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Behind the Scene

1/13/2019

 
Having just completed a set of Phantom costumes for Rex and Bianca, I needed an opulent Victorian theatre setting tp represent the Paris Opera House in 1881.  The scene was going to be 'dark', so I wanted a dark wooden floor, that would reflect light from the candles. So that meant my dining-room table. I positioned the French doors so they opened into the room, and jammed them into place on the carpet. Then I got some very wide wooden rods to hold up the curtains across the tops of the open doors. 

​We went looking for small scale candles, but couldn't find any, so just used regular white tapers, cut down to size. I hot glued them onto the tops of some decorative candle stands, and spent some time dripping wax down them to make them look more interesting.

(with the French door open, you can see one of my 'secret' storage locations. The door itself has a fabric liner on the back - the same colour as the walls, and there's a brown curtain hanging off the front end of the end of the shelving unit, to hide the boxes when taking photos on the table. The shelving holds five boxes of doll clothes, and six boxes of fabrics, my camera case, and several bags of stuffing. But everything 'disappears' when the door is in its usual position)
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Then I waited until later in the day, when it wasn't quite so bright in the room, and lit the candles....
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In one of my wakeful periods that night, I decided the candles seemed a bit big after all, so we made one last attempt to find some smaller ones, and found some at the local party store. They were a bit thinner than I would have liked this time, so I spent an hour dripping wax down them to make them wider, and 'drippier'.....
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I took a side view shot this time, and waited until later in the afternoon when the sun went down behind the house to the west of us, and it wasn't quite so bright out. Then lit the candles, and took the photos using the camera with timer on my tri-pod.........much better!
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As careful as I tried to be, I did get plenty of wax on my table - not from the candles themselves dripping, but from the melted wax spraying when I blew the candles out (several times per photo shoot, so the candles wouldn't burn down too quickly as I changed poses). However, I googled 'how to remove wax from a wooden table, and they said to scrape it off with the edge of an old credit card. Which worked like magic! 
Dorothy
1/13/2019 06:52:14 pm

Wow, this is amazing! I love how you "hung" the curtains. The candle stands are perfect.

Martha
1/13/2019 07:03:59 pm

Thanks! I much prefer to take photos in my dining-room, as opposed in the basement studio (which has much brighter lights), and this seemed like the best way to recreate the look of an Opera House stage. It was easy to put up and take down.

I already had two of the candle stands (meant for a single, big fat candle) and when we were out at the Party store looking for better candles, we also dropped into the Value Village there, and they had similar candle sticks, so I got two more. I replaced the black spiral ones from the first set of photos with the new ones.

Donna
1/16/2019 11:12:41 am

It's always so interesting to see how the magic is created. And I love your secret storage space.

Martha
1/16/2019 11:19:39 am

I'm trying to remember to take more behind the scene photos.

That's just half what I have on the main floor. I have the boxes with most often used fabrics stored here, and in half the front door clothes closet. It saves a lot of going up and down to the storage room in the basement.


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    Author

    Martha Boers is an award-winning Canadian doll maker and costumer specializing in fantasy and historical-style costumes.
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