SNIPPET # 20

Time for a new series of Snippets from my theater set design book Alice Through the Proscenium - this time from the chapter "Design Elements:

What exactly is design?  What are you designing and what bits and pieces are you designing with?  The elements listed below are some – not all – of the elements of scenic design.  They are often elements of Design in General, whether of plays, pastries, houses, or hats.  These are listed here mostly so you, the designer, can go, “Huh! Forgot about that!”  And then think about it… 

Mass – This is perceived heaviness and solidity.  Sets, being built of light materials, often lack this, instead looking cardboard-y.  But real life has mass and real walls sometimes substantial thickness.  Mass adds importance to an element.  Aida’s Egyptian columns need size - and not to quiver when leaned upon.  At other times you may want delicacy and lightness.

                         

 Solid/ Void – Solidity tends to read as stable and massive – void as light or empty “negative” space.  The interplay between these qualities is sculpture.  Study the model. There has to be a lot of empty space on stage to put actors in, but avoid aggressive voids which suck energy and life from the production.

SNIPPET # 19

The last sample from the "Design Methods" chapter of Alice Through the Proscenium:

Creativity –  When trying to be more creative - act more creative.  Wear that goofy French artist hat, 4.22 recklessly drink caffeinated coffee late at night, read foreign films, eat a new food, walk down a new street, learn Russian or bowling…  Pretend you don’t care what others think.  Free-wheel.  If you feel creative you’re freer to be creative. 

 “-it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what can have happened to me!”

Your friends and loved-ones may wonder that too.  The old saying that genius is next door to insanity?  Well, significant others will wonder now and then if you’ve changed your mailing address. 

Design is a silly, anarchic, crazy playtime.  Serious play.

4.22 Silly advice.  No Frenchified chapeau will improve design; the idea is either naïve or an affectation.  But then, lots of people wouldn’t take up tennis without an official tennis outfit.  We’ll just hope you grow out of the “artiste” stage quickly.4.23

4.33 Don’t get carried away with your genius, eh?  No friends as groupies.  No spouses as handmaids-to-genius, please!  A surprising number are willing, but most loved-ones are wise enough to still love you though you’re nuts - a much saner attitude.  

SNIPPET # 16

Another big gap between Snippets!  (I've been preoccupied with other stuff, sorry.)  Here's another tidbit from the "Design Methods" chapter of Alice Through the Proscenium:

Designer’s Block -  It IS possible to feel your brain freeze solid.  Try the tips listed here or a vacation, but if the problem is a particular show, maybe your heart just isn’t in it. 4.18   Then a professional can fall back on technique and do an adequate – if not an inspired – job.  You can get yourself excited by bread-and-butter work, but be careful which shows you agree to design. 

Fear -  Your mental block may be intimidation…  Macbeth?!  When menaced by a Great Classic, ask, “What’s the worst?  I make a fool of myself – nothing new – but can I dim Shakespeare’s reputation?”  The comforting answer: “Naaaaaaah.”

The Bad Version – TV writers do this: you know it’s no good, but spit out the idea anyway.  Trying to improve it may lead to something with real potential.

Prejudices – Like stone tablets, some teachers hand out “rules” of scenic design, things like, “always have an entrance upstage center” or “never paint a set white.”  Bah!  Those aren’t rules, those are… more like guidelines.

Rules – Back in the eighteenth century there were real rules of design to fall back on, things like “classical unities” which guided playwrights.  Imagine the comfort of rules!  Nowadays creative types are left flapping - no rules need apply.  (Writers say one rule does still hold: “be interesting.”)  Freedom is scary - so give yourself rules.  If the theater, play, or budget don’t restrict you enough, give yourself the cozy blankie of rules: design only in black and white, or only with rolling elements, or…  Deciding what rules ought to apply starts you designing.

Habits -  Set up a regular place and hours for design.  (Mornings have the advantage that directors aren’t awake, so can’t interrupt.) In The Creative Habit, choreographer Twyla Tharp stresses habit, ritual, and organization in creativity.

  

4.18 Did you need the money? 4.19 Now earn it.

4.19  Needing the cash is a perfectly legit artistic impetus, as are deadlines and fear of criticism.  As Dr. Johnson put it, “"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."


BTW Alice is now fully functional (samples, pic, and the all-important BUY! button) at all three sources: Lulu.com, Amazon, and as an e-book for Nook, iPhone, and iPad etc. from Barnes & Noble.

SNIPPET #3

Latest from the "Design Methods" chapter of my up-coming-sometime-soon-really book, Alice Through the Proscenium:

Happy Accidents – Serendipity again. Ideas can arrive accidentally. The trick is not so much in having that luck as in recognizing it. One 1980’s internet entrepreneur said his secret was surrounding himself with smart people doing lots of different things; in that happy chaos there had to be one good idea - his job was to see it. Have lots going on in your work and life, so that in the busy mess good things can happen. Then spot them! Luck requires some chaos.

SNIPPET #2

Collage – As in brainstorming, give your Unconscious a chance, this time by running amok with old magazines. Rip and tear! Free associate. Make unexpected connections. Clip out pictures suggesting objects, characters, or ideas in the play, evocative colors or textures, and overlap, hide, reveal, contrast, play. “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” Juxtapose ideas. Make weird collisions, like hard and furry or luxurious and icy. Use serendipity. Don’t worry about creating art anyone else will understand – or that you will. Stir the depths.

(Part of an on-going series of design tools sampled from my up-coming set design ebook Alice Through the Proscenium.)