Unit 4

Unit 4 - Context

Tableaux Christmas Era's

Context

For our Unit 4 and in preparation for our Christmas show we had to research different era's of Christmas celebrations and create a tableau of our appointed era. This would give us a better understanding of how Christmas would be celebrated during the period that our show, A Christmas Carol, would be set in. It also gave us the opportunity to develop our prop making skills as we needed to research and create food items that guests would eat at a Christmas dinner during all of the era's. For the actual creation of the tableaux we needed to create a set as well as cast actors to perform as if they were at a Christmas dinner.

Research

Vacuum Forming Machine

We started of by doing some general research together as a group to establish what we collectively knew about Christmas during the Victorian era, the 70s and in the 21st century. This lead mainly into research about what a traditional dinner would look like during these periods. We looked at what people would wear to these types of occasions, what the tree would look like, how the table would be set and most importantly; what they would eat. We all agreed on main foods that we would all be able to use for our tableaux. These were: A turkey, roast potatoes and brussels sprouts. After agreeing on these foods we researched how we could best make these. This was a short discussion as we quickly realized that the easiest and cheapest way to do it would be papier-mache. We took these ideas to a tutor who is very skilled in creating props and asked for her opinion. She told us that it would be easier to make a base set of potatoes out of clay and use those to create multiple plastic ones by using vacuum forming machine. 

After all agreeing on the foods and how to make them, we were each given an era for our individual tableaux. Mine was contemporary/21st century. We split off to do our individual research and to come up with costumes, decorations and a table setting. My main research was on Pinterest as this is a source that a lot of people use nowadays to get their inspiration from. Most people tend to keep it fairly simple by using the classic combination of red and green or black and silver. My personal preference went to black and silver as I expected my classmates to already use red and green in their tableaux. Food-wise people tend to stick to a classic as well: turkey and side dishes. They add character to their tables by decorating them elaborately with tinsel, ornaments, glitter and/or branches. For the costumes I decided to go with black and silver as this fitted in with my theme.

Link to Pinterest mood board: https://nl.pinterest.com/MadelonWarmoltz/a-christmas-dinner/

Planning

Brussels sprouts

As soon as the research period was over we decided to get to the making of the food items. We decided to make the brussels sprouts first as they were fairly simple to start of with. We found newspapers and started to tear them into smaller pieces. We added a mixture of glue and water to the newspaper and rolled them into balls. Something that made the sprouts really interesting was the fact that we all had different techniques to creating them. This created versatility as some sprouts were small and smooth and others were a bit bigger and had a roughness to the outside. When we were happy with the amount of sprouts that we had we left them to dry.

About a week later we came back to start painting the sprouts. We started with different colours of green and painted the base coat with that. The different shades made for more dimension in the sprouts as they were all going to be in one bowl. After letting the base coat dry we moved on to adding highlights by dabbing some yellow paint onto the sprouts. This made them look more realistic.

Potatoes

As the brussels sprouts were drying we decided to make the potatoes. Each of us shaped a half potato out of clay. Again, because each of us could make it our own, none of the potatoes had the same shape or size. After we were done shaping we took them over to the vacuum forming machine. We were taught how to safely use this as it is a machine that melts plastic. The plastic melted and was formed over our clay potatoes. This went very smoothly until we needed to remove the plastic from the clay molds. This was a challenge as we had to cut it out and re-shape the clay so the plastic wouldn't get stuck anymore. Using the vacuum machine we made about four sets of five potatoes. 

We started painting the potatoes the week after we painted the brussels sprouts. Trying to make them look as realistic as possible, I used a bigger painting brush and dabbed the paint onto the plastic making the potatoes look crumbly. Then I proceeded to do the same technique around the edges with a brown to give them that roasted look.

Turkey

During the making of the potatoes and the painting of the brussels sprouts we created a papier-mache turkey. We started of by blowing up a balloon and sticking newspapers on it with a mixture of glue and water. Someone came up to us and explained that soaked card would be more sturdy than newspaper so we continued on using that. We made the legs by bunching up some newspaper and covering it with a layer of card as well. After the outside layer was dry we deflated the balloon and started painting the base and legs with a combination of brown and red paint. Once this was dry we attached the legs to the base. One of the legs fell apart during this process so we decided that we just needed to be careful with the placement of the turkey in our tableaux as well as in the performance of A Christmas Carol.

The Shoot
Once we had finished creating all of the props we decided on a date that we would do the shoot on. We informed the actors when they had to be in the theatre and how long it would approximately take. Before the actors came in we collected all of the props and costumes that we needed and had them at the ready for the actors to put on. We decided that the order of the shoot would be chronologically as this was simply the easiest way to decide who went when. 

Problem Solving

As mentioned before we had some issues with the creating of the foods. These were all minor issues that we fixed quickly and didn't end up being a problem. The only other problem that we faced was that the tablecloth that we intended on using for the tableaux went missing. We found out that it was missing on the day of the shoot so we needed to improvise with the thing that we did have available to us. In the end I used a green velvet robe as a table cloth. It didn't fit fully over the table but with some clever angles I made it look like it did.

My Christmas Tableau

"Modern Christmas" tableau. As explained before I kept the colours very neutral with most of the actors wearing blacks but with touches of glitter. The tablecloth is not completely as I envisioned but due to time restrictions I worked with what I had. I decided to decorate the table with some garlands and ornaments to make it look more festive and modern. The turkey is the centerpiece of the table as it usually is during a modern Christmas dinner. Another thing that added the festive mindset for me was adding the element of gift giving, which is very common for people to do during the Christmas season.

Video version of the tableau

I directed the actors into a toasting position as this is an action that most people associate with parties and the holiday season and put on some Christmas music to add to the atmosphere. I let the actors improvise with each other for a bit to get a more genuine feel.

Evaluation

Moving into future projects I would change how certain things got executed. Something that I would change for the next project would be time management and communication. Due to clashing schedules between us, the actors and other shows our timings didn't go as planned. We could have communicated better with all of the parties to agree on multiple dates for the actual shooting day. Another thing that I would change is the lack of props that we had. Looking back we could have rented props and/or costumes as well. These are the things that I will look into for projects in the future.