Costume Ideas

I didn't really have any ideas for how I wanted Ashputtel to look in particular, I knew she needed to be wearing clothes that portrayed her social status and looked worn and lived in. From watching Quills, Kate Winslet's character of Madeleine plays a chamber-maid, wash girl character with the sort of style I want to create for Ashputtel.

The following screen shots show different elements of Kate Winslet's costume:

Stage Design

Moving on from my initial design I've carried on with keeping the stairs in a central position; these will be a fixed piece throughout the whole of the production so they need to be easily adaptable to each scene, I struggled with ways of how I was going to achieve this and through looking at the works of Peter Greenaway and Quills the way I will get around this is not through set changes but through the use and change of colour to compliment the mood of the scene.

The backdrop I see as being like drapes in a plain colour which can then change between the scenes using the lighting to alter colour and mood. (Ashputtels house - drapes in a grey; Prince's Castle - drapes in red and gold.)

Stage Design

This idea came from the screenshot of the Great Hall in the film Quills. I like the feeling of greatness that the room exudes as well as the obvious lack of too much colour but the feeling of grandeur still isn't lost. The period features are minimal, but too the point. The stairs I wanted as the main feature so keeping them in a central position you are immediately drawn to them. The only downside to this idea is I think it is just too literal to the Louis XIV era, I want something that hints at this period rather than is immediately a period drama!

The Marquis de Sade inspires.

I've become quite interested in the film Quills (2000). As I mentioned in a previous post, I have ideas from the film for the stage, costume and colour.



The trailer shows sort of gives an idea of:

- The costumes I want - especially those of Kate Winslets character for the sort of clothes for Ashputtel.
- The stage design - The grand hall in Quills, with high ceilings and plain walls, simply decorated with tapestries.
- Colour - Kept to a minimum with a grey, off-white, greenish pale, although it has a clean-ness to it there is also this dirtiness to the colour palate.

Quills

Bit of a random pick from the library because I knew it was a sort of 17th/18th century based film - but I've only watched half an hour already and I'm not really looking at the story but getting plenty of ideas for colour choices, stage designs and costume designs.

Colours have been kept to a minimum with a grey, off-white, black, brown and grey/green palate being the over riding theme with the odd splash of red - used to highly gory and dramatic effect.

Stage design ideas for the palace, keeping the palace feeling OTT and spacious with just detailed hints of decoration.

Costume design mainly comes in the form of Kate Winslet's servant girl style.

Ideas are floating around, images doodled, just need to pad these out and I think I'm liking the Louis XIV period of France.