Designers create or choose everything that surround the actors in a play or a movie. This is the environment for the play. Think about a scary movie or TV show you’ve seen.
What was the environment like? How did it help to tell the story? Think about a funny cartoon show that you’ve seen.
How did the environment around the characters help to tell the story?

Environment includes the setting, where the play takes place. It includes the things in that setting, the props. It includes the sound and the lighting. It includes the costumes the characters wear.

When the scene designers, the persons who create the setting, make choices about what to include, they have several things that can help with the mood. They have

• Color
  
• Line
  
• Shape
  
• Texture
  

These are the basic elements that any artist can use. The designer also has the time period of the show to help with choices. Houses and furniture are different at different times and places. These choices also tell about the play.

Let us think of some examples. Suppose we’re designing a setting for a very scary play that takes place today, but in a very old house.

• The colors would be dark, perhaps blue, and black, dark green or brown.
  
  
• The lines in the walls might be jagged, not straight or gently curving. This could make the place seem more scary.
  
• The shapes might be crooked or much bigger than the people, the characters in the play. If the characters seem little, perhaps they also seem as if they can’t defend themselves!
  
  
• The textures of the furniture and walls might be very rough. If they were smooth, they may seem comfortable. Nothing in this house should be comfortable.
  

The style of the house might be mid-Victorian. This was the period when people built big houses with steep stairways and peaky roofs.

How about the sound and lighting designers? The lighting designer would choose dark lighting. No bright sun here! When things are in the dark there can be secrets. There can be scary things in the closet!!

The music in the background would be eerie, spooky and scary. Wind might be blowing.

The audience knows that something bad may happen.

Now it’s your turn to choose colors, lines, shapes and textures to make an environment.

Making an environment

A happy place

You’ll need:

• A small box. We used shoeboxes.
• Tempra paint and a brush
• Stuff to put in your environment. You can find it. Or you can make it by cutting it out and coloring it. If you do this you’ll need paper, a scissors and crayons, or colored pencils
• Glue. You may need to glue things down to keep them in place.
• Lots of imagination!

Now you need to:

• Think about the kind of environment you want to make. Will it be happy or sad, silly or mad. Will it be scary or funny. There are lots more choices too!
• Think of a color for the feeling you want the audience to have.
• Paint the inside of your box that color.
• Think about what things you can put in the box to help the audience get the feeling you want them to have.
  • Will these things have nice smooth and curvy lines? Or will the lines be the jagged and rough?
  • Will there be big or small shapes? Will the shapes be smooth or uneven?
  • What will their textures be? Will they feel smooth and soft to the touch or will they feel rough and scratchy?
• Find or make the things you want for your environment box. If you make them, you can cut them out of paper and color them. We used a bit of both – found objects and things we cut out and colored.
• Put your objects, the things you have chosen, in the box. Glue them down if you need to.
• Share you environment box with your classmates. Ask them:
  • What do you see in my box?
  • How does that make you feel?
• Then tell them why you chose these colors, lines, shapes and textures.

Here are two boxes done in our class.


A quiet place


They were angry