Operation Haystack

A BOA escape room

Operation haystack was a escape room completely conceptualised and excecated by BOA students at BOA stage and screen academy. We were split into groups and given the task to create a power point, presenting an idea for an escape room. In my group we came up with the idea of "Hunted Harvest" an escape room based on the movie "Texas chain saw massacre" depicting a farmer whom is a cereal killer. After all our presentations the teachers chose two groups to combine there ideas to create an escape room we could all create and sell tickets to. They chose my group and a group which had the idea for an escape room called "lost". The combination of the two created Operation Haystack.

Job Roles

Before starting any of the production for Operation Haystack we had to apply for our job roles on the production team. We were given a list of the positions available and had to fill a full application for the role we would like plus two back up roles. I applied for: Costume supervisor, Costume maker, and Production management. In the end I was given three job roles:

-Costume designer/ supervisor: A costume designer is a person who designs costumes for a film, stage production or television show. The role of the costume designer is to create the characters' outfits or costumes and balance the scenes with texture and colour, etc.

-Production management: The production management team assess the performance of team members, along with the effectiveness of the current production process. Evaluating the performance of the production process allows the manager to determine what's working well and what they can improve.

-Story board and concept: The storyboard and concept team focuses on creating the general concept and plot of a performance. this includes the title, plot, and tag line.

Story board and concept team

The story board and concept team focuses on creating the general concept and plot of a performance. this includes the title, plot, and tag line. This team mainly works at the very start of the project but once the idea has be conceptualised there is not much envelopment from there.

During my time on this team I assisted with certain aspects of the process. We all worked together to create a general plot / storyline for the escape room. We also collaborated to conclude on the name "Operation Haystack". Once we had the general plot and name we all broke off to refine the finer details. I worked on exploring the characters a bit further for; casting, costume, and make up and I worked with another team member to create scripts.

When creating characters I created brief backstory's for them and worked out how they were all connected. This helped; the actors know more about the characters they were auditioning for, the costume team start designing costumes and making moodboards, and the hair and makeup team start working out what make up they would need and start designing.

When making the scripts me and Soph broke down the scenes even further to work out who was in them. Once we knew this we worked out what they would say in these situations.

Production management

The production management team assess the performance of team members, along with the effectiveness of the current production process. Evaluating the performance of the production process allows the manager to determine what's working well and what they can improve.

When working on the production team the main aspect I helped with was during auditions. We had put up posters and broadcasted auditions throughout our building to allow as many people the chance to see them and audition if they liked. We then planned what we would have the actors do in auditions and we decided on a three round process where the actors would play a short game to loosen them up and then do a monologue and improved due piece. we had also printed out sheets with peoples name and faces on so if we wanted to write notes we knew who we were writing about.

Finally on the day of auditions we had the actors come in introduce themselves and preform the tasks before refining the options in a large discussion to find our characters. We then shared this news with the actors and costume so they could start measurements.

Costume Supervisor

The wardrobe supervisor is responsible for overseeing all wardrobe related activities during the course of a show. They make sure that all the costumes are kept in budget, supervising the team and interrelating with other departments to make sure the show is cohesive.

As this was the role I spent the most time in I had a lot to help with. Firstly I created mood boards for each character and broke down what we needed for each character. When creating mood boards I looked at clothes from that era ( the early 2000s ) and gathered a number of pictures to match that particular character. To help me keep track of all of this I made a Canva PowerPoint which included a slide for each character with a mood board what we needed to get and what ever we had already gathered. This also allowed me to keep the rest of the costume team up to date with what needs doing and what had already been sorted.

We then had measurements. During measurements there were three of us measuring the actors which mad ethe process much more efficient. We measured: bust, waist, hips, inside leg, waist to ground, shoe size, top size, trouser size. Once we had these measurements we could gather clothes and measure them to check they would fit the actors.

When souring costumes for the actors we mainly gathered clothes from our costume store as due to the more realistic nature of the escape room we only had to make masks for the scare crows, all other costumes could be sourced.

Finally once all The costumes had been gathered and measured we did some breaking down of the scarecrow and farmers clothes to make them look distressed and worn down. we did this by scarping them, cutting holes in them, adding patches, and adding dirt with dyed fullers earth.

Once all the costumes had been sorted we had a final fitting with the actors, which went well due to us measuring the clothes before, and then it was time for the show. During the shows I was in the costume room ( Which we made into a green room ) making sure everything went smoothly. This included: making sure no clothes were lost including the actors and the costumes, fixing any last minute changes and finally motoring the actors to make sure they weren't too loud during the show. Overall the shows went well. A couple of times due to the rain and the actors being outside we had to quickly dry there clothes between show but other then that nothing else really went wrong.