Being determined does help!

I put my foot down with a firm hand!

After a telephone call with the director I am now getting the money I requested up front.  She did ask if I could get it in installments...I said no!  You have no idea how proud I am of myself for being firm, I usually cave in but I was determined it would not happen this time and it didn't.  I will be getting the money at the cast meal when the pantomime is announced and scripts go out.

I do know what we are doing but I'm not supposed to say anything until it is officially announced so I will be good and say nothing.

But what is happening now is I am thinking of what costumes will be needed, lets just say my peasant costumes were not a waste of time lol

I have just finished off the green version of the bodice which has a bit of trim on the front to offset the pale colours of the other two.  This one is bigger and goes from a size 20 down, it is on the size 10 dummy and not laced up tight.

I have a patterned blouse to go under the pink and think the green needs a plain white blouse to lift the colouring.  I'm not sure about the blue but I will find something suitable in time.

This means I have four peasant lady costumes as I already had the Snow White costume to reuse.

I am now planning a shopping trip to get the fabric as Norfolk really doesn't have that choice.  I am lucky my husband hails from Bolton so we tend to combine a family visit with a fabric shopping session.  I also plan to order some trims from America. They are so much cheaper there it pays to get the bulk orders and pay the duties and postage!  It is a shame that I have to pay the vat as they are not donated even though it is for a charity, but that is the government for you lol

Should a witch always wear black?

There is that moment when you seem to automatically know what a costume needs to look like.  I did it twice in Robin Hood, one was the Sheriff (I was stuck with Alan Rickman in my head and nothing else would do) and the other was Will Scarlett which turned out just as I imagined it with pleather shoulder armour instead of the real thing!

But there are some characters that you just can’t do that with year after year or it gets stale.  Take, for instance, a witch.  We all know that a witch wears a black robe and, of course, what a witch’s hat looks like!  But for pantomime we need to move on from the traditional look and use our imaginations or we will be accused of being downright boring.

We can go down the simple route of adding some trim in a different colour, red works brilliantly as it stands out so well alongside the black.  I remember being told many years ago that photographers will often put a piece of red into a frame as it brings all the other colours out.  Look at this well known scene from Schindler’s List and you will see what I mean.

Other colours that work well with a witch are purple and green (Professor McGonagall is a brilliant case in point); there is also that great bling element of a bit of sparkle with gold or silver.  I have also noticed that although plain black may seem boring on stage, different black fabrics, such as embossed velvets or jacquard prints, add a different dimension so don't be afraid to mix them up a bit.

You can also add interest with shapes in your costume.  Big collars, flowing sleeves, sharp shoulders or  contrasting layers will all add to the look.

Talking of witches, I have finished the robe element of Minerva’s gown and hope to set to those sleeves tomorrow.  I will have to go with the seam method so will attempt to show you how I go about it tomorrow and whether or not it works!

Take a moment to ponder the chorus

Feel the pain of that poor person in the chorus!  Not because they aren't at the front of the stage as they may not want to be there, but because they are always the last to be dressed and you can pretty much guarantee while everyone is fluffing around in their new costumes, they saw theirs worn a couple of years ago and know it was dragged out of the back of the wardrobe (or caravan).

It’s not that the costumier doesn’t realise  that a well dressed chorus could make all the difference, to the contrary it breaks my heart to see the shambles I sometimes have to put them in L But there is just me and a lot of costumes and not an endless amount of time and something has to give!

This is how they should look!

The good news is that as you collect more costumes there are better ones to dress the chorus with, eventually they may even find themselves in a princess dress from a previous production and be swirling around happily.

I am hoping to be able to achieve a basic chorus wardrobe this year.  I have large amounts of green, pink and blue in the same fabric and the idea is to make bodices, skirts and waistcoats from this and then they will at least have a general theme in the colour department. Of course this depends on whether time allows and that is always the problem!  If I get that far I will use some of my scraps to make up detachable bustles and aprons so that the costume can have a change of appearance with little effort.  Well that is the plan, and now I have this blog and I have written down my intentions I have even more reason to try and achieve it.

Failing that try and get hold of an assortment of waistcoats, long skirts and tops.  It is not perfect but this is one time when the bridesmaids dress will really help out.  I am not a fan of recycling old clothes but there is a lot of fabric in those dresses and they will take away some of the strain.  There is also the advantage that with the chorus the bling can wait so you don't have to spend extra time adding embellishments (although it never hurts to get happy with the glue gun and sequins).

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 18^th 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