"The Husband who was to Mind the House" - Storyboards

As well as design concepts for the play, I have created storyboards showing the major actions taken throughout. I am familiar with creating storyboards through my time studying animation, but these boards take a slightly different approach. Whereas a starboard for animation would look to frame the action through the eye of the camera, and at different angles, these boards are all from the same viewpoint, as if looking directly at the stage. The idea of these storyboards are to give an idea where each piece of action takes place on stage, as well as showing changes to the set that happen. This is useful as these can not always be shown practically in original concept designs.

The Breakdown

I had previously broken down the play text into thirteen units. These helped to plan out the storyboards, and show a summery of what should be happening on stage at the time. Each unit is described below. The storyboards are labeled with unit changes in order to help follow what should be happening at the correct point in the text in each panel.

Unit 1 - Husband introduces setting.

Unit 2 - Husband returns home grumpy, Husband and Goody decide to switch roles for the day.

Unit 3 - Goody sets out to work.

Unit 4 - Husband starts to churn butter, gets thirsty and goes to cellar.

Unit 5 - Pig knocks over churn, Husband attacks pig leaving it for dead. Cow enters.

Unit 6 - Husband decides to milk cow once it has been fed from grass on roof.

Unit 7 - Husband remembers Baby in house, takes churn with him.

Unit 8 - Husband wants to water cow, accidentally pours rest of cream down the well.

Unit 9 - Cow is coerced onto the roof.

Unit 10 - Husband heads off to make dinner, ties rope to himself and cow via chimney.

Unit 11 - Cow falls off the roof, pulling the Husband up through the chimney.

Unit 12 - Goody arrives home to see the calamity the Husband has caused. Cuts the rope, Husband falls head first into the porridge pot in the fireplace.

Unit 13 - Goody pulls Husband's head out of pot. "This is what happened the day the husband was to mind the house".

The Storyboards

The boards are all drawn from the perspective of the audience looking directly at the stage. Certain panels are zoomed into the main area of the action (such as inside of the farmhouse) to help see more clearly what is happening when needed.

"The Husband who was to Mind the House" - Costumes and Puppetry

As well as the set, another aspect of design I have focussed on for the play is the costumes and puppets used. The Husband and Goody both have costumes, while the Pig, Cow and Baby have been designed as puppets. I have also designed costumes for the puppeteers controlling them.  I have included my original ink drawings for each design, as well as a coloured version to give an idea how it would fit in with the rest of my design schemes.

Husband, Goody, and Puppeteers

'Landscape with Travellers and Peasants on a Track' - John Brueghel the Elder

'The Four Seasons' - David Teniers the Younger

These three paintings from The National Gallery were key influences to my designs for the human characters in the play. They wear traditional, practical farm clothes which in keep with the time period the play is set. The Husband and Goody's costumes reflect the style of work they would be producing in their day to day lives; The Husband's is suitable to be worn out in the fields, while Goody's lends itself to a life spent doing household chores.

The Puppeteers also wear traditional farming clothes, but are a bit more tattered and worn, and are more washed out and discoloured. I envisioned the puppeteers to appear like scarecrows on stage, with their faces obscured by masks of straw. I think that these will let them blend into the stage more effectively, and not become the focus when controlling the animal or baby character. I have designed a costume for both a male and female puppeteer, who can interchange when controlling each puppet when needed.

The costumes stick to the neutral and natural colour schemes used in the set. The human characters' costumes use brighter versions of these colours to help them stand out on stage, while still appearing to exist in the same world. The Puppeteers' costumes use a darker palette to distinguish them from the 'real' human characters, and also to not draw attention away from the puppets they are controlling. 

The Cow and The Pig

Animal puppets used in 'The Lion King' - Julie Taymor

Horse puppets used in 'War Horse' - Handspring Puppet Company

The puppets I have designed for "The Husband who was to Mind the House" were inspired by those used in two plays almost synonymous with the art form; "The Lion King" and "War Horse". Both plays feature animal puppets and use different techniques to portray these animals onstage. Whereas "The Lion King" uses a stylistic and abstract, but still wholly believable, approach to the animals in the play, "War Horse" attempts fell realism with near life size horses on stage controlled by three puppeteers a piece. Both these approaches have been incorporated into the designs for The Cow and Pig puppets used in this play.  

The Cow puppet is the largest in the play and is controlled by the puppeteer who stands upright within the Cow. They are able to put their hands into the head of The cow in order to create separate movement from the rest of the body. The Cow puppet does not have legs, as I felt these may have become a bit cumbersome when the puppeteer eventually has to lose the Cow in order for it to fall of the roof. It also helps for movement when The Cow and Husband both go onto the roof.

As with the rest of the design work for the play, I want each of the puppets to appear to be made out of materials that could be found on a farm yard or from natural sources. I envision the cow being a wooden frame covered in torn and shredded pieces of leather and straw, giving the cow puppet and interesting and tactile appearance, as well as referencing it's real world counterpart.

As is the case in real life, The Pig puppet is smaller in size than the Cow. The Pig will also be controlled by a single puppeteer, this time with the puppeteer crouching down to control the pig through holes in it's head and back. Whereas the Cow frame was covered in straw and leather, I see the Pig puppet to be covered in compacted mud and clay, with cracks appearing and sections of the 'flesh' missing to show. As with the Cow, this muddy covering references where cows are often found wallowing in within a real farm.

As with the colour scheme used in the costumes for the two human characters, I have kept the Cow and Pig within the same scheme, although a bit brighter to help them stand out on stage. Their colours stay along the lines of what their real world counterparts may look while incorporating them aerials they are made from.

The Baby

James II puppet used in 'James II: Day of the Innocents' - Mervyn Millar

While planning out the three puppets to be used in the play I had thought to make the Baby puppet resemble a mix between a doll and a traditional ventriloquist puppet. I thought that the puppet could be made of wood as this sticks to me concept of natural materials for the puppets, but would've been the material a baby's doll was made from in the 18th Century. While designing this concept I saw a performance of "James II: Day of the Innocents" at The National Theatre which incorporated a similar style of human puppet to what I had in mind. After seeing this style of puppet used in a production I was certainly convinced it could work within my design concepts.

The Baby does not enter the pay until half way through, so will be lying, waiting in it's cradle until it's role is needed. As with the other two puppets in the play The Baby will be controlled by a single puppeteer. The puppeteer will place a hand in the Baby's head and back, and will be able to make it's mouth open and shut using controls within it. 

The Baby's body is carved from wood, but it also wears a traditional baby's outfit suitable for the time period of the 18th Century. It's face is painted in rough flash tones, but has sections worn away by time to show the wood colouring underneath. It's cradle is made out of wicker, and resembles a woven basket. 

"The Husband who was to Mind the House" - New Set Designs

After completing the first version of my model box, I have gone back and created some more designs for my set. These designs are based upon the work I created while building my first model box, and reference natural and manmade materials you may have found within a European farming environment within the 18th Century. If created as a full size set I would want most of what appears on stage to look as if it is made of wood, rough fabric, straw, clay, mud, copper and tin.

The farm house in my design makes reference to a barn or farmhouse that has yet to be completed, with all it's beams exposed. This is to allow more light to fill in from behind, and also to see more of the action and set towards the back of the stage.

Samples of some of the materials that should be used within the finished set.

The new set design is quite similar to the model box I created, but with more detail. The farm house is at the front of the set, and it the focus of most of the action. It is open, and features detail such as bowls, tools, and cutlery that could have been found in an 18th Century farm house. The baby's cot, the butter churn, and chimney all feature within the farmhouse and are used by the characters at different points during the play. A trapdoor opens with a barrel raising from it to reference the cellar from the original text (Shown in my later storyboards).

The layered 'crops' behind the farm house should be made out of different piers of hessian and give the impression of a horizon made up of a sprawling corn field. Behind the farm house is the steep slope' referenced in the text. In my set this is intact two flat surfaces next to each other with a raising platform between them. When the Husband Leads the Cow up the roof, it is intact this platform which will place the two characters onto the roof. 

I have created three coloured versions of my designs. My favourite of the three is the bottom one. This one reflects the naturalistic and earthy colours I wish to reflect in my design, while not being too bright and vivid. I like the use of washed out colours as I think it makes the whole set look a bit worn and lived in by the characters.  This is the colour scheme I will be working towards in my final finished models.

I have only painted a coloured version of my plan view twice, with the second version only changing the colour of the farm house. This is because within each of my design drawings the ground mainly stays the same colour; a rich, earthy brown.

"The Husband who was to Mind the House" - Set Model Box (Version One)

After I created the initial designs for the set, I then went on to create the model box. The model box at this time was crafted using mostly card and paper, and is not to scale. The aim was to get my initial thoughts out into a 3D piece before concentrating on the finer details. Working in card was beneficial to this process as it meant I could have a free flowing approach to the project. I was able to adapt the design quickly as I went on, and could change or eliminate certain parts that were not working. I enjoyed the whole process of creating the model box. It was really exciting to see the designs I had in my head come to life on stage (if only on a small scale!).

The empty stage model before any of the set went in. The character model is scale to 1:25, and is based on the husband character in the text. His height was modelled on my own!

The farm house is created to resemble a structure that has not had it's walls put on yet and has just the beams showing. This allows for light to go into the house from nearly every direction, and the background to be seen through it. I thought it would be a looser structure on stage than a solid house, but is still quite clearly where the family live.

The trapdoor opens on stage, and instead of the husband going down to the cellar, the barrel of ale is lifted up to him. It could be attached to the inside of the cellar door. The lighting of the scene could change to help show that the husband should now be in the cellar.

The cloud line has been removed from the top of the stage, and the house is now raised off the stage on beams. A hill has been put in behind the house. This shall be used to hide the lift which puts the cow and the husband onto the roof.

A textured ground next to the house distinguishes it from the surface of the farm house.

The view from above of the layout of the stage.