Phantom of the Opera

I went to see phantom of the opera in London in December 2014. the show was amazing, and the sets and costumes were spectacular so this post is going to explore the team behind the show. The thing I liked most was seeing how brilliantly they used the stage space as it was so cleverly used, and the sets were amazing.

When I went to the show I managed to take a couple of photos before the show began.

 

 



This video is a promotional video from the phantom f the opera website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3P62ww_xrQ

The book:

http://www.thephantomoftheopera.com/background/the-book

Gaston Leroux was a French author who after years of writing newspaper articles, reviews and unsuccessful plays wrote the novel of the phantom of the opera. He was passionate about the theatre and now his novel has took theatre by storm.

Gaston was born in Paris in 1868 and his novel captures the atmosphere of this time period perfectly and captures the beliefs of the 19th century society. The novel hadn't captured the publics attention until the dramatization of it as a film and theatre production.

The major crew involved in the show:

This is a list of people involved in the production-

Director Harold Prince

Producer Cameron Mackintosh

Composer, Book, Co-Orchestrator Andrew Lloyd Webber

Musical Staging & Choreography Gillian Lynne

Lyrics Charles Hart

Book & Additional Lyrics Richard Stilgoe

Production Designer Maria Björnson

Lighting Designer Andrew Bridge

Sound Designer Mick Potter

Original Sound Designer Martin Levan

Co-Orchestrator David Cullen

Producer The Really Useful Theatre Company

But i'm going to research the producers, the director and the production designer. This is because these people work closely, the director works closely with the producers, who work closely with the production design.

Director: Harold Prince

Harold was born on January 30th 1928 in new York USA. He directs and produces many theatrical productions nd has won 20 Tony awards as both roles. He is best known for his work on Phantom of the opera in 2004, West side memories in 2003 and west side story in 1961. He also produced cabaret on the new York stage in 1972 and has worked on many other productions.

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0697660/?ref_=nmbio_bio_nm

Producers: Cameron Mackintosh/The Really Useful Theatre Company

Cameron mackinstosh is one of the worlds most successful producers. he has been producing for nearly 50 years and has produced for the longest running musicals of all times; Les Miserables, The phantom of the Opera and Cats.  He has also worked on shows like The little shop of horrors and miss Saigon. Including all this, he has also owns whats called the Delfont Mackintosh Theatres, which operates 8 theatres in londons west end. he has spent over £40 million to make his venues the best he can get them to be.

He was born on the 17th of October 1946 in enfield, Middlesex in England. He has been nomintated for an Oscar with another 5 award nominations and another 4 award wins.

Website: http://www.cameronmackintosh.com/
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0533583/

The really useful theatre company is a subsidiary of the really useful company. It has produced many shows including the joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Love never dies, and Jesus Christ superstar. it was the co producer of phantom of the opera.

Really useful group website: http://www.reallyuseful.com/

Production designer: Maria Bjornson

Maria had a very good career in productions such as operas, theatre shows and ballets and she designed for over 120 productions. Her most famous is phantom of the opera which brought her a lot of success. She was born in 1949 and died suddenly in 2002. Many people who have worked with her praise her and her work.

Her website: http://mariabjornson.com/welcome.html

Trip to harry potter world: Makeup and creatures

The trip to harry potter world was really inspiring to me, eventhough I don't particularly like the harry potter frnachise, I could definatly appreciate all the hard work that went into the sets, props, costumes and especially the makeup and hair department and the big section on creatures. This part had loads of prosthetics, animatronics and sculpture work that I am really interested in.

After researching, I found that Nick Dudman and his team created the makeup and the animatronic creatures in the harry potter films. His career started as an apprentice with makeup artist Stuart Freeborn on Star Wars episode V when he worked on Yoda, he was an apprentice with Stuart for 4 years before he was asked to be head of makeup for Ridley Scotts Legend in 1985. He then went on to do the makeup and prosthetics for films such as Labyrinth (1986), Batman (1989), Alien 3 (1992) and Indiana jones and the last crusade (1889). Then in 1995 he was asked to oversee the 55 man creature department for a film called the Fifth Element (1997). This widened his career path into animatronics and large scale creature effects. He won a Bafta award for the fifth elements visual effects. Since then he has lead the makeup and creature departments of many more films including the mummy (1999).

These are some pictures of the things that interested me:

Paddington bears in london

 

The Paddington trail

 

When I was in London in December 2014 I came across loads of different themed Paddington bears, so I looked it up and found what they were about because I had no clue what they were there for.

 

The Paddington trail was a collection of 50 individually designed bears that were put near different landmarks, museums and shops. They are all completely different designs, ranging from Dr who to landscapes. They were all designed by different artists, designers and even celebrities. They were there to promote the art culture in London for the release of Paddington the movie.

 

The trail was done by visitlondon.com, studio canal,and NSPCC in association with Barclaycard.

All the bears were auctioned after the trail and it raised about £950,000 for NSPCC, Childline and action medical research.

 

This website has a list of all the bears and their designers at the bottom of the page:

http://www.visitlondon.com/paddington/

 

Beneath are the ones that I found.

 

 

Paddington the explorer by Ripleys believe it or not!

 

 

Bearer of gifts by Hamleys

 

Bear Humbug by Ant & Dec

 

 

 

 

lion king show

I absolutely love the lion king Disney film so when I got the chance to see the live show I took it! I thought the show was amazing and the costumes were so good as well, especially the costumes that represent animals. I am disappointed with the size of the stage they had to perform on because it was so small and I thought it would have made a bigger impact in a bigger London theatre.

The costumes were the main focus that interested me so i am going to do some research on the costume designer:

http://www.thelionking.co.uk/cast-and-creative/

Julie Taymor is the Director, Costume designer, and the Mask/Puppet co-designer. She won the 1998 Tony award for best direction of a musical and for Best costumes for the Lion King. She an academy award nominated director of theatre, opera and Film. Some of her films include Across the universe (2007) and Frida (2002).

I Love the costumes in this show as the animal ones are all puppets operated by humans as part of the costumes.

 

The operating of these shows the movement of Lions.