Sightlines

As a designer the consideration of sight lines play an important role in delivering an accurate design within the model box. Without this consideration some members of the audience may not have the view you think they have - take for example some structural element of the theatre itself may be blocking. In the original plans there are clear royal boxes jutting out from the front edge of the proscenium arch. I decided it was only right to include these in the model box. (I must admit the production of this element was harder than it looked on the plan.) After considering different ways of building these side boxes I decided to go with a supported tower-type structure - see photograph below for visual explanation.



The slats I produced to support the structure was very time consuming and tedious, none the less a couple of hours later all the slats were cut accordingly and complete. The next task was to cover these - easier said than done. As to the shape of these boxes, fitting a piece of card to it was not an easy feat. I tried various methods of measuring, cutting and bending the card to fit but I finally realised it wasn't going to look neat unless I produced these side panels in strips of card (well the curved section at least!).





Once this was successfully executed I could realise the stage from an audience member's view. See photograph below of view from the extreme seats.



From this I was able to consider my set design in a more technical way, taking in the consideration of blind spots. Also at this stage I began to realise how important the boarders (known as legs and teasers) of the stage perimeters are - they act as a barrier or boarder to stop the audience from seeing into the wings.

After the production of the scenographic model was complete my attention was drawn to that of the legs and teasers. These were constructed from black foam board - angled accordingly to prevent the audience from seeing into the wings. As I had gauzes in my design the teasers needed to not obstruct the positioning of these. The process of getting the angle and width of the legs and teasers was quite a lengthy process. This involved getting down to the audience's eye levels (in the centre and extreme seats) and taking note of what could be seen and altering the legs and teasers to prevent unwanted viewing. I attempted the technique of using a piece of string from the extreme seat position and stretching it out to the wing positions on the stage, although after I while I found this rather confusing so opted for the more conventional method of eyesight judgement!

As my set design was based on trucks I took into the consideration of the size of these trucks, in particular the moving cacti to enable the stage hands to move this piece of scenery on and off stage successfully - therefore I made sure the gap between the legs were sufficient to fit this piece of scenery through.

View from Stage Left Wing



View from extreme left seat




View from extreme right seat