Ghosts: Scenic Painting and Set Assembly

I spent last thursday and friday working on the set for Ibsen's Ghosts, which is on at the Theatre Royal Winchester from next week. I travelled down to the warehouse in Cambridge with the set designer where the set was almost finished being constructed by the carpenters. Unlike my experiences in Lewes, where I actually helped construct the set, here I was involved in the painting and finishing touches of the set. Which was fantastic as it gave me the opportunity to do something I had never done on a professional show before to such detail.

The set comprised of the interior of a victorian summer house, with the doors at the back (upstage) opening out onto the surrounding grounds. While in the workshop it was split into two sections, the building facade that would frame the stage, and the plywood floor panels, which were in segments stacked against the wall. When we arrived my first job was to sand down the surfaces of the wood where filler had been used to make a seamless join prior to painting.

Early on while working I acidentally knocked over one of the banister rails that I had (foolishly) assumed was screwed down. Luckily no harm was done and from that point on I was pretty cautious about my surroundings! Once I had finished sanding down the surfaces it was time to paint the building with its base coat. As the frames of the doors, skirting, windows and anything else made of wood were the only sections being painted at this point I had to be extremely careful with my accuracy. This was due to the fact that the walls of the building were made from sheets of canvas stretched across wooden frames. I then moved on to the banisters that took quite a while to paint as they had lots of hidden areas that needed to be painted. A number of times I would think I had finished and turn the banister frame round to a different angle, revealing loads of unpainted sections. I like to think I worked quickly and efficiently, but that was one job that would always have taken a while to complete.

Next I moved on to chipping away the excess glue that had dried between the joint of the ceiling framework. As this would be visible on stage it was important to remove any visible glue without chipping away the wood work as well. Having completed this I then painted the wood with the base coat, ready to be secured on top of the canvas walls.

Although I had massively enjoyed the other placements I had been involved in this was one that I really relished as it was more artistic than my previous experiences whilst still being a professional show. Again I had to concentrate constantly on everything I did which I found a hugely important experience. I also tried to improve on my speed of work, painting accurately but not too slowly as I knew this was something I needed to improve on.

With the base coats done my next task was to use a spray gun to give the surfaces another coat, something I had never done before. At first I was very cautious with my spraying but managed to get a bit more confident as time went on. As this was something I had never done before I took advantage of learning a new skill, but I reckon I still have a way to go before I can confidently use a spray gun to a professional standard.

My final job for the day was to give the floor panels a coat of paint. As the carpenters had left for the day this freed up alot of floor space and we lay out all the panels around the workshop so they could all be done in one go. While rollering the sheets of wood I only needed to use a small amount of paint to cover each panel. The important thing was that I gave each one an even coat so that they would look the same once attached together.

The following day we returned to the workshop to complete the painting and finally touches to the set. As we had stayed at a b&b we got to the workshop much earlier than the previous day and as the weather was good we could paint outside. My main task for the day was giving the floor panels another coat of paint. As the wood was all a different pigment we realised that it would require a slightly thicker layer of paint than the more dilluted one we had used the previous day. This would make all the panels match and hopefully make them appear as a single piece.

Having once laid the floor panels outside the workshop I placed plastic sheeting around the outline of the wood; so as not to stain the ground below. As you can see at this point the wood looked very patchy. Using the roller I painted each plank of wood one at a time. I thought that by getting each long panel the same colour across the three sheets this would give the flooring a greater appearance of unison. As can be seen below this technique proved very successful and I continued all the way down the flooring.

Here you can se the first three planks have been painted. Once I had done these three I waited for them to dry before continuing with the others. The reason for this was the night before the flooring had all looked the same colour whilst wet, but once dried had changed, and no longer matched up. At the risk of losing the grain effect of the wood we had chosen to use a thicker coat of paint the following day. Luckily, as can be seen, we got the desired effect we wanted. The wood was now matching up but the grain effect was still visible. The difference between the planks to the right from those yet to be painted on the left was radical.

Once I had completed painting the floor and had allowed it to dry it was time to glaze it. This would give the wood I richer colour and protect its surface better than paint alone. Again, only a small amount of glaze was required on the roller for each plank. Also, as not to paint any foot prints into the wood, I wore plastic sheet around my shoes. This kept the floor clean and, as the only other option was to do it in my socks, stopped my feet from freezing in the countryside winds!

My next job was to clean a carpet that had been bought for the set, this meant hoovering it on both sides and beating it with a stick over a fence for a good fifteen minutes. One of my last jobs of the day was to work back into the surface of the wooden building facade. Using a watery, dilluted paint I went around the outlines of the window frames to age them and give more definition to them. As well as a liberal spray of paint, this gave the building alot more character and made the surface detail really stand out. A great experience, I had to work quickly to paint into the recesses of the wood and then wipe it down with a sponge before it dried.  This blended the colours together better and made the building look much older than its simple base coat had the day before. A good tip I picked up was to practise in an area that wouldn't be seen from the audience's perspective. Although very difficult, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and loved working on a professional set. I gained a great deal from my time up in Cambridge and Iwill definately feel alot more confident about working on professional sets again in the near future.