Preparation - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 179

by anxiety. So just a bed it was, and all the action happened around it. Some reviews suggested
that the bed, where so many relationships are made and unmade, seemed an appropriate
visual metaphor for this particularly stormy marriage. Well, maybe, but the bed helped to
suggest that the action was happening in Carte's sleepy mind. The bed was the stage on which
this surreal drama was acted out. With the art director I took this image further by having the
bedspread ruched and decorated with gold tassels, much like theatre curtains. Being deprived
of a set, we found the richest crimson fabric to make the bedspread an unmistakable focus. The
As and When Men, a props company in Manchester, made the bed, complete with the initials
G&S incorporated into the metalwork. This wasn't just a reminder of the story, it suggested that
D'Oyly Carte's lifestyle owed much to those two men. Gilbert and Sullivan literally funded the
extravagant bed.
The beautiful detailing of Carte's bed from Gilbert and Sullivan .
Happy with the bed as a central image, it was relatively easy to plot the i lm around it.
Once again, I i nd limitations liberating, and thought of a million ways to use the bed to say
something about the relationship. I had wanted the bed to be surrounded by small gaslamps,
like the footlight shells in Nex t, but I couldn't i nd any and even in the oddness of
having a bed in black space footlights might have made things too peculiar. We
tried candlelit softness in the lighting and shot the i rst week without the benei t
of rehearsals. I was disappointed with the grubby and dark rushes. No-one's fault
other than tight schedules. I couldn't have the whole i lm looking gloomy so,
thinking quickly (another reason why stop motion is exciting), I found a reason to
incorporate a change of lighting into the action immediately. D'Oyly Carte snaps