Lighting: For lighting we decided to make it fit the scene as best as possible. For example, in Bosman’s song (the villain) his song is dark and mysterious hence why we thought that green was the best option for his song, this portrays his character and conveys his evil and gloomy intentions. Another example, is when the princesses and the rest of the crew get captured by the villain, in this scene we use red lighting in order to portray the danger and depth of the scene. We used these colors for these particular scene to add effect and give the off a bad and evil vibe, we wanted to really give it this type of environment in these scenes so we could captivate the audience and make it as rea las we were able to. When Rumpelstiltskin appears after the twins write his name in the book, his entrance needed to be big and dramatic so in order to do that we decided to make the lights flash almost as if there was great storm when he appeared. Because his entrance was one of the most important we wanted to make it big and over exaggerated hence the strobe lights and the sound effects when he appears.
Sound: For sounds we wanted to add as many sound effects as possible, we use sound effects for the talk show, the thunder for when the book gets opened, school bell and many more. If we had not had used sound effects it would have looked boring and would not have that magical feel to the performance. We also used voice overs too, we used this in Snow whites scene which was set in “Love apple night club.” in this scene all that is shown of snow white is her big booming voice that she uses to scare away unrecognizable new comers due to her past, we wanted to make the voice over as deep and loud as possible so that we could really portray snow whites intention here and add a comedic twist to it. We had to edit the voice overs after we recorded it in order to make it deep and comedically threatening, this makes the whole performance a lot better and gives the effect we need. We also decided to add in a fantasy magical sound in order to portray magical transformations, we use this in Cinderella’s scene in order to give it as much as a magical effect as we could.
set: For set, we painted the back ground on large pieces of card bored and stood it up at the back, we decided to paint little villages on the card due to its supposed setting. In order to represent the different places that the crew went to, we got a 4 sided box and decided to draw different signs on 2 sides of the box, this would make it easy and accessible for changing scenes, we painted the sign for the “love apple” and “cinders tv show” This made it a lot easier for us to to keep the props and setting to a minimum while keeping it organized however true to the script. For red riding hood, we used 2 black boxes and a painted bed frame in order to represent her grandmothers bed. Another piece of setting we used for red riding hoods scene is large jail bars, these are plastic tubes that have been drilled to large wooden slabs in order to create jails bars, these cover the front of the stage. This makes the performance so much more creative and really sets the scene, if we did not have the bars, the scene would have been bland and the location wouldn’t have been obvious.
Props: In our production we used a lot of props in order to keep each individual as true to their character as possible, a few examples of the props are, swords, axe, gin glass, ancient book of fairy tails, a small tree and many more. the swords are used for snow whites dwarfs to show their violent and protective nature, the huntsman uses and axe in order to stay original and to hunt down bears etc. The gin glass is for Faye which is the evil witch disguised as the twins stepmother , this shows her stress and portrays the stereotypical over worked mother, the book is the main prop in the whole performance which holds the power to make whatever is wrote in it, come to life and the small tree is used in Cinderella’s story as it is what grants her magical wishes. The props are crucial and without the correct ones, the whole performance and their characters wouldn’t make sense. Not only do the props bring the play to life but it also helps us as actors get into character, with our props we as actors can really transform into the people we are playing and it makes it more real for us so we can do our best performance and become someone else.
Dances: The dances are very complex, for each scenario we make the dance as well fit for that as possible. For example, in Cinderella’s dance it is suppose to be romantic and very elegant hence why we have included ball room style dance with a lot of turns, dips and lifts. For red riding hoods dance we use dance moves mostly synchronized movements and canons, this adds to the powerful message that she is trying to portray in her solo. In the dance “jail house rock” that is based of course in a prison, we wanted to stick to Elvis and his jazz vibe, this is why we made the dance jazz and quite fast too, this helps portray the prison riots and rowdiness in the scene. In the dance “we go together” we wanted to portray the themes of friendship and romance, so the dance was influenced and inspired by the movie “grease” therefore the dance is full of jazz and fun, fast movements in order to keep the whole idea of trust and being there for each other. In one of the scenes, the crew decide to band together to defeat the villain and this introduces the dance “we’re all in this together.” This song is from high school musical and its about sticking together and being a team therefore, this inspired us to keep the iconic dance move in the shows dance and its one of our main moves in the routine. This makes the choreography more fun and exciting.
Songs: Picking songs for the performance was difficult because we had the princesses solos and the group songs to focus on and not forgetting the 2 songs the villain sings. We decided that we wanted to sing the songs that related to the characters for example, Cinderella sings “helpless” in order to show how much she had fallen in love with the prince and how her sisters had tried sharing him with her. Another example is when Cinderella’s step sisters sing “take a chance on me” to the prince, in attempt to win him over. Red riding hood sings “surface pressure” to portray how difficult it was for her having all the problems and pressure put on her trying to protect her family and friends from danger therefore, her song conveyed her struggles clearly. Each and every song in the performance is relating back to the situations that occur in the play in order to make it as enticing and as clean as possible. Each person has had a dance to practice their songs and we have even added choreography with our songs it to give it a little push to make them as good as we are possibly able to.