Sports Personality of the Year 2011. All photos courtesy of Simon Beresford

How did you start as a Production Designer?

I was taken to see a production of Verdi’s Macbeth at Leeds Grand Theatre when I was 14 years old, and within a second of the curtain going up I knew what I wanted to do. I was lucky enough to have an art teacher at school, David Wood, who had a passion for the theatre. Over the next few years he fanned the fire, and put me in touch with various amateur operatic companies in and around Leeds. I still feel as passionate about the job now as I did when I first saw that production.

Where and what did you study?

I have no O-levels and no A-levels, but thanks to my art teacher helping me to build up my portfolio of work, I got a place at Leeds College of Art, where I did my foundation. I then came to London to do my degree in Theatre Design at Central St. Martins.

Who gave you your first break?

I was introduced to Vanessa Redgrave who asked me to design her production of Antony and Cleopatra, which opened in London, then went on a world tour, ending up on Broadway. After working for several years in theatre and opera, I met director Jevon O’Neill who asked me to design Out of Season starring Dennis Hopper and Gina Gershon, which gave me my break in film.

Kids’ Choice Awards 2008

Which aspect of your work do you enjoy the most?

It has got to be coming up with an idea and seeing it through to fruition, and the collaborative journey you go through on the way. One of the things I have always enjoyed is applying my skills as a production designer to different aspects of design – theatre, film, television, TV commercials etc. The combination always gives me a fresh look at whichever area I am working in at the time. I particularly enjoy the collaboration with my team – art directors, construction managers, painters, sculptors, technicians – and the integration of lighting and camera shots within the created environment.

MTV Base Africa

Which production have you most enjoyed working on and why?

I normally enjoy all productions that I work on – each one is very different. I very much like working on shows that combine my ability to design live events – the more theatrical experience – combined with my filmic and TV knowledge of camera shots. MTV Icon The Cure, working with director Tony Gregory, and MTV Base Africa launch, working with director Russell Thomas were particular highlights from an event perspective. From a filmic and intellectual point of view the highlight has got to be designing Mike Leigh’s Another Year. Working with Mike and his team was a real privilege, and an incredibly rewarding experience.

What is your main inspiration that drives you?

There are many inspirations that drive me; music, art, film, architecture, or just small moments in life, and the possibility of being able to make someone’s hair stand up on the back of their neck. I especially enjoy working abroad, experiencing different cultures and working in different venues.

What are you working on at the moment?

At the moment I am working on Sports Personality of the Year 2011 for the BBC, up at Media City UK in Salford Quays. I am also very excited to have won the tender to design and build the Olympic studio sets for BBC 1 and BBC 3 for the London 2012 Olympic Games. I am also looking at several film scripts, plus a corporate event for Heineken in Austria.

Sports Personality of the Year 2011

How did you get to design the set for Sports Personality of the Year?

This is a show I have always wanted to design. I worked with the BBC drama producer Nick Brown who very kindly gave me the details of who to contact in the Sports department at the BBC. As co-owner and creative director of Create-Live, a creative agency I set up and which has been successfully established for several years, I was given the opportunity to pitch, and subsequently, much to my delight, won.

BBC Sport - Darts

What were the challenges involved in designing Sports Personality of the Year?

The design challenge on Sports Personality was trying to retain the epic feel from previous productions that were held in arenas. The starting point was very much from the shots. At the very beginning of the process we were given a list of the cameras that the director intended to use. So as our design developed, camera positions were always taken into consideration, in conjunction with entrances, exits, and blocking. This is a very different process from designing for a stage, where you are more reliant on moving pieces of scenery than on a moving view of what is happening.

For Sports Personality of the Year I decided to design flown elements that change perspective as the camera moves, thus giving a sense of scale, size and perspective. This is achieved by a first layer of scenic elements, then a second layer of low-res screen behind those scenic elements, which will give more sense of space. A key factor in the design has been the close collaboration with lighting director Gurdip Mahal and director Paul Davies, and also our long-standing relationships with Creative Technology and Set Square Staging.

What is your proudest professional moment?

The red carpet premiere in Leicester Square of Mike Leigh’s Another Year!

The Ministry of Curious Stuff. Photo courtesy of Ministry Of Curious Stuff © BBC

The Ministry of Curious Stuff. All drawn images courtesy of Jacqueline Mills

Words by Roger Keen

The direction of Jacqueline Mills’ career as a costume designer took a definitive turn when she won an Emmy Award for her work on Jim Henson’s Mother Goose Stories, a Disney children’s production, beating strong competition.

“It was all tremendously exciting. We flew to Los Angeles, attended the ceremony in a stretch limo, and when my name was announced as winner I was so elated that everything became surreal. It was a thrill to stand up in front of everyone and make a speech and, when it came to the obligatory “thank-yous”, I had to think hard to be sure I included everybody!

“On the way back I had the Emmy in my hand as we boarded the Virgin flight, and who should be greeting passengers in the gangway but Richard Branson! He asked me about the award, held the statuette aloft and announced the win to a near-full jumbo jet, prompting rapturous applause. Then he upgraded us to first class, and we sat sipping champagne opposite Tom Jones and his family. Quite a trip in every sense!”

Jacqueline’s interest in costume and the performing arts started at an early age, when she staged plays with her friends for an audience of parents. “I took particular pleasure in accurate costumes, realising that they help make the story convincing. I also used to make clothes for myself and my dolls and bears from as far back as I can remember. Later I found it very liberating designing for children’s programming, because you can release your inner child and reconnect with your childhood perspectives. You feel a responsibility and a thrill, as you’re helping to shape the memories of other childhoods.”

Naturally, classic children’s films had a strong influence, and Jacqueline’s favourites from childhood are Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Time Bandits and The Slipper and the Rose. But films for adults also played their part, in particular those with a well-defined period milieu reflected in costume, such as The Great Gatsby, Death in Venice, The Draughtsman’s Contract and The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

After A levels, Jacqueline obtained a degree in Fashion Design from Bournemouth and Poole College of Art, and she got her first break in television after a chance meeting with American producer Larry DeWaay at Pinewood Studios. In earlier years, along with Mother Goose, Jacqueline also worked on mainstream films, such as The House That Mary Bought, with Susan George and Ben Cross, Shadow Run, with Michael Caine and James Fox, and Devil’s Gate, with Tom Bell, Laura Fraser and Callum Blue. Her mainstream television output includes a marathon run of ninety-six one-hour programmes for the drama series Dream Team and the mini-series The Road to Dusty Death, with Linda Hamilton, Christopher Cazenove and Simon MacCorkindale.

“As regards the way I approach a project, firstly I read the script, then I have a meeting with the producer, director and other key personnel, and we pool ideas. Some people have strong ideas about what they want, whilst others require more conceptual input from me. Then, armed with the brief, I do research and acquire fabric swatches and produce mood boards, paste-ups of many relevant photos and illustrations, which help the ideas to come to life visually. And after that, having narrowed down the options, I’ll make sketches. So there’s a great deal of pre-production work before any costume is actually sourced or made up.”

More recently Jacqueline returned to children’s programming, which has changed extensively over the years, borrowing popular formats from the mainstream, such as the game show. Considerable versatility and ingenuity are needed to tackle the complex and diverse costume briefs of such programmes.

Starfinder was set within a space station and required space cadet costumes, colour coded for each team, plus full space suits for the green screen-shot moonwalks. School of Silence had a setting that parodied a St. Trinians-like disciplinarian school, where noise of any kind was severely frowned upon. The headmistress, Miss Gobstop, was a Cruella de Ville caricature, and Jacqueline exaggerated the actress’s already considerable height by giving her a slim-fitting Harris Tweed suit with high-heeled brogues and a high-necked blouse, which also lent her a prim, 1930s aspect.

Such a suit couldn’t be sourced off the peg, so Jacqueline made it herself. “What gives me an edge is that I have much experience of the entire process of garment production, which means that when my designs are made up by a costume company, I can direct them very precisely and, when an extra-special bespoke item is required, I can tailor it with my own hands.”

The Dark Lord from Relic: Guardians of the Museum

The Dark Lord from Relic: Guardians of the Museum - BBC Photo courtesy of Jacqueline Mills

Occasionally Jacqueline designs and creates bespoke garments for celebrities, and her client list has included none other than Princess Diana. “I do like to stay involved in the fashion design end of the spectrum, and therefore I keep up with the latest collections and trends. Creating a special garment is an art in itself and provides a different kind of pleasure to my film and TV costume work.”

Jacqueline also produced a bespoke suit for Agatha, the tour guide in Relic: Guardians of the Museum, another children’s game show series. In keeping with the Gothic theme of the show, Agatha was a member of the undead, and her appearance and costume had a monochrome, 1920s silent movie-era aspect, employing a range of shades of grey.

Relic was a prestigious production, part of the BBC’s A History of the World venture, made in partnership with the British Museum and shot amongst the exhibits. It won the BAFTA for best Children’s Entertainment in 2010.

Another of its many costume design challenges involved the Dark Lord, a formidable menacing supernatural being who confronts the children, inspiring fear and trembling. His costume had to encompass a range of historical cultures represented in the museum—Egyptian, Aztec and Samurai, coupled with a futuristic Star Wars-like element to give it a contemporary edge that would appeal to children. This eclectic creation involved much careful research, mood board work and extensive design sketches.

“I had the Lord’s headdress made at FBFX, a costume effects specialist who’ve manufactured armour for films such as Prince of Persia and Clash of the Titans. It required a moulded skull mask, sprayed gold, which had to be attached to a domed helmet with tendrils coming down the sides. It was difficult to get right because it had to be comfortable to wear.”

Another interesting challenge was the hooded, cloaked costumes for the Dark Lord’s sinister henchmen. Their all-enveloping black cloaks reached to the floor and had hoops incorporated into their hems, so that when they moved they appeared to float rather than walk. “The creepiness of it was very effective. In fact it scared the children witless, but in an enjoyable way!”

Each featured relic had a ‘vision’ built around it, a short flashback to explain its history. Twelve visions in all generated around forty additional costumes, all of which came from different periods and needed to be totally accurate. The characters included the Emperor Napoleon, the Conquistador Hernán Cortés and the Painter Albrecht Dürer. “Putting these costumes together was quite a challenge, because I had to become a time traveller, whizzing backwards and forwards in history and place.”

The fact of shooting in the British Museum itself provided some intriguing experiences for Jacqueline. “It was a privilege to work amongst such fascinating artefacts. As the museum is open to the public in the daytime, all the shoots had to take place at night, and it was sometimes a spooky experience. When no one else was around, you could almost feel the place coming alive in a weird way and the weight of the world’s history enveloping you.”

Another spooky element manifested in Jacqueline’s photographs within the museum, several of which showed orbs—little discs of light—which some say are representations of spirits. “No other photographs of mine have ever contained such things, but there were many in the museum set…and they say it’s haunted! I used to be a sceptic about supernatural matters, though now I’m not so sure.”

Both School of Silence and Relic were masterminded by series producer Rob Hyde, with whom Jacqueline formed a strong creative relationship. “I enjoy working with Rob because he has an inspired overall vision of how a production should look. Therefore he takes an appreciative interest in the work of costume and set designers, and when we discuss ideas the enthusiasm always flows.”

Scarlett from Trapped!

Scarlett from Trapped! - BBC Photo courtesy of Rob Hyde

Jacqueline’s next project was Trapped!, another Gothic fantasy game show, also produced by Rob Hyde for the BBC. It required careful research into costume history to produce a Grimm-style fairytale feel, reinvented for today. Restoration and Victorian fashion was given a steampunk twist, again to appeal to today’s children, and the elimination process of the game, with the losers becoming trapped forever, also mirrors current adult reality formats.

Each stage of the games incorporated a different fairytale setting, with its own cast of otherworldly characters, which included ‘The Midnight Bride’, ‘Split Ends’, ‘Millicent and the Moths’, ‘The Baby Botherer’, ‘The Witch’ and ‘The Frozen Princess’. In the overall scheme, the sets were designed in shades of verdigris and possessed an 18th century soft-faded grandeur. Against this subdued background, the bright colour palette of the costumes would stand out vividly.

For Millicent’s dress, Jacqueline used pale grey silk crêpe de chine for a gossamer effect, together with a delicate silk georgette overlay cut with handkerchief points, which created an impression of moth-like floating and fluttering when Millicent moved. “I also took enlarged moth photographs, printed them out in shades of grey and fashioned them in three dimensions in fabric, giving the impression of moths perching around the neck of the dress. It’s that extra level of detail which makes a costume really stand out in people’s minds.”

Similarly for the Witch’s dress, Jacqueline incorporated a unique piece of French furnishing fabric, carrying an ornate print of cakes and puddings, which went with the confectionery theme of that particular stage. For the Midnight Bride’s wedding gown, she constructed an authentic Victorian boned corset and an exaggerated bustle to give the costume a striking Gothic silhouette. And with Scarlett’s Georgian-style gown, Jacqueline also employed a boned corset, together with sumptuous silk brocade fabric, complimented with more modern red velvet tombstone-heeled shoes.

Trapped! has just won the 2011 Children’s Entertainment BAFTA, completing a double with Relic, which was most uplifting for the whole team.

Again with Rob Hyde, Jacqueline’s latest production is The Ministry of Curious Stuff, a comedy sketch show with factual elements. Odd and uncanny facts about the world are brought to life in humorous sketches, songs and animations, written and illustrated by Vic Reeves, who takes the role of Minister, supported by a cast of other weird and wonderfully eccentric characters. It is set in a magical underground 1940s-style Ministry, replete with banks of endless drawers and filing cabinets of seemingly infinite height. Jacqueline reflected this fantasy edge in the costume design, going for a ’40s period feel but using exaggerated colours and design features to make the outfits clearly non-naturalistic.

For Vic Reeves’ tweed three-piece suit, Jacqueline decided on a burnt orange background with a large red overcheck, and predictably such a fabric proved very difficult to source. Before arriving at the final decision, she had samples from practically every tweed manufacturer in the country, but it was important to get the decision right. the set, this suit provided Jacqueline with an amusing moment.

“At the beginning of the shoot, I noticed that Vic Reeves had very obviously buttoned up the waistcoat in the wrong buttonholes, and for a second I was in two minds as to how to approach it—because knowing what an eccentric character he is, I wasn’t sure if he’d done it as a deliberate creative choice or not. As it transpired he hadn’t!”

The Ministry of Curious Stuff was transmitted in January 2012. More of Jacqueline’s work can be viewed at: http://jacquelinemills.wordpress.com.

All photos courtesy of Hannah Halfpenny

New technology is rapidly changing the path of the next generation of set designers.

Hannah Halfpenny, from Wimbledon College of Art, considers how new technology is changing her world as a young set designer.

Most students starting out as set designers have been enchanted by the special features DVDs that seem to come with every movie nowadays, wowed by the incredible budgets of Hollywood directors and humbled by the work that the art departments create. My own decision to study set design was made after watching the Disc 2 documentary on David Fincher’s Panic Room, and in conversation as a class it seems general consensus that The Lord of the Rings Appendix is the bible, the weightless fight scene set from Inception was genius, and the visuals from Blade Runner will remain timeless.

It also seems generally agreed that the film industry, especially that of the Art Department, is changing rapidly, not only in the quality of filming equipment, but in the editing and effects software that are easily accessible for high performance home computers. This DIY approach to filmmaking is wonderfully demonstrated by Gareth Edwards’ Monsters (2010) famous for its low budget and 4 person crew teamed with Hollywood effects.

So does this mean that the involvement of a major art studio could become obsolete?

It’s not just the involvement of the art studio that is changing; the work that they are making is rapidly evolving. Whole worlds are being created entirely through visual effects and computer generated animation. Motion capture and green screen means that actors don’t even have to set foot on a set, and through CGI, previously unfeasible cinematography can be achieved without the painstaking thought of how a set can be made to allow for all the necessary crew and equipment.

So, as a set design student, what are we learning?

During the first month all the lectures we had seemed geared towards the possibilities of visual effects and the substitution of traditional methods for digital ones, which – although I was very pleased about it – did surprise me, as it seemed to suggest that the traditional art department really is being phased out.

With pre-production work there are always going to be some things that are vital. Mood boards, storyboarding, visuals and concept paintings are a must-have on just about any movie. We’re certainly not discouraged from using the traditional methods to do these, and we seem to be split around 50/50 for our preference between digital or hand-drawn. Of course with any art based subject there is a limit to how much you can teach, but as well as technical support, the guidance we receive in presentation, interpretation and the development of ideas is hugely valuable.

The design process to follow includes scale drawings, construction plans and maquettes. Although we are not currently taught all software in the first year we are regularly reminded that we have access to programmes such as Blender, Cinema4D, CAD and Sketchup to experiment with as we wish. The computer suite has fantastic technical support and the software is constantly being updated and expanded. My preference in design lies strongly with computers. Once something is built to scale on a 3D program it is easily cross sectioned to create a consistent set of scale plans which is quick, accurate and easily altered. With the design in 3D you can then work out camera tracks and lighting that would otherwise be a long process.

As well as designing the sets, we learn how to construct them. Within this we learn how to manage a budget and prioritise between different aspects of the build. Borrowing, bartering, adapting and foraging is a large part of this. The foraging aspect has been particularly fun, and has lead me to discover some fantastic material resources across London such as ‘Work and Play Scrapstore’ in Tooting, an organisation that recycles surplus materials from other organisations and donations.

We have a specially designed soundstage and film studio that gives us the opportunity to work in a professional environment with our sets and gives us the facilities to host collaborations and large scale projects.

I was delighted to find that we are also diving into other areas within film production. Our tutor regularly arranges for industry professionals to visit. As a result we’ve had excellent lessons centered around script writing, story development and planning for a film shoot. With camera, lighting and editing workshops we’re able to make short films and really get to grips with art direction and the possibilities within set design. Of course by exploring and familiarising ourselves with all these different skills it will help us in the future with freelance work should we not be involved with a larger art department.

So I’m thankful to say that new technologies are being recognised and followed through into the curriculum, not only in the facilities available to us at university but in the teaching and focus of the course.

I’m all for CGI, I relish the opportunity to learn it and believe that it is an incredibly valuable process to the film industry, however I think that physical sets and miniatures create a depth and visual complexity unrivaled by any other method.

The most successful films in my mind are those that use a combination of both and I feel very strongly that substituting models for computer generated effects in their entirety loses the close sense of reality that brings gravitas to any director’s desired outcome.

I hope that as cinema advances, a combination of processes including scale models and set pieces will continue to be used to create work and I look forward to seeing the results with excitement and anticipation.

Kenilworth AM1, 2010. Motorcycle built by Battistinis. Image courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro Gallery, London. Photo: © Adam Scourfield

Words by Lynda Beckett

Grayson Perry first came to light in the early 80s, but winning the Turner Prize in 2003 really put him on the map. Perry was born in 1960 in Chelmsford. He’s a strange fellow with an alter ego, Claire. Wow, and hasn’t Claire got style. Claire likes everything to be big and bold and often pink, dressing like Little Bo-Beep on speed. Grayson Perry is a shocker who loves to produce beautifully detailed works with depth and meaning. He sees himself as a conceptual artist masquerading as a craftsman.

For the traditional museum-goers out there, the whole idea of the British Museum embracing Grayson Perry is unreal. However embracing Perry is exactly what the Museum has done in mounting his latest exhibition, ‘The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman’.

It’s a credit to the Museum on many levels, allowing an ‘out there’ 21st century artist to sort through thousands of priceless artefacts and pick out those that tickled his fancy. Through Perry’s eyes and words this exhibition allows the ancient artefacts he has chosen to be seen in a new light and for the viewers of those objects to enter into his world.

Taking on this exhibition, the Museum is opening its doors to a completely new audience who under normal circumstances wouldn’t venture through the hallowed doors. A 2008 British Museum exhibition, with Damien Hirst’s collection of spin-painted skulls and Mark Quinn’s golden model of Kate Moss entitled Siren, did a similar thing.

I love Perry’s exhibition. The hyper-glammed-up pink motorbike at the entrance made me smile and wonder what was in store.

In 2010 Perry travelled around Germany on this motorbike, suited and booted in his flamboyant style with Alan Measles, his god-like teddy bear. Alan travelled in a beautifully decorated shrine on the back of the bike. He is Perry’s childhood teddy bear, “a benign dictator, a hero and leader of the French Resistance against the occupying Germans” in Perry’s childhood fantasy world.

Fantasy is a big large of Perry’s work, and so is in-your-face, grim, 21st century reality. Within Perry’s world everything is not as it seems at first glance. He is a perceptive and deceptive man. In 2003 Perry’s pots won him the Turner Prize, beating the Chapman Brothers to the prize. Their work was outrageous, in true late 90s style. Perry’s vases were beautiful; however the impact was all in the detail. The headline from the BBC at the time was, ‘Pottery artist Grayson Perry, who creates vases depicting subjects like death and child abuse, has won this year’s Turner Prize.’ They were troubling pots incised with sex, death and the nightmare world of child abuse. But Perry didn’t want to stop there. He wanted to poke fun at the arty types looking at those works. Within the group of pots was one called Boring Cool People. A blue vase with ‘boring cool people’ sketched into it. Perry likes poking fun at his audience.

You Are Here, 2011 Courtesy the Artist and The Paragon Press, London. Art by and copyright Grayson Perry. Photo: Stephen White

The thing that captures your eye when you enter the first room is a beautifully crafted vase, You are Here. It’s a busy collage of people each explaining their own reason for coming to this exhibition. One woman says ‘I had a free ticket’; a student moans ‘It’s on my A level syllabus, my tutor told me to come’, while a middle aged guy says ‘I need to have my negative prejudices confirmed’. Is Perry taking another dig at his audience?

The room is full of artefacts that seemingly have very little in common. There’s an Egyptian carving of the god Bes, two gold bears which to me look Aztec, and Alan Measles. Also there is a ceremonial headdress from Ghana made from shells, gold, deer skin, silver and hair. It sits alongside what to me looks like a Roman soldier’s helmet. Next is an item entitled Bodyguard’s Helmet that looks to me like a kitsch piece of contemporary Japanese design. Connections are beginning to form, but all is not as it seems. The Aztec bears are, in fact, immaculately crafted pieces by Perry in an Aztec style. What appears to be the Roman soldier’s helmet is a piece, ‘Early English Motorcycle Helmet’, which Perry made for his degree show in 1981. Now I can’t tell what is an ancient artefact and what is Perry’s work. Is he poking fun at me again or is he taking me on a journey through his world?

Within this exhibition Perry clearly wants to celebrate the works of the unknown craftsman. “The Unknown Craftsman is an artist in the service of his religion, his master, his tribe, his tradition” states Perry. The artefacts on display are beautifully carved and crafted objects. Perry makes you want to look at the skill of these unknown craftsmen.

The Frivolous Now, 2011. Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro Gallery, London. Art by and copyright Grayson Perry. Photo: Stephen White

Perry’s sculptures, pieces of embroidery and pots, chronicle contemporary life with wit. His vase, Frivolous Now, reflects the work of the celebrated 17th century potter, Thomas Toft. Perry’s lead-glazed earthenware vase is covered in lettering and phrases that depict our cyber world and times; Twitter, CCTV, allergies, cyber bullying, online casino and phone hacking. This vase contains cultural references that are specific to our times and in a millennium or two could grip thinkers in the same way as the Rosetta Stone did in the early 19th century.

The Rosetta Vase, 2011. Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro Gallery, London. Art by and copyright Grayson Perry. Photo: Stephen White

Making the trip round this exhibition is an illuminating journey. Looking at what makes Perry tick is both entertaining and revealing. The guessing game factor is a part of the show. Grayson Perry has a great sense of humour and an admirable honesty. He is able to touch you with satire, sadness, humour and hurt as he takes you on a journey through The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman. Go.

This is one you won’t want to miss.

Grayson Perry The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman runs until Sunday 26th February 2012

All images courtesy of The Maria Björnson Archive www.mariabjornson.com

A tribute to the late theatre designer Maria Björnson
Words by Daniel Vincent

Although design makes an undoubtedly vital part of theatre, audiences rarely have the pleasure to witness a production where it is not the show that brings the design to life but the design that brings the show to life. And yet, this is what the world experienced with the phenomenal success of the musical The Phantom of the Opera, which relies heavily on the genius of an extraordinary woman, the designer Maria Björnson.

My first encounter with Maria Björnson’s work was when I watched Phantom. It was a spectacular extravaganza and a feast for the eyes. The trademarks of the show, the chandelier and the Phantom’s lair with those memorable candles, were remarkable and I wanted to learn more about the creative mind behind the design. Professionals who worked with her and knew her personally have written extensively in print and digital media about her life and career, including an official tribute website www.mariabjornson.com.

I talked to Adam Pollock and Alan Watkins, her collaborators in many productions she worked on, and archivist Michael Lee, who takes care of the Maria Björnson Archive, a place full of memories, drawings and set design models – an intoxicating experience for anyone in love with theatre. Sharing their memories made me feel as if I knew her.

And what a character she was! “Everything was very glamorous and fascinating about her” remarked Adam Pollock, giving me his first impressions. “There was nothing British about Maria. Although her appearance suggested Scandinavian origins, she mainly took after her Romanian mother. Inside, she had a Latin soul, burning with talent, passion and enthusiasm.”

Her life, though often filled with profound sadness, was no less fascinating than her designs. Born in Paris in 1949, she was raised by her mother in absolute poverty, after her Swedish father abondoned them. One year later, they managed to get to London to try and change their circumstances. With only each other to rely on, they developed a very close mother-daughter relationship that lasted until the end of their lives, and the fondness between the two of them, calling themselves ’the fearless pair’, fascinated friends and colleagues alike. Apart from the company of her mother, she was terribly lonely and had an intense longing for friends throughout her life. “When an agent was introduced to her”, Adam Pollock remembers, “she instantly asked: Can we be friends?” On top of her poverty and loneliness, she was born with a cleft palate and suffered from a stammer in her early childhood. In later life this gave her a strange nasal voice. Trying to overcome all these difficulties, her mother worked very hard to provide for the child, and then with the help of the artist Cecil Collins they managed to pay for her studies. From that time on, her career began to prosper and her talent started to be recognized. Her work on Phantom made her rich. However, fame did not change her at all, and if anything, she found it very hard to deal with money. She was not used to it and did not lead a lavish life. Theatre was her life, her profession, her escape and the showcase of her genius.

As a professional, Maria Björnson was an absolute perfectionist. She drew blood from those working for her, but she was equally hard on herself. It was not a rare sight, even after she had become world famous, for her to be painting the set herself, fixing a costume or just putting on finishing touches in the very last minute. And this is the very reason why people loved working for her. Of course, as her reputation grew, everyone wanted to work for her, but even before Phantom, being involved in one of her designs was a much sought-after opportunity.

Adam Pollock also noted that putting a production together with a team which included Maria Björnson always involved more commitment, much more enthusiasm and every last drop of sweat and blood that one was able to give. It was always hard work, but for most of them just working for her and making her happy was a reward itself. Of course, the result in most cases proved that the effort was well worth it.

With one notable exception her design for the ballet Sleeping Beauty was very heavily criticised for making the dancers look small and unimportant. The set itself was majestic and beautiful as always, but did not suit the particular requirements of the genre. ‘Maria always needed guidance, and when she got that, she made wonders. But she was not a creative leader’ explained Adam Pollock when mentioning her fury towards lazy members of the production team. She did her job with 100% energy and could never quite understand how someone could possibly give any less than that. There were particular directors who she did not enjoy working with, simply because she thought they were not involved enough. This is why it was a very important moment for her when Andrew Lloyd Webber let her choose the director she wanted to work with for Aspects of Love. It is not a very common thing in the theatre world, but after The Phantom of the Opera, Lloyd Webber’s decision is understandable.

Image courtesy of RUG/ CML

‘She didn’t like talking to actors,’ says Alan Watkins ‘because she always felt that she was not a literary person and felt uncomfortable leading intellectually challenging conversations over the meaning of a new play.’ Her dedication to absorb all there was to know about the source material was always part of her perfectionist approach. Allan still remembers a Brecht play where she approached him, asking for a list of books she could read on Brecht’s work to gain the intellectual authority she felt she needed for an appropriate design. ‘First thing in the morning she rushed into town and bought and read them all. Considering her tight schedule, I’m not sure how much of that really sank in, but she certainly did her research brilliantly’ laughs Watkins.

‘Though she designed a few plays and musicals, her first love always remained opera’ archivist Michael Lee explains. Sometimes she only worked on a show as a costume designer (The Tales of Hoffman), sometimes she designed the whole show as in the case of Phantom. Everything she touched was certain to become a piece of theatre history.

Was she ever satisfied? ‘Never’ answers Pollock. She always mentioned things she could have or should have changed, things she could have made better. However, she did not dwell a lot on them. Her designs interested her only until press night. By the after-party, she was already thinking about the new challenges she could take. This is how a true designer’s mind works – always dreaming on.

The Phantom of the Opera was the ultimate playground for Maria Björnson. The highly detailed and elaborate world of 19th century Paris let her unique talents flourish. She was obsessed with beauty. Looking at her drawings, we can see how her meticulously researched and detailed costumes produce a striking overall effect as pieces of art in their own right. The design of the Masquerade scene in Phantom introduces a huge variety of ingeniously designed costumes that represent endless hours of work, a perfect sense of fashion and a clever use of theatre magic. She had a lot in store after Phantom and the world was expecting her to make wonders again. She did, designing several lavish productions until her tragically early death in 2002. However, her legacy continues.

Maria Björnson

Maria Björnson always made time in her busy schedule to meet young and aspiring art students to help their careers, and her contribution to the education of upcoming designers continues today with the help of the Maria Björnson Archive.

But it is not only her radiant personality that stays alive – some of her designs have become parts of our popular culture. The Phantom of the Opera has opened in more than twenty-seven countries, and with two exceptions, using her original design. Her vision was reimagined for a state-of-the-art venue in Las Vegas with sparkling special effects, and her work was introduced on a hitherto unprecedented scale at the 25th anniversary gala performance of Phantom at the Royal Albert Hall last October. Matt Kinley, the designer of this special performance, proudly admits ‘when the decision was born to stage the show in full, our mission was to make it more technological as well as innovative and at the same time, we obviously wanted to pay as much respect as possible to Maria Björnson’s wonderful original design.’ The success of the performance clearly shows that they achieved what they wanted. Thanks to Sir Cameron Mackintosh, the show was recorded live and is available on DVD and blu-ray for everyone to enjoy the performance, the music, and, of course, the fabulous design. I am quite sure she still would have found something to fix, repaint or adjust in the last minute, but one tiny detail would have made her smile: the enormous custom-made chandelier above the audience in the Albert Hall had a hidden etching on it. From the grateful producers of the most successful piece of theatre in history, it simply said: ‘Maria’.

The Phantom of the Opera currently plays at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London and goes on a UK tour in February next year.

For more information on the show, visit: www.thephantomoftheopera.com.

All photos courtesy of The Production Show

From the 14th – 16th February The Production Show and BVE will be at Earls Court in London. OffScreen went to speak to Charlotte Wheeler, Event Director for The Production Show, to find out more.
Words by Lynda Beckett

Not having been to The Production Show or BVE (Broadcast Video Expo) before, we were curious to find out why there is the need for another media show in Europe. OffScreen has visited the IBC in Amsterdam over the past couple of years to bring you the latest info on newest technology in the world of production and telecommunications. What could The Production Show and BVE bring you that the IBC doesn’t already offer?

On meeting Charlotte Wheeler, the Events Director for The Production Show, OffScreen was quickly steered onto the right track. “The Production Show is for anyone who works in production from the creative angle rather than the technology angle. The IBC is based on the technology side. The Broadcast Video Expo is also on the technology side but it features many streams of free content and hardware and software related technology exhibitors, and both shows very much focus on the UK market rather than the international. The Production Show focuses on film, high-end TV, and drama production; anything along the lines of Downton Abbey or Sherlock, rather than more mainstream TV such as soaps or Sky news, which is covered at BVE.

The Production Show is an opportunity for creatives to come together once a year over three days to celebrate the work that they have done, to meet new suppliers, to meet existing customers and to network and to find out what the industry has to offer to help them with their next project. There is nothing else in Europe that gives the people that come to The Production Show the type of access that we are going to give them.” Ten and a half thousand people come to The Production Show, encompassing anyone from a Freelancer to a DOP.

It’s convenient that The Production Show and BVE are sitting side by side as you have the creative and the techie stuff under the same roof, but they are separated.

Charlotte explains “At The Production Show you could speak to three or four of the hire companies and say ‘I’ve just been to the Arri stand at the BVE. I’m really interested in using a particular camera on my next production, I need a three month lease, what can you do for me?’ Then if you want you can go and speak to a finance person, a scriptwriting team, a legal team or even an accountant to get your production off the ground, and all these people are part of the Production Show.”

The Production Show has doubled its number of exhibitors this year to 60. When you are on the show floor at The Production Show, you’ll find companies like Vroom with a View, who will be bringing one of their film set Winnebagos, location companies such as Film Florida, Film Key West, and Shoot Latin America, and hire companies. Directors UK and BAFTA are supporting the show this year and that means a lot to The Production Show because, as Wheeler says, “organisations like Directors UK and BAFTA bring a totally different visitor to the show. They bring gravitas in terms of the type of speakers that they bring.”

Every year the Production Show revamps its programme. All seminar sessions are free. The sessions are 45-minute snapshots on a particular topic. For example, this year, BAFTA is running its own craft sessions: editing, filming and producing, Doug Allan, one of the cameramen from the BBC’s ‘Frozen Planet’ series, will be talking about how he keeps his equipment and himself functioning in extreme conditions, both above the ice and under it, and Christina Fox from Urban Fox will be talking about making a production on a budget. Wheeler says that Fox’s sessions are always packed, so it may be worth looking out for those. Shauna Harrison, a BAFTA winning make-up artist from Grease Paint, who specialises in airbrushing and special effects, will be doing a session on 3D type make-up and on special effects make-up for accidents and trauma. The speakers usually hang around after the session for about 30 minutes. You’ll normally find them in the area by the bar.

What The Production Show team tries to do is ensure there is something for everyone so no one misses out. Each day there will be a production, a post, a creative and a pre-production type session going on. No matter what your job spec is you will find sessions you want to do, as well old friends you will want to meet up with. There is even a ‘plan your day’ system on the website for you to organise your day.

Wheeler’s closing words were “The Production Show is a place where people get together. You know that you can come to Earls Court for three days and meet all your peers and your colleagues. People blog about meeting up; there is plenty of space for networking and that is one of the key reasons people come to the exhibition. You can get your next job by spending a couple of hours at The Production Show.”

Entrance to The Production Show and BVE is free. However, pitch up on the day without previously registering and entry will cost you £15, so make sure to register.

Interested in going? Register at: www.theproductionshow.co.uk/register

Madam Butterfly Act 1© ROH / Mike Hoban 2011

3D films from the Royal Opera House.
Words by Lynda Beckett

At the Royal Opera House (ROH), Covent Garden, there is a buzz of excitement running through the air as its 3D opera, Madam Butterfly, is about to go out to over 1,000 cinemas across the world. The ROH’s first venture into the world of 3D filming happened in the summer of 2010 when it filmed Carmen, with the full works, a horse, a donkey, chickens and a vast cast.

The filming of Madam Butterfly in 3D is once again allowing the ROH to open its door to new audiences across the world, allowing viewers to experience opera, possibly for the first time, but definitely from a new perspective.

To get an insider’s point of view on 3D filming at the ROH, OffScreen spoke to Jo Holmes, a stage manager at the ROH.

The stage management for an opera production is a full-on job. Filming that opera in 2D adds complexity, but filming it in 3D adds considerably more. For 2D filming the cameras are positioned strategically off-stage and the zoom is used for the close up shots. For 3D there are the normal cranes and pedestals, but also a Steadicam operator on-stage roaming among the cast and singers. That’s something new that everyone has to get used to.

For Jo and her team it’s all in the detail – the Steadicam records every one. “The first thing that we have to consider when filming in 3D is the ultra high definition. It really is so hyper-real, so close up, that the look of the production is a huge consideration. So for the stage management department in particular that means considering the look of all the props, and making sure that everything is absolutely as beautifully prepared as it can be.

Scenically Madam Butterfly is a minimalist production. A key part of the look of the show is the paper screens which move up and down and slide on and off stage. They’re very, very delicate. They look fantastic but if the paper is not stretched absolutely correctly in the frames it gets crinkles in it that become more apparent under camera. It just looks like it’s sagging at the corners and just doesn’t look very nice.”

Operas at the ROH are often spectacular. The costumes are dramatic and the set designs intriguing. The calibre of the orchestra and singers takes the audience into another world, so what more could an audience wish for? If you wanted to be super picky, the thing missing for those not sitting in the first ten rows is the detail. If you watch an opera on the telly, you do get the close ups, however the camera is unable to capture the intimacy that a 3D Steadicam operator is able to record while roaming around the production. Two huge cranes at the front of the stage are able to swoop around and over the singers to take the shots that the Steadicam operator is unable to cover. Everything else is captured by a couple of other cameras. When all of these elements are put together the audience at the cinema effectively has the ability to wander around on stage among the singers, as well as the ability to fly above the action. Everyone has the best seat in the house.

Madam Butterfly. Valenti As Pinkerton, Zhang As Cio-Cio-San © ROH / Mike Hoban 2011

The Steadicam operator for Carmen and Madam Butterfly was Dom Jackson. Having him on stage is something everyone involved in the production had to get used to. To familiarise people with him on stage, to get them used to his positioning, his proximity, the production team had him in the rehearsal room with the singers. Sometimes he needed to be very, very close to the singers. “For the singers it was a question of spending about a day getting used to the camera operator being around them…We didn’t have the 3D cameras in the rehearsal space. It was really the extra person on stage that they needed to get used to.” The singers are performing with a very high intensity of emotion, as opera demands, so they needed to be able to tune out both the camera and the operator.

“As long as the singers could see the conductor, to have the connection that they need throughout the performance, there weren’t too many issues for them onstage. But if they can’t see the conductor then immediately that becomes a very big issue for them.”

The 3D production of Madam Butterfly was shot in real time. There isn’t time in the ROH schedule to do it any other way. But this also adds to the complexity. For example, Julian Napier, the Director of the 3D shoot, needed to be able to see where the Steadicam operator was going to be in relation to his cameras on the pedestals at the side of the stage. “So the planning for the shoot has to be done in advance by the 3D director. The opera directors were able to run rehearsals as they wanted to run them, conduct the direction that they needed to do, without too much discussion with the film directors. However, there were a few moments when it was necessary for them to work out, with the 3D director, how the camera shot was going to work in relation to the blocking.”

As with any filming, pick-ups were needed, and that was when the stage management team had to be completely on the ball. “Continuity is something we have to consider for a live theatre performance, but particularly for 3D because the cameras have to have positions so close to the stage. For the filming of Madam Butterfly there were certain positions of props and furniture we had to adjust to accommodate the camera positions. But moreover we needed to make sure that everything was in exactly the same position for every time we were filming, so that the continuity for the cameras had no gaps in it. In a live performance we endeavour to make sure that everything is in the right place every time, but if something isn’t quite where it should be, it’s not so much of a continuity disaster as if something were just a few centimetres off its marks for the 3D cameras.”

So what does the filming of Madam Butterfly in 3D give you that normal 2D doesn’t? “It brings the audience practically onstage. You’re getting even closer with the 3D experience to the performers than you could ever possibly be in the auditorium, sitting in the seats that are closest to the orchestra pit. So it’s really, for the audience, like being invited into the rehearsal space. The only equivalent experience I can think of is sitting in the rehearsal space and having a singer, well, they’re all 2 or 3 feet away from you. That’s the excitement for the audience, it’s feeling that they are right next to the performer, experiencing the emotion absolutely full-on, which just brings it alive in a way that perhaps 2-dimensional filming doesn’t quite do.”

Madam Butterfly in 3D will be in a cinema near you from Monday 5th March 2012.

How did you get started as a Production Designer?
My first job as Production Designer was on a series of Children’s Film Foundation films, some thirty years ago, for Saturday morning cinema, where I was single-handedly Location Manager and the entire Art Department! This was invaluable experience and was shortly followed by the opportunity to design ‘Hawk the Slayer’, one of the earliest of the ‘Sword and Sorcery’ genre.

Is Production Designer what you always imagined you would do?
Originally I had wanted to be a yacht designer.

Where and what did you study?
I studied Civil Engineering at Southampton University, a course that included making technical drawings of the bridges that we had to design. My mother had trained as an architect before becoming a stage designer and my father was an actor; that undoubtedly contributed to my desire to design for film after I graduated.

Who gave you your first break? What TV show/film was it on?
My first job was on a Boulting Brothers film at Shepperton Studios, then owned by British Lion. It was a psychological drama called ‘The Twisted Nerve’, directed by Roy Boulting and produced by John Boulting, starring Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett. I was introduced to an Art Director who was looking for an Art Department Assistant, and as the job had been advertised it meant that I could apply for a union card, which was then a requirement.

The Solar Café - The Prisoner

Which aspect of your work do you most enjoy?
I find all aspects of it are great fun but the initial location searches with the Director are both helpful and rewarding as ideas get put together. Travelling through wild areas of Australia with Bill Douglas on ‘Comrades’ was memorable, as was walking over vast Dunes in Namibia with Nick Hurran on ‘The Prisoner’. But no less so, was searching for locations to film the House of Commons with Stephen Frears for ‘The Deal’ or visiting the House of Lords with Tom Hooper on ‘Longford’.

Tolpuddle High Street - Comrades

What is the most challenging part of your job?
Every production presents its own difficulties, but the overriding challenge is extracting the maximum in design terms within the constraint of the budget.

What is the main inspiration that drives you?
It must be creating a believable world in which to set the film, whether it is surreal or our own. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to recreate real places and events, and there is a responsibility to create the right character and emotion. To do this, it is of great help to meet people who were actually involved or are experts on the subject. On ‘The Krays’, the twins’ elder brother was technical adviser. He was full of alarming stories about his gangster siblings.

I met Derek Bentley’s sister when making ‘Let Him Have It’, a sad story, in 1952, of a boy hanged although he didn’t commit the murder. As a film maker you can be granted access to many places you would not normally be allowed to visit and as the set of an execution chamber was required, I was allowed to go and see the only one left, in Wandsworth Prison, which added a harsh reality to the design.

Withnail & I is a cult classic. What drew you to being the Production Designer on this film?
The script was amazing, a masterly piece of writing, and it was hard not to laugh out loud when reading it. Bruce Robinson, the writer and director, was amazed that I found the actual cottage he had stayed in and which had inspired some of the scenes. Through the window I saw the oven into which the boots and the poor chicken had actually been put. The location we used was more dramatically set, but the original, owned by a farmer called Parkin of Ravens Cragg farm, was surrounded by grass with no track leading to it, which is why the Jaguar gets stuck. There are many wonderful things to be said about this film, but we have to thank George Harrison for backing it through his company, Handmade Films.

Uncle Monty's Cottage - Withnail & I

When did you first become interested in Doctor Who?
I can remember watching Doctor Who when William Hartnell was the first Doctor and my father appearing as Sir Charles Summer in ‘Dr Who and the War Machines’. From the outset it held a fascination as it could draw a sense of fear from everyday surroundings.

Behind the Tesselector eyeball - Doctor Who - Let’s Kill Hitler

How did you get the gig on Doctor Who and why did you accept the job?
I was delighted to be asked to work as Production Designer on Dr Who and to have the opportunity of designing such a wide variety of sets in each story. The scope is enormous and challenging, how could I have possibly not accepted the job!

What was your first episode of Doctor Who as Production Designer?
It was last year’s Christmas Special, when I was launched into the alternative world of Kazran, with his gargantuan palace, Sardicktown, cryochamber and of course a spaceship.

How does the whole process of set designing for Doctor Who begin?
After reading the script I talk it over with the Director and Producer to get the idea of what is wanted and sort out what should be shot on lotion and what sets we should build in the studio. This will be followed by a Tone meeting with all the Producers, Writer and Heads of Department, where concept drawings and photographs are shown and discussed so everyone will know what to do.

How do you make sets and locations that are so particular to Doctor Who?
Deciding upon which location to use is extremely important, whether it is a fantastic building, a forest or a field. You have to match the emotion of the story with the emotion created by the location. With a set you can create exactly the image you require, which is easier in one way but you have to invent the answer. The sets and locations should create the right ambience for what is about to happen. The use of a steel works in Newport was a particularly good choice for Sardicktown, Dyrham Park made an excellent dolls house and the Millennium Centre was perfect for the ‘Girl Who Waited’. Using South Wales’ medieval castles gave a brutal reality to the Acid Monastery.

Which episode have you most enjoyed designing in this series of Doctor Who?
It is hard to say as all the episodes have had their challenges but I found designing the pirate story was particularly fun as it had to fulfil everyone’s idea of what such a boat should look like. I had to remember back to what I would have expected as a child. Dressing the set was great fun and creating the hanging hospital posed some interesting problems.

The Captain's Cabin - Doctor Who - The Curse of the Black Spot

Do you mutate sets from one episode to another?
In these days of financial stricture it is very useful to be able to turn one set, or part of it, into another. The White House Oval Office set became The Acid Well, The Birthing Chamber and ultimately part of the space hospital in the Pirate episode, before being finally taken down.

You have worked on lots of historical dramas. How does that help with designing sets for Doctor Who?
Historical dramas have been of great use as the good Doctor often finds himself in different periods of British history. When such scenes live up to the standard of good historical dramas the science fiction sequences become more believable. I have always liked history and enjoy creating historical sets.

How do you keep the series at the very cutting edge of design?
With such worldwide interest in Doctor Who, I do feel a great sense of responsibility and it is important to make all the sets as intriguing as possible.

What can you tell us about the set design on the Doctor Who Christmas Special?
I wouldn’t want to spoil it so I can’t say much about the coming Christmas Special, except that it is a magical story that I am sure everyone will enjoy.

Do you have a particular Doctor Who villain that you enjoy designing sets for?
From the first days, I was both amazed by the improbability of the Daleks and very impressed by the terror they transmitted. Up to now I have only had to create part of a wrecked Dalek space ship so I would welcome the opportunity of having to design more.

What are you working on at the moment?
At the moment I am working on designs for the next series of Doctor Who.

What is your proudest professional moment?
Being nominated for a BAFTA for ‘Longford’ was indeed a proud moment and there is a sense of pride on behalf of your Art Department. On ‘Cruel Train’ I had to build a full size railway system in a very large disused turbine shed, complete with platforms, level crossing, signal box and a tunnel, not to mention two steam engines and several carriages. There was a great sense of satisfaction to see it all working.

Victoria Station - Cruel Train

If you could choose to work on a certain TV or film genre, which would it be?
I have worked in most if not all genres, in both film and television. Doctor Who manages to combine all the genres but if asked which particular genre I would choose, I would have to say that I would welcome whatever the future may hold.

Sarah Lamb as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker. Photo ROH, Johan Persson

This Christmas Sir Peter Wright will be the producer and choreographer of not one but two versions of The Nutcracker in London. Curious to find out more OffScreen went in search of Sir Peter. Words by Lynda Beckett

We arranged to meet Sir Peter at the Royal Opera House to find out more about the two productions. One will be a traditional performance at The Royal Opera House, the other will be a more dramatic version in the less familiar setting of the O2 Centre, in Greenwich, London.

The Nutcracker premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg on 16th December, 1892. The Imperial Ballet performed a lavish two-act ballet, choreographed by Lev Ivanov and Marius Petipa, for the pleasure of the Tsar and court. Tchaikovsky composed the score during the Romantic era, late in his life. The storyline for the ballet was adapted from Hoffmann’s, ‘The Nutcracker and the Mouse King’. Hoffmann was a German fantasy and horror author and his story was a dark and sinister tale. Tchaikovsky’s ballet removes much of the darkness.

Getting The Nutcracker ballet into Europe wasn’t an easy task. Russian emigrees initially brought it to the West in small pieces tucked in ballets, such as Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. However by the mid 20th century the full-length version of the ballet had become a staple for ballet companies in the West and especially in those countries that celebrate Christmas. In 1934 the Vic-Wells Ballet staged the first complete performance of The Nutcracker in London. It was based on choreographic notations that had been smuggled out of Russia.

Sir Peter’s first production of The Nutcracker was 27 years ago for the Royal Ballet, and was performed at the Royal Opera House. This production was a traditional interpretation and it is still being performed, albeit with many changes. It is this interpretation that you will see at the Royal Opera House this Christmas. He created a second production, a dramatic interpretation for the Birmingham Royal Ballet, 21 years ago. This interpretation will be performed at the O2, in London.

Everyone loves going to the ballet at Christmas. It has a ‘feel good factor’ and The Nutcracker is the perfect ballet to enchant the whole family. As Sir Peter explains ‘Hoffmann’s story is a complicated and difficult one, however it is very inspirational and sparks off wonderful ideas.’ The general format of the story remains the same with every production, however the Birmingham Royal Ballet focuses much more on Clara’s dream/nightmare, whereas at the Royal Opera House Drosselmeyer and his nephew lead the production.

The storyline used at the Royal Opera House goes something like this. Drosselmeyer, a maker of mechanical dolls and a magician, is in his workshop making a Christmas Angel for the Stahlbaum family Christmas tree. On the wall is a picture of Drosselmeyer’s nephew, Hans-Peter, who has been transformed into a nutcracker soldier doll by the evil Mouse King.

Drosselmeyer goes to the Stahlbaums’ Christmas Eve party where the family are celebrating with friends. He performs magic tricks to entertain everyone and eventually gives Clara the nutcracker. She immediately falls in love with it.

Ludovic Ondiviela and Elizabeth Harrod in The Nutcracker. Photo ROH, Johan Persson

After the party Clara awakes and creeps downstairs in search of the nutcracker. Drosselmeyer appears and makes the Christmas tree, toy fort and doll’s house grow to massive proportions, before the room transforms into a battleground for mice and toy soldiers. The Mouse King appears and attacks the nutcracker doll. Clara kills the Mouse King with her shoe and the nutcracker turns back into Hans-Peter.

To celebrate Clara’s bravery, Drosselmeyer sends her and Hans-Peter on a journey through the Land of Snow to the glittering Sugar Garden of the Kingdom of Sweets where they are met by the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince. Hans-Peter tells the Sugar Plum Fairy of their adventures, before they join in the wonderful entertainment organised by Drosselmeyer. The festivities come to a close and Clara finds herself on the snowy street outside her home, where she meets a handsome young man. It is Hans-Peter who then enters Drosselmeyer’s workshop, the spell having been broken.

As you can imagine, producing a well-known ballet has its own challenges, if you want to produce something close to the original storyline. ‘When you produce a ballet like Nutcracker which already exists, you first decide what of the original choreography you will use. In The Nutcracker there is very little that still exists. Then you make your plan, you have to make a choreographic pattern. You need first and foremost to make a structure. The music sets the whole thing. The Tchaikovsky score is absolutely magnificent.’

What does exist from the original is the grand pas de deux, between the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince, in the last act. ‘Other pieces that still exist, which I use, are the Chinese Dance and The Dance of the Mirlitons. When I first did Nutcracker, Professor Roland John Wiley went to Russia and found the notations of The Dance of the Snowflakes. The piece was for 61 girls. The notations were all floor patterns with one basic step, waltzing, waltzing, waltzing, in and out. I used that as a basis and then I re-choreographed it. In all of the productions I have done, I always try to be true to the originators, to honour the creators and be true to them. But one has to also think as time changes, audiences change, the way that things are done changes and dancer’s techniques change. All are very different to the setting of the original work. You have to move with the times.’

Sir Peter loves theatre and thinks the most important thing that the audience is able to relate to is what is happening on stage. Will what he is producing keep them absolutely fascinated?

‘Before I can go any further, getting the design right is important. Actually that to me is the most important of all, apart from the music. The music is number one, two I would say is the design.’ He works very closely with the designer. ‘That takes quite a long time.’

Sir Peter’s original production at Covent Garden was designed by Julia Trevelyan Oman, who at that time was mainly a television designer. Her design went very much with the traditional German, Edwardian-style decoration – the picture postcard – what everybody imagines as a traditional German household’s Christmas.

‘There aren’t rules about how you come together with your ideas, the important thing is that it has to make the choreography work for the dancers. It is no good having a very interesting stage, on different levels, expecting the dancers to dance on them. That is the hardest thing for the designer. Usually you have got to leave a 40ft square for the dance and then make it interesting around the edges, which is hard, very hard. But of course in certain scenes it doesn’t have to be like that.

The Nutcracker. Photo ROH, Johan Persson

‘The audience comes to the ballet primarily to see the dancing. The production has to enhance that, so you have to get the set right for the dancers whatever else is happening. But experienced designers understand that you have to have a circle or a square with a diagonal to achieve your basic patterns.’

Great examples of theatre in both of the productions are the transformation scene, particularly when the Christmas tree grows and the living room changes scale. ‘Here at the Royal Opera House the big transformation scene is absolutely remarkable, because the Christmas tree that is quite small at the back of the stage, grows and grows out of the floor to the height of 40ft.’ The aim of the production was to use the stage and its versatility in full, and to play with the size of the stage and use the mechanics within to full effect. The tree grows to spectacular proportions. It starts off actually three levels down, so that you just see the tip of it. And then when the lift at the back of the stage brings the tree up, it takes over the entire stage. At the same time the walls also change and the toy fort and dolls house become big enough for life-size dancers. Sir Peter remarks, ‘It can only be done at the Royal Opera House; it could never be done at the O2 Centre because they haven’t got the depth beneath the stage.’

At the O2 Centre, the audience will see the production that John Macfarlane designed for the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Sir Peter loves his work. ‘John is totally involved in the story which is spectacular and magical. He has a wonderful sense of theatre’. His designs are painterly and abstract. In this production John had to be very inventive about how he did the transformation scene because he didn’t have the mechanisms, traps and space of the Royal Opera House. In the Birmingham Royal Ballet production whole walls turn as Clara stands in the middle of the stage. The Christmas tree starts to grow on one side of the stage. At the same time huge branches come in from the side and from above. The fireplace becomes massive. King Mouse (a rat in this production) appears out of it, followed by a hoard of rats ready to fight in what is now a battlefield. The combination of all this happening at once is magical.

Sir Peter hopes that huge audiences will attend the six performance run at the O2 Centre. The O2 Centre is a vast empty space, so the production team has to build a complete proscenium arch with all the lighting bars and the grids to fly scenery up and down. Building a proscenium arch creates a problem with sight lines. With this in mind a couple of things have been planned. ‘There will be a thrust stage in front, so that everything can be brought out beyond the proscenium arch and eighty strong orchestra. This will give more people the ability to see everything. That means that most of the choreography will have to be adapted to bring it further forward, especially the big scenes involving the corps de ballet’.

Four cameras will film the complete production. The footage will be cut live and transmitted onto a huge screen above the stage. So, way back in the rafters, the audience will be able to see in detail the faces and footwork of the dancers and then can look back at the stage to see the whole ballet.

With a lot of careful planning, Peter thinks the filming of the ballet can be turned to the production’s advantage. ‘I think that this is going to be very special because there is so much happening in Nutcracker; the magician does amazing tricks and there are remote control rats running all over the floor. But the cameras can’t get too close or they will give away the tricks with all the little wires. This is all under the supervision of Ross MacGibbon, the famous television dance director’.

Because of the time needed for the build and the O2 Centre being used for other things, by the time the company goes to the O2 Centre they won’t get a week’s rehearsal there. As far as the dancers and the orchestra are concerned, they have two days to get it all done. ‘We are going to rehearse in Birmingham in a large space with a mock-up of how it will be at the O2’. The company will have a week in Birmingham to prepare. They will travel down to London and have a full rehearsal in the afternoon and another rehearsal in the evening. The next day will be the opening night following a full dress rehearsal with the orchestra. Turnabout for both productions is fast. At the Royal Opera House they get slightly more rehearsal time, but there are ten different casts for the principals, they need every moment available.

Because it is a Christmas ballet, The Nutcracker draws a young family audience. Sir Peter hopes that the production at the O2 Centre will inspire a lot of new people to go to the ballet at Covent Garden, Sadler’s Wells and the Coliseum. His aim is to make sure that the quality of both productions is the best that can possibly be achieved.

The Nutcracker, Andrea Tredinnick, Tyrone Singleton and Artists of Birmingham Royal Ballet in the 'Arabian Dance'. Photo courtesy of Roy Smiljanic

The Nutcracker will be performed at the Royal Opera House on:
3, 23, 28 December, 3, 14 January at 7pm
5, 7, 13, 29, 30 December, 7, 11, 18 January at 7.30pm
20, 31 December at 12.30pm
24 December, 2 January at 12 noon
11, 18, 23, 28 December, 3, 14 January at 2pm
7 January at 2.30pm
31 December at 5.30pm

And at The 02 Centre on:
27, 28, 30 December at 7.30pm
28, 29, 30 December at 2.00pm

Postmodernism - Style and Subversion. 1970-1990 © V&A Images

Postmodernism, will we ever get an answer to what it is?
Words by Lynda Beckett

Postmodernism is said to be the most controversial of the all the art movements. I can only presume this is because it is so difficult to define, however ‘style’ and ‘subversion’ are a good place to start.

So, on a crazy-warm evening in early autumn a friend and I went to try and get our heads around Postmodernism at the V&A. Hundreds of people were hanging around the bar in the entrance hall, and in the quadrangle beside the stylish and beautifully lit paddling pool, drinking cocktails. I must admit the thought of cocktails was tempting, however the queue was five deep, so we decided to go and tackle ‘Postmodernism’. We wanted to see if we could get our heads around this subversive and amorphous art movement.

The opening piece of work was ‘Destruction of Lassú chair’ (1974). A replica of a beautifully crafted wooden chair by Alessandro Mendini sat on some wooden steps. A photomontage of the original chair and steps being burnt, in a disused quarry, was projected above the replica chair and steps. I wasn’t sure about the symbolism of this piece. Was it capturing a moment in time, a phoenix rising from the ashes, postmodernism about to enter the world, or was it simply an anarchic act?

Next came the artist and architect Ettore Sottsass. It looked like he had been inspired by Bertie Bassett and made totems from oversized liquorice allsorts. The totems made me smile, they were fun, however they looked more like something out of the Pop Art movement, and at first glance had very little to do with postmodernism. Then to my horror virtually the whole room turned into a display of architectural drawings with only a couple of models of houses and some teapots incased in glass. It had all become a little to 2D for my liking.

Yes this exhibition is subversive, but not in the way I think the curators intended it to be. It was subversive because I was in a gallery looking at drawings and objects and I didn’t have a clue as to what was going on, and neither did anyone else as far as I could see. I needed a bit of an overview of postmodernism with objects and works from artists and designers that I was more familiar with. I was finding it difficult to connect to anything. I thought the postmodernist movement kicked off in the early to mid 20th century with the French philosophers and writers, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard and Michel Foucault, but there is no mention of them here. The subversion had definitely started.

In this exhibition the V&A has chosen to focus on the ‘Postmodernism’ movement that started in the 1970s. Just after the fall of modernism. It explains that on the 15th March 1972 at 3.22pm, the historian Charles Jencks declared modernism dead when the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St Louis, Missouri, was dynamited. Just deserts, as far as I am concerned, the Pruitt-Igoe housing project was a hideous bunch of modernist high-rise buildings comprising thirty-three, eleven-story rectangular concrete building on a 35-acre site. So, this is ‘the end’ of modernism, but what about Postmodernism? I needed to know more.

Few academics seem willing to define Postmodernism. And fewer have written anything that us mere mortals are ever going to be able to understand. Other art movements in the 20th century have been much easier to define; Impressionism by Monet’s water lilies and haystacks, Cubism by Picasso’s naked women and Surrealism by Dali’s melting watch and Duchamp’s urinal. Postmodernism as yet doesn’t seem to have seminal pieces of work that define the movement, but there are contenders – Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons are in the running.

The height of postmodernism, or ‘po-mo’ as it is affectionately called, was during the 80s and the early 90s. Warhol and Koons captured the consumer’s desire for wealth and power of the 80s. Society was infatuated with money and so was the art world. Warhol was literally printing money in the early 80s with his Dollar Sign series of paintings and drawings. One of his silkscreened dollar signs is here. So is Koons’ trademark silver-coloured bust of French King Louis XIV. The beautiful bust reflected the fascination with consumer desire, affluence, and power of the 80s. The Daily Telegraph describes it as “a glittering totem of capitalist kitsch”. Koons wanted the bust to look expensive. He loves shiny. It’s actually made of polished steel, but could so easily have been cast in silver. It stands as proud as any 18th century bust. However when push comes to shove, it’s a phony. But it’s not alone, there is a phoniness about many of the objects in this exhibition. They were beautifully crafted over-the-top designs, impractical as product designs, but always pushing the boundaries.

I enjoyed seeing Warhol and Koons’ work within this exhibition. Their work is both stylish and subversive, however I did feel that I was wading through a pan-cultural soup of product design and popular culture, fashion, graphics and architecture. Taking a quick look at Blade Runner, the maternity dress for Grace Jones designed by Jean-Paul Goude and Antonio Lopez, and the cover of i-D made me think about the impact this movement made on 20th century western culture. A combination of clashing colours, eclectic design, and wry wit shone through.

Grace Jones Maternity Dress. 1979 © Jean-Paul Goude

Still looking for a definition of Postmodernism, after seeing the exhibition, I stumbled upon a paper by Professor Martin Irvine of Georgetown University, Washington. He sees “Postmodernity as a phase of knowing and practice, abandoning the assumptions, prejudices, and constraints of modernism to embrace the contradictions, irony, and profusion of pop and mass culture. ‘High’ and ‘low’ culture/art categories made useless and irrelevant, art from outsider and non-Western cultures embraced, consumer society turned inside out.” It would have helped if I had been armed with that walking through the V&A postmodernist exhibition.

From what I understand, ‘Postmodernism’ was a reaction to modernism. Jane Pavitt the co-curator of the exhibition explains Postmodernism as “a reaction to the orthodoxy of modernism, a reaction against a single narrative and a monotheistic position in design and architecture”.

Wet Magazine. © April Greiman and Jayme Odgers

If this information had been available to me I would have understood the architecture with features from another era stuck on. But the impracticality of many of the teapots and everyday objects is still beyond me. If they were art for art’s sake then that’s fine in our post postmodernist world. There are many weird and wonderful objects, but only about 15 punters going round the exhibition; the V&A bars were obviously more appealing on a Friday night.

The V&A markets itself as a ‘design museum’. Within this exhibition it looked liked they’d just tried to link a load of stuff they had at the back of a cupboard under the banner of ‘postmodernism’ as a catch-all for their leftovers.

Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990 V&A Museum – London until 15th January 2012