PATS Studio Theatre​

FEBRUARY 2019

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Director- Sam Wood

Lighting Designer- Rachel Cleary 

Sound Designer- Sam DIgney

Set Designer- Elliot Squire

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My first exploration into video design was on Jane Eyre The Musical in 2019, in a small studio theatre whilst at Guildford School of Acting. Video was utilised for just three moments in the show; the stained glass windows of a church, a time-lapsed drawing of a self portrait, and (spoiler alert!), the massive house fire which ends the show. My previous experiences of working on a video design had all come from programming for Declan Randall on various shows, I utilised all I had learned from watching his process and began to source and edit content, very tentatively using Photoshop. The most challenging part of this project was creating the self portrait animation. I firstly had to edit a photo of our actress so that it looked like a pencil drawing, I then animated each line After Effects it so it looked like pencil strokes going onto canvas. This was quite difficult to time with the blocking, as the director was wanted it to look like real time.

 

When retrospecting this project, (it’s now 2021) I’d do this piece of content very differently. I’d start by actually doing a drawing our actress instead of editing a photo in order to look drawn. At the time I wasn’t confident about my hand drawing abilities. However, this is now a skill I’ve learnt, which has led to selling my drawings of West End venues on Etsy. Additionally to this, I have learnt much more about After Effects and would now be able to make a much more customised drawing effect, rather than the result of a YouTube tutorial! I’ve also definitely learnt to take more pictures of my work, as this selection is very poor, though I have to admit, snapping pictures during tech is still not my strong suit.