Starting multimedia:

Introducing multimedia to a new class starts with teaching us how to use the technology used to for our end of year performance. We learnt how to approach and set up a camera onto a tripod and connect it to a projector to create an image. We then explored this theory in a broader way and used the image created from the projection and placed the image on a person’s body. With the camera focusing on an image, for example a face, and placing the projection on the body we could create an image like:

 

(Camera and projection working together)
As an exciting, enthusiastic group we wanted to create a different kind of image and something that you can’t normally do outside of multimedia. It was time to take advantage of the technology and make a male Rory wear a females top through technology. We pointed a camera on my body and focused only on my top and sleeves with this we then focused the projector on Rory’s top half to create this imagery:

(Camera and projection working together)
Throughout this lesson we learnt what was needed to operate a camera, connect it to a projection and to create uncommon images that we had never been able to do before. We learnt what cables went were, how turn on and off a camera/projection and how to connect this to a television.
The lessons taught us how to use technology and how we can use it to our advantage, one lesson we learnt ‘makey makey’ we was inspired by; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lF2MDR7cOU got split into two groups and created our own ‘makey makey’. This device makes it able for us to touch an object or a person and a sound will be heard. When put into a group we came to the idea of making ‘human life, operation’ we used a projected image from a laptop of an operation board and placed it upon my bare belly. We then used ‘makey makey’ to represent the tweezers, when the ‘tweezers’ touched the body it would make a ‘beep sound’ like on operation. Example photos;

(‘Makey Makey’ Human operation)

The other lessons we were watching pieces for inspiration such as God Squad, Blast Theory, Virtuoso (working title). After each lesson we would discuss what we liked about the performance and ideas were starting to form together.
Coming together and creating something:
Lessons were over and now we had to come together to share our ideas and start to create something. One of our first few ideas were to use oppression throughout history, this then lead to the idea of retelling dark thoughts that have been shared viral. Within a few weeks after lessons Jack Tulin took over a class and from the idea of, “When you cut into the present, the future leaks out.” (Robinson, 2011) he gave suggestions of past historical moments and what happened back stage, what the cameras did not show, basically showing different sides that the media does not show. Working together we all added to his idea and created a list, the first few ideas created;
Historical moments seen differently through media;
– Marilyn singing happy birthday
– 9/11
– Beatles conspiracies / ‘Abbey Road’ / Tree made of Beatles
– Edward Snowden
– JFK Assassination
– Moon Landing / conspiracies
– Jack the Ripper / letters / Zodiac killer
– Gender, Feminism? Rape stories?
– Winston Churchill, War – History quote
– Hitler
– Richard III
– Coronation / Queenie
– World Cup, Football moments
– Church stuff
Through the rehearsal we all decided on these ideas and chose which ones we would like to research and maybe come up with an idea we could use, I chose to look into the Zodiac Killer. Researching his letters, https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Letters+by+Zodiac&newwindow=1&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=bi5iVfmUIsraU-eMgOgJ&ved=0CCEQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=657 and using this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsM-kwU2mRU
Previously we had brought in an idea of having a camera over the shoulder and recording someone writing something so I wanted to use the idea of someone writing these letters exactly word for word and maybe a voice saying the written words. Because the Zodiac killer was never found another idea came across of someone searching through these letters, clues and zodiac symbols the killer sent like they were trying to still figure out who the killer was, this would of also gave an audience a chance to try solve the same puzzle. Because Jack the Ripper also shared this similarity of not being found we could of merged these two together and the idea of ripped up newspaper clippings and trying to put pieces together to solve or figure out the theme of what was being portrayed. The ripped up newspaper idea came from Jack and Cherry who shared some of their ideas and images of what they had created with this in mind. But in the end these were only experiments that ended up giving us inspiration for new material. Everyone came together in the following rehearsal and shared their ideas we then added and experimented with these ideas but then after some time spent we had to come to a final decision of what we wanted. We had to think of historical events that have made an effect, also events that were minimized through media and what we could do with this. With the technology we had we could create something that shows a different perceptive on these reports and show things an audience couldn’t see through the media. Through our camera’s we could show different sides of events and create a different visual that news reports would not show to an audience.

After working together we finally came up with events we wanted to show through media, which were;
– The Moon Landing
– Watergate
– The Wright Brothers
– Churchill
– Suffragettes
– The Big Bang Theory
– Coronation
– Columbine
– Assassination
– Hitler
– Freddy Mercy
– Newsroom/ending scene
Like before everyone either worked on a piece or worked as a couple and came up with an idea. In rehearsal we sat down and went through everyone ideas and then gave some of our own insight to help create a scene.
As stage manager we decided a tech team was needed, a little group to help myself with transition that took place. Georgie, Sam, Cherry and Chelsea became my tech team and we worked and rehearsed each scenes transition for cameras and afterwards props and tables but tech came first, due to cables and dangers if not looked after properly, the equipment was our priority.
Technology, transitions and a few scenes:
Moon Landing
This scene was created with two cameras, the cameras were placed on stage both sides, upstage right and left, a projection and images of landing on moon, the flag, and the rocket going up into outer space.

 

(Drawn stage design by Cherry)

 

(Stage design, Charlotte.
The screens are actually
placed at the sides but limited room.)

(Live view, Rehearsal, Moon Landing)
Five performers were used, with two tables put together to look like one long table, and also keyboards and mouse’s were placed on top the table. The imagery the audience was meant to gain was the NASA workers, working hard on the computers and then there was a light being carried down the scaffolding by another performer who portrayed the moon getting closer. The NASA workers are then supposed to look astonished by how close they are to the moon. We also used two male actors speaking speeches of Nixon and JFK into cameras that were places upstage left/right.
Transitions: will take place after the scene, I will removed the camera from upstage left and move it to centre side, stage left then focus the camera on flowers that have been brought on. Georgie will remove the camera from upstage right and move it to the centre back stage then focus it as a mirror for Jake. Nixon’s speech came from, http://io9.com/5880226/read-the-speech-nixon-prepared-in-case-the-apollo-11-astronauts-died-on-the-moon and JFK’s, http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm

Watergate
Two cameras used, one placed focusing on a bunch of flowers the other focused centre stage waiting for a face to fill the image. The second (centre) camera was used to represent a mirror, a mirror that Nixon (Jake) was preparing himself. His face is show on the upstage right screen and the flowers on the left.

(Stage design)

(Drawing by Cherry)

(Rehearsals, Watergate)
Three actors, Nixon, his wife Pat and his secretary are the only ones shown in this scene, this scene portrays what happens behind the camera’s using the camera as the ‘fly on the wall’ effect. This scene is before Nixon makes his speech it shows Pat pacing, panicking on the outcome, but also how she speaks to him abusively but cunning which could be argued that it represents Pat as the influence behind Nixon but media never showed this side of the relationship.
Transitions: will take place after the scene, I will remove camera (centre side stage left) and move it backstage left appearing over Jake’s shoulder focusing on paper airplanes. Sam and Cherry will lower the camera, then move it from upstage right to backstage right appearing over Connor’s shoulder.

The Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang starts with Isaac Newton, performer Chloe entering and writing his theory, the planets enter one by one (nine performers) with a flash light, which is already turned, doing slow circle movements to represent the plants in the sky. Chloe then retells Isaac Newton’s theory to the audience whilst the performers carry on showing this image. Then than leave one by one but from the last person who came on stage leaving first.
This scene had been changed a few times, firstly this scene started with everyone researching their individual planet and finding the creation story behind their chosen religion, I looked into different Chinese creation stories and used the one of Pan Gu. They believed, “In the beginning , the heavens and earth were still one and all was chaos. The universe was like a big black egg, carrying Pan Gu inside itself.” (Crystalinks, 2015) Something not everyone would have known and that’s the stories everyone else tried to find so we could tell the creation stories that people weren’t use too. But it went in the direction of looking like a G.C.S.E performance and was immediately changed and looking at it from the audience it was a beautiful scene to create with darkness and lights.
Transitions: Camera one, Sam will move it from the side and place it (downstage left) focusing on Cherry’s face ready for coronation.

 

(Drawing by Cherry)

(Stage design)

Columbine
This scene is what Bradley and myself co-directed, with Bradley and Sam being the actors of Dylan and Eric and Charlotte controlling the camera. This scene involved one camera, one go-pro, three screens and one projection. This scene included the use of real life CCTV footage from the Columbine shootings, pre-recorded scene of which showed the audience a place they can’t see in the performance, backstage. Inspired by the Columbine shootings we began to research everything we possibly could about Eric Harris and Dyaln Klebold we looked into documentaries, websites, gameplays, journals, anything that could help us create something that hasn’t been done before. Through our research we came across this quote, “Klebold was hurting inside while Harris wanted to hurt people” (Cullen, 2004) this gave us the idea to show them in the way they are, human. They may off murdered and the media only portrays them in this light but they was still one of us. We then researched and read through their journals which gave us proof to the quote we found, we found Eric’s to be filled with anger, hurt, murderous words and hatred words towards the school kids stating it was their fault this was happening because of them bullying them. Whereas, Dylan’s showed pain and hurt from a girl he was in love with and different. As directors for this scene we ended up using the cameras to show the preparation for the massacre. We showed Eric (Sam) coming in and sitting on chair with a gun next to it, he picks up the controller that was placed on the seat and plays Doom a video game Eric use to play all the time. It then turns to the CCTV the actual footage from the massacre. Jake says a paragraph from Eric’s journal whilst Sam pretends to ‘play the game’. The element behind this the argument behind most massacres when they are young murders and that’s video games, they did not believe this but an argument was raised due to Eric’s referencing the game Doom a lot and he also made his own edits to the game. Then Dylan enters (Bradley) and we see his character fixing a bomb, the camera only focuses on the bomb behind set up and then being put back into the bag, we used this as the propane bomb was meant to kill over 600 pupils but they did not set the timer right and it ended up being a fail causing the boys to go in and shot at the bomb until it went off. We represented the guns and the bomb but one thing we did with the GoPro was clip it onto the gun so it showed the part of the gun centre of the screen which is no longer aloud in games after Columbine. We then made the audience feel like they was the victims putting the fear inside of them, just before the bomb went off on the CCTV video the guys got up and pointed the guns at the audience then the bomb goes off and we used a mist machine to represent the bomb. The boys go off stage all the screens turn to the GoPro footage, people already dead and they kill themselves also showing them what media wouldn’t normal allow on television. All screens then show blood afterwards ‘Game Over’. We bought trench coats and matrix outfits to represent the group they are a part off ‘Trench Coat Mafia’ or claimed to be. These were amateur murderers not the next Jack the Ripper and that is what we wanted to show through the way they held their guns to the side, trying to look cool not kill. We got journal research from, http://www.acolumbinesite.com/rebdomindex.html and http://acolumbinesite.com/dylan/writing/journal/jindex.html also we had https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LfwliEvCVY which we edited and cut for our piece.

(Stage Design)

(Rehearsals)

Review overall process/rehearsal and performance:
As a stage manager I believe we managed to pull it off, we had tech issues and things went wrong like any other show, but things also went right. People enjoyed the way we used tech to show historical events, audience members said they liked guessing what scene was what and the different views they felt after watching them.
Disadvantages would of took place in the rehearsals, communication for when scenes had changed were poor a couple of people miss a lesson due to work or illness turn up the next day ready and they go to start their scene and then get told it has been changed. This wasted time and also caused a few issues for a couple of scenes throughout. Also we had a good schedule for rehearsals and no one minded it when it changed and we all did 13 hours a day, the issue was turning up for 13 hours and only rehearsing for an hour if even that. This was poor and if we resolved this issue sooner we could off done a lot better.
Advantages we worked as a group, we came together and worked very hard. We supported each other and the ideas from one another, we suggested what could be changed or experienced within the scene.
As stage manager I had to make sure who wore what mic in what scene was placed on both sides of the stage and also back stage, I rehearsed with my tech group transitions we even did this without tech sometimes to get a feel of space. I listened and separated the props table with Bradley and he also helped me with buying costume and arranging it for people to easily grab. Claudia did the sound and lights with Hal and Jack and the risk assessment, we all worked together and made a great team and on the day of the show I made sure I did everything they asked me too and tried to make sure nothing went wrong.

 

Work cited:

Blast Theory. (2013). Jog Shutter. Available: http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/projects/jog-shuttler. Last accessed 10th May 2015.
Crystalinks.com, (2015). Chinese Creation Myths – Crystalinks. [online] Available at: http://www.crystalinks.com/chinacreation.html [Accessed 20 May 2015].

Davis, L. (2015). Read the speech Nixon prepared in case the Apollo 11 astronauts died on the moon. [online] io9. Available at: http://io9.com/5880226/read-the-speech-nixon-prepared-in-case-the-apollo-11-astronauts-died-on-the-moon [Accessed 30 Mar. 2015].

Edward S Robinson (2011). Shift Linguals: Cut-up Narratives from William S. Burroughs to the Present. Amsterdam: Routledge. p41.

Gob Squad. (2003). Super Night Shot. Available: http://www.gobsquad.com/projects/super-night-shot. Last accessed 10th May 2015.

Google.co.uk, (2015). Letters by Zodiac – Google Search. [online] Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Letters+by+Zodiac&newwindow=1&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=bi5iVfmUIsraU-eMgOgJ&ved=0CCEQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=657 [Accessed 10 Mar. 2015].

Mcadams.posc.mu.edu, (2015). JFK’s Undelivered Address to the Texas Democratic State Committee. [online] Available at: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/austinspeech.htm [Accessed 30 Mar. 2015].

Shepard, C. (2015). Dylan Klebold’s Writing – Journals, Diaries and School Papers. [online] Acolumbinesite.com. Available at: http://acolumbinesite.com/dylan/writing/journal/journal3.html [Accessed 25 Mar. 2015].

Shepard, C. (2015). Transcripts from Eric Harris’ web page: Wisdom2.html. [online] Acolumbinesite.com. Available at: http://www.acolumbinesite.com/rebdomindex.html [Accessed 25 Mar. 2015].

Whele, P. (2002) Live performance and technology The Example of Jet Lag. PAJ: a Journal of Performance and Art. 24 (1) 133-139

YouTube, (2015). Columbine Cafeteria Footage (Full Video). [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LfwliEvCVY [Accessed 25 Mar. 2015].

YouTube, (2015). Zodiac Real Voice On Jim Dunbar. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsM-kwU2mRU [Accessed 10 Mar. 2015].