#u2c3

[gemmafordtechblog]

Evaluation

Teamwork throughout project: I feel that my team worked quite well together. At the start of the project we didn’t really know each other and we all had different ideas and we worked together to create one idea that we all agreed on. However, some days we were all doing different things in different places so it took us a while to get things done which meant that towards the end of the project we had to rush a bit as our installation progressed quite slowly but in the end we were all happy and proud of the final outcome of our room. When we actually did the performance I had the role of acting as the patient in the cell banging on the wall and screaming to scare the audience. Bradley and Laura were doctors welcoming the audience into our room, stone house. However, we realized that I would not be able to do it all day for two days as it was hurting my throat to scream so much so we decided to rotate it around so we all had a turn at being the patient and being the doctor so it was fair for all of us. In the performance we worked really well as a team in ensuring that it went smoothly and to plan which it did. We had a few moments of disagreement or slow progress but overall we worked well to get the installation finished and had a successful performance of it. 

Performance: I think that our performance went well as we wanted to make the audience feel sympathy for the patients and be scared as well. We did this well as we led the audience into one cell and told them a story of a patient which left them thinking about the patient and felt sympathy for them whilst reading the words on the wall. Whilst they were intrigued in the story, the person in the cell next door screamed and hit the wall which made almost all of our audience jump or scream. We also made the audience jump or scream when they left the cell and we offered them the option of looking through the hatch at the patient next door and they lifted the hatch and the patient jumped out at them and screamed at them which made them jump too. Some groups were not scared by our performance of our installation but most were and we knew that not everyone would have the same reaction as everyone is different.

Our room fit in with the rest of the rooms and the theme as there was another room which was a padded cell which could have been a cell in Stone House asylum which our room was based around and supposed to be. However most of the other rooms were more scary but ours was more realistic and made the audience think about what was happening, encouraging them to think about the story.

As an individual, I made the doors to the cells look old and rusty by adding iron powder which was something I did successfully and was a strength of mine. I also did most of the painting of the walls which was another strength. However, I was not good at drilling things in place such as the doors, so Bradley, with the help of Alex did the drilling and cutting things out as I wasn’t as good at construction. Another weakness of mine was lighting as I was not very good at putting the lights together and fitting them in place.

[curtis-stewart-nkc-blog]

Music to your ears

After a lot of deliberation, we decided that the room needed some music in it to help invoke a feeling using more senses than just sight. We looked on the internet for any good creepy but also psychedelic music that we could use. We also wanted the track to be relatively long so that there was less chance of a jarring section of it ending and starting again while there was public in the room. In the end, we found a video that was over 2 hours long, that was full of psychedelic acid rock. 

This was a good choice as it was slightly creepy, a long clip and also made people feel like they were in a drug induced state, as the distortions in the music felt weird and unnerving. 

[miskinstheatre-george]

EVALUATION ;)

Our room is now finally completed and is looking really good because pretty much everything has went to plan but while doing it some plans changed through out the weeks of doing it for example, we only did half of the uneven floor in the room as we ran out of materials and then decided just to leave the other half because it still look good. The room is really bright, colourful and exciting because of all the different type of paint colour we used on the walls, and also the UV paint which just stands out bold and is very bright and really effective, because of that it will make the audience want to come in as it is such a cool, crazy room which would give them a great drug trip experience. 

I reckon that the audience would pay money to come in and look around our room because it is so good a different, because you won’t see this type of theme which we have done in our room around in lots of places. The room is very professional and every job that needed to be done we did fully and professionally and didn't leave anything unfinished, as it would not make the room look as good as it doe’s now, because I think that what is the point of starting something if you’re now going to finish it.

In the project when the audience was welcome to come up and see Dreams-capes and nightmares our room needed an actor in it so it looked the part and also because our room was very different and really cool we thought some people might just stay in there for a long time and not get out for others to see, so I was acting as the druggie in the corner of the room smoking a big shisha pipe which was a prop and next to me hidden so the audience couldn't see was the volume for the sound which I was controlling, so when they entered the room I gradually turn the volume up so it was blasting and then gradually turned the sound down, then when they were looking around thinking what is going on I popped and party popper which made everyone jump which was really funny and then shouted at them “Get out and leave me alone” really loud which scared them a bit so they left.       

Strengths: The strengths of me and my groups room are that we all work well together to get jobs done and completed the room on the deadline day. Also when there was a job needed to be done in the room we all made shore it was completed before we went and moved on to something else. Some of the time we are did the same job for example (painting) so we could all get it done fast and then move on to something else needing to be done, which I thought worked very well and got us to work alot faster so that we could finish on the deadline so it could be opened to the public for then to seen our hard work. Doing this project has made it clear to me that team work is massive and everyone has to learn how to work well in a group or nothing will get done and things just won’t work, also it’s just a thing that you will need to learn anyway for the future  for sure because it will defiantly come in handy some time in everyone’s life time.

Weaknesses: The weaknesses that our group had was that sometimes someone took over a little bit, and wanted to do everything there way without discussing it with the group first. The flooring for our room didn't turn out like it should have done and how we wanted it because we ran out of materials to complete it and also could not get any more so we only half finished the job. The covered polystyrene with muslin but we could only do half the room; it didn't look bad but it just was not what we wanted to happen and it didn't have the effect is was meant to which was for the audience to walk on a uneven flooring so they feel like they are on drugs, it just was going give it a little bit more of a better effect.        

[curtis-stewart-nkc-blog]

Styled from David Ogle

One of the research articles that I used as inspiration was David Ogle. Although David makes the art piece look simple and easy to make, I was concerned that it wouldn’t look as good when I did it. We also didn’t want to directly copy David as we didn’t want to be seen as copying him, just taking inspiration from him. 

As we started threading the wool onto the plate and hanging it up, we started to see how powerful this could be, and we were happy. It took a bit longer than expected, as we had 49 holes in the wooden plate. It also was a bit difficult to thread the wool through the holes on the wood, but this was easily remedied by using a piece of wire. I threaded a loop of the wire through the hole so that I could attach the wool to it. I could then pull the wire back through the hole, bringing the wool with it. 

I think the string sculpture worked very well in this room, especially as we used multiple colours, although there were a few problems while we made it. These included not knowing how to attach it to the wall, the attachment on the wall breaking and having to do the floor around it. In the end, we overcame all these problems. We eventually used a metal ring to tie the wool to, so that it wouldn’t break. We then attached it to the wall, just below the ceiling. We tried to put some nails in the wall, but after there was a bit of tension applied to hook, it took a chunk out of the wall and just fell off. For that reason, I decide to cover it in gaffatape and attach it to the wall using the gaffatape and lots of staples. This meant that it had a large area that was attached to the wall, whilst also having staples (that seemed to stay in the wall quite well) as a back up. We then cover this in black gaffatape to help hold it, and blend it with the colour of the wall. This ended up being the best option as it held the best.

[curtis-stewart-nkc-blog]

Plans and Re-plans

One of the ideas we originally intended to include was a resonating plate with small particles on top. This could then be altered by the audience to show different patterns, depending on the frequency they turn it to. 

Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the system to work the way we wanted it to, which meant we had to scrap the idea. This meant that we worried about how to make the room more interesting. We felt that, although the room would have been a lot better with the experiment in the room, we also decided that it could detract from the audience just standing in the room and enjoying it as they would have to interact with it. This helped us to focus more on making the room a lot more aesthetically pleasing and less about the interaction. 

At the same time, we started working on the uneven floor. Plans for the floor changed multiple times. We started off thinking that small wooden mounds glued to the floor would be effective at creating a sturdy and subtle effect, but as we discussed this idea with the lecturers more, we all decided that it could be dangerous, as they could be tripping hazards. This meant we had to change the material we were planning on using. We then decided to create the small mounds out of polystyrene. This was a good idea, until we realised that they would look out of place, just placed on the floor. We then came up with the idea to cover them in a fabric. We, yet again, got informed that unless it is all stuck down, it could create tripping hazards between each of the mounds. For this reason, we decided to do a kind of papier-mâché, but instead of using paper, we would use some muslin. We also concluded that if we mix black paint in with the PVA and water solution, then we wouldnt have to paint it afterwards. This made the whole idea a lot easier to start with. As we were covering the floor anyway, we decided to also cover the entire floor with different sized polystyrene to create an uneven floor. 

We ordered the muslin and when it finally arrived, we started working on the floor. This again, came with its own problems. As we placed the fabric over the polystyrene, we realised that is was never going to be rigid enough to allow people to stand on it. We also worked out that we didn’t have enough material to cover the whole floor, whilst overlapping the material and making it follow the bumps and craters. Originally, we thought that we had messed up, but after a few discussions, we agreed that it would actually be better if we just put this feature in the corner of the room so people could still come in and stand near the UV wall. This also meant that we could improve on the layers that we had put down, as they looked a bit thin. 

We felt that this floor was a good addition to the room and helped to show how the world can become distorted when you take drugs. Personally, I was impressed with how the floor was turning out, and if we had more time and more material, I think the floor would have turned out extremely well. 

Another plan we changed was that we decided to not add items to the walls. This was decided because we thought the room would be made too small and it would detract from the luminous and chaotic UV wall we already had painted. We felt that adding more to it, would degrade the insanity you felt when you look at it. 

[miskinstheatre-george]

Research Idea of mine was to have many different illusions in our room witch will confuse the audience and it gets into their head because it is really crazy and different. I found this witch is a great example I would say and it is called  Van Gogh's "Starry Night" comes to life. The link is below.:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVFPeOBg8to

[lukeguyvermiskin]

Research/Nightmare Ideas -

This is the research we done via images. These are the images where we took ideas such as the carpet and how scary a dirty room can be.

We want the room to look as old as possible mixed in with a modern touch. Looking at the two first images, we want the roomk to look more like the first one but adding bits from the second one like the rug on the floor and adding a mirror. These pictures are just helping out on how to make a room look old. With the mould picture, we used green paint for the main mould but normally mould is normally black but we thought that adding water to the green paint would make it that bit better. After we would add tea bag stains to paint around the mould to make it look dirty and damp. We are also going to use black paper to make the room darker, the reason why we are going to use this is because we felt like the curtains wasn’t covering up the darkness properly. we have got a bunch of black paper and lay out the paper behind the curtains to give it more darkness. The three last images are linked to how the room is meant to feel. With the bedroom image, it gives that spooky affect to the room like there’s a ghost in the room, people don’t know what could happen in the room. We also want to audience to feel lost by blacking out the room, not knowing what to do but stand still or hide into a corner. By making people feel like this, is by turning the lights off and scaring them when the lights come back on.

[curtis-stewart-nkc-blog]

The Schedule and Walls

We created a list of tasks that had to be completed so that we could organise them and allocate them to the members of our group. This also meant that we could work out what order we needed to complete the tasks so that we weren’t doing tasks multiple times. We knew that we had to get the walls painted first, as we didn’t want to be avoiding them as we worked in the room. This took about two days the get it finally finished, including both different types of walls.

After we painted the walls, we blocked up the windows and started with the UV paint. We borrowed a UV lamp from one of the tutors as a temporary lighting solution. We needed this light so that we could see how the paint looked on the black wall as it was UV paint and it is going to be illuminated during the installation. This made the whole process of creating shapes and images on the wall much simpler as we knew exactly how it would look afterwards.