Carlos over at ragamuffinsoul.com has asked his readers to chime in each Thursday with random examples of creativity in action. We call it “Creative Chaos.”

[be sure to check out part 2 after reading this post]

As we were brainstorming our set design for our “Deadly Viper: Character Assassins” series, we wanted to do something that would be striking, but would also come in at a price tag of under $1000. We decided to go with classic Japanese colors and materials, and repetition.

The Stuff:

• Lots of rice paper lanterns (some with red bulbs tied into our lighting system) [source: ikea, world market, home depot].
• LOTS of bamboo (used to frame our uber-ghetto 3 screen video wall) [source: a couple in our church has acres of it on their property].
• Red canvas with simple Japanese-esque graphics painted in white primer and hung with rope and bamboo [source: wally world].
• Lots of twine, lots of fishing line, and a day in the scissor lift.

The simple white globes give the intels plenty of surface area to hit. And we situated them between three different rows of fixtures so we could get several layers of color.

We’ve had tons of positive feedback, and even came in under budget.