Gerasco

The world of Gerasco is based on a child’s imagination and therefore I dramatized this while creating the sets and props. As art director, my initial research began by exploring theatre sets as Georgia wanted a theatrical look and exaggerated themes of imagination. It was decided to incorporate mediums that are used by children in order to truly represent a child’s imagination and I drew inspiration from Jeff Koons who has used balloon animals and play-doh in his work. Creating the three characters Willow meets on her journey did prove difficult. Although it seemed simple enough to model a balloon dog that’s filled with helium so it floats, I found out that modeling balloons do not fly with helium. This problem was resolved by attaching the dog to a normal balloon, which was filled with helium in order for it to be able to float around. I then found out that I could not blow up a modeling balloon and a pump was needed. Leaving me to have failed on the first two steps of creating a flying balloon dog, the easiest of the three characters. After becoming the master of balloon animals I had to face the task of creating a fish that’s larger than me. I wanted the main materials to be sourced from a child’s arts and crafts box so I cut the scales out of foam and used fur for the moustache (which was inspired by The Lorax). I created the main frame out of wire, which Matt helped me make. Then papier mached it, scaled it, painted it and added material for the tail. While waiting for parts of the fish to dry I worked on the scarecrow. It was uncertain whether or not the scarecrow was going to be an actor in costume or a handmade prop. Therefore I carried out my initial research on both. I looked up the obvious examples such as different interpretations of The Wizard of Oz. I created the design for the face to be friendly by adding bright colours, yet have a creepier smile in order for it to fit the personality in the script. In order to ensure that the characters Willow saw were not randomly imagined I related the materials used back to her original life. Such as having a board game called The flying Clownfish in the playroom andplacing the balloon pump in the background. To create home sets which followed a pastel colour palette, we browsed the shops, a lot, spray painted a lot of toys and repainted too many board games. The house was almost the complete opposite of pastel so nearly everything was replaced including paintings on the wall.