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Moulin Rogue has its origins from the original place of the same name. The Moulin Rouge itself translates to “The Red Windmill”, named after the icon Windmill associated with the original building. The building is still up and running today after over a century and a half of showbiz, within Paris since 1899.

It was founded by two men during the later stages of the “Bella Epoch” a period of time in france after the third French empire. Aptly named, “The Beautiful era” in which creatives medias flourished within this period until the first World War bought this era to an end. The moulin rouge continued on afterward this time period.

One of the most notable events of the Moulin Rouge's history is that the original building burnt down. Later replaced with a new structure a decade later, however, some of the more iconic features of the Moulin Rogue were its popular shows and the notable dancers that it produced. Still remembered even decades after.

The main appeal of the place allowing rich people to "Slum it" refers to spending time in places of lower quality than what someone may typically indulge in. This was popular at the time and was one of the appeals of The Moulin Rogue. In the original building, there was a massive elephant that was a smoking bar and one of the iconic sights in the Moulin Rogue.

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I believe that being knowledgeable in the past history of the place could allow me to make unique decisions. In response to the research I have conducted, I've been really inspired by the older aspects of the themes. I think we incorporate some of the older more iconic elements. I used the more historical aspects of the colors, as I quite liked the antiquated colours of the time.

My overall opinion of the original place is that I found to be very a product of it's time that still continued to expand onward. I like to imagine how the first place was brought to life by the era. I found the imagery I found to be exciting and lively even with it being from a begone era.

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To conclude the floor aspect of my work, I ended up scrapping the idea of the herringbone design. I did this because the pieces I was meant to be painting a wood texture onto already had a desirable look to them. As they had a swirling gain on the underside of them, while it did mean I had to abandon most of my plans. I didn’t have any regrets in the end in regards to this.

The wood gaining already present on the floor pieces had a certain quality to it that made myself want to utilise the design. Instead of covering them with paint and ignoring the interesting details already present. I did have to change the wood cut to a more traditionally straight planks, even so I’m pleased with the how they came out.

Whilst I wasn’t involved with the planks any further beyond marking out the planks. Using a chalk line to mark it out. There was difficulty with making use of the actual device itself as it kept getting tangled internally, that itself made actually marking out the lines take a lot longer. It happened a few times while I did the first parts of the chalk marking.

The hardest part of this was getting the measurements on the mark. As some of the lines went diagonally and weren’t straight, a few also had the incorrect spacing between the individual planks. This did get corrected further down the line, not by myself. I could of avoided this by being more careful and thoughtful and about where I was looking with the chalk line.

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Master Post:

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After the arches were painted red, and the pattern finalised. The pattern was transferred onto a piece astate, with a projector I transferred the pattern onto the arches with a piece of chalk. The actual tracing of the pattern was simple enough but there was slight issue with connecting with the lines with parts of the bigger pattern.

As I worked on this, I learnt about using different hand techniques to effectively draw out the patterns. Partly because I learnt that drawing with my wrist for long periods of time really hurt it, whilst I noticed a massive improvement when I drew with my arm as opposed to my wrist. While I did improvise parts of the pattern due to awkward surface angles, however I don’t think they ended up being noticeable due to the density of the pattern on the inner arch parts.

The next part of this process was to paint the pattern onto the actual surface of the arch. I used a gold paint that was more akin to a paste, due to it being mixed with glue as the paint itself had dried out from a previous project. While I’m unsure whether it was because of the paint being used was high quality or if the glue had a factor. However I found that the more paste like paint easier to apply, when I compared it to applying more liquid paint from a previous experience.

I would like to try out adding glue to paint once again just to see the result. Whether it was a fluke or not, it was useful.

The actual painting of the arch was a process in itself, as I did have further difficulties with the higher parts that needed to be painted due to my own height. I fixed this by getting a box to stand on, it helped in the end but I could tell that the bottom looked more rough compared to what I could reach.

In the end I was happy with how the arches took to the pattern. As it really livened up the background with its Golden hues under the lights. As I also applied the earlier method of not using my wrist. Due to the pattern consisting of mainly curved lines, I found painting with my arm was more efficient due to less burnout that my wrist faced during the mark-up stages.

I repeated the same methods onto two more flats that were to go above the arches. With this in mind I matched up the patterns accordingly with chalk and paint, this happened to be more straightforward then last time. Allowing me to be more time conscious with this being done the same week as the filming.

The flats didn’t have end up going above the arches in the end. I was disappointed as I has spent the time making sure that the lines matched up exactly; though they did end up looking nice once set-up. Having a similar effect to the arches as the paint was a metallic gold.

I did add some finishing touches to the flats to make them less sparse with the patterns. This was because I happened to have had more paint leftover then I had anticipated in the end. With the unexpected quantity I used this to freshen up pieces of the arches where it was visibly noticeable. I had also noticed that due to one of the arches being textured that the paint took to the ridges awkwardly unlike the opposite arch which lacked the ridges.

Unfortunately even the touching up did little to reduce the smudging effect. While I still could very much see it, this was because I had been the one thinking about the issue. I don’t think you could see under the lighting but it still bothered me nonetheless.

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This term we are focusing on creating a music video for the song “Lady Mamalade” from the musical Moulin Rouge. Where we had to design and film the music video from our own creation.

I focused on the design of the set and sceneic related areas of the Music video, one of the mire major aspects I worked on was the colour picking. As red is a major aspect to Moulin Rouge, aptly being in the name. With that in mind while I deciding on what colours, making sure they stayed within the more intense and vibrant range.

I felt like Vermillion and burgundy were prefect additions to the pallet as the Vermillion is a more softer red. While the Burgundy could add more depth to the red that would currently present other then your stereotypical red you might associate with it.

As complimentary, or secondary colours I looked into more metallic shades to accentuate the main boldness of the reds that’ll be incorporated into the set design. While keeping towards the warmer end of the colours.

Silver, Rose Gold, Bronze, Copper gold.

Vermilion

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Wine

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Aside from the colours another area I had been working was what would be used as the flooring. I’m planning to do a heart shaped design with mock wood. I had been looking into the different types of wood I could mimic with paint. To aline with the already mentioned colour palette I considered Walnut and acacia from among a few choices I had looked into.

Ultimately deciding on Cherry blossom wood as the wood of choice. Due to the slight pink undertones that made it a natural fit with the redder scheme in it. The next aspect was to figure out the style that the wood would be in, there were 3 ways that I could of chosen to set the wood. With the herringbone being the most appealing to look at as well as allowing the heart to be more naturally formed from the planks.