Pittsburgh Arts, Regional Theatre, New Work, Producing, Copyright, Labor Unions,
New Products, Coping Skills, J-O-Bs...
Theatre industry news, University & School of Drama Announcements, plus occasional course support for
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni.
CMU School of Drama
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Avoid “Pink Shirt Syndrome!” Learn How To Make Convincing Bloody Costumes That Won’t Stain Everything Else
Rosco Spectrum: The Huntington Theatre Company is currently producing Sherlock’s Last Case, by Charles Marowitz. One scene in that play calls for a blood effect. When a scene calls for a blood effect it can strike fear into the hearts of a costumer. The first thing we all think is, “Please, don’t let it be live.” “Live” is the word we use for wet stage blood.
When I clicked on this article I was pretty skeptical at first. It seems that pink shirt syndrome is just part of the commitment when you use fake blood onstage. It is going to run and wear out, lightening the scarlet color of blood to a gross pink. I did not know there was an alternative to this issue. I admire Denise Wallace-Spriggs and her ingenuity to come up with a traditional fake blood alternative. I am glad that the article detailed and included pictures of the entire process, so that someone could reproduce this on their own without having to hunt for a separate how to guide. The finished product looks incredible as well! I am sure it reads both up close and far away when a costuming piece is treated with this new fake blood. I think it looks so good because the process to make this finished product is a several layer process, with plenty of dry time in between.
I found this article to be incredibly interesting. Part of what I love about theater is the ability of designers and creators to come up with new ideas that heighten the experience of a production. Because theater is such a specific industry and there is very little that was actually made for the purpose of being used in theater, theater artists often have to come up with their own ways to manipulate available resources to cause a desired effect. Even though theater has been around for a very long time, there is always room for innovation and new methods for processes that may seem immovable or too traditional to change. In my opinion, theater should always be changing if artists want to continue affecting people; if theater just kept repeating the same tropes and themes in the same way, it would lose its following. The ability of theater artists to respond to the constantly changing world, whether in the realm of the subject matter of a show or in the technology used for it, is what keeps theater interesting.
To be totally honest, I wish I had known about this more a year ago. One year I decided to do a group costume as shark week (bad decision). We painted our shirts with red dye to simulate blood and, while it looked really good, it stained literally everything I touched. I had red stains on my body, my backpack, and my sheets. I ended up just throwing the entire thing away at the end of the day because I knew that I would end up staining everything in the wash. This article is super helpful in case I decide to make a “bloody” outfit again, though I don’t think it will happen in the near future. I feel like it requires a lot of experimenting and testing to make the perfect combination of paint, dye, and gloss. It also takes a lot of time to paint each layer of blood to be realistic. It must’ve taken years to truly master the skill and a passion for experimentation and creation.
I always click on these types of articles because i love learning more tips and tricks about all of the effects we use in theatre. I amazes me the creative ways people have managed to use things from both theatre and other industries to create something like this. I definitely thought that fake blood was just one of those things that you did your best to manage, but would eventually ruin everything in it's path. This article seems more geared to theater that needs costumes to last for multi-week long runs, but I could also see this helping a theatre trying to cut down on costume cost by forgoing replacements in favour of using this process, thought here is a substantial materials and labour cost here as well. Though I have to say, if you are doing a murder mystery or a show that you know is going to involve blood in multiple places, this process is definitely worth looking into.
My junior year of High School we put on the production of “Sweeney Todd,” and one of the problems we came across was the “pink shirt syndrome” with the fake blood that we were using. The nice thing was that the kind of fake blood we used wouldn’t actually stain the costumes and it would come out in the wash, but it didn’t look that convincing onstage because it seeped into the clothes and made them look more pink, rather than red. I’m not really sure how well we would’ve been able to use this method though, since most of the blood in the show comes from people getting their throats cut onstage. But for the ending scenes it could’ve been effective. I do think this would be a great thing that we could’ve used for Halloween back when I used to do things with my friends to scare kids during trick-or-treating. The fake blood we used would stain my friend’s nice white shirt a pink color and ultimately it wouldn’t look that good. I definitely will use this for some later use when I have a costume that needs a bloody touch. My only one thing with this article is that some of the blood examples used were much too bright colored to be blood.
5 comments:
When I clicked on this article I was pretty skeptical at first. It seems that pink shirt syndrome is just part of the commitment when you use fake blood onstage. It is going to run and wear out, lightening the scarlet color of blood to a gross pink. I did not know there was an alternative to this issue. I admire Denise Wallace-Spriggs and her ingenuity to come up with a traditional fake blood alternative. I am glad that the article detailed and included pictures of the entire process, so that someone could reproduce this on their own without having to hunt for a separate how to guide. The finished product looks incredible as well! I am sure it reads both up close and far away when a costuming piece is treated with this new fake blood. I think it looks so good because the process to make this finished product is a several layer process, with plenty of dry time in between.
I found this article to be incredibly interesting. Part of what I love about theater is the ability of designers and creators to come up with new ideas that heighten the experience of a production. Because theater is such a specific industry and there is very little that was actually made for the purpose of being used in theater, theater artists often have to come up with their own ways to manipulate available resources to cause a desired effect. Even though theater has been around for a very long time, there is always room for innovation and new methods for processes that may seem immovable or too traditional to change. In my opinion, theater should always be changing if artists want to continue affecting people; if theater just kept repeating the same tropes and themes in the same way, it would lose its following. The ability of theater artists to respond to the constantly changing world, whether in the realm of the subject matter of a show or in the technology used for it, is what keeps theater interesting.
To be totally honest, I wish I had known about this more a year ago. One year I decided to do a group costume as shark week (bad decision). We painted our shirts with red dye to simulate blood and, while it looked really good, it stained literally everything I touched. I had red stains on my body, my backpack, and my sheets. I ended up just throwing the entire thing away at the end of the day because I knew that I would end up staining everything in the wash. This article is super helpful in case I decide to make a “bloody” outfit again, though I don’t think it will happen in the near future. I feel like it requires a lot of experimenting and testing to make the perfect combination of paint, dye, and gloss. It also takes a lot of time to paint each layer of blood to be realistic. It must’ve taken years to truly master the skill and a passion for experimentation and creation.
I always click on these types of articles because i love learning more tips and tricks about all of the effects we use in theatre. I amazes me the creative ways people have managed to use things from both theatre and other industries to create something like this. I definitely thought that fake blood was just one of those things that you did your best to manage, but would eventually ruin everything in it's path. This article seems more geared to theater that needs costumes to last for multi-week long runs, but I could also see this helping a theatre trying to cut down on costume cost by forgoing replacements in favour of using this process, thought here is a substantial materials and labour cost here as well. Though I have to say, if you are doing a murder mystery or a show that you know is going to involve blood in multiple places, this process is definitely worth looking into.
My junior year of High School we put on the production of “Sweeney Todd,” and one of the problems we came across was the “pink shirt syndrome” with the fake blood that we were using. The nice thing was that the kind of fake blood we used wouldn’t actually stain the costumes and it would come out in the wash, but it didn’t look that convincing onstage because it seeped into the clothes and made them look more pink, rather than red. I’m not really sure how well we would’ve been able to use this method though, since most of the blood in the show comes from people getting their throats cut onstage. But for the ending scenes it could’ve been effective. I do think this would be a great thing that we could’ve used for Halloween back when I used to do things with my friends to scare kids during trick-or-treating. The fake blood we used would stain my friend’s nice white shirt a pink color and ultimately it wouldn’t look that good. I definitely will use this for some later use when I have a costume that needs a bloody touch. My only one thing with this article is that some of the blood examples used were much too bright colored to be blood.
Post a Comment