Razamataz Meeting- 17th March 2017

Razamataz Meeting- 17th March 2017

I decided after the meeting with Hayley that I wanted to have more of a creative input with this brief, where as with the Maidstone project I had more of a organisational role, in regards to trying to source materials for cheap/free by contacting companies directly. As my main interest is props and puppetry, this project was perfect.

Today some team members were missing so we worked with who was present and decided to start brainstorming idea's and organising how things would work.

We began to start collecting images together as a group and think about how we wanted the aesthetic of characters to look. After meeting with Hayley she stated that she wanted us to have our own take and style with the characters, many we have seen so many times before and in so many different ways.

We decided to look at The Wiz in more detail and analyse the type of things in real life we could base them around.

For the lion, my first idea was to have rags of material from a warm colour palette to make a Maine, and this would give a kind of retro feel to it. But Hayley liked the idea of using a more realistic kind of hair and giving a more humanistic feel to the characters. We liked the idea of him having big dreadlocks to replicate a Maine, and this would be filled with coloured string and beads, all taken from the same sort of colour palette (Warm: Orange, reds, yellows, browns). He would wear a oversized fur coat that would come to sort of knee length. A gold medallion, which could either have the motif of a lion on it or a crown to clearly show he is the 'king of the jungle'. Instead of having a different kind of shoe, which would add expense and difficulty as the character will have to dance. We thought we could make leg warmers from fur and they could have a flap that covers the top of the shoe.

For the scarecrow, we liked the idea of him being a bit punky. I came up with the idea of him having a Mohawk made from straw. In regards to costume we thought dungarees, which would be sourced and then black patches with metallic writing could be added. And then bits of straw could be poking out. Underneath this we imagined some kind of striped jumper. To cover the hands and feet we could make cuffs from straw that wrap around and stick out in a cone type fashion. I also liked the idea of having some little crows sticking out of his hair and dungaree pocket that could be made from felt, just to add a cute little factor to the costume.

For the tin man, Hayley had mentioned she liked the idea of him being more edgy. So we thought maybe a leather jacket and leather trousers that we could source, these could then be painted and textured to look as if they are more metal like and also around the joins like they are rusting. To complete the look we thought a backwards baseball cap, that would be sprayed metallic would be great.

The Wiz was last, he is an important character and Hayley said she wanted the main colour for him would need to be green. We thought a coat with tail in green would make him look more important, as all of the other characters have some kind of modern twist we thought he could have bold geometric shapes embroidered to give more of a striking look, these could be made from different tones of green and textures of fabric. I also came up with the idea of having WIZ written on the back of his jacket, to give him extra authority and make him look sure of himself. As regards to accessories we thought a top hat would be appropriate.  

For Shrek and Donkey it was more important that they look like people recognise them too. Shrek will most probably wear a burlap sack jumper with a leather waist coat and a green head piece. Donkey will most probably wear a onesie made from fur, a headpiece and hooves constructed for his hands and feet. The headpiece I thought could either be made from a wire shell and covered in fabric, or from Reneflex which will hold his shape. To give a slight twist to him I thought it would work well to give the headpiece a fringe made from a kind of wool or material and give little ear hairs. I designed a quick look at these using a similar style as I did for the wiz's lion. This was using rags of material from the cool colour palette, using blues and greys.