Design Research: If you had to design visual environment for a play set in a high school student’s bed room, what would you do? Go home and draw your own room! Easy, right? Your own room would be considered primary research. This research would fully support your ideas and design. Well, what if you have to design the set for a play set in an 1890’s home? If you live in a house built around that time, drawing the room layout might work, but the furniture and wall colors wouldn’t work. Not to mention that several renovations may have been done years before you were born. What would you do?
You will need to complete some research. Yikes! Yes, I said research. Sorry. We have two types of research we deal with.
First, Primary Research. Primary research is when you see the info first hand. Or, you see the info from a first hand source. A photo of a room is a first hand source. A painting may not be.|
Second, Secondary Research. Secondary research is just what is sounds like. Info from second hand knowledge. A painting is second hand research. The artist looked at the subject and painted what his/her eyes saw. You are trusting that the artist didn’t make a changes to the subject. Don’t trust this. Artist were hire to paint portraits of people who had money to pay form them. If you paid somebody to paint your picture and they could skip the zit on your upper lip, would you have them do it? Of course. So would I. They did to.
What/where do you think would be sources for primary and secondary research? I use plenty.
The library has a vast array of reference. Books with photos of endless subjects. Photo archives and magazines a plenty.
Museums! Many museums have actual rooms set up so that you can see them up close. Yes, the real thing. Here in New York, we have the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They have several rooms that have either been taken out of buildings before the buildings were torn down, or they have rooms that have been painstakingly re-created. Taking every detail into account. The Brooklyn Museum also has several rooms set up.
Both museums and libraries have reference to the art of the times you’re researching. Currently, I am designing a production of Candide. The director wishes the production to take on a look based on the paintings of an artist named Hogarth. So, I pulled books from the library that contain reproductions of Hogarth paintings. I also looked him up on the internet. If I wish to see the paintings in real life, I go to the museum.
One of the assignments for my Stage & Set Design class is to design the show, “Harvey” by Mary Chase. The play has two locations. One is the Library within the Dowd Mansion and the other is the Doctor’s Office at Chumley’s Rest. The play is set in the early 1900’s. Well, a mansion from the early 1900’s is not something I grew up in. Neither has any of my students. So to help discover the visual elements, I assign a project which requires a trip to a museum. I have included the Museum Report here if you wish to take a look.
Virtual Reality Theaters. This site has a few very interesting re-creations of old theaters, including call and the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens and the Roman Theatre of Pompeii. http://www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/Theatre_S/THEATRON/
If you have any other design resources please add them below via the comment box. Or, you are welcome to hit the edit button up top and add to the body of the article.
