Design for Arts Review Show

Our first two projects during the Masters were based around light entertainment shows and audience- based productions. The first project was designed to give a grounding in working within the confines of a studio and designing from a cameras perspective. This was my first real challenge as in the past I had always designed sets that would be viewed by a large audience, whether Promenade or Proscenium Arch the designs were always dictated by a audience with a less restricted view. A number of initial set designs had to be reworked as the set pieces were far too high for a show that would be focused on camera angles mainly featuring close ups of people, with the occasional wide shot showing a larger amount of the set.

Early stages of final design.

As the brief of the show was to design for a arts review in which the presenter and three guests would be discussing a broad range of art from classic to contemporary in a variety of areas, (e.g. architecture, installation, paintings, etc) I wanted to design a set that didn't refer to any one specific style, but at the same time not seem to busy and random. After working through a number of different designs I decided on a style that was initially inspired by Gothic architecture but in a more minimalistic, contemporary style. In terms of the surface detail I had originally wanted a rich, textured surface quality that drew more inspiration from classic architecture but ultimately I decided there was something appealing in the simplistic nature of a blank canvas like surface of pure white. This would also work much better in terms of lighting potential, and I believe the complex design of later pieces would have been lessened by overly detailed surface textures. I also decided on a gloss coat to the surface of the studio floor, while in reality in would be difficult to achieve such a highly reflective surface, especially considering reflections from the lighting rig and possible glare, I still liked the idea of creating pieces that continued in the reflection of the floor and achieved an interesting effect.

The finished set with furniture and P.B.Us

I took a lot of inspiration from Gothic window designs and striped them down to a much more linear design that focused more on the shapes used to compose them, by building up a number of layers I created a much greater sense of depth to the set. In addition to the these set pieces I incorporated a number of simple arch shapes used for photo blow ups (P.B.Us). I imagined these would change every week to reflect the work on discussion, which while varied would neatly tie together in the cyan, green and red hues that restricted the use of colour. The work I used for this specific weeks discussion is that of Andy Goldsworthy, as well as architecture taken from London's Southwark, Hampton Court Palace, Manchester Town Hall and Barcelona's Sagrada Família. The latter of which also influenced the whole set design in it's contemporary approach to more traditional architecture styles in terms of its interior. For the furniture I wanted something that stood out but didn't distract from the surrounding set pieces. I chose transparent acrylic pieces that would be custom-made and matched the colour scheme of the P.B.Us.

The entire set was placed against a black cyclorama, however looking back I would possibly re-think this and incorporate more lighting into the background. I think it can probably be put down to me clinging to my theatre design-comfort zone! As with the next project I worked on both where designed with a in-house audience present in the studio so to a degree I think it helped me in the transitional stage of coming from a theatre background and beginning to design for screen instead.