AHDS Collections

Designing Shakespeare Collection - Video Interview Clip

- Early Career

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Designing Shakespeare Collection - Early Career
Filename	:	DS_FT_vi02.mov
Short Desc	:	Second video interview clip with Theatre Designer Fran Thompson
Description	:	Question: What would you say are the key sort of stages of the development of your career as a stage designer? Answer: Well, I would say that I was fortunate starting off in the drama department because I read a lot of the original seminal texts like Brook and Grotowvski and Stanislavski and then Meyerhold and then I went when I left and actually started working in the theatre it was difficult because it was much more conservative and conventional. I ended up, I'm really a self-taught designer I wouldn't say I'd learned what I needed to do as a theatre designer on this little course that I did with my friend, but in fact I had to learn all about working drawings, all the technical aspects of it. What I did know, however was how to analyse a text and that I felt was a great start, it was a good foundation because of my academic background. But the actual texts I was working on were very conventional and conservative and so a lot of them were box sets. So I feel that having started off from quite a radical starting point, then I went into much more conservative box set, traditional situation and then once I then, I then met David Thacker at the Young Vic and was working in the round for a while and worked in an ensemble way and that changed again. And then it was from that point I feel really my designs, well I began to evolve as a designer in the way that I wanted to and not in the way I feel was dictated to me really.
Source	:	DS_18_06_02 INT-07 (mini DV tape)
Format	:	Quicktime Progressive (video)
Type	:	Resource Movie
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	:	1 minute 36.16 seconds