ABOUT

I created a trailer for Clean Break Theatre Company’s Double Bill of ‘House’ & ‘Amongst the Reeds’.
The process started with analysing and deconstructing the scripts, I attended early workshops with the director and actors. We highlighted major visual and thematic factors from within the plays.
I generated possible outcomes as to the format for the trailer; how could there be a simple, cohesive way to show the two very different stories with their own themes? how would the trailer be a fair and appealing advertisement for the plays without spoiling them?
For each play I decided to use the same physical structure, a simplified version of a room, and animate it to illustrate the thematic narrative journey of the play rather than the literal story. I wanted it to be like a window into the atmosphere of the two worlds. I built this set structure out of wood and dressed it for each. I considered the aspect ratio of the screen for the first time when creating the set dimensions so it fit well.
‘House’ is about a woman returning home to her sister and mother, where she has lost a lot of happy memories due to a traumatic event. It was important to show the religious, Nigerian, London working class heritage of the family and I feel this set was more successful in communicating the character’s and their sense of place more so than in 'Amongst the Reeds’, due to the stronger, iconic props I used in ‘House’.
‘House’ had a table set for the two adult sister’s younger selves, and I animated toys to show time passing and also animated the walls to fill with children drawings. The baby photos changed and in them the children became older to show the sisters growing up. On one side of the table, the photos and food blackens and disappears and the drawings become dark. I do feel this sequence design not only communicates the overall sense of seriousness, mystery and pain of the play but also depicts the nostalgia and love between the sisters by use of warm tones, food and toys.
For, ‘Amongst the Reeds’, I fitted an actual window into the set and covered it in plastic laundry bags, mentioned in the story. I animated these being peeled off and used green screen behind the window so it gradually revealed a sequence of plants growing. This play was about two refugees hiding in a squat and dreaming of the sun and escape. The director was keen to end on a positive note so the trailer progressed to an expression of light and beauty that this script mentioned a lot of and I was pleased with the edited nature footage I created for this as it was so visually rich and mesmerising.