Tuesday 4 February 2014

A little planning goes a long way

I spent a little while last week studying the pictures of pantomimes that I thought looked good and those that didn't.  I was trying to figure out exactly what made some people look good on stage and what it was that made others look thrown together in an amateur kind of way.  I did come to a conclusion you may be pleased to know.
Of course there is the obvious answer...money!  But us amateurs can do nothing about that so we have to look at alternative ways.
It took a while to realise that a good set of costumes is just that, a set.  They all fit together, either colour or style, and flow from scene to scene the same way the spoken word does.
I am a big fan of colour, so one of the first things I do when starting out on a pantomimes costumes, is to pick a colour.  Snow White was silver and Robin Hood was green (obviously).  Then I pick a contrast colour, SW was pink and RH was gold.  The plan is to try and incorporate one of these colours in as many costumes as possible so it all blends together.  With SW I also had the time to appliqué silver butterflies on the princess and Prince Charming costumes, which all flowed together in the pink and silver walk down dress worn by Snow White (I was impressed with myself over that one and must remember it looked good and do it again, although to be honest it was my husbands idea).
Of course the limitations of fabric mean this isn't always possible and inevitably there will be some costumes that just don't get either of those colours in there but if you can get enough of them it will add a colour flow throughout the pantomime that will make a difference to the whole performance.
This did work with SW and I was pleased with the result, unfortunately the same can’t be said for RH so I will be trying harder with this years costumes to keep those colours in the right direction.
I did a Google for Disney colour palettes and you can find a few things there that give you an idea of what I am talking about.  Some colours go together and some don't. Just try and get those blends right and half the work is done.
Can I point out here that I am not a professional in any sense of the word?  I am a complete amateur just like everybody else in our performances and hope that anything I say here can be used to help fellow amateurs get a look they are pleased with after all those hours chained to the sewing machine.  I would love to be able to say I know exactly what I am doing and that I have A, B and C certificates to prove it, but I don't and I am telling you what I have learned by doing it wrong in the hope you don't have to!

Back to the plot.  Style is something I can keep to even if there is a limit on fabrics.  With SW the style came through the men.  Frock coats and waistcoats based on 18th century designs I found by that well known Google images.  The women had all kinds of styles that I thought looked nice and pretty and didn't really bother too much about it.  It worked in my humble and correct opinion!  With RH I managed really well to keep to a medieval style.  Marion had Italian Renaissance style dresses, Robin and his merry men all had waistcoats and tunics and Prince John and the Sheriff had medieval robes.  Unfortunately, the medieval style is totally based on tunics which I got really bored with.  I will be doing a tutorial on how to make a tunic, which is the same style for a robe, and really easy to do with a tape measure and a few metres of fabric it just leaves little room for playing and I like playing.
Just one of many Disney colour palettes you can find on Google images

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