Immersive - Lesson 1: Getting Started
Requirements
Clear empty space
Lesson Film
Means of capture
Craft Materials
This lesson is the start of your ten-week project. In this lesson, the children will find out what a set designer does, and make their first attempt at quick modelling. They will also find out a little about the Royal Opera House, and about how we tell a story through ballet. You will need to give each of the children a workbook that will become their portfolio, and explain to them that they will document all of their ideas for the project in this book. At some stage during the first few weeks of the project, you will also need to decide whether you would like each child to make their own 1:100 scale model box out of cereal boxes, or if you would like to make one larger 1:50 scale model box out of mount board for the class to share. The templates for both of these can be found at the bottom of this page.
Lesson Overview
Children understand what is meant by Set Design in context of the Royal Opera House and The Royal Ballet.
LESSON OUTCOMES
Children can tell a quick story in freeze frames with a group, and can create 2D and 3D water effects for a model.
Explain that before they can even start to think about designing for the stage, the designer needs to understand the story. If possible, go to the school hall for the next exercise so that the groups have plenty of space.
Make sure you have taken photos of each freeze frame for each group, as you will need to copy and print these for the next lesson.
Back in the classroom, ask the children to list some of the components in their ‘outside’ set. For example- tree, pond, bench, car, wall, gate, grass. As this project is all about designing, we’re going to start thinking right away about how we might show some of these in a model box.
Make sure they have taken a photo of their water for their portfolio, or stuck their water straight in if it is possible to do so without damaging it. Explain that in the next few weeks, we’ll be practicing modelling all sorts of objects and settings that might be found on the Royal Opera House stage.
Before the next lesson, you need to print out pictures of the three freeze frames the students created – one for each child.