Meet… Bek Palmer
Bek – you created the lovely image for The Chronicles of Atom and Luna which has been flying around social media. Could you tell us a bit about how that image came about?
I first learned about the characters of Atom and Luna when we were doing Research and Development during lockdown. The creative team and some actors met online to listen to an early version of Murray's story and together we explored ideas around the plot and characters, asking questions and making suggestions. Through this process we discovered more details to flesh the story out and slightly alter parts to improve it.
As part of this, I collected images that I felt related to ideas we talked about. For the characters of Atom and Luna, I looked at pictures relating to twins, otherworldly creatures and wild children, connected to nature amongst other things. I shared a mood board of these images with the rest of the team, which lead to discussion about what worked for the characters as well as throwing up new ideas.
I then took all of these ideas and went away to do some drawings that captured the important parts. I chose to draw Atom and Luna in the forest at night, which is an environment that captures the mood of a large part of the story.
Now we’re heading towards Halloween, and I know Atom and Luna is not the only project you are working on right now. Perhaps you could tell us what else you have been up to recently?
I was lucky to get a job a couple of months ago as a Scenic Artist and Prop Maker at The London Bridge Experience, which is a horror attraction beneath London Bridge. Whilst the attraction has been closed during the pandemic, the owners took the opportunity to revamp the exhibits, moving everything around and improving the old scenery. I have been working to get the new sets and props looking their best so the attraction can open on 22nd October for two weekends of special Halloween scare events.
Has your creative process on these very different projects been similar or vastly different?
Working on these two projects has been very different although both are wonderfully creative. At The London Bridge Experience, I get up every weekday morning and go out to work where I see other people, such as the builders. The work I do there is very messy, I come home covered in paint and glue each day. Although I am given a lot of freedom to decide the scenic effects I create on the sets, the original ideas came from someone else, as the exhibits were already mapped out and the stories the actors tell within them were decided before I started work there. I am told the story of each room and shown references for the kind of environment we are trying to create.
The work I am doing on Atom and Luna, I do at home, in my own time and when I am drawing, I work alone. Because of the pandemic, all the meetings with the rest of the team have been online but I have been much more involved with creating the story and characters from the beginning., so when I come to do the illustrations, I am deciding a lot more about how things look based on what I know of the world we have created as a team.
Tell us what else you have been doing during Covid19?
Before I started working at The London Bridge Experience, other than The Chronicles of Atom and Luna, I had no work as the theatre projects I was working on before lockdown were postponed. I had a lot of free time so I spent it learning how to design 3D models on the computer and to 3D print them. This will be useful for making models of my set designs when I get back to working in theatre. I also used these skills to design and make jewellery as well as upcycling fabric to make new clothes. I decided to open a shop on Etsy, called Crunchy Lipstick, to sell some of the things I made.
And what are you looking forward to most as The Chronicles of Atom and Luna unfolds?
I am looking forward to seeing how the different elements of the project come together, the podcast, the play etc. as they all show different aspects of the story. But most of all, as I am a theatre maker, I am really looking forward to how we make the main story into a show. At the moment, we know the story as it would be written in a book but we don’t know how we will make that into a play, that will be the most exciting part.
Photo by Steve Tanner
