Setting the scene

1970's Las Vegas restaurant After our briefing and after our group had chosen to do a 1970s Las Vegas Casino restaurant scene, we took time to come up with a rough idea of what we all thought we should do. We all had roughly the same kind of ideas to have some funky bright costumes and a couple having drinks in a vegas themed restaurant being served by Elvis and a show girl. I came up with the idea to have an image of vegas projected to look like window in a restaurant at the top of a casino over looking the strip. We had a little explore of the costume department and rumaged around the props store room to find some items to portray our ideas of 70's style vegas. On Thursday we all met at RSAMD at 9am for a nice early start. We tidied the Chandler Studios and folded away the chairs while we waited for the van full of goodies to arrive. After the van was unloaded we started to put the set together. None of us were overly happy with the projector screen. I suggested we just project the image onto the blacks but this was dismissed as apparently it wouldnt work. We sent a couple of the group to paint the bar black and managed to convince Fiona there was no way we were using the hideous lime green material she'd found. After we'd set up the projector screen and dressed the tables we decided to try and disguise the projector frame by draping red material over the legs and across the top to look like curtains on a window. Then someone came up with the genius idea (thats i'd mentioned earlier) to take away the projector screen and just project onto the black curtain.... We filled up some wine bottles full of ribena and water and Jackie set to work to make some little cocktail umbrellas for add a bit of bling to our vegas theme. We dressed the tables with some lovely candleholders. Chris went out and got some poker chips to put on the other table to continue our casino theme. Poker chips, cards and rolls of sterling.....luckily we were able to borrow a few dollar bill notes from another group to cover our twenty pound notes. After lunch when the painted bar had dried we set it on top of the steel deck and draped some red material around it. Then it was time to get all dressed up. Mischa looked the part in her sparkly green sequin dress, pink sparkly shoes and feather head-dress. I looked very colourful and 70's in my pink and brown swirly dress and head scarf. John was our lovely Elvis bar man in his white PVC Elvis outfit. And Sarah stood in as my date in her sexy grey suit and bright pink shirt. John found some great Frank Sinatra music and managed to add in some casino noises like slot machines and roulette tables. Melissa did a great job creating a romantic atmosphere with the lights. And Sophie added the final touches to our costumes. I really enjoyed the day and i think the group worked well minus a few small dissagreements. It was really good to put all that we had learned together to create a set that portrayed our theme well. We split the group into what we all felt comfortable doing, but all came together and put our skills together to create this great set. It was a really good day and i think we managed our time and our resources really well. It was really interesting too see the other groups themes too. We all had really different ideas and sets. Everyone did a great job i think :)