Category Archives: Design Acting

Design Acting – Final Workshop – Diver Costume´s First Time in Action

Our final Design Acting Workshop took place one week before the final grand university exhibition called Summaery!

It´s been an exhausting time, since the workshop meant to have the costumes ready to be worn by actual real actors. We only had two days to plan, try out and actually develop and shoot a short performance with all three costumes in action. Friday we spent the day planning the performance/ scene. It meant getting an overview on each character, their presumed “personality traits” and technical features that will enhance those characteristics.

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Next step was, to develop a short scene where all characters/ costumes would interact with one another — Where all technical and character traits would also become clear.

Scene we came up with:

Captain Nemo and his right- hand Crew Member exit the Nautilus for an exploratory mission to the bottom of the sea. While exploring they get too close to the dwelling space of the octopus. They bother him a little too much, so the octopus gets excited and finally angry when the Crew Member tries to attack it. The octopus is stronger and tries to drag the Crew Member aka Diver into his dwelling place. Finally Captain Nemo comes back to rescue his comrade.

We planned to film the entire day with the goal to observe the actors, how the costumes are fit for their character, etc. To get some facts, we developed a catalogue of questions in form of an interview. We have some film footage of interviewing the single actors. Plan is to evaluate and judge our work with the collected information.

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We all were really stressed out and nervous on that important day when the actors came in. Really we thought it would be disastrous since none of our costumes was working quite right. We had a lot of technical problems to deal with. In the end though, it worked out fine! The actors fit into the costumes perfectly. Not just size wise, but also character wise. It was so good to see them “using” the costumes in that way.

Here are some impressions:

 

 

Bodystorming Session

The collection of objects & materials we used
The collection of objects & materials we used
Captain Nemo & the Octopus are fighting
Captain Nemo & the Octopus are fighting

In order to inform our design ideas we made a bodystomring session. Everybody brought objects & materials with him/ her that could help to get more inspiration for our costume ideas of

  • captain Nemo,
  • a diving suit for the crew member and
  • the sea creature.

It was a funny afternoon that enabled us in some points to figure out whether some ideas could work for the final costume prototypes or not.

 

 

 

Captain Nemo, version 1
Captain Nemo, version 1
Captain Nemo, version 2
Captain Nemo, version 2
Captain Nemo, version 3
Captain Nemo, version 3

 

Diving Suit, front view
Diving Suit, front view
Diving Suit, back view
Diving Suit, back view
Sketching ideas for the diving suit
Sketching ideas for the diving suit
Assembling the octopus' arms
Assembling the octopus’ arms
Enlarge the octopus' head
Enlarge the octopus’ head
The octopus
The octopus

 

About the Design Acting Workshops

This three times two-day workshop is guided by Julia Hahn a freelance theatre pedagogue. She will introduce us to several theatre techniques that may help us to develop & evaluate our costume ideas. Julia will inspire us to act out our ideas actively instead of just developing a design & tech concept theoretically.

Dates
Design Acting I: April 25th & 26th 2014
Design Acting II: May 30th & 31st 2014
Design Acting III: July 4th & 5th 2014

Organizer
Interaction Design, Prof. Wolfgang Sattler, Faculty of Art &Design
Human-Computer Interaction, Prof. Dr. Eva Hornecker, Faculty of Media
Virtual Reality Systems, Prof. Dr. Bernd Fröhlich, Faculty of Media