Creating Lola Part One: Pre Production

I went around to various charity shops and bought a range of jumpers/props that we could use for the set as well as asking the rest of the group to contribute anything they had. Finding the right type of jumper was incredibly hard. It felt like one of those times when you see the item everywhere but when you finally decide to buy it, it's out of stock. I had to improvise as nothing was giving off the right warm feeling. I finally bought A pink fleece, I pink jumper and a blue knit jumper, and thought I would just see what fit the actress best when I met her.

This is one of the tones of pinks I ended up going with

This red jumper was the brightest I found but I hated the material and it was a turtle neck which I felt might make Lola seem suffocated.

This is the second jumper I decided on, I liked the knitted material as the small holes made it seem really well warn, as if it was her favourite jumper that her mother had to persuade to change from time to time

This white just made me think of hospital sheets not innocence which is how white is usually perceived  It also felt really tough and restricting and I don't think it seems like something a child would like to play in. More like something they would wear to church on a Sunday.

I deliberated with this jumper for a while because I liked the busyness of it, but it was to thin and fitted and I felt the blue was more of a sadness blue than a calm blue.

What I really liked about this jumper was both the size of it (It was mens) and the feel. It had that sense of sitting inside by a fire as it was pouring with rain feel which is the direction I was going for in Lolas character.

  

This is the final jumper I decided to purchase as I liked the shade of pink. I thought it was very playful, I didn't really like the fleece material and it wasn't big enough but I was working with what I had.

We also had the character Lola having a special teddy, the one above I think would have perfectly fit the bill if I had found the big bright knitted jumpers I originally had in mind but after I decided to go with the pastel coloured pink and blue jumpers I decided that the big pink rabbit was the best direction. The idea for Lola was now changing in my mind, I started to see her as being quite girly, wearing plastic jewellery and stolen miss matched make up from her mothers collection.

The only down side to this process was that we did not yet have an actress so I wasn't sure if the clothes I was buying would even fit in terms of size and tone. As mentioned before, I wanted Lola to feel swallowed by her clothing, but in a warm feeling way. Like massive jumpers you wear around the house in the winter snuggled up with hot chocolate and a movie. That's the kind of happy and safe characteristic I wanted Lola to let off.
Finding jumpers was an interesting experience because all this knowledge you didn't realise you had or thought you had forgotten about the meaning behind colours just rises to the surface guiding you to help make the nest creative decision.