|
|
| |
 |
|
QuickTime and the QuickTime Logo are trademarks of Apple Computer Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
The Get QuickTime Badge is a trademark of Apple Computer Inc., used with permission.
|
|
| Filename |
: |
DS_RK_au03.mov |
| Description |
: |
Question: When you first are about to work on a new production, how do you approach the text, where do you begin, what's your starting point? Answer: Oh there are a number of ways you can approach it. First of all you usually get asked by your Director to do a piece and now there's a great deal of psychology involved in this and that is to assess the nature of the Director you are working with and you assess him and see what sort of a person he is and how to respond to the things that he says, so you learn. It's incredibly important because people are different and you can't just adopt a fixed attitude to whoever you are talking to, you adjust and the better you are at assessing the person you are dealing with, the more likely you going to be successful in doing the piece of work that you want to do persuading him that it was really his idea for doing it like that. So, yes you have a discussion with Mr. Director who will usually make quite long speeches because that's what's expected of him because he is somebody who talks and half of it he doesn't actually mean and it doesn't matter but you don't say that and you don't acknowledge that. You pick out the things or I pick out the things that strike me as relevant, important and make sense to me and it is those things I will then explore in my own way after that. Yes of course read the play, if you are talking about a play, and of course you listen to the opera. I have a reputation, I am quoted as having said that I "tend not to read the plays because they get in the way of my ideas", well up to a point, of course it's not true. There is a touch of something true in it and that is I am very instinctive and intuitive and once I have a feeling about a play, I will follow my feeling. There are colleagues of mine who I know read the play 27 times and then not necessarily finish up with a particularly good design but they can always explain how often they have read the play. Well I don't and I remember doing a production of Wild Oats for the Royal Shakespeare Company with Clifford Williams directing and I remember Clifford saying to me "Look don't read the play you won't understand it, I'll give you a synopsis", and he gave me a synopsis which I don't understand either (laughs). I designed it, it so happened down in Cannes because he had a house down there and I went down there to work on the design and I took nothing with me. The model that I made was made out of material I could buy at the art shop in Cannes. It was just fortunate that the play, Wild Oats, was set in Hampshire in the country. That was quite helpful because one of the things I could buy in the art shop was balsa wood and woodland country seemed to go together so with the assistance of the material and the nature of the environment as described in the play, countryside in Hampshire, I designed the set never mind that I didn't understand what it was about, but I did it. I got nominated for a xxxxx award afterwards, which was quite amusing, after all of that and it was a great success. |
| Source |
: |
DS_20_06_01 (mini DV tape) |
| Format |
: |
Quicktime Progressive (video) |
| Type |
: |
Resource Audio |
| Rights |
: |
This clip may be used for educational purposes only, any commercial use of this material requires permission from the copyright holders. Misuse or misrepresentation may result in legal action. Copyright holder: Christie Carson, COMPH, Royal Holloway University of London. |
| Length |
: |
3 minutes 55.02 |
|
Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS). Copyright 2003-5.