COKEhead - - Final Pass

COKEhead is an examination of how far advertising in our society will go and the way it will forever alter our lives. When underprivileged people cannot afford medical services they can have their health care underwritten by large corporations. However, these decisions can have dire consequences. In COKEhead we are shown Nestor Cole's valiant attempt to fight the monster that he has created, a monster that has grown larger and more powerful than he ever expected. Through the plight of the 'Branded' we see a society that shuns some and vilifies others, exposing how the masses can turn a blind eye towards the abuse and neglect of a section of humanity, begging the question; "Have we learned from our past? Are we doomed to repeat it?"

My approach for COKEhead was to create a world that, like the world of advertising is very presentational and slick. There are many moments when characters break the "fourth wall" and directly address the audience. These moments are usually used for exposition, but also serve as a background for some of moral lessons that creep into the story. In my first exploration of the play I used a lot of large scale logos to show the overwhelming barrage of ads that rule our lives as city dwelling people in the modern age. In my initial research I found that the average person living in a large city is exposed to more than 3000 advertisements a day. Another major element in my first exploration was a wall of copy from famous ads, meant to be so busy that it would become "noise" or pattern.

One of the biggest problems I had with my first pass was that it seemed too fantastical. For the message of this play to get through, the world must register as possible, not realistic, but within the realm of the real. The first design was really lacking a sense of grounding. I was watching the television show Mad Men and the opening titles heavily informed my design in this latest pass. The set consists of a large building wrapped entirely in LED screens, much like the buildings of Times Square, which change with every setting in the play. Much like my first idea, logos are predominately featured on these screens. When the action moves to a fast food restaurant the images are those of McDonalds, Wendy's, Burger King and others. When one of the characters is waiting for the bus the ads switch to those of transport, both enticing and insulting the character. When the character of Will Purdue is executed the screens go to "snow", visually telling us of his grim demise. The choice of LED screens was made because of the cold, harsh, light that they give off.

I think that this design is very powerful and serves to tell the story very well.

Coming Soon...

I am finishing up the model for my second pass of COKEhead by Justin Cioppa. Hopefully it will be done tomorrow and I will update the blog.

Thanks for reading.

New Play Project: COKEhead by Justin Cioppa - - First Pass

COKEhead is a new play by Justin Cioppa that I am designing for my "New Plays" project. In this project we are paired with a first year writing grad, and through the design process help them see what kind of world their play would take place in and how design can help supplement their work. The other goal of this project is for us to have a chance to develop a piece of theatre with no previous standards in place.

I had the chance to design one new play before this, Sweet Water Taste by Gloria Clunie. That experience, in the middle of my undergrad, was a very positive one, opening a lot of doors, design-wise, for me. It is very exciting to work on a brand new play. Knowing that you are the first person to design a world, it's almost "God-like". It is also one of the most freeing excesses one can do as a designer.

COKEhead is a play about a man named Nestor, who lives in a time where corporate advertising has gained a lot of power in the day to day world. If people do not have health care, they can have a corporation underwrite their bills for them. In exchange, they become "Brandeds", literally becoming a living mascot, indentured to their parent company. Nestor is the man that invented this idea, and through a series of events in trying to destroy it. The themes explored in COKEhead include: Slavery, Civil Rights, Greed, Health care, Poverty and Revolution.

At this point in my design, I'm working in a very loose, non-specific, way. Justin and I talked a lot about places like Times Square and Tokyo Square. When I did my initial research I found out that the average person, living in a large city, is exposed to around 3000 ads a day. 3000 per day. You don't notice all of them, because at some point they just become "noise."

The picture below is the base set. There are quite a few scenes that don't take place anywhere specific, and this is the idea for that kind of location. The words are all copy from famous ads, but are meant to just become pattern.In a few of the scenes the characters meet at an unnamed fast food restaurant. The next image is an idea for the feeling that I'd like to evoke in those scenes.
The last image is an idea for the scene when one of the characters, a man who "plays" Poppin' Fresh, is waiting for the bus. The idea behind this image is that ads constantly tell us that "everything is okay," and "wouldn't life be better if you drove a Ford?" Poppin' is inundated with these ads as he waits for the bus, being tormented by a mother and child.
I think this is a very good start to this design. I am very interested to see how it develops.

Update - - 1.18.09

Hello all,

I don't, and may not for a while, have pictures of the work I'm doing in my Scene Design class. We just started a couple projects though, so soon I will have lots of fun stuff!

Thanks for reading, and please feel free to comment and question.

Painted Panel for "The London Cuckolds"

And now for something a little different..

The following pictures are of a large muslin panel that I painted for the show "The London Cuckolds." I just thought it would be interesting to see the progression from start to finish.

Note: The show has not opened yet so I don't have a final photo. I will post it when the show is up.

This is the designer, Leah Pettis', 1/2" rendering, the final panel is about 24' tall:
Outline on stretched muslin:
First gray wash:
Color goes in:
Darker gray wash goes in, I also punched some of the color at this point, so that it doesn't wash out on stage:
Very dark contouring added in:
The final step was to outline the pattern in a black that washed into the dark gray. That will be seen in the final photos I post at a later date. All in all, I wold say that these photos represent about 20 hours of work. Here is the rendering once more to compare:

Endgame

These pictures represent the final design of "Endgame" by Samuel Beckett.

This was a very interesting, difficult, process for me. I will fully admit that while I still do not care for the play, Beckett does afford a designer almost carte blanche in the visual language of the show and that is exciting. "Endgame" never expressly tells you where it takes place and this was a very hard pill for me to swallow. As I've come to learn in the last few months, I tend to be a very "reactive" designer. I think part of that comes from my experience in small storefront theatre, often having very little time to design and being very conscious about budget. With "Endgame" I had no real clues as to what the space Ham and Clov inhabit looks like. They do mention things, but sometimes contradict themselves and we never really know if they are telling the truth.

In looking at "Endgame" I started to think about reality television shows. One show in particular, "Big Brother," excited me. The concept of this show is that a group of people live in a house and are filmed 24 hours a day. The cameras are hidden, so the people just live their lives, of course they have to do challenges and whatnot, but for most of the day they just hang out. What really struck me about this show is that there is a channel where you can watch the live feeds from the house. This was the element most like "Endgame."

I decided to set "Endgame" in a "tank" of sorts, filming the action with a variety of hidden cameras. The images would be broadcast on television screens mounted on the outside of the tank. Audience members would watch the show never quite knowing if what they are seeing is actually happening inside the tank.

I think that this would be a very exciting, new way to view this work.

Note: I have not designed the inside of the tank as I'm still not quite sure that I know what it looks like, or even that I should know.

The Glass Menagerie - - 1st pass

This image is from my first design pass of The Glass Menagerie," by Tennessee Williams.

This was my least successful idea, but it was very helpful in my process. When I was doing my first readings of the play I was stuck by the beautiful language and the images it conjured up. Tennessee Williams originally wrote in a series of projected images to add to the atmosphere of the play. I have never worked on a show with projections or video and thought it could be a very effective tool.

The set was heavily informed by the Chinese water torture trick performed by Houdini. Tom mentions magic and magicians a few times. Tom also talks about escape a lot and I wanted to show that, while he does leave the apartment at the end of the play, he is still trapped in the story, by his memory. He never escapes. The Chinese water torture trick also heavily involves glass. The set is comprised of the Wingfield apartment, surrounded by the glass walls of a large tank. The apartment is on a rake, helping to push the action closer to the audience. The walls, at times are covered in the images that Williams calls for: blue roses, text, a winter scene, the moon, etc... Below are some examples.
As you can see in the above photos, the images projected onto the glass walls are very striking. However, their size makes them too important, overshadowing the beautiful imagery of the spoken words. The set as a whole, in this design, is too large. There is too much "stuff" standing between the audience and the play.

I do think that projections could be a useful and exciting element to the design for "The Glass Menagerie," but I don't think this was the right way to use them. The next design pass will have no projections.