The first unit of this year has been a good one in my opinion, I have reached some of the goals I set myself, one of which is to be more confident and outgoing and I truly think I have achieved that. I was able to work on my heights problem by painting the flats for the Christmas show, and although it is still a problem for me I think that has helped it a bit. I think my skills overall have improved from the start of the year as I have had to do a lot more sewing, painting, prop making and costume. I had to use sewing for making the teepee at the start of the year, on the rabbit for a show and now on my sewing project, I think once I have finished that I will be fairly good and be able to make most things as it seems quite complicated and I chose a bad first fabric to work with. The costume workshop we did with the year ones was refreshing and enjoyable, I got one of the costumes sorted for them as an example, worked with them to get the second one and let them get the third on their own. Although I did give pointers on what to get, I feel like I have helped people a lot this year, I kind of like teaching people a bit. I have had help from others as well, I haven't just been doing everything by myself, I've gotten some useful advise from peers while I've been doing my sewing project. Another time I had to do costume stuff was for Rabbit in which I help distress some trousers which was useful as now I know how to do that.
I believe I have improved slightly with my props skills, from making to sourcing. When we were working on Rabbit I helped with finding props for the show and I made a knife and the rabbit. For the Halloween shows, Frankenstein and Sweeny Todd I got lots of stuff out, I adapted some of our existing props and made others like the pies. Although the actors didn't use most of those props I still got them everything they asked for. The most unorganised show was the Christmas show, I wasn't given a list to work from and nobody seemed to know what was happening but I think I handled it well, I managed to get everything they asked for and I surprised myself with how quickly I made some of it. I think I remained professional throughout the whole ordeal even when it was frustrating and confusing, a lot of it was done last minute due to the nature of the show but I think the quality of the work was still good. My communication with the producer of the show was limited and last minute as no one had told me any of the information I needed so I just had to go straight to her and ask what was needed which got the job done, I honestly don't think the work would have been done if I hadn't asked her, the DSM wasn't being very helpful.
I think now that I am being more outgoing and talking to the rest of the crew more, my communication with the crew is much better, I feel a lot more comfortable talking to them and I feel like we can work better as a team now that its easier to get my thoughts and ideas across.
The main thing I learned in doing the Ashgirl project was not to take on to much work, I wanted to do the costume, prop and makeup aspects of it and I did manage it but I need to focus on just one thing a bit more. I think my targets for the next project would be:
Focus on one specific aspect and make it as detailed and as good as possible.
Get better at explaining my work in a more precise and understandable way.
Show my passions and talents more in my work, add some personality to it.
I want to start showing what I can really do well and develop my skill further.