The Story So Far ...

Here I have the rest of the research boards for the initial research into the five scripts for my parts. The first two images are those of the research for the ocean liner, the first props, and the second architecture. As with my approach to all of this initial research, I got a general and wide overview of the kind of items and artifacts that would be found on the ship; mainly for the scene where the doctor walks around the main hall, getting a good feel for where he is. Firstly there would be waiters and waitresses serving champagne and/or wine and whiskey, so I looked into various shapes of glasses. Then there's the lights so I searched around for 1910/1920's lamps for tables and floor, as well as looking into crystal chandeliers, which are usually found on ships of grandeur as a show of status. In addition to this there are bits of furniture like small end tables for the lamps and waiters trays, and small dining tables and chairs. There will also be odd bits of ornaments and showy items such as globes and fanciful flower arrangements.

The Ocean liner Props

Below is the research for the architecture for the ocean liner. For this, which as I mentioned before, was quite tricky to acquire images for. The colour images were from a fairly new ship the Queen Mary, which is a sort of similar style to that of the Titanic but it's not as showy. Some of the others are from old black and white photographs of what the Titanic looked like during and before sail. For the rest of the images I also researched into home interiors from the 1910/1920's to get a feel for the environments people lived in and were used to at this time, and some elements will have been taken straight into the ocean liner such as the ceiling decoration and the detail in and around the fireplaces.

The ocean liner Architecture

The next board is for the landscapes of Shakespearian London. This wasn't tricky as such, but research into this was limited, because as I had finished reading through the script there weren't really many instances that called for landscapes to be thought up. There was the view of Shakespeare's Globe Theater looking up into the sky during the day and night. For the day scenes I looked at blue skies dotted with a few clouds, and for the night scene, which is where the witches have used the words at the end of Shakespeare's 'lost script' to summon the rest of their kin; I looked at the Aurora Borealis as it has magical and unearthly qualities to it creating different swirls and curls. For the general scenes where we see an overview of London looking out onto the river and it's bridge, I researched into what the bridges had looked like at that time and found that there were many houses on them and another place for people to live as well as getting from one side to the other. I then looked at night skies which would have been black and clearly being able to see the stars (hard to imagine given current-day cities) with buildings dotted with small yellowy lights from the candles. I also looked at sunrises which also appear in one scene.

1599 London Landscapes

The two images below are those for the Louis XV script initial research: costume and architecture. For architecture I decided to go for a general view on the palace and not limit myself to early on, on just one part of the script; for example just looking at the interior of her bedroom. I especially liked researching this period of time as I love the costume design of the womens' dresses and the attention to a huge amount of detail in the architecture and with everything during that time. In order to research the clothes I looked into paintings of French king's and queens from that and around that period as well as period dramas such as Marie Antoinette.

Louis XV Costumes

The next image is that of the architecture research for the Palace of Versailles. Searching for these in books and on the internet blew me away as they're just amazing, there is so much detail in all the walls and ceilings. The Palace of Versailles, I would say is a mix of baroque and neoclassical architecture; it's features of linear pillars and some simple elements of build lend itself to neoclassicism, while the attention to small details and grand size lend itself to the baroque element of architecture. I looked at the relevant books with one Neoclassicism and Romanticism Architecture which had pictures of Versailles halls and detail, I also took images from other great halls which could also be implemented into the palace. The rest of the images, the front of Versailles, the view from the garden, and a few interiors and the detail of the statues in the hallway I found on the internet.

Louis XV Architecture

The final image board is the costumes I researched for the Pompeii script. This was another difficult area to research as there isn't really any physical sources of clothes they wore. I looked into Pompeii clothes and togas and not many images came up, so I then looked into Roman clothes and togas. A few more images came up on the internet but nothing to base any designs on. So I then thought about the items that will have survived like paintings and statues, and then I looked around for these images to get a good feel for the clothes they wore; searching wall paintings in Pompeii in homes and also Roman statues.

Pompeii Costumes

I really enjoyed researching the various areas of the scripts, costume, architecture, props and landscapes, and look forward to delving into even more research on the script I will be focusing on.