ELECTRA Pre-Production Programme

In our lesson today we chose roles that suited our skills. So i chose to do marketting alongside my peer Elsie. In the beginning of the lesson we ran through the script by reading it through from start to finish this gave us a feel for how long the production would take. Each act took roughly 20-25 minutes each making Electra a 1 hour and 15 minute play aprox. It also allowed us as a group to change and alter anything regarding the script. Alterations such as the friends lines were combined and changed around. In this lesson we also chose the songs we are going to use in Electra, the songs will be sung by the chorus. and it has been pencilled in that the songs wont be sung they will be whispered making it seem more effective and erie.  After this we then went off to start on either line learning, blocking actions or to start our pre-production work. Elsie and I decided to start on pre-production as it was a chance when we could both work together and have access to photoshop. I didnt know yet creatively how i was going to conduct the programme and poster. So we split the roles and Elsie worked on the poster whilst i got on with the programme. The colour themes in the play are dark burned colours so i wanted to remain with this theme in the programme and Elsie also decided to do the same for the poster. As it is an erie twist on an accient greek play i wanted to make it traditional but with a modern twist. I began by looking at what images are suitable for the front cover of the programme and how to combine modern and old. I originally thought about having the old greek theatre masks for the front and came up with an image which was of the old greek masks but modernising them by  making them animated. So after creating the animated masks in the colour scheme of burnt out colours i then went to look for font for the front cover which would portray the title of the programme. Again with this i wanted it to look authentic so used the traditional Greek stylised font. I used a grungy distressed version of the greek font just to add character to the programme.

I then discussed with Elsie what i could add to the front cover to enhance it, and she then said what she was doing with her poster and how she was going to having spooky looking trees on the poster as a tree was a main prop on stage in the London show of Electra we saw. So i then used this idea to also include a tree in the programme front cover.

When designing programmes and posters for shows and productions you have to bare in mind printing costs, which i discussed with my teacher. I originally would have made a black background for the programme/poster however, with past experience of using a lot of colour last year i thought it would be better by making it simple in background colours but how to still make it look effective.

Below is what the programme looks like so far, its not completed and still have a way to go, but staying on top now means we can focus on getting all the acting perfectionised.

This is the front and back of the programme and i have begun the theme within the programme which will remain the same throughout. I wanted the programme to look as professional as i can make it. On the inside of the programme we will have black and white headshots of our class as individuals. This allows the audience to see each of the actors/actresses in our production of Electra, it also gives them an insight into what they are like, as each actor will write a few lines about themselves and maybe past productions they have been in. In the programme there will also be a breif overview on what Electra is about and a bit of background information into greek theatre.

This year for pre-production in marketting it is now a requirement to have a sponsership in the programme, getting this sorted and talking to buiness' about this gives us an oppourtunity to work with buisnesses and how this should be conducted properly. It also makes us learn more now in education about the buisness side of things. The money for the sponsership given to us will also cover our printing costs, previously last year we were making a loss with programmes but we didn't want that this year so this is why we have incorporated it this year and will be carried out in years to come.

There are certain aspects that need to be covered when designing posters and programmes for productions. You have to include a logo, for us it will be our college logo so it is correctly copyrighted, but if you were a theatre company you would use your theatre company logo. Other things to consider is a thank you page, so all the front of house crew and backstage crew get recognision as a play cannot come together without these vital parts. If you got funding for your production this is also where it would be mentioned.

Below is the final print out of the front and back pages of the programme:

After this i went on to create the casting list, this is something me and Elsie has had to organise as we needed to take individual head shots of everyone in Electra. Below is a template i created as our outline for where the cast list and photos will be. This will be the 3rd and 4th page of the programme and as shown i have kept the theme of the programme the same throughout. I then went on to do the Introduction for the programme as i had already done quite a bit of research on Electra so this was straight forward. I then wanted a full cast photo from our electra workshops this shows some of the process we went through to achieve and allow our production to come together. On this page there will also be our sponsership and this will be the first 2 pages.