Lion's Flag Stand

Initial Design


Many Native Indian camps have animal hide stretched and tied to tree branches - providing a type of wind brake in and around their camp. I have used this idea to add to the feel of the camp setting being produce and to also give the audience some visual aspect in relation to the plot. This additional scenic element is to reflect the authority and sense of ownership of the scene towards the Lion.

A tribal flag showing a Lion's silhouette imprinted onto lion skin is hung on a tree branch stand tied with ropes. The material to use for stage would have to be some thick calico, that's then painted to achieve correct finish.

For the stage this scenic element (actually all of my scenery) would be based upon a truck. This would allow the nature of this production to follow better (hence all the transitions from forest, to castle, to behind the castle) as the set pieces would be easily moved into position by stage hands or the actors themselves. The basic truck size I have decided to be 125mm high, therefore 5mm high in the model to allow for casters to be safely mounted underneath the truck for the production.

The photograph below shows the truck construction for the 'Flag Stand'. A piece of foam board was cut to size and neatened with a black outer edge of card, this would later be covered for decoration purposes to match the set dressing.



The making of the flag stand for the model

After stretching out my trusty tape measure again and carrying out some careful calculations - I set to making this part of the model.
The flag stand was to consist of 3 tree branches supporting the tribal flag.

First a wire frame was constructed, later bulked out with masking tape to provide the branch type texture.



The wire was pressed between a pair of pliers as after playing around I found this technique imprinted just the right scale pattern into the masking tape to suggest the surface of a tree branch.



After carefully selecting the colours : a mixture of raw sienna and burnt umber with a light touch of 'opaque oxide of chromium' (basically sap green!) my branches were complete.



For the model the flag was to be a small scale suggestion of animal hide - I thought of just painting a piece of calico to achieve this effect or sticking a printed texture of lion's fur onto it. But to go one step more I decided to try my hand at texturing with actual tiny bits of twine to produce the desired effect.



I started with a base of calico cut to size then cut the piece of twine into small pieces - after gluing this to the calico (first with doubled sized sticky tape then a layer of PVA over the top) I realised the scale of the tiny pieces of twine was too large! So I attempted the same process again this time making sure even smaller bits were cut.



A scaled down template of a lion wearing a crown was produced on Adobe Photoshop, which was then printed and cut out with a scalpel and later stuck on with layers of PVA!

Once dried I could attach the 'flag' to the stand - this was done with miniature scaled rope to fit! (A very fiddly process).

Final 1:25 scale model

The Lion's Castle...or is it?

Through text analysis and set ideas coming into play the main focal point of this scene has changed dramatically since the original concept of a grand castle. To communicate this object within the Western/Native American genre, I have taken on the styles of the Native Indian tepee's and have considered the elements within them and have designed some in different styles.

Originally I decided to portray a traditional western tepee, this moved on to being more grand in design developments and finally becoming more 'animal' like. The design I decided to settle with was the one I felt communicated the Lion qualities yet still gave the grandness essence.


Final design sketch
Details: smoke flaps - made of lions fur to look like its mane / main material sandy colours, a fine hessian or calico material cover / tree branch supports / long grass along bottom / circular opening - to reflect animal like habitat.

When the time came to transfer my water coloured sketch into reality (well in 1:25 model form!) a template was needed to be made (now who would of thought a template would be so time consuming) Firstly I had to decide upon a sensible size - I wanted to communicate the grandness of a castle so a large scale was chosen. (4m height with approximately 2.5 m width) My trusty scale ruler became very useful here when working out how big this would be 25 times smaller! And when I wanted to check how big I was asking the set constructors to build I stretch my tape measure out across the room in true designer fashion!

The template of the tepee's structure wasn't the easiest object to figure out laid flat. To accomplish this, mock ups were made and played with - starting off with simple cone shapes and eventually achieving the desire shape to fit my design sketch (During this part I used various homemade methods of constructing this template, take for example embedding pins in a mound of blue tack to provide an anchor for a homemade string operated compass all for one 320mm arc!)


The image above shows one of the first templates. After mocking this up, I realised the smoke flaps (extra material at the top of tepee) didn't quite match the shape I designed - now I nearly moved on and said that'll do. But subconsciously I couldn't move on without correcting this error as it wasn't what I really wanted and designed , so more accurate shapes were cut out to fit.

The overall look I feel comes down to mainly shape, size and texture. In order to gain the right look for this scenic element contextual research was needed to be carried out.

This extract (below) from an interesting blog I found on Native American culture explained to me and supported my design choices.

'The Native people made the American Indian tepee out of an armful of small but strong trees all cut to equal lengths. (Supporting structure to be tree branches) They would tie these together with a rope type material that was made from animal sinew and then they would use an animals hide to cover the hand made frame. (My design would hopefully reflect the skin of a lion / lion's habitat) A door was also made out of a piece of the hide and there was also and inner layer of animal hide, so both sides of the frame of the American Indian tepee were covered. When finished the tepee was an A-frame structure and the top would have flaps that could be opened or closed to allow smoke to escape. The base was also made wider so there would be plenty of room for the fire.

Fire was another integral part of the Native American Indians lifestyle, so the creation of the American Indian tepee was perfect since it allowed the Indian people the ability to have their own fires to cook with in their homes. (Fire - additional scenic element to include in design). The other great thing about the tepees was the fact that they were so mobile, and the nomadic tribes could just take them apart very quickly and move them as they followed the buffalo. (My design would be made on trucks - not only for performance purposes but also to reflect the traditions of the Native Americans lifestyle) Other times the American Indians would have to move their homes quickly to avoid the stampeding buffalo, which would occur frequently since they lived in such a close proximity of the buffalo. (Much like the Lion's tepee appearing within the cacti forest when the father and servant approach on horseback). The buffalo hide was the main hide that the American Indian tepee would be made from, and many times the tribal families would decorate the outside of their tepees with their family of tribal symbol. (Additional scenic element - Lion's flag stand)'.

Now I can leap from this extract and go forward in my research into realising my design for the stage.

Costume Realisation

From my original design for the character of the Lion being inspired by the 'Beast' in Bele et la Bete (A film I studied in the research phase to explore and gain a greater understanding of the concepts within narrative and genre.) I have developed this design to translate the context within the chosen genre better - see design development below.




We can't dispute the fact the main character is in fact a Lion in this fairytale story - this is why I decided to incorporate lion qualities into my design. Despite developing the design the qualities and features of a lion still resonates just in a more stylistic way. From changing a grand, royal outfit into a cultural, iconic dress I was able to still hold onto the 'grand' qualities of my original design to reflect the Lion's characteristics within the play but able to also tune into the Western genre through visually displaying symbolic features, take for example the Indian head dress.

Bible Sheet - The Lion Prince



(Refer to A3 Bible Sheet for further detailing and realisation of costume)

Model Box Production

The beginning of this process required working closely with the plans drawn up on Auto CAD. Working in 5mm thick foam board I used the plans to produce a layout plan onto the top layer.



Technique 1: Laying the plan out flat onto the foam board and scouring carefully through the top layer. Then removing the plans and finishing off cutting using a set square, metal rule and a sharp scalpel to gain a definite, neat edge.



Technique 2: When drawing a curve I found the paper plan needed to be secured in position in order to produce a neat curve. I used drawing pins to anchor the plan in place - making sure I pierced a section of the foam board which was going to be discarded.

Lighting rig
To gage the distance between each lighting beam I decided to work on top of the plans to speed up this time consuming and fiddly section of the model box. I needed to take care though as each beam needed to be at the correct distance apart - this was in order for the lighting designers and set constructors to understand where I (the designer) wanted the cloths and any specialised lighting to be hung from for the production.



Each individual beam was cut and allocated to a slot in the 'roof' of the model box. This was achieved by cutting into the foam board until the bottom layer of board - excess foam was scrapped out using a ruler to create a hollow space for the beam to slot into and to be later glued in place.



Supports were needed underneath the stage floor - this was to angle the front and back face of the model box correctly and also to prevent warping of the black card I used for the side panels beneath the stage floor.

Underneath section showing supports


Double sided tape seemed to work well here - luckily my tape was 5mm thick and so was the foam board.

Taping two sides of the right angled triangular supports

(Note to self: buy tape at the same or similar width of the board as it will save you a lot of time and pain!)

To achieve a neat finish 5mm strips of black card was cut to fit and applied around the edge of the foam board edges to hide the foam.

Model Box



Lion leaning on Proscenium Arch



Now having completed the basic structure of the model box I was able to concentrate on and realise my set design through the scenographic model. I produced the 'Lion' in 1:25 scale to enable me to gain an instant comparison when making the set - this was done by simply scanning my drawing into my computer and changing the size in AdobePhotoshop. I produced the figure to be the representational size of myself just in a 1:25 scale form! Backing it with mount board and painting black for a professional and sturdy finish.

GoogleSketchUp Visualisation

Working with the plans produced on Auto CAD I was able to upload these with desired objects and position them accordingly - working in the dimensions of the actual scale.





















This programme enabled me to gain a sense of perspective and scale within my design.















Figure's eye line - actor on stage perspective





From this I can realise visually that my chosen design concept was going to be 'massive' in scale and it would therefore create an overpowering effect upon the performers on stage instantly.

Revolve stage layout and truck movement

To realise my set design the element of a revolve stage and a series of trucks is required.

To visualise and scale of these trucks at the actual size I found planning with a combination of layers on AutoCAD worked well.

Positioning of trucks at the beginning of scene























Positioning of trucks after transformation
























From this I was able to visualise the scale, positioning and space the actors had between the trucks and on the revolve stage. As a result from using this method I can refer to this at a later stage, say if the director/choreographer wanted more room for the performers I could easily alter the size of these elements and be able to realise the effect this change would make in an instance.

Construction lines are useful

In order to create the scenographic model for my set design, technical drawings of the Royal Theatre Margate was needed to be produced. This led me to delve in the world of AutoCAD...

Working from the given drawings of the venue I first converted the scale of the original plans to work out the actual scale of the stage. From this I drew my version of the Theatre Royal to actual size, then plotted my drawings at the scale of 1:25 in order to attain the right dimensions for producing my model box. Fine I thought until it came to printing the plans...I knew far well I couldn't print this drawing on one sheet as I only had access to an a4 sized printer. So with a little guidance I decided to plot and print the plans in a mosaic-type fashion. One problem when not printing in one section, you have to be talented in joining up the lines (joining up I have found is not my strong point!) To overcome this I drew construction lines (diagonally) on my drawing (see screenshots below) to provide me with a guide.

AutoCAD drawing of Proscenium Arch with Construction Lines
























Plan View AutoCAD drawing with Construction Lines