Costume fitted and make-up completed

Costume fitted and make-up completed

Costume and artist idahs applying make up

Film crew and photographer busy capturing poses.

film crew and photographer busy capturing poses.

Stephanie in origami outfit and makeup standing elegantly!

Stephanie in origami outfit and makeup standing elegantly!

Stephanie tries out more moves.

Stephanie in origami outfit and makeup standing elegantly!

Filming Groenscreen

Stephanie in origami outfit and makeup standing elegantly!

Ben photographing Stephanie in studio

Sam photographing Stephanie

In the corridor of Arlington House

In the corridor of Arlington House

Sam filming in Camden high street

Sam filming in Camden high street

Sam filming in Camden high street

Sam filming in Camden high street

Origami project

Stephanie Griffiths – A resident of Arlington House in Camden, London who used to work as an animator, puppet maker and Directed numerous children’s TV animation programmes including The Old Bear Stories a B.A.F.T.A award winner, also directed the pilot for Bob the builder.

 

Now putting her energy into setting up an on going project working as a Muse with a whole range of different artists to motivate and inspire. Her website ‘TRYAMUSE.ME’ will include a gallery of work were you not only see the completed work of the artist but behind the scenes, see how the ideas evolve and developed the techniques used and more importantly the particular artist explain their methods and techniques.

 

Stephanie over the last few years has collaborated with many well known and up and coming Creative Artists but her recent project was on her doorstep – She collaborated with talented painter / costume maker Idahs and make up artist Nede. The trigger for this project was unfolded at an origami workshop held at

Arlington house for the residents led by Sylvia who ran a 6 week workshop every Thursday afternoon where the participants made various paper items ninja stars, cranes and flowers working towards a 3d collaboration sculpture.

 

Idahs alone produced an amazing origami dress. She used both irregular shapes and forms, which together unified the whole look. It didn’t surprise me having seen other paintings that she had worked on recently that she would produce something amazing especially with her unique style and experimental approach. Her past experience in architecture can be seen in her design too. I was keen to work with her and basically said I would love to model her outfit and suggested collaborating. We discussed what potential there was and how we could take the work to another level combine body painting and animation. We talked also about filming time-lapse of her painting both the white paper dress and myself. It seemed a fun and good idea at the time. This was just before the Christmas period so we decided to touch base in the New Year and arrange something then. For me I was excited to work with Idahs and of course to model an intricate outfit made entirely of paper. We were not too sure were at this stage it was going but it was going to happen.

 

So after the New Year celebrations were over the plan was to get the ball rolling again but I had really bad start, basically I was ill for the whole of January. I had caught a nasty flu virus that I couldn’t shake off so it wasn’t till February that we re-connected and touched base so to speak. Just by chance too there was a chap from the BBC doing some research and planning to direct a 90-minute documentary about Arlington and its residents. I was introduced to him in the art room and a few days later he filmed and interviewed me, he seemed keen to document me as one potential subject and film me doing normal day-to-day things. So after telling him I do modelling I suggested and mentioned working with Idahs and I pointed out that she too was also a resident here. He was eager to do it as much as I was so it was all set up. I asked him to book out a room and also I wanted to include some live action green screen so I could do some after effects later with the footage. Idahs suggested and recommended her friend Nede

to do make up and Wow! I was blown over by her portfolio of work she is a real professional.

 

So on the day the idea was to do full body makeup and wear the dress then take photos on location in Arlington and that’s what we did…. It was such good fun.

 

Of course the weekend before our planned shoot some preparations and alterations had to be made in particular the dress was fragile and could easily rip so we sewed on the inside an old white t-shirt and strengthened the edges with masking tape.

I had some white stiletto shoes and under idahs advice I went off to adapt so they would fit in and match the look of the dress,

 

The top half of the outfit was too short after trying it on so we needed to lengthen it – such a long process.

We booked out studio 5 and spent the afternoon with Nede she tried various looks for the makeup and between the both of the girls it made sense to go for the first option. We wanted to make sure we knew what we wanted on the actual day of the shoot so overall it was worth all the preparations.

 

On the day of the planned shoot we set up in the Creative skills space this was around 8am and then the girls came down and spent a good two hours doing makeup and costume before I was ready to then do model and film against the green screen. Sam and his assistant filmed and took loads of pictures as I posed and struck up a series of poses. The neck piece kept my head upright it was so intricate it did restrict my moves, I felt I had to act out in a stiff manner with slow moves and being careful not to rip anything it felt my performance was almost like Japanese Geisha this was Idahs intention so it worked out well.

 

After doing the interior shots I was keen to take it to the high street granted it was blowing a chill but I was on a roll and keen to see what sort of reaction I may get and Sam was happy to follow behind and recording the outcome. It did draw a lot of attention but it is Camden anything goes. I may have raised a few eyebrows, there were plenty of people wanting to take selfies and some market stall guys were very accommodating. I was in my element out there in the public – It was not planned rather spontaneous but I certainly will be doing more of this                 if given the chance- Sam and his assistant took some great shots and overall everyone was well pleased.

 

So….what is the end result?

Working towards producing a short film clip combining the footage that Sam shot against green screen and the animation of a mini version of myself (a stop-frame puppet of me in the outfit)

 

I intend to animate this also against green screen in order to layer and combine clips which when finally edited will be accompanied with a music track. And with a bit of luck will look visually amazing and stunning………………work in progress.