Brook Theatre Evaluation
The Brook Theatre Exhibition Evaluation
I’m going to write about how I saw my project develop and what aspects of it all I enjoyed and what didn’t work so well for me.
When we got told about our new project being ‘My town’ you instantly think of Chatham. But then what else? I had a lot of problems at the beginning of this project, because I didn’t really know what to base it on, as not a lot happens around Chatham, unlike Rochester with its Sweeps Festivals, parties and shows. Everyone else seemed to have had an idea and I didn’t really know what I could do that would make mine stand out and be better than my last outcome from our last exhibition at the Historic Dockyard.
We ended up visiting the Brook Theatre for inspiration, and also to help us decided what room we would like to display our work in. Unfortunately only Stacie and I turned up as well as our tutor Claire, which made it very hard for us to decide as it wouldn’t be a group decision. In the end after having a tour around the Theatre, and gaining some history of the place, we finally got a tour of the rooms we would be able to pick from.
At first, we all decided on the Art Gallery room, which the Brook often uses for small exhibits during the year. However once our heart was set on that room, nothing quite came close, until we broke for lunch, we got told by Julian Zane – Heading up the exhibition – that there were too many groups wanting the same room, and that we would either have to move, or on the day do a router so that everyone got their fair share of the space. We discussed the issue, and came to the conclusion that it would be too much of an issue to move our stuff when the other group wanted it, plus our friends and family would have to come at a certain time otherwise they wouldn’t see our work, so we decided on the dance studio. It was light, big enough to fit all our work in as some of the girls had said they wanted a big space, which the Art Gallery wouldn’t accomplish. After changing our room to the Dance Studio, it was all set and booked for our exhibition day.
I was so excited to have chosen our space. But when a couple of the girls ended up turning up an hour before the end of the session, decided they didn’t want the dance studio, and there were a few grunts and moans but we persuaded them round and that was that. Lets face it they weren’t there to chose the room when they needed to be so they get what we decide. That’s only fair.
One issue came up as we all spoke together as a big group although all from different schools was the fact that if we were all organising, do we have the same name, and logo or different depending on your school/college?? There was a suggestion of a competition to sort our logo, but I turned that down saying it was a waste of our valuable time, plus the fact that we would have to meet up again and decide on an image, which could resolve in a huge argument as everyone likes different things.
After visiting the Brook Theatre, I took a stroll around Chatham to see if I could gain any inspiration and then all of a sudden, it clicked. The Dockyard! Chatham is known for its naval background, so I read up on books and also asked my granddad if he would tell me any stories to help me, as he used to work on the ships there. We even taught some of the new students/employees. He told me that he made a lot of friends and that he was upset when it finally closed, because he was out of a job, although he actually retired in the end. He said about the ships were a long time to build and that he used to chat in the Dockyard talk. (I believe it’s stricter than ‘Hello Henry’…More like ‘Yes Sir’ sort of thing.)
Its then I decided I wanted to make my outcome a positive one as most of the girls outcomes were how much they hated Chatham.
Ideas
My first idea was to involve the Fort Amherst, and create a Ghost Story video, seeing as the Fort is the only one left that is in its original state and still used today. I liked the idea of filming loads of ghost tours and getting people freaked, but it wasn’t really a lot about Chatham and didn’t show the heritage. The other problem I had was im film shy, not camera shy, but wouldn’t know where to start, plus I didn’t have any people who offered to take part in the acting. Plus a couple of the other schools were doing shows and films and I wanted something different, something that nobody would have seen in another room, otherwise I could get the reaction of ‘ oh just another video’ and have my audience walk past me instead of actually walk in and sit down.
My second idea was to create a festival mask, however this hadn’t got anything to do with Chatham as I’ve already explained, not a lot happened in Chatham, not anymore.
My third idea was to create a time line, however when I heard that one of the girls was doing the same thing, I didn’t want it to look like I was copying her work and also most of the images wouldn’t have been mine, because I wasn’t born 50 years ago to see the change of Chatham as I grew up.
My fourth idea was to create a uniform that would be fashionable to the 21st century; however I was beaten by the fashion industry when a military look came in last October and lasted for 3 months. I still didn’t want it to look like I had copied, and knowing that 2 of the other girls were designing dresses I wanted something different still.
At this point I got quite confused and ended up having a chat to my tutor, discussing the fact that a month in a didn’t really know what I wanted to create and that I was struggling in finding an idea that would be unique to me. She asked me what I thought of Chatham and my answer wasn’t very pleasant. There’s nothing to do here. Unlike Rochester or Maidstone with their skate parks and history, and that’s when it hit me. I would do an outcome about Chatham’s history. Showing how much things have changed but in a completely different way.
Final idea which was led to my outcome
So my fifth idea was to create a book which would show a teddy bears guide to Chatham. When I spoke to our client Lindsey Strange, she found it a good idea, but thought because of our target audience it was a tad babyish, but I explained that everyone has had a teddy bear at some point in their life, and that their not just there for comfort like for a baby or a young child, their a very collectable item and very well fought for. Plus they would never go out of fashion like clothes and everything I would be doing would be primary.
With that my final idea was to create a teddy bear book for people to read, children/teenagers/parents/grandparents etc and read up on our history as I didn’t really know a lot about the place I have lived in for the past 18 years and I doubted that many other children wouldn’t be in the same boat as me.
With that Lindsey agreed and I got on starting to make my outcome. I looked at many artists such as:
Jatin Patel
Zandra Rhodes
For the uniform designs. As well as:
Kitsch
Jeff Koons
Folk Art
Mark Jenkins
Slinkachu
For my actual design and to show that it was a good idea, and that I would be able to make it. Although it is a bit kitsch, I still loved the idea and thought many people would too, once it was finished.
The first thing I needed to do was to create my teddy bear. Because we didn’t really have that much time, I thought it would been easier for me to buy the bear and then create his outfits by hand, so that I had more time to spend on them making them top quality.
I looked everyone for the ‘perfect’ teddy bear. I visited ‘Build a Bear’ in Maidstone; ‘Bear Factory’ at Bluewater; I even went into children’s stores like ‘Mother Care’ and a few charity places like the ‘PDSA’ And ‘Cancer Research’ but couldn’t find anything that felt right. I knew that once I’d see a teddy bear I feel in love with, that would be the one.
In the end I went onto the internet to see many if there were some on Ebay, but I came across a website: http://www.blackberriebears.co.uk/. I’d never have seen this place before and thought id check it out. As soon as I started looking, ‘Barney’ was picked. On the top page was this cute, fluffy bear, that every time I looked at it my heart melted. In the end I went out for a drive, got lost because I was looking for a store, and yet it was a ladies house, who had just started up the business. She was happy to let me in, and we had a good old chat about my project and why I was buying him. She asked that afterwards whether I could send her some pictures to show have them on the website, which I agreed to do.
I bought him and stuffed him myself and then it was ready to make his outfits.
I came up with this list of places I wanted him to visit:
The Pentagon
The Brook Theatre
Theatre Royal
The Central Theatre
Manor Road
Fort Amherst
Chatham Hill
Chatham Library
Fort Pitt Military Memorial
Chatham ring road Plaque
Admirals Gardens
The Historic Dockyard.
The Pier
My only problem was I didn’t know how many uniforms I wanted to make, and what I should actually dress him up in. I had a long talk with my mum who helped me decide on just making 4 uniforms which could be used again in another outfit. For example, the top of one and the bottoms of another.
I ended up with this list of clothes I was going to make Barney and where they would be displayed:
Fort Amherst – Red top jacket with gold braiding. White straps and white trousers.
Historic Dockyard, Fort Pitt Military Memorial, Admirals Gardens – White naval uniform consisting of a jacket and trousers.
The Brook Theatre and Central Theatre – Black dinner suit consisting of a jacket, white shirt and black trousers.
The Pier, Pentagon, Ring road, Chatham Hill, Library and Manor road – Tourist outfit consisting of black trousers and a floral top.
So as you can see many of the uniforms consists of one or more of another’s clothing which was helpful as I was struggling in making my outfits and thought it was going to take me a good few weeks to get them perfect.
I went out a bought the material in my chosen colours which came to £21+. But I got that money back which was handy. It was then that I had to start making my uniforms.
I had asked one of our technicians, Helen, if she could help me create his uniforms. She told me I’d have to make a paper template which I did, but had to be altered a lot because after making my first full outfit, as when I tried it on Barney it was too big for him.
We made two tops, one was with sleeves and the other was just a polo top. After looking at the two together and the tie scale it was easier and looked better to create the polo tops rather than the sleeved one as because Barney’s arms were smaller than the average human (obviously), it was harder to stitch the sleeves on without doing them by hand making it twice as long to create one uniform. The trousers however, with a little altering were perfect.
I create all my outcomes in a matter of weeks, although it was only 5 days in total, but because we have other tutors and other work to do during the week it spread over weeks getting I complete as we only have Claire 2 days a week.
All the braiding and buttons were on and the only thin I had to do was to ask people what they thought and get photographing.
To help me decide if my idea was strong enough, I made two questionnaires, one about Chatham and the other about Teddy Bears, asking people of different ages, what they thought about Chatham and my idea. I got a lot of good responses although a few still agreed with Lindsey saying that they thought it wouldn’t work with my target audience, but I wanted to prove them all wrong.
Advertising
Because we had already done an exhibition we knew what was expected of us, and this year as a group we decided to make all the advertising ourselves rather than in groups as last year we had so many arguments.
I suggested that as long as we all had the same information than none of us would get better marks than another, and it would all be fair, which everyone agreed to.
After a few months went by and it was February, I wanted to get the advertising out there early as before we left it too late and nobody turned up. They all agreed, however we didn’t have any information, so I asked Claire if I could email the Brook and ask all the questions we had put together. A week later we still didn’t have any reply so we rung them, but in the end I said I was going to go down and chat to them to get the information we needed as it was becoming silly.
I had asked the girls if there were any questions they needed answers to, and read mine out to the girls and they all agreed saying that there was nothing more.
That Thursday I went down to the Brook, where I saw Verne. He told me that he wasn’t the one to chat to because he was only giving us the space and that in a few minutes he was having a meeting with Julian Zane – the organiser of the exhibition and that Verne wanted me to be there present to show that all the schools needed answers and weren’t getting any.
I attended the meeting, and it was very formal. Julian didn’t turn up on time which annoyed me as I had other things to do that evening, but eventually he turned up and the meeting got on its way. I discussed with Julian all of my questions that the girls and I needed to know, and when I asked apparently ‘silly questions’ that I already should have known I wasn’t happy about his attitude and I made that clear. After all my questions were answers the Tuesday we were back I informed all the girls and they were all happy about it.
Until, one of the girls kicked up a fuss (Not naming names) and wanted to ask them herself the same questions I had already asked. I was hurt and I felt used as I had already done all the dirty work and yet she didn’t seem to appreciate it. In the end there were a few arguments and childish behaviour from her, but I just ignored it and got on with it. In situations like these you realise you have more important work to be getting on with than fighting over something stupid.
With that, I created my posters and posted them at:
Asda’s
Texas Moon Line Dancing Club
Invicta Camera Club
Mid-Kent College Magazine
Mid-Kent College Gillingham campus
The Milton CMC Rugby Club at Gravesend
I had also created my leaflets to go with my outcome.
Photo shoot
On Friday 5th March I went out with my mum for the photo shoot. Although all that week I had been ringing up with my tutor Claire to get permission to photograph in many of the places, we didn’t get any feedback so on the day Jan Glover made a letter for me, asking for permission to photograph and all I had to do was show them and wait for their answer.
The only people who got back to me were the Historic Dockyard, who had asked me to wait for Sandra Delahoy, who was going to escort me around the site and answer any questions I needed to ask. When we got there I had an amazing time. I’ve always found the Dockyard a tad boring, as I’ve been there so many times, but this time it all felt different. I got to go on all three ships/subs even though there were closed to the public and it was amazing to get peoples feedback whilst taking the shots. Sandra said she would have never thought of that idea and that it as amazing to know I was keeping the history alive. A few of her team members who worked on the ships said he looked cute and it was a nice idea and wondered whether it could be taken further. Although I was there a little longer than I anticipated, we eventually left and was on out way to Fort Amherst. When we got there it was shut and so I had to make do with the canons which were on the grounds. Although I was a little disappointed in the end these happened to be my favourite photographs, so it all worked out for the best.
We visited The Brook Theatre where they let me photograph and then off to the Central Theatre. Now we had a few problems there as they got a tad stroppy with my just walking in without an appointment. I clearly stated that I had rung all that week trying to get through to somebody but they weren’t interested, so I thought their loss and ended up taking a photograph of him outside.
Whilst in the high street Barney got a lot of attention, although I think people were too shy to ask what I was doing, which was a shame as I really wanted people to ask and get more feedback. In the end it started getting dark and I had had to forget about the Naval memorial as well as Fort Pitt Military Memorial as it was too dark and Fort Pitts were shut. It annoyed me to start off with, but in the end I made do with the images I had. I had to as I didn’t have time to go back to do another shoot.
I started that weekend producing my book. Deciding what information I was going to display, and what images worked well together. I ended up having a lot of information about the Historic Dockyard as well as The Brook Theatre and Theatre Royal. I had finally made my book and printed out all the sheets on thicker card/ paper – 160 grams of A4 (which is thicker than normal paper as there’s is usually 80 grams) to make them easier to read as well as to stand the number of people flicking through the pages, as normal paper creases easily and I didn’t want it spoilt.
I had asked the college to bind it for me which they did and it looked amazing when I finally picked it up.
Exhibition set up and day
The set up was relatively easy on 23rd March. I didn’t really have too much hassle apart from one girl, but I knew we were all stressed out and so it was easier to just leave it.
I ended up swopping places with Casey (although she didn’t know it) because I would have been right where the door opened and my table was actually in the end taking up a lot of room even though it was a tiny outcome.
We all agreed with my floor plan and it worked out good, until the same girl thought it would be a good idea once set up and ready to leave to add lighting like fairy lights to out room to make it more dramatic. We all agreed to meet up on the exhibition day at 11 am to start getting ready to finish setting up.
I was stuck there for 4 hours waiting for the other 3 girls to turn up and when they eventually turned up at 2pm, I was stressed out and angry that I had been rushing around getting lights at the last minute as well as being stuck there on my own, bored.
We did eventually get the lights up only to find they didn’t work, and had to be taken back down, which to me seems like a waste of an hours work.
Once the room lighting was ready we only had and hour to get food and come back and finish setting up. When we got into town I found out that the same girl wanted a new outfit for that evening (24th March), and if took over an hour to get that as well as food. I rushed over to pick up the food and said I would meet them back at the room. When I got there they weren’t there, but a lot of people were from the public because the doors had already been opened.
We struggled to get every thing finished but in 15 minutes we were ready to meet and greet out audience and it was a pleasure to see so many people and the people that took an interest in my outcome.
I had made postcards ad comment cards as I wanted it to be as original to a holiday as I could get and so many people thought that was a lovely added touch, as well as the sweets to get people through the door.
I got so much wonderful feed back; nothing bad to say, which was lovely to know.
I had a lot of questions about why I did my outcome and how I found it, but everyone seemed to just love it. Most of the other students found Barney cute. So glad he had the cute factor.
Although stressed out, I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition and was glad it was over. We had laughs, tears and fights but we all made up in the end which was nice.
Clients
I personally believe that I have catered for all of my clients needs. I produced an outcome that was creative as well as had 2 disciplines. Not only that but it was also reflecting my town and its environment as I had taken pictures all around Chatham. I feel that it represented the Brook Theatre really well, compared to the other schools who exhibited their work there too. I feel that the use of postcards went down really well not only for my Client Lindsey Strange who questioned about my comment book situation, but also to the public as it just added that extra touch. Not only that but I feel that I proved to Lindsey that my situation with my target audience, as most of the people who were exhibiting were our age and when I spoke to them personally about my outcome they felt that it was cute and that everyone likes a teddy bear so it couldn’t really go wrong.
If I had had other clients then I still would have catered for their needs and although do things a little differently like producing more than 1 book, I still feel that it would have gone off really well.
Weaknesses
Personally, I would have made more than one book, as I found my table to be crowed with people and then eventually people would walk off because they couldn’t get their hands on my book to read it.
I also felt that because of the issues we had just before the exhibit was open, that they stayed with us throughout the night, which wasn’t professional.
Finally I would have liked to have had the room stay dramatic with the fairy lights we had put up, but due to the fact that my canvas’s weren’t visible when it became dark, I had to have the light on which ruined the atmosphere. However, if I was going to and had a lot more notice and time then I would have bought or got the Brook to help supply me with spot lighting to help my audience see the images that were surrounding my table.
I also thought that because we had to stay in our room and explain our work, we missed out on seeing other students work. Although I did go nearer to the end, when The Brook exhibition was dying down as we had nobody coming in the doors to see our work, but then it was too late as they weren’t able to talk to us and explain their work, although was a little disappointed as most of the rooms I went in had none of the students in them, and yet we were told we had to stay in our rooms all the time.
Strengths
I thoroughly enjoyed chatting to people about my outcome and getting their feedback, and also finding out so many more facts that I could ‘write another book’; which one of my audience suggested because they liked it so much.
It was a pleasure to exhibit at the Brook Theatre and I would definitely do it again as compared to our own exhibition last year, I preferred this time round, as we had other schools to compete with as well as exhibit with which made it nice as it seemed to bring so many people in to see all our work.
I thought that I had gained more confidence during the exhibition as I was constantly talking to the public about my idea and trying to get their feedback from it.
I thought the whole exhibit went off really well and I was pleased to see other peoples work when it finally died down. Although I was a tad disappointed to just see paper on the walls and getting the public to write on them, as to me this wasn’t much of an outcome, compared to the last 4-5 months of work Mid Kent (us) had put into creating outstanding outcomes to display.
I was pleased yet again that our work was outstanding, and I loved all the girls work, and you could clearly see how much effort they had put into their work.
I am considering writing another book, but that might be in the future some time. Im also considering handing it in to the council and the information desks to see what they think of it and whether or not they would like to use to get people back into Chatham and learn about our history. But we will have to wait and see.
Over all im very happy with my feedback and my outcome and think I have created an outcome that will have an impacting on the public who saw my work.
