Class: Designing for Live Performance
Instructor: Andrew Lazarow
This blog shares our progress in developing visual assets for our chosen main song Tear Me Down, prelude America the Beautiful and Wig in the Box
Overall Process
1. Break down song into sections, seconds
2. Listen and discuss what emotions, stories that need to be conveyed
3. Fabrication and animation development
4. Iterative process of projection mapping visuals and animations on to set
Tear Me Down
Being the song opening for the appearance of Hedwig and the band, it carries a lot of power via rock melody, is filled with strong statements and sarcasm as part of an introduction of herself and demanding everyone to listen to her story, to what she has to say. Feeling all of those emotions, we decided that our Tear Me Down version is going to be a combination of: 90's, playful animations of symbolic images, colorful surrealist visuals.
Symbolic, surrealist visuals
A pink backdrop filled with cold war poster, Berlin wall graffiti, appears in many of our scenes in reference to the time of the story, gender stereotypical color scheme and eluding to the story of Hedwig rising up from a tough past to be told.
Materials from Rene surrealist paintings
Rene's painting materials appeared a lot in our design. They are abstract and daring while inspiring a free spirit from judgement, and from disappointments.
A TV wall was one of the core components and a long scene in the song. We were inspired by the old TV sets from the old days. Before the digital age, TVs used to be how we hear, see, broadcast information to the public. It represents public superficial perception. The TV wall is the public eyes and ears pointing at Hedwis, and she is not afraid to stand strong and confront public judgement and tell her story.
More incorporations of abstract art, and symbolic visuals and animations that speak to anger yet full of strength, persistence, pride and a fearless attitude.
Wig in the Box
We wanted to create a transition scene into the beginning of the song. Wig in the Box is a self-reflecting moment, to realize who she is, who she is meant to be. By putting the wig on, she feels alive, happy, and herself. The first part of the song has a slower melody and picks up the pace and beats towards the middle and the end of the song.
As the song begins, we want to start with a calm, purple backdrop of the Budapest Hotel environment.
Preshow
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