For planning and production, we got split into 4 groups to discuss different aspects of our show. We had one group work on props, set design, lighting and costume.
For props, a group of us sat down with a theatre version of a Christmas Carol and a notebook, We watched over a different version of a Christmas carol and wrote down any props that they used that we could potentially use, this was things like cups or big things like the bed. We then went through the entire thing to make sure we didn’t miss anything. We discussed alternatives incase we couldn’t get ahold of certain things. For example, We use a wooden block to create 2 fire places, a smaller one for the Cratchits to represent poverty and a bigger one for the upper class characters such as Fred and Scrooge.
Another problem we had was colouring, We struggled to find props of certain colours which meant we had to paint certain objects. Such as the Umbrella, we could only find a clear umbrella so we had to use black paint to cover it. Another problem was Budget, we only had a little budget so we had to improvise by making fake food out of paper and cardboard instead of getting plastic ones.
While some people worked on painting the props, others were looking at lighting and the angles for lighting so the lights fit with each scene. We decided on warm tone lights for the happier scenes and then the more negative scenes had darker colours like green and blue. A few people went over some of their scenes to help place lighting so everything was in the correct spaces for the day. A problem we faced with lighting and production was we only had one person working on all the lights so we only had a short amount of time to decide what lighting to use. If i was to do this again, id make sure we have a bigger range of lighting.
For costume, We did research on what they would have wore in the Victorian era and the difference between upper class clothing and the lower class clothing so we knew what to get. We watched multiple versions of a Christmas carol to get more ideas on what to wear and how to style hair. One problem we faced with costume was struggling to find costumes, most clothes now are very modern and it was hard trying to find the 20th century costumes.
If I were to do this project again, id make sure we have understudies as many people were off and we had to change a lot due to absence and we had to improvise. People who only had little lines should learn a few bigger parts incase something changes last minute then they can fill in.