Past & Present 

First Meeting with Director & Producer

Before we met with the Director and Producer me and Fliss had a discussion about what we wanted to ask and gain from the meeting.

• Are we going to keep it period?
• Same Colour scheme?
• FOOTWEAR - period?
• Budget...
• Glasses/Accessories/Red ties?
• Are the actors playing the artists or themselves?

Director : James Davies 

Producer : Sam Osmond

NOTES:

From the meeting I gained a lot. The actors will not be actors but will actually be people from their close friendship group, and should just be a natural meeting. They will be playing themselves.

The look is; Smart Casual and the actors will wear their own foot wear. And provide a lot of their own costume. 

The tweed blazers were a strong point to keep so we will be looking in the Costume Store. Furthermore keeping the Autumnal colour pallet the same is important.

The Situation Group

The production I'm going to be working on is 'The Situation Group.' It's going to be a collaboration with a fellow designer Felicity Goldsworthy and I'm really excited as I really liked the concept for this film and thought it would be fantastic in terms of researching and sourcing. Although we still need to confirm the plot as there was a lot of debating in the pitches as the how the film would work. And we shoot next Tuesday! 

The Situiation Group
Slylvia Sliegh
1961

I began researching into the various artists that were in the painting. To give some context the were all involved in a group show of large abstract paintings in 1960 called Situation. Hopefully by doing this I can begin building a character and get ideas for costume.

Here is a page from my sketchbook with works of few of the artists; Robyn Denny, John Plumb, Peter Stroud & Henry Mundy.

Learning Agreement

NAME: Ruby Utley-Williams

COURSE:  BA (Hons) Costume with Performance Design        

UNIT TITLE: Self Directed Project                    

REF. NO./LEVEL: CSS518

WEIGHTING: 2.0      

DURATION: 9 Weeks       

HOURS OF STUDY: 300 Hours    

Unit Leader: Adele Keeley/Graham Cottenden

Your Blog address:           http://rubyutley.blogspot.com/

DESCRIPTION:

The project that I have chosen is Painting for Inspiration. The first two weeks of the project is a styling project. We have to re-create a painting from either The National Gallery or The National Portrait Gallery, and style it ourselves, to produce a photograph. In the second half of the project we will be Costume Designer/Supervisor for a film made by the AUCB Film Department who have also taken inspiration from a painting in The Courtald Gallery to create their film.

I chose to undertake this project as I feel that it brings together many of the things that I enjoy within the discipline; fine art painting, styling, attention to detail and colour. I am hoping that by doing this project it will broaden my knowledge of the film industry, as I will be working on-set, and closely with the film department. I will also be learning new skills as a Costume Supervisor, building up my skill-set in continuity, organisation and sourcing. Moreover, learning how to use Costume Plot Pro will be a useful sill for when I enter the industry. This project will also help me develop the skills I already have in costume design and push me further in terms of my style of designing and I will hopefully be able to make a mark on the film through the costume.

Furthermore thinking about the future, I want be a costume designer for Film and T.V, and this project is a great opportunity to build up my portfolio for that kind of work.

I will be using two sketchbooks for this project. A small one for styling which will contain research leading up to the visit of The National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, looking at past remakes and paintings, and planning my visit thinking about whether I want to do something historically accurate or modern. Then exploring a variation of different possibilities after I have chosen a selection of paintings. I will plan, source or make the costumes and choose a location for the photograph of my re-creation.

My second sketchbook will contain all the research on the Film I am working on. Thinking about; period, colour pallets and setting which will enable me to design and source or make the final costumes. Also bearing in mind throughout the limited budget have we have.

I will also be collating a ‘Film File’ which will be produced mainly with Costume Plot Pro and will contain, budget sheets, continuity sheets, character breakdowns and everything that will help me to organise my self for being on set.

Alongside all these things I will be blogging my development, my initial ideas and research and my final outcomes. I will continuously update my progress and evaluate the process, finishing the project with a 750 word Evaluation that will be on my blog.

Finally I have created a work plan, some of which is still vague as we have no specific filming dates yet but it details every important date so far, and will be edited on my blog throughout the project.

Aims:

A1       To provide opportunities for self-initiated, autonomous learning

            and develop the ability to plan time and work independently

A2       To provide opportunity to study the contextual development of costume and performance design

A3       To further develop the creative, intellectual and practical applications of research and contextualisation within a self initiated environment

A4       To propose, develop and evaluate professional aspirations through professional development planning

Learning Outcomes:

On completion of this unit you will be able to:

LO1     Identify and define the context for the development of your own work towards professional aspirations

LO2     Demonstrate an understanding of the development of Costume with performance design

`

LO3     Have developed the creative, intellectual and practical applications of research and contextualisation

LO4    Consolidate and demonstrate professional aspirations and planning                     

Assessment Requirements:

HAND-IN

For hand-in you will submit:

A sketchbook including: research, development ideas and photos from the styling project and research, development ideas and on-set photos from the film project.

A film file: Continuity, Character breakdown, Budget breakdown and any other relevant paperwork generated. For most of this you can use print outs from Costume Plot Pro under pinned by personal development planning (in your blog journal) and a final written evaluation (750 words) evidenced in your Blog                   100%

Each assessment requirement must be passed at a minimum grade of 40% to successfully complete the unit

Assessment Criteria (specific criteria related to the learning outcomes and linked to the statement of generic assessment criteria matrix):           

           

1. Evidence of knowledge of contextual and theoretical issues – The level to which you have considered the context of your project and evidenced that to your body of work (LO1, LO2)

2. Evidence of understanding through synthesis and development – The application and extend to which research has informed decision-making and project development together with the appropriate management of time (LO2, LO3, LO4)

3. Evidence of evaluation and reflection – The extent to which you have reflected on the progress of your project and used it to inform personal development planning (LO4)

4. Evidence of realisation through the communication of ideas - The presentation of your work and the level to which specialist knowledge has been applied, communicated and evidenced (LO3, LO4)

Reference Material

This will vary according to the needs of the individual project.  You will define Reference Material through personal investigation and consultation with staff and list it in your Learning Agreement.

De Rynk, P (2004) How to Read a Painting: Lessons from the Old Masters, Harry N Abrahams

Potterton, H (1977) The National Gallery London, London, Thames and Hudson Limited London

Cooper, D (1954) The Courtald Collection, London, University of London The Athelone Press,

Yung, K.K (1981) National Portrait Gallery Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London, The National Portrait Gallery

La Motte, R (2001) Costume Design 101: The Art and Business for Costume Design for Film and Television, California, Micheal Wiese Productions

Jeff + Kyle (2001) Booooooom, [online], Available from http://www.booooooom.com/2011/10/04/remake-submissions/ [Accessed from : November 2011]

Courtald Gallery & The Pitches

The visit to the The Courtald Gallery was interesting. We spent a lot of time speculating which paintings they were going to choose however felt a little at a loss as the pressure was not at all on us!


The then went to the day of pitches yesterday. It was really interesting sitting in on them as I had never done anything like this before. There were defiantly some that stood out a lot more than others but was an exciting to see how it works. Now a waiting game...

Edited Photo

After another tutorial with Bunny we discussed the photo critically. It is missing some key props and the positioning isn't quite right. And in hindsight, if I could shoot it again I would. And look more into the detail of the photo.


We looked at the colours though and they are quite good but we talked about cropping it so that it would emulate the photo more and possibly darkening the lighting on photoshop. Although what I am pleased with, is that I think it has achieved a sense of humour, and that is what I wanted to achieve.

The Outcome : Evaluation

In true British style the weather was absolutely awful. Also dressing my models took a lot longer than I originally planned for. The photographer only had the equipment for a day as it was in such high demand. Therefore a re-shoot was not possible and I had already felt quite rushed to get it all together.


When we began to shoot it was raining quite heavily and then we had to keep popping back under cover to protect the equipment. Furthermore, I had dressed a ping Pong table and the wind was a huge issue. Also one of my models dropped out the day before shoot
ing so then I had to get the photographer to be the model and I had to take the photograph which is not ideal. 


So all in all it was quite stressful. I feel however that doing a shoot on a £0 budget and trying to organise things in such a short space of time is not easy. I've defiantly learnt as a practitioner as I can see how you have to be really highly organised and be able to overcome problems and not let them ruin something for you. Nevertheless in terms of the situation I am happy with what I achieved from it.

SOURCING

Plan for photoshoot

The photo shoot is tomorrow. I have got three friends together to be in it. And have a third year photography student from Anglia Ruskin to be my photographer. He has borrowed a large format outdoor camera and a digital camera for the option. 


I have also borrowed a small electric guitar for an up to date musical instrument.


The weather in London has been great this week and I have decided to take the photograph outside in front of my tower block. As the background is completely black in painting, it frees me up to put it into my own context. 


The plan is too shoot around 5-6pm just as it begins to get dark and use a flash to keep there faces bright. 

Yayoi Kusama T A T E M O D E R N

A bit off topic but went to see an interesting exhibition at the Tate Modern this week, supported by Louis Vuitton. Yayoi Kusama has worked obsessively on her body of work since the 1940's until the present. I found her early works on paper; especially the ones on ink quite inspirational as I personally work a lot in ink myself, and the level of detail and beautiful think black lines in contrast with bright bold colours were lovely. I like the size too; around A3. And I feel that I could take some of these techniques forward into my own design work.


I found a lot of her paintings quite boring in contrast they seemed quite flat with little context. Neverthless her installations were amazing. They were quite theatrical which is why I decided to mention it in the blog. Especially her installations from the 1990's to Present.

Yayoi Kusama
'I'm here, but Nothing'

I found this instillation quite really effective. The dots apparently symbolic of her hallucinations as she was in and out of institutions from the &0's onwards. It was also a lot more interactive, you could walk all around unlike some of the other ones and it had such a beautiful effect.

Yayoi Kusama
'Infinity Mirrored Room- Filled with the Brilliance of Life'

A dark mirrored room with hundreds of lights, hanging from ceiling that are continuously changing colour. That allows the viewer to look into infinity. This is one of those things that you just have to see for yourselves! It's fabulous!

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/yayoikusama/

Decisions

After choosing Lorenzo Costas; 'A Concert' I began researching into the look I wanted to go for in terms of styling. I wanted there to be humour and a sense of fun to the piece. 


I began by looking at classic music stars including; Jimi Hendrix, Patti Smith and David Bowie. I felt like this era of music would fit quite well to begin bringing the painting from the 1500's to the present. 

I found it quite hard to get a look together that I thought would incorporate my idea. When researching the painting I found that the three characters would have most probably been painted at different times. They are all quite different looking and I really wanted this to come across not only in costume but in dress. It is a good learning curve to try and create something great with a £0 budget!