Miss Juia

Brook Proposal

May 4, 2010 at 8:36 am (The Brook Theatre)

Proposal for the Brook Theatre

My project for the Brook Theatre is all about ‘My Town’. Although to start off I struggled to find something I could base my outcome on, I got an idea from writing a mind map about Chatham. Although if im honest there’s not a lot to do in Chatham, we are known for our naval background and the importance we had during the war. 

I wanted people to remember our history, because I didn’t really know a lot about my town which made it hard for me to come up with an idea. It finally got to me that I could do my project on our history and produce an outcome on it.

So my piece is all about brining back the history to those children who know nothing about Chatham. I’ve had a lot of inspiration from my Grand-parents who have told me hundreds of stories that have amazed me; from The Brook Theatre actually being under water, to the Medway being frozen. I also got inspiration from a trip to the Isle of Wight where I bought a ‘Teddies Guide to The Isle Of Wight’ book. This book gave me the idea of creating my very own tourist teddy that would travel back to Chatham to see the many changes that have happened over the years. With creating this book, I’d like to educate not only children but adults / tourists themselves, about what Chatham used to be like compared to what it is now.

When I explored Chatham deeper, there where many things that I never even knew existed including many hidden secrets that just had to be told. So… the idea of my teddy bear is to reveal these secrets as he travels back from the past. My teddy bear is called Barney, and he will be dressed in many outfits depending on his scenery. He will be travelling to; The Historic Dockyard, Fort Amherst, The Brook Theatre, The Royal Theatre, The Pier, Admirals garden at the Dockyard, The Naval Memorial plus the Military memorial and many other places, but for all of them he has a well equipped outfit to match. At each venue Barney will taking his own ‘photos’ to record his visit that will later be presented in a story book.

I believe that because im taking the photos as well as making the outfits it will cost me around £21 to make the outfits as I already own a SLR camera and can print the images out for free at home. This will include the materials for the tops and bottoms as well as the extras like braiding and buttons. I don’t think I could afford more than that if im honest as its a lot to pay out for on creating clothes for a teddy bear.

Barney cost me £10 so my total costing would be no more than £35, so I have an extra £4 to spend on anything that needs adjusting etc.

My target audience for this book is 13-18 year olds, and even though my book is kind of for the ages of 8-13, I still believe that everyone loves a teddy bear, seeing as many adults I know still have one lying around somewhere; also that fact that they are a sentimental object that many people can relate to, so I have no worries about my age group nor my audience. Not only are teddy bears sentimental but they are also a very popular collectable item amongst the older generation and so I believe this wont affect my target audience age, for its made to cater all ages.

          My actual outcome will be exhibited at The Brook Theatre, which will be presented along side all my other class mates work. My stand is in the Dance Studio (which was our chosen room as there was a lot of space, including an old piano and a mirror wall, which we all thought would come in handy when the public have a look at our work.) The stand includes 4 A3 mounted photographs which best represents my work, also my story book for people to look through as well as Barney himself and his little suitcase full of clothes for children to play with. There will also be postcards for people to write their comments on about my piece. I thought that having postcards was a relevant piece to have as its more original that a comment book. Also if people like what they see then they can take away a postcard to remind them of my exhibit piece. The postcards will depict images from Barney’s collection that may not have been published in his book.  The book will have a series of photos of his travels, where history details will be seen on each page, describing why it is so important. There will also be a few funny comments from Barney (in speech quotes), whereas the rest will be from me – the author. At the beginning of the book will be a little bit about Barney himself and what he is doing and at the end will be photographs of Barney and myself along with the people who have helped me publish my book, including the people who have let me take the photographs for example: The Historic Dockyard.

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Outfits

March 29, 2010 at 2:14 pm (The Brook Theatre)

Here are Barney’s finished outfits which he wore on his photo shoot.

This is Barney in his Naval posh uniform

This is Barney’s Fort Amherst uniform

This is Barney’s Naval uniform

This is Barney’s dinner suit uniform

This is Barney’s tourist uniform

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Barneys Photo-shoot

March 29, 2010 at 1:33 pm (The Brook Theatre)

I’d asked my tutor to ring up many places including:

• Fort Amherst
• Pentagon
• Brook Theatre
• Dockyard
• Dockside Outlet
• Central Theatre

But many of them were too busy to answer or the phone kept ringing, so in the end we decided to create a letter which Jan Gloover did for me, so that on the day all I had to do was to show my letter and explain who I was and hopefully they would let me take the shots I needed.

Well, We had feedback from the Dockyard, asking me to meet Sandra Delahoy who is the Education Officer at the Historic Dockyard.  There were a few issues she wanted to talk to me about and other info when taking my photos.

SO…

On Friday 5th March 2010, my mum and I went around Chatham for Barney’s photo-shoot.

My first visit was at the Historic Dockyard. There I ment Sandra who I had met before as ‘Art in Action’  last year held an exhibition there and she was our project manager so to speak…

I had such a fantastic time there. I explained what I wanted and what I was doing, and she let me go on all 3 ships/sub there as well as full access to everywhere else. Although she came around with me, I loved it, and her being there got me more info about all of the surrounding and its history which helped me a lot when writing my book.

After around 2 hours there and also of changing Barney’s outfits, i visited the Fort Amherst, unfortunately to find it shut.

I was a little disappointed because I wanted him in one of the tunnels :

(By the way this is super imposed)

But in the end I made Barney see the cannons and got him to sit on them instead. As they say make the most of it. Im glad even though I didnt get the original shots i wanted, I ended up producing one of my favorite images out of the whole shoot.

Then I parked up and visited The Theatre Royal. It was hard for me to get shots as i had people getting the way of the lense as well as buses and traffic hiding Barney, but I got there in the end.

Then we visited both of the theatres : Brook and Central.

Firstly we went to the Brook, and they were lovely. Let me go into the actual Theatre. As well as some of the other rooms that arent on show to the public.

Central Theatre however werent so happy to see me and in my eyes were quite rude about me visiting and taking photos of their theatre to publicise. In the end I managed to get a shot from outside the theatre as when I thoguht about it, i didnt really have that much info on the theatre itself, compared to the Royal and Brook. So a little image would do nicely.

Now barney got a hell of a lot of attention whilst I was down in Chatham. Alot of people looking at Barney and myself, probably asking what I was doing?.. but in the end all we got were looks rather than anyone talking to us.

I managed to get a highstreet image as well as a few at the Dockside Outlet.

Not only that but we ended up having something to eat and so I took an image of Barney with his food as a finishing image to the end of my book as well as a couple in my car as if it was home time.

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Props

March 29, 2010 at 10:57 am (The Brook Theatre)

Barney my teddy bear, had a few props while he was away on his photo shoot around Chatham.

These included:

• Binoculars
• Boat
• Hat
• Camera
• Flag
• Suitcase
• Reith

He also had a postbox and postcards for the exhibition, due to talking with my client after she said that I would need to get feedback, so i said i would create postcards and a postbox for people to put them in, as its more realistic and it keeps the whole thing together, seeing as you dont go on holiday and write back to people in a book, now do you?

I ended up creating all of my postcards with the images from the photo shoot and ended up creating over 20 different styles. We created 4-5 of each postcard and then on the day they will be placed out for people to see and comment on.

This is the postbox with its 1st layer of paint.

This actually happends to be its 3rd layer of paint.

For the postcards i ended up adding stamps to the back of them to make them more realistic.

I did this my copying a stamp onto a new A4 sheet on photoshop and copying it over and over again till i got a line.

Then i Flatterned the image and highlighted the area, and then copied that and ended up copying a lines worth of stamps. Then i made a full sheets worth of stamps and stuck them to my postcards.

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