labricoleuse: (manga avatar)
La Bricoleuse ([personal profile] labricoleuse) wrote2008-12-01 04:17 pm
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Little Prince: behind the scenes of the remount

This year, we remounted last year's successful production of The Little Prince with some remade costumes. I've mentioned the Snake paint effect (stage shots behind the cut), but i've also got some images of our new parasols, as well as a couple of the Planetmen.

My assistant, Shanna Parks, remade the four-layer silk canopies of the parasols, which "flip" from green apple trees to red flower blossoms. Meanwhile, i replaced the plastic handles on the frames with nice oak ones.



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I stained these oak dowels and ball ornaments with cellulose dye.
The tiny peg attaches the ball to the shaft.

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Ready for assembly.

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Three finished handles.

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Handles attached to parasol shafts await touchup staining and sealant.

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This is the folding layer of the canopy, with "bone channels" for flexible ribs.
Heavy trimmer line goes into those channels to support the canopy in the "flip" action.

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Finished parasols onstage!

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The same parasols with their canopy flipped to red.
(I need to take a video of the flip happening.)

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Joy Jones as the Snake
Here is the paint effect discussed earlier onstage!

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John Brummer as The King
Finally, a good stage shot of my "King" mask/crown/wig configuration!

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Jimmy Kieffer as The Businessman
Unfortunately, in this shot, his cigar isn't lit up.
It's got an LED in the end which slowly flares and fades.

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Here's the LED rig. The circuitboard is inside the black box.

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Cigar infrastructure detail.


It's a piece of PVC pipe into which the LEDs are mounted, surrounded by a thermoplastic "cigar" shape. This was covered with papier mache and the tip finished over with an orange lighting gel. The circuit was purchased from Cowlacious and then modified--i put the circuit board into a Radio Shack project box (the black box in the previous image) and replaced their 9v battery connector with a more durable one, also from Radio Shack.

And now, we're down to the end of the semester, so soon i'll have some millinery and period pattern final projects to share as well.

Hope you enjoyed seeing "behind the scenes" of this remount!

[identity profile] winterknight.livejournal.com 2008-12-01 10:12 pm (UTC)(link)
I love The Little Prince and you captured the spirit of it all so beautifully in this production. I'm just smitten. Makes me wonder about a career change. :)

[identity profile] sparkymonster.livejournal.com 2008-12-02 04:18 pm (UTC)(link)
The parasols are gorgeous and I love the mehndi effect on the snake.

Really I like everything you've shown about the behind the scenes aspect of this.