Abstract Ideas

One of the ideas I recently had was to have different images of Richard, showing a different perception, surrounding the man. I was very inspired by the work of Swiss sculptor, Alberto Giacometti, as his sculptures weren't anatomically correct or naturalistic, but were instead, more representations of the subject matter. For example, Giacometti's "Dog" not only represents the physical form of the animal, but it also captures its soul. It creates a sense of movement despite its stillness to the point that it is creepy or perhaps even reminiscent of a childhood nightmare. Because I am no longer able to get footage that realistically represents the War of the Roses, I will instead approach it in a surrealist/expressionist way and Giacometti is an extremely good source of inspiration for that.

I decided to make a few drawings of how I thought Richard was perceived. I think the fact that Shakespeare wrote him as being, not only ugly as a person, but physically deformed, shows that the character of Richard III was probably a sort of warped caricature of the real man. I have tried to show this in my sketch by making his body and walking stick all part of the same form, instead of making distinguishable difference between the body, attire and other objects. As you can see I have exaggerated many features of the body, especially in the length of the limbs and shape of the joints. I gave him a crooked nose, long witch-like chin and hump back to show his deformity. On top of that I have made both his legs different sizes to show his imperfect physical shape. He is also holding a rose, which if coloured would be red, to show that although he is part of the house of York, the image is actually the way Lancastrians saw him and not necessarily how he truly was.

Problems and Further Research

I have encountered a huge problem, which now looks to threaten my project. My contact at the Royal Armouries has unfortunately told me that filming will not be possible over the Easter holidays due to it being such a busy period. Due to the nature of the project, this may prove to be quite a damaging bump in the road. I would've really loved to get some good independent footage of men in armour and some re-enactments of that period; however it now looks unlikely that that will be possible.

I now have a few options, the most likely of which, is to use the same theme but to use a more abstract form of footage. The only problem is that I wouldn't be able to use props and artifacts that are synonymous with that historical period, such as medieval weaponry. There is however plenty of room for symbolism and representation. One of the most prominent symbols of that era are the two roses, red and white, each symbolising the two houses; York and Lancaster, Plantagenet and Tudor. Whilst researching into the historical background of Richard III it has become more apparent that the way in which King Richard is commonly interpreted, as being evil, sinister and even physically deformed, is the direct result of a biased monarchy (Lancaster/Tudor) following the War of the Roses. Anyone who knows the name 'Tudor' knows that these weren't the kind of people you wanted to get on the wrong side of and there is lot of historical evidence, which proves the manipulative and jingoist way in which the Tudors forced their ways on the English people. One of the most famous portrayals of Richard was in Shakespeare's Richard III, which of course was written in the Elizabethan age, whilst Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII (Tudor) and Anne Boleyn, was the Queen of England. Most Yorkists were probably interpreted as villains in this era, much like the bad guys being Russians in a lot of American films during the Cold War.

Abelton Live

Today i have been playing about with Ableton Live, doing a few of the lessons that are built in to the software. The lessons have been extremely helpful compared to the usual help topics that come with various other programs. The first few lessons are an introduction to the basic elements of Ableton's interface and although I have only just started using the software, it is so intuitive and user friendly that I feel I can already start making something half decent. One of the most interesting things I have come accross is the session view, which allows the user to really play about with the different tracks and jam in realtime, whilst recording it all into the main timeline, which can then be viewed in the arrangement view. It made me think of older less powerful music production programs where you had to literally copy and paste each loop and move them around without getting that same "feel" that Ableton gives. It allows you to bring in different parts when you feel like they should come in and it even comes in at the right moment, waiting until the beginning of the bar before playing, meaning you can be a lot less precise when switching loops or introducing new ones.

Another good part about the lessons is that they drill in those ever so important keyboard shotcuts at an early stage, which are good to get in the habit of using, saving loads of time in the future.

The only thing that I am quite nervous about with Ableton is that I am concerned that none of the samples, loops or VSTIs are going to tie in with the era that my project is based around. Ideally I would love to use things like harps and lutes in the sound compositions with a few more modern instruments thrown in along with some ambient sound effects and extracts from Richard III.

First Post

I though I better start documenting some of the stuff i have been doing. I'll just start by explaining my initial idea and the a bit of what I have been doing.

I wanted to focus on an experiential form of theatre called "the theatre of cruelty," which is a theory formulated and pioneered by a french practitioner called Antonin Artaud. Artaud's life was plagued with misfortune and ill health. He suffered a serious case on meningitis at a young age leaving him with mental and neurological health problems, which he would suffer from throughout his entire life. He lost the majority of his siblings when he was young and was even said to have been stabbed in the back for no reason. Artaud's work and philosophies were unmistakedly influenced by his experiences, believing that theatre should give its audience a sense of what it would be like to experience the scenarios and subject matters used in the play. Subjects like plague and fammine were the theme of these performances and with the use of sound, lighting and effects the theatre of cruelty was meant to make the audience feel terror and discomfort.

Going with the theme of mental illness, poor health and horror I began thinking about Shakespeare's Richard III. Shakespeare portrayed Richard as being deformed and twisted, which was probably a result of rumours, which arose around the war of the roses and the beginning of the reign of Henry VII. One of the most contraversial mysteries surrounding Richard III was that he is widely believed to have been responsible for the murder of his two young nephews, due to them being a threat to Richard's throne, however there is no evidence to prove this and a mock trial in 1997 deemed that there was no proof to suggest that Richard played a part in their murders. Despite this I think that this portrayal of Richard is still a very interesting viewpoint and is known as one of the most evil villains in theatre, making him an ideal stimulus for this project.

My plan then (at the moment) is to make an interactive timeline, which can access different key dates in Richard III's life or key moments in the play of Richard III. I want to focus heavily on the terror of the two princes' "murders" and the fear, which would've surrounded the war of the roses. There are some great sound clips I can use from performances of Richard III. Perhaps some of the most famous portrayals of the character have been by Lawrence Olivier, Ian McKellen and arguably Al Pacino; three excellent actors who all brought something different to the role. There are key lines in the script, which I will use, which are synonymous with the events both in the play and their real historical counterparts e.g. "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" which is Richard's final words as he is killed at the Battle of Bosworth at the end of the play.

The all around style of the project will most likely be abstract and meloncholy in parts. This is because it makes sense within the chosen theatrical style, it focuses more on experience than storytelling and I also want it to work with Shakespeare's style of writing. Shakespeare was a master at rythm and used rythmic devices such as trochaic inversions and iambic pentameters. Basically the mood and theme of the text would be be reflected in the rhythm. A change in mood would also mean a change in rhythm and the amount of syllables per line. What this means for my project is that the feeling and mood of each section should also be able to shift in both rhythm and style, depending on the context, which will again tie in with the theme of mental illness.

In the past few weeks I have been thinking about good locations to get some footage, which will (all been well) look historically accurate, using not only locations such as castles, courtyards and battlefields but also show reenactments of battles in medieval armour at various locations in Yorkshire. I have already got a bit of footage from Newcastle Castle and in the coming weeks I intend to visit Edinburgh (to get some footage of the castle and maybe some other things from around that era,) The Royal Armouries in Leeds (who I have spoken to about filming some of their displays and about the possibility of filming one of their reenactments of the Battle of Towton on Palm Sunday,) Middleham Castle in North Yorkshire (which was Richard's stronghold in the North and they also perform things such as knights fighting in full armour, medieval music and ladies dancing in full costume,) and the last location is the Tower of London (which is where the two princes were sent by Richard and the place that they were said to have been murdered due to it being the last place they were seen and the place where remains were found, which were thought to be the bones of the princes but were later discovered to contain animal bones as well.)