Sunday 25 October 2009

Lyveden New Bield Project: Workshop Two

This Saturday we held the second workshop for the Lyveden project at The Pemberton Centre, Rushden. Everyone picked up the video editing software really well and were soon off editing images and footage to the soundtrack.



Photographs from Saturday's Workshop

The video they are working on is currently known as the 'Timeline' sequence. This is a 5 minute video piece that will be projected onto the 4 window panes at Lyveden New Bield. It is a bit of a history piece explaining how the Church of England and the persecution of the Catholics began and how it links with the Tresham family. We have a collection of old portraits which will be edited together with the footage the group filmed in the first workshop.

Andy E took charge of the workshop this week whilst Andy R and myself worked on the animated 'Blueprint' sequence. This section explores all the different secret codes that Tresham included in the design of Lyveden New Bield. We have been working on this for the last week and it was good to get some feedback from the rest of the group on what we were doing.

Back to some traditional animation

Animated blueprint sequence

The deadline is now approaching fast with a week and half to go until the event itself. Hopefully we will be doing some projection tests next week to check that everything is working properly. Then we have the final workshop next Saturday where we need to finish everything off. Wish us luck! ^-^
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On a side note I thought I would mention that our group previously known as 'Art Group (name unknown)' are now called:
ctrlg!

It took us a while to get there but everyone agreed we needed to come up with a name and fast. So we went back to some very old ideas and just picked one. :) We now need members of the group to now come up with some logo designs. We are thinking of running a mini design competition for this. Could be a lot of fun! ^-^

Friday 2 October 2009

Lyveden New Bield


As I mentioned in a previous post I am currently involved in putting together some video/animation workshops creating projections to be used at an event by Watch This Space. This is a bonfire night event at the National Trust property Lyveden New Bield.

Our group will be directly involved in creating projected sequences during three workshop sessions with young people over the next month. Myself and a couple of others are also creating an animated blueprint to be projected as part of the event.

Members of the group at Lyveden New Bield

A History Lesson
Lyveden New Bield was designed by Sir Thomas Tresham. It was created to be lodge, a place to entertain guests with beautiful gardens including spiral mounds, moats and a labyrinth of roses. However due to Sir Treshams death and debts within the Tresham family the building was never completed. It was left untouched and was donated to the National Trust in 1922. It wasn't until the early 90's that they began to uncover the hidden garden which is acknowledged as one of the last Elizabethan gardens today.

Thomas Tresham spent most of his life in prison due to his Catholic beliefs. Under the new laws of Henry VIII anyone who did not follow the Church of England were to be punished. It was from his prison cell that Tresham began designing the Lyveden New Bield. He wrote letters to the architects detailing everything he wanted for his garden lodge.

He designed this building full of hidden codes representing his religious beliefs. The unusual cross shape of the building, text from the bible, symbols representing the crucifixion of Christ, windows designed with a cross shaped frame. All of these were his way to show his faith.

Symbols representing the crucifixion of Christ and the cross shaped window designs at Lyveden New Bield
It was his son, Francis Tresham who links the Tresham family to the gunpowder plot. Francis was one of 13 men plotting to blow up the Houses of Parliament. However the plan failed and Francis Tresham was arrested and executed at the Tower of London.

The full story of Lyveden and the link with the gunpowder plot will be told through performance art, projection, music, lighting and fireworks on the 5th and 6th of November.

Tickets are now on sale and going fast!
To buy tickets and for more information see here.