Planning the Collaborative Project

Sweeney Todd -  Preparation & Development

On this show my roles were ASM & Set Construction. Due to neither of these roles being design roles there will be little evidence of major creative decisions or interactive moments during Production Meetings. All evidence attached will be when in specific relation to ASM or Set Construction. Please keep in mind most involvement will be during the Production Period - see H22.

During the first rehearsal for this Production it was decided to do a crew and cast introduction in order to communicate our roles as the Technical Team to the cast and let us know exactly who we'll be working with throughout the Production.

Assisting Props - Scarf

During this planning period I was approached and asked to assist props by knitting a scarf/muffler. Originally I was told it was a half scarf, to which over the span of two weeks I was given more updates regaring the driectors vision for it. This ended up with a half knit scarf that had to look badly knit, scruffy and have a mass of loose thread hanging from one end.

I ended up restarting the scarf 3 times and decided I liked my dimensions on the 3rd try, this put me back a bit of time but on the third time I got it done rather swiftly and was easily able to make it look scruffy once it was fully knit.

My main struggle with this was understanding how scruffy to make it along with getting the right legnth on estimate - luckily the cast member was a similiar height to me so I was able to use myself as a reference.

Production Meetings

Due to circumstances with the college timetable and the quick turn around we only ended up having around 4 Production Meetings - 1 of which during Get-In.

The initial production meeting was great for getting a basic understanding for the directors vision. The key points in regard to my role were regarding set and the introduction of the idea for 3 chairs. The trapdoor chair was a key point as it was made apparent only certain people would be taught its mechanics in regards for Health and Safety and with it being a key aspect it was decided to have at least two people operating it at any given time.

The third meeting (second image) was where everything began to come together. The addition that the decision on set was made meant that anyone on construction was able to begin getting a good idea of what we was going to be building ahead of time - even if some adjustments would still end up being made. This is also the meeting that we discussed who would be operating the chair to which it was decided all ASMs would be trained incase anyone wouldn't be available to do so on Show Nights. It was concluded that the chair would be being collected the following day and once it was at the college all ASMs would be being trained on its functions.

The final meeting (third image) was held in the venue during get-in. This meeting was mainly for the director to let him know where we were in terms of him being able to use the set for rehearsals etc. It highlighted updates with props along with visual references to any slight adjustments he wanted set wise.

Risk Assessment and Show Stop Procedures

Please see below for the full Risk Assessment and Show Stop Procedure documents for the upcoming Production Period.