I started this module with, for lack of a better term, absolutely no experience or understanding of technology. However, I always had the interest to learn about, not only how to use, but how to execute a well designed piece of theatre with the use of multimedia, this was my influence for taking this module.

We started our multimedia performance workshop with a short demonstration on how to properly use, set up and disassemble the cameras, projectors and projection screens with the guidance from Darren. Once these were all set up, we were split into two groups to experiment with the cameras and projection. The group I was placed in looked at mainly how two projected images can be created from one camera shot We also played around with live bodies being seen on stage, however the image you see being projected is one from a completely different angle, therefore giving the scene two definitions. This began our multimedia journey.

Our following practical session had us working with “makey makeys”. These are devises that allow you to create sounds through electrical currents. If the electrical current can pass through the item, it can be used to make music through the “makey makey”. We used bananas when first being shown the devises. After grasping the use of the makey makeys, we split into two groups to explore what we could come up with when using these devises. We decided to use flowers, and instead of making music, each flower when touched would say one of their own phrases. We recorded and edited these phrases, then set them so each flower had their own phrase to say when they were touched and the circuit was complete.

Our first week of reading showed an introductory of internet mapping. We saw the investigation of multimediality – mediums such as TV, radio and books. Transmediality, a transition from one media to another, for example book to film. Finally intermediality, where one medium is dependant on another. Before trying to look at foundations for a show, it is important to understand all aspects of readings and workshops set for the module to explore what media the LPAC has to offer that can be properly incorporated in our show.

We were shown a series of short documentaries called “Everything is a remix”, a series about how most media such as film and music is not original, but either based or influenced by one or more artist. This was something I found personally helpful when thinking about making a performance. We were all already trying to think of ways we could make a good multimedia performance, however were all worried about being too similar to performances we had previously seen. This series settled our minds a bit, knowing that using influences in a piece is not something that is frowned upon, but can be encouraged.

We were given many pieces to research and watch, as well as weekly readings. I found these set projects very useful in my education for multimedia. I found for myself personally, being a kinetic learner, that watching different multimedia pieces helped my understanding further than the readings, but this is purely based on how I work when it comes to research and understanding. I found Gob Squad’s “Revolution Now!” to be very insightful for me. Their use of live camera feed, projection, viewing screens from outside the theatre onto the streets of London, the use of audience participation and even having their image recorded on camera so they become, to the passers by on the street, performers themselves. I found this useful as a way to think about different uses for media, rather than just thinking about cameras and projection on stage.

To begin the progress of creating a show, we were all asked to write down different themes, company roles and ideas for material for our performance. I was assigned performer and marketing. I chose performer as I feel that performing is my strongest point, whereas roles such as director or stage manager, I feel as I am not a natural leader who is comfortable with directing and guiding people, a role that requires that sort of person would have been wasted on myself, and would have become annoying for the group. I also chose marketing as I was assigned marketing in a previous module and found I not only enjoyed the role, but was something I found great interest in as I have a broad understanding of different ways to advertise a performance or product.

One exercise that really stands out in my mind as a part of our work in progress would be an exercise that Wes set up for us. He had two performers on stage, improvising a scene without the use of music or film for inspiration. The only stimuli the two individuals had to go on was one instruction from the directors. I found this exercise as a performer to be incredibly useful. As a rule, I enjoy improvisation and find I can be quite successful at it, however this was a whole new group to work with. So by being thrown into an exercise where you have to work together so quickly really helped me break the ice with my fellow performers.

With directors, performers, writers, stage management, tech team and other vital roles set amongst the group, we could start to begin the thinking and researching process of our performance. This was a process that began very slowly. Everyone has mass amounts of ideas, none of which actually worked together. Workshops were being made by the directors to help these ideas grow and for more stimuli to come from one idea so some idea and scene linking could begins. Unfortunately, and as to be expected from a work in progress, this was not the case and the group soon found ourselves back to square one, with motivation and enthusiasm beginning to dip.

During one rehearsal, the idea of historical events and conspiracy theories came up. We all paired up and began to think of historical events that stuck out in our minds. After brainstorming these events, we then got into groups for research on each event for more information. One of my ideas that linked with a conspiracy theory was the moon landing in 1969. I began to research my ideas of the moon landing, the Queen’s coronation and the conspiracy theory that Paul McCartney died and the man who is known as Paul is an imposter. During my research, the idea of a faked moon landing was everywhere. There are so many theories on why and how the moon landing was faked, and after consulting with the group and the directors, it was something we were all interested in keeping in the performance. As far as my other research points were concerned, they did not offer much for conspiracy theories. The Queen’s coronation was not something people conspired against, and as for Paul McCartney being dead with someone else pretending to be him, the evidence to back up the theories are not only limited, but very ludicrous. Even researchers who try to defend the theory came out with the answer that he is, in fact, still alive. I also believe that this conspiracy theory is not well known enough for the audience members to understand. After researching, we all came back after Easter with a basis of events we all found interesting. One of our ideas were to link two events together, for example, we demonstrated the Wright Brothers working on the blue prints of the first aeroplane, and then linked that to the 911 terrorist attack where two planes were flown into the world trade centre.

After finally researching and coming up with a structure for our performance, we chose the following for our scene.
1.Moon Landing
2.Watergate
3.The Wright Brothers
4.The journey of Churchill’s life in the war
5. Emily Davidson and her protest for The Suffragettes
6.The Big Bang Theory
7.Queen Elizabeth the second’s coronation
8.Columbine shootings
9.Assassins from their point of view
10. The Diary of Anne Frank
11.AIDS being seen as a “cancer” and finally
12. News room finale.

Each scene was thought out carefully from the directors and writers and after a lot of hard work, we had a structure to work with, rehearse and progress. The directors kept in close contact with Wes, and we had constant feedback from Wes on the progress of our performance. We were told from Wes it was very important that we did not “spoon feed” the audience, so our scenes had to be intelligently displayed, however have the right balance so it wasn’t so vague that no evidence of which event was taking place.

As a performer, I was asked by the directors to be present on stage as much as possible. This meant I was in a number of scenes, starting from Moon Landing, Watergate, Big Bang, Assassins, Freddie Mercury and AIDS, and finally the News Room finale. Although The Big Bang theory was the scene in which only I spoke, I found the most challenging scene for me was Assassins. There is a very large difference between acting and performing. To keep focus on stage for a long period of time, not allowing yourself to move to break concentration. Any small move from myself would have been enough to distract the audience from Adam speaking to myself, for the wrong reasons. Keeping myself focused and still for, as someone who constantly fidgets, was a rather large challenge that I feel I executed well.

After a full run through with Wes present, he gave me the note that I do not seem myself, or anyone on stage. I feel my uncomfortable feeling came from being completely out of my comfort zone. In majority of performances I’ve been a part of, I always get cast as the comedy character, and as much as I wanted to be given the opportunity to show I’m more than just the funny character, I was never aware of how much I relied on that mask for confidence. I was not aware I was being seen as someone with low confidence on stage until Wes had pointed it out, I took this note and (hopefully) changed how I performed on stage to someone with full confidence.

When going through the complete run through, there was a slight element that none of us had thought about. During rehearsal we were without the full use of technology that we were using for the performance. We had all been taught how to use the technology, and knew exactly what was being used for which scene. However, we had not taken into account the transitions between scenes. Taking on and off all the technology, as well as set and props needed for the following scene. Our first attempt of transitions ended up being an empty stage for 5 minutes, with no one knowing who was taking what on or off, or in some cases, everyone rushing on at once to collect the same item. This problem, being so close to opening night, had to be rectified quickly. Once gathering as a group and sorting out who was taking off, moving and bringing on pieces of equipment, the transitions ran smoothly.

I found throughout the process, using technology was far more difficult for not only myself, but for the group as well. The multimedia technology throughout the performance was media that I believe we all underestimated. From angles and projection, to thinking outside the box and trying not to be cliché with what we did with the technology. For example, during the moon landing scene we had two live bodies on stage speaking the Nixon and Kennedy speeches, both looking towards a camera to give the impression of a recorded press conference for the audience. However, when watching the projection screens behind the actors, they were switched. So as one is speaking, the audience found themselves torn from one end of the stage to watch the actor, and the opposite side of the stage to watch the projection.

My experience of multimedia performance has been one I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, the module and the people. Everyone took on their part, and stuck to it wonderfully. I started the module with such limited knowledge of technology, and in complete honesty, I wasn’t even aware of the meaning of multimedia. I have learnt so much in such little time, that I now feel comfortable on stage, without being the clown. I can set up, use and disassemble a camera, whereas before I could barely use my camera phone. I’ve learnt how easy technology can make things, but how effective and fun they are to use, such as the makey makeys. Our show, I feel was the perfect example of multimedia performance. Using technology to it’s full potential (in my personal opinion, technology professionals may disagree) but still keeping the performance entertaining for the audience members. The use of technology however, being extremely important. For example, The Suffragette scene consisted of one live body on stage, throwing herself on the floor to represent Emily Davidson throwing herself under the King’s horse in protest. Behind the body played a video of this incident happening, and was looped throughout the scene. Without the use of technology, this scene would not have worked as the audience would have been left in complete darkness. Scenes like this needed that extra boost from technology.

My final thought; well, I couldn’t have enjoyed a module more than I have this one. Our group dynamic was fantastic and although sometimes stress got the better of us, we came out with an amazing group bond and an amazing performance which showed our hard work. It really has been a pleasure.

The Lessons

During lesson one of the multimedia module the group experimented with notions of perspective, using Cameras and projectors the performers began to experiment with camera angles and manipulating images to create a projected image on the screen. Naturally in order to do this lesson we were required to become accustomed to not only using the cameras effectively, but how to correctly use the equipment we went on to use throughout the process of creating the performance. During the first lesson of the module the group was taught key terms in aspect to multimedia performance, one of which was intermediality, the idea of multiple mediated platforms working in harmony together to create a piece. Philip Auslander claims that film and theatre “can work together as equal partners” (Auslander, 2008, 3) this is the theory from the first lesson which went on to influence our performance, this opinion is what influenced our performance to use media in the way it did. We decided as an ensemble that the mediatised elements of the piece should not be seen as the whole performance, but as equal to theatre and as such we would use the media to enhance the effect of our piece.

Virtuoso (Working Title) Image Courtesy of: http://multimediaperformance2014.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/tag/virtuoso-working-title/

We then went on to study Proto-type Theatre’s Virtuoso (Working Title) a piece that explores notions of identity through fragmented narratives between the three character, playing a kind of game which involves the characters taking on multiple roles of famous people throughout history, but constantly making references to holes and windows, exploring the notions of escape and freedom. The fragmented nature of the piece mirrored the fragmented mind-set of the characters themselves, their inability to create a complete image of who they are, constantly attempting to be someone else other than themselves. The fragmented nature of Virtuoso (Working Title) had a large effect on the final performance of the ensemble, they decided that their piece Changing Faces would work better if it were fragmented, a way of letting the audience decipher the piece rather than us spoon-feeding them as it were, as Petralia states, “When the brain is presented with more complex situations, or ones where there is no immediately apparent way of understanding, the brain goes through a process by which every possible outcome/answer is presented as equally correct” (Petralia, 2012, 162) which was the desired effect of Changing Faces.

Supernightshot Image Courtesy of: http://www.gobsquad.com/projects/super-night-shot

The group then watched a version of Gob Squad’s Supernightshot, a performance which involves the theme of making the everyday extraordinary. The piece makes the audience question their own humanity through showing them an extraordinary story through four screens which show the audiences home, things they see every day and take for granted. Lavender claims that “Intermedial performances are increasingly hybrid in form, and entail (simultaneously) fragmentation and synthesis” (Lavender, 2012, 123) which is true for Supernightshot and led the group to create a piece around similar ideals, showing the humanity behind the characters in history that we judge through their actions, taking no time to think about a family they may have had, or the everyday things they may have done. Not only this but Supernightshot also inspired the group into the technique of pre-recorded footage, rather think the piece having to be all live action as traditional theatre would suggest. We used the notions of pre-recorded footage in both the Columbine scene and the Anne Frank scene which both used modern technology in the form of a GoPro camera and pre-recorded a massacre in the Columbine scene and a chase between the Nazi’s and Anne Frank. This not only enhanced the effects behind the two scenes, but also helped to enhance our theme of things that we do not see in life, by showing the backstairs and basement area of the performance space we were able to relay our message of seeing things that we do not see from just what we have in front of us.

The lessons that led up to the creation of Changing Faces were vital in the creation of the piece itself, throughout the module we learned from other multimedia performances and took influence from their themes and ideals. Not only this but without the prior lessons we would not have been inspired on different ways in which the media can be used to enhance a performance and in ways that do not distract from the performance but rather work alongside the performance in harmony to create an intricate, stylised and powerful performance.

The Process

Changing Faces was a performance that was very slow in its creation and passed through many obstacles in its inception. There were issues with the amount of ideas that we had as we were attempting to ground a concrete idea for the performance, issues with miscommunication between the ensemble and the directors and issues of misunderstanding of roles. Despite these setbacks as a group towards the end of the process we really came together, perhaps a little too late, but we came together nonetheless and created a performance which was described as exciting, interesting and powerful by audience members who attended the performance. Despite these issues it is not to be thought that the group did not work hard enough through the process as this is not true, we were merely to indecisive it a concrete direction for our piece.

The G.O.D

Initially the ensemble decided to follow the idea of oppression throughout history and how we could incorporate the idea of oppression into our piece. We decided that the best way to proceed would be to create a 1984­-esque performance, a dystopian allegory which explores the idea of oppression through the media. Oppression in the news, its biases and allegiances, oppression by CCTV, oppression by government. We created the G.O.D a fictional dictatorial government which would have been in power for many years prior to our show. The idea was to tell several stories from both sides, ultimately leading to the G.O.D leader being technology itself, the physical self is feared but after all the story the most powerful thing in the performance is the technology itself. The intention of the piece was to portray the message of the oppression from a different angle, using an excess, an overload of technology, the group wanted to not only comment on the idea of oppression from man to man, but also the oppression we seem to willingly accept, our oppression and obsession with technology, how the progression of technology is linear to our species becoming more and more technology obsessed. This was an idea that the ensemble created a lot of material for, but due to poor communication between roles and individual it was deemed that we did not have enough material to create a performance from this idea, despite many members had done a lot of work for this idea. As such suddenly the focus was on to another idea completely, which irritated many members of the group and led to friction, further reducing the work ethic of the ensemble with the performance date drawing ever closer.

Dark Thoughts

One idea that stemmed from the G.O.D idea was the documenting individuals scene, but rather than them describe their oppression, the performers would instead retell dark thoughts that they have had, no matter how dark the performer would not move, the action would be pre-recorded video of the characters stood still whilst a pre-recorded voice is played over the footage. This idea took up a couple of weeks of the process time we had after the modules scheduled lessons, this idea seemed to irritate the cast in some way as this piece seemed to be a step back from the G.O.D idea in its detail and material gathered for the idea. Also this friction had something to do with the nature of this idea. The directors chose to ask the cast for their input on how the piece should take place and how they wanted it to be created, the majority of the cast requested a piece with a linear narrative, but this seemed to be ignored when the performers were told that the performance would definitely be fragmented. But the cast did not feel they could get enough material from this idea and then changed the piece itself.

Final Performance

Despite the slow start of the process, when the group had finally established a grounding from which to develop work, the process ran noticeably more smoothly. The idea for Changing Faces arose when a cast member broke loose of the director/performer boundary and decided it was time to take charge and organise the mess that had been created. The member showed a video of Marilyn Munroe’s ‘Happy Birthday’ speech she delivered to the president of the United States John F. Kennedy, to which she was late due to a suspected case of drug abuse. As was pointed out only a select few know the actual reason for why she was late to the ceremony, but if we could have changed the perspective of the recording to backstage into the dressing room, we would have been able to see the facts behind this iconic moment in history, from this Changing Faces was created. The group decided that to speed up the process we would all select a moment from history and retell it, or reimagine it in a different light, directing our own scenes and choosing our own cast for each scene the performers quickly began to gather research for their chosen field of study and as the process progressed, so did the scenes.

Images from Columbine scene.

Columbine

This is the section Charlotte and I co-directed. The Columbine scene is inspired by the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado where Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered their own high school with the sole intent of massacre. We began by researching the topic, when it happened, where it happened, interviews with the survivors. Through this we found this quote “Klebold was hurting inside while Harris wanted to hurt people” (Cullen, 2004) which led us to forget them as murderers and think of the two boys as humans, trying to locate anything that would show the humanity of the characters were trying to portray, after some searching we found journal entries from both Dylan and Eric supporting the theory that one was hurting and one wanted to hurt. Eric’s journal which was read aloud by one performer included “and i WILL be armed to the fuckin teeth and i WILL shoot to kill and i WILL fucking KILL EVERYTHING” (Harris, Date Unknown) this clearly shows the aggressive side of Eric and most definitely shows his desire to kill. On the other hand Klebold’s journals are far more deep and filled with self-doubt, “My existence is shit. To me- how i feel that i am in eternal suffering. In infinite directions in infinite realities.” (Klebold, Date Unknown) this showed the humanity behind the history but as directors we wanted to go further. We utilized the camera’s in a way that focused on the performer getting ready for the massacre, preparing his gun and the propane bomb which was intended to kill over 600 pupils in the cafeteria area of Columbine, whilst the other character used a Playstation One controller (the console of choice for Eric) and acted out playing a video-game, when the footage he was watching was recorded material from Columbine cafeteria itself. The gaming element of the scene was a direct reference to the argument that has surrounded violent video-games and still goes on today; do they influence people to become violent? Through study we found that in Eric’s journal he makes reference to one such video-game- Doom- and as such we used the opening sequence from Doom to begin the scene. The video-game element to the piece was further enhanced when we discovered that prior to Columbine violent video-games were from the P.O.V of the gun, as such we brought an utilised a GoPro camera and attached it to a gun whilst pointing at the audience, mimicking the boys attempts to appear ‘cool’ during the massacre, during which a mist machine was utilised to represent the bomb going off in the canteen, whilst the bomb was actually going off on the CCTV footage, making the audience feel like the victims of the massacre. We then cut the screens to a pre-recorded video of the two performers walking backstage (as an attempt to stick to the original them of seeing things we do not see) through dead bodies with the video ending with the gun in one performers mouth and the screens playing a “Game Over” sequence. The costumes used were also collected (as were the majority of the costumes for the entire show) by Charlotte and I, they were exact copies of the ‘Trench Coat Mafia’ the boys claimed to be in, with the real outfits resembling that of a violent movie The Matrix. The Columbine scene, in my opinion, was a great success, it utilised a vast array of media devices as well as adhering to the themes we were given, many people who were questioned post-show claimed it was their favourite scene and highlighted the intricate use of technology, costume and props.

Reflections

Despite a slow start I believe that the show was a success, that being said it would not be right to claim it was perfect and there are many things about the show I would change. If I could start the whole process over I would definitely have taken a position of greater power, too often were friendships getting in the way of organisation, powerful cast members feared telling a friend that they were not pulling their weight. This may be a reason as to why Charlotte and I had to spend over £800 between us on props and costume the week before the show.

Secondly I would have banned phones and other devices (unless necessary) from the rehearsals, do not read this as me claiming I was not one of the cast members occasionally on my phone, because we all as a cast were guilty, but when members of the cast who are supposed to be in power are on their phones during rehearsals rather than doing their job and having an input on the show, it is easy to see why our performance was so disorganised even when we got to the performance day itself.

Shaw claims that “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” (Shaw, 1969) and unfortunately this was the case in our piece. Far too many times were actors cut from scenes without actually being told they had been, far too many times were transitions changed without it being communicated to the cast and when the day before the show you are cut from a scene and almost walk on in the tech run, it is clear that there were fundamental issues of communication between actors and the people in power.

Finally issues arise in the theme behind the piece, the main issue with our piece is ‘what’s the point?’ and this is where our piece failed. When shortly after the show the directors were essentially asked this question and they could not answer, you have to accept there was a fundamental flaw with your performance. Almost a month prior to the performance I suggested a running narrative between the fragmented scenes, rather like the doll’s house in Virtuoso (Working Title), to add meaning to the piece, this was also suggested by our lecturer the day before the show but unfortunately myself and the lecturer were both ignored. Personally I believe the theme of our piece should have been to give history humanity, as scenes like Columbine, Coronation and Assassin all did to great effect, then the running narrative could have been as simple as a member of the cast reading facts from a history book, contrasted with the humanity behind the history.

Naturally all this negativity may seem like I despised the show, which is not the case, I merely felt that it had the potential to be far greater. If the ensemble were more organised, correctly led and more enthusiastic about the piece I believe the show would have been more successful.

Marketing Materials

As marketing manager I mass-produced and co-distributed material designed by Connor McCue and Jack Tulin to help market Changing Faces.

Works Cited-

Auslander, P. (2008) Liveness, Mediatization, and Intermedial Performance. In Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. 2^nd Ed, New York: Routledge, 1-11.

Cullen, D. (2004) The Depressive and the Psychopath. [Online] Available from: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2004/04/the_depressive_and_the_psychopath.3.html [Accessed: 18/04/2015]

Gob Squad (2006) Supernightshot. [Performance] Leicester: Comedy Festival.

Harris, E. (Date Unknown) [Online] Available from: http://www.acolumbinesite.com/rebdomindex.html [Accessed 18/04/2015]

Klebold, D. (Date Unknown) Journal 3 [Online] Available from: http://acolumbinesite.com/dylan/writing/journal/journal3.html [Accessed 18/04/2015]

Lavender, A. (2012). Portal: Digital Culture and Posthumanism. In Mapping Intermediality in Performance. Edited by Sarah Bay-Cheng, Chiel Kattenbelt, Andy Lavender, and Robin Nelson. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 48 53(02), 123-134.

Petralia, P. (2009) Virtuoso (Working Title). [Performance] Peter Petralia (dir.) Lancaster: Nuffield Theatre.

Petralia, P. (2012) Instance: The Fragmented Stage of Virtuoso (Working Title). In Mapping Intermediality in Performance. Edited by Sarah Bay-Cheng, Chiel Kattenbelt, Andy Lavender, and Robin Nelson. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 48 53(02), 156-162.

Shaw, G, B. (1969) Is Anybody Listening? El Paso, Texas.

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].

Start-up Menu

“growing up in a culture where most of us spend our time in front of screens…it is the most natural form of vocabulary to use”

(Tecklenburg, 2012, 12)

Going in to this module I knew very little about technology and multimedia in performance, so I was eager to learn about the various equipment and performance techniques that have “challenged the very conception of theatre” (Bay-Cheng et al, 2010, 13). Following some intriguing research into temporality and the virtual world, I quickly discovered that ‘multimedia’ was in fact a blanket term for many various technical collaborative styles and in fact I was already aware of some of the techniques from my own previous experience in stage and television performance. Rather than a separation from live theatre, multimedial performance concerns itself with “merging the conventions of performance, film production, and film viewing” (Tecklenburg, 2012, 22) into a single space, combining the live body and the mediated technology. This creates the potential for such performances as Revolution Now! (by Gob Squad), Virtuoso (by Proto-Type Theater) and Jet Lag (by The Builders Association), each performances with a unique take on the technology induced stage.

It was decided that we would remain as one large group and so divided ourselves into performers, directors, technical teams and all manner of theatrical designers. Taking inspiration from these performances, our group set to work conducting our own experiments with the vast range of technology available to us, including cameras, projections, soundplant, vision mixers, smoke machines and many other technical paraphernalia.

 Jet Lag Performance Clip (The Builders Association, 2009)

Testing, testing.

Though slow to start, our creative process went through many ideas in the beginning, sparking a great deal of practical and written experimentation as a means of developing potential characters and plot. Though not all of these activities came to a fruitful end, the initial test period did prove useful for ruling out some ideas and giving us a clearer idea of the direction we wanted our piece to take.

One of these tests was centered around the notion of surveillance andthe intrusive technology in every day life. Members of the cast were instructed to record themselves or housemates performing a seemingly mundane activity whilst being unaware of their being filmed. The idea was to observe the effects of people in every day life and consider the ways in which the unknown presence of a camera affected ones “performance of self” (Bay-Cheng, 2010, 80).

Interestingly, those that recorded themselves, myself included, noted that although they were attempting to act natural, each felt very conscious of the lens and in some way over-exaggerated their activity, whereas those that recorded others noticed no change in their personal behavioural habits for as long as they remained unaware of the observational presence. Tecklenburg observes this same behaviour and theorises that the mechanical eye offers the public “a strange authority” (Tecklenburg, 2012, 26) and the liberty to behave in a performative or calculated manner dissimilar to their usual idiosyncratic behaviour. This experiment and the resulting theory of performance liberty would later inspire one of our more favoured performance ideas.

God is Watching

“The eyes of the LORD are in every place” (Proverbs 15:3, King James Bible Online, 2015)

In the 21^st century, we find ourselves very much dependant on technology; for entertainment, for support in our daily lives and for our supposed protection. Technology in many forms watches over our daily lives with a zoomed lens, but what happens when the camera sees too much?

Taking inspiration from George Orwell’s 1984, one of our primary ideas was to construct a staged Big Brother state and imply a potential future wherein a community, in this case our audience and cast, lived under constant surveillance and the fear of an invisible higher power. It was our hope that this concept would highlight the intrusive possibilities of technology and make audience’s contemplate whether or not this advancement marks the “end to privacy” (Reid, 2013, 10) or a sacrifice of privacy for the “common good” (Reid,2013, 8).

This process began with the creation and selection of supposedly extreme rules we might impose upon our captive community including restricted nutritional intake, uniform clothing, forbidden language, the implication of extreme punishment, and of course an ever watching symbol of power; the lens of our camera. What intrigued me most about this idea were the similarities between the rules we had fabricated and the reality of certain pre-existing communities. Given my own religious upbringing, I used the examples of the Mormon faith and compared some of its rules and restrictions to the ones we had created: restricted diet, monitored clothing, forbidden language, and of course the ever watching presence, God. Needless to say I was fascinated by the links between modern religion and our fictional totalitarian state and the resulting research inspired the creation of our own Big Brother whom we titled the Government of Development, or G.O.D.

Unfortunately this concept eventually led to a number of complications and an eventual dead end, but the connections and research we conducted led us to other passages of thought and that would eventually inspire and develop into our final piece.

 G.O.D poster (Tullin, 2015)

The Camera Always Lies

From home recordings to worldwide news, while there remains a body behind the lens, the camera will always offer a selected vision of the bigger picture, a bias suggestion of events. It is under this assumption that we began our final production process; looking at famous and mediated moments of history from a different point of view and asking this simple question: ‘what didn’t the camera see?’

This all began at the suggestion of our classmate and technical team member, Jack Tullin, who offered the recording of Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday to president John F. Kennedy as an example. He explained that while she was famously late to appear at the event, there was no confirmation as to why. This sparked great speculation among our group as to what might have happened and opened the door to consider other moments in mediated history that we could subvert and consider from different angles. This begs the question, what moments in in history should we represent? What are the most important moments? Arguably there are too many to count, but our final selection of events was chosen based on cultural significance, mediated popularity and personal preference. Each ‘moment’ would be its own scene in a fragmented whole displaying our own biased opinion of these unknown events. These moments were:

• The Moon Landing
• Watergate
• The Wright Bros.
• Emily Davison and the Suffragettes
• The Big Bang
• Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation
• The Columbine School Shooting
• The Assassination of JFK
• Churchill
• Hitler and Anne Frank
• Freddie Mercury and AIDS
• Newsroom

Each scene was given to one or two members of the group to conduct their own research and ideas which would later be edited by the rest of the group with the central focus of ‘the other point of view’ which gave some interesting results. For example, upon researching John F. Kennedy’s assassination, we thought it best to focus on his killer, his thoughts and reasons for killing the president. In the case of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, we all but ignored her crowning and concentrated on Elizabeth as a vulnerable twenty three year old woman. By publicising these potential moments, we moulded our performance with the idea of showing people that what we see with technology is not always the truth, further supporting our illusion by finishing the performance in a newsroom and highlighting the misconception of modern media today.

This act of illusionary representation was not only achieved through deisgn of concept, but in the delivery of the actors. Early into the process it was agreed that actors should make no attempts to ‘be’ their characters for this may deter from our main focus. This is not a performance to show actual events of actual people, it is entirely speculation and largely fabricated, therefore the actors need not look or sound like their counterparts in order to draw focus to the event and scene as a whole rather than the individual.

Watergate (Feedback Theatre Company, 2015)

Wright Borthers (Feedback Theatre Company, 2015)

Ready, Set, Go!

“design is not an end in itself but a way of making one more aware”

(Thorne, 1999, 25)

One of the toughest challenges of this process was our complete lack of suitable rehearsal space for a performance of this scale. Though our final piece would take place on the LPAC stage, finding the room to rehearse such a large performance in the business and law building was a herculean task, one not aided by our inability to access the equipment we required for our technical explorations. Thus I took it upon myself to create a series of set designs in order to aid our temporary creative blindness.

We went through several designs before finally settling on a broad stage with platform scaffolding and three large screens, creating a technically detailed but performatively spacious area for our actors to roam.

 Set design for Moon Landing (Povall, 2015)

Set design for Assassination (Povall, 2015)

The Final Set, Platforms (Feedback Theatre Company, 2015)

Traditionally “design reveals a state that is unique to people, place and time” (Thorne, 1999, 25), so it was difficult to consider how we might create a single set for all variations of time and place, from The Big Bang to a BBC newsroom. Instead we decided to focus on the literal creation of each scene in order to support our satirical contemplation of what may have happened behind these famous events. Consequently, the metallic and tech heavy set worked in favour of this creation method, mimicking technical feel of a studio or film set rather than a naturalistic stage setting. This intention was further supported by our very visible technical team, four of whom were supporting the cameras on stage while a further two were situated atop the platform throughout the performance, controlling all visual and audio cues live from their desk.

Overall I feel that the intention of creation and manipulation rather than factual representation was well exhibited in this set design and accurately demonstrated that “the essential element does not reside in the result, in the finished work, but in the process, and in the effect produced” (Radosavljevic, 2013, 36).

Changing Faces – Tech Day

As I’ve often found with tech days, the setup and runs before our performance day were relatively stressful and full of necessary last minute changes, from a rearrangement of the lighting to the setup of each live feed camera onto the correct projection screen. Perhaps the most difficult part of the day was our first attempt to run our show with complete audio and visual cues. This proved to be a somewhat scattered and disorganised affair as a result of it being the first time we had had a chance to use our full setup since the beginning of these proceedings and as such caused a great deal of tension and discord within the group. From an acting point of view, I found the most problematic areas to be the transitions between scenes, particularly the movement of cameras and the impending risk of wires within the space as others attempted to shift chairs and tables in a performative manner. In order to resolve this as quickly as possible, we spent a great deal of time running over these moments in the limited time we had left, and although there was still some concern for how things would play out the next day, we did achieve a much more structured from of transition, taking meticulous care as to who would move each chair or how the assigned cameramen would manoeuvre the wires away from moving cast members.

Having been assigned to the team of four cameramen, my main concern was how to handle the cameras with accuracy and delicacy during the performance and, as an extra precaution, we were each given a brief re-instruction on how to use the cameras and handle them to the best of our ability. Given our lack of practise with these technical instruments, I greatly appreciated this short instruction and spent some time engraining the correct hold and movement into my mind before the show, a practise that proved very useful in the final performance.

Pull the blackout Curtains Down – Performance Review

The final performance came with a great many problems, largely ones that I am pleased to say we were able to recover from with little consequence to the overall performance itself. Each cast and crew member, and in particular our stage manager Charlotte, was able to quickly resolve situations of faulty tech, misplaced props and hasty costume changes to ensure the audience’s experience suffered little hindrance. From the wings of the performance, the process seemed to run smoothly and I believe this a testament to our groups calm demeanor and professionalism during this performance.

Unfortunately, many audience members marked that although the work was entertaining and interesting to watch, they were confused by the through plot of the performance and questioned our reasoning for putting on such a show. In hindsight, it is possible that we, being so involved in the creative process, neglected to fully transalte our idea from the paper to the stage. Regrettably, we may have been so drawn to the idea of “fetishiz[ing] the technology” (Dixon, 2007, 5) that we lost sight of our artistic vision in the process. Perhaps if we had taken more time to consider our work from an outsider’s point of view, we might have thought to include a through line plot device such as a form of text or linking imagery throughout these fragmented scenes.

Though long and difficult at times, this process has certainly been an educational one and I believe that our group has created an intriguing and imaginative performance, one that was performed to the best of our ability.

Changing Faces Poster (2015)

Works Cited

Bay-Cheng, S., Kattenbelt, C., Lavendar, A., Nelson, R. (2010) Mapping Intermediality in Performance. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press.

Dixon, S. (2007) Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theater, Dance, Performance Art, and Installation. London, The MIT Press.

Feedback Theatre Company (2015) Media Gallery. Lincoln.

Povall, C. (2015) Set Designs. Lincoln.

Proverbs 15:3 (2015) King James Bible online. [online] place and publisher unknown. Available from www.kingjamesbibleonline.org [Accessed 23 May 2015].

Radosavljevic, D. (2013) Theatre-Making: Interplay Between Text and Performance in the 21^st Century. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Reid, M. (2013) United States V. Jones: Big Brother and the “Common Good” Versus the Fourth Amendment and Your right to Privacy. Tennessee journal of Law & Policy, 9 (1) 7-43.

Tecklenburg, N. (2012) Reality Enchanted, Contact Mediated: A Story of Gob Squad. TDR: The Drama Review, 56(2) 8-33.

The Builders Association (2009) Jet Lag. [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nPi-DDqa0Q [Accessed 24 May 2015].

Thorne, G. (1999) Stage Design a Practical Guide. Marlborough, The Crowood Press Ltd.

Tullin, J. (2015) G.O.D Poster. Lincoln.

‘’All the world is a stage’’ is no longer just a metaphor…..
-Kattenbelt, 2006, 38
The evolution of technology has been synonymous with unlocking the past for as long as people have been curious enough to explore it, and as a race, we are closer to understanding the past than ever before. It no longer seems ironic, therefore, to use the advances in multimedia performance to recreate, and provide context to historical pieces. For example;’ Richard Beacham re-created ancient theatres using Virtual Reality, and ieVR harnessed the technology to create a computer generated, three-dimensional sets inhabited by live actors.’ (Dixon, 2007). With this in mind, various historical plays could take on a whole new aesthetic. Creating Gods on stage becomes more of a creative challenge than a logistical nightmare and allows a freedom in the piece by essentially dissolving the boundaries of what is possible. Another example includes the production of Actors and Children take to the Street, by 1927, wherein projection was utilised to create a 1920’s backdrop, through which live actors performed. Using projection also means animals can be created and used on set, without actually having to obtain an animal. The setting and space is essential to the success of the piece. Visual stimulation is of course important, but actually creating the space gives context and substance to the piece. The use of projection and multimedia technologies allows freedom of space, not only by projecting backdrops, but the use of recording equipment and live feed can transport the audience to another location, while remaining in the theatre. McAuley explores the relevance of space within theatre and explains how it acts as an ‘active agent’ in theatre events (McAuley, 1999, 41). The importance of how to space is used is paramount. Productions such as Virtuoso (working title) preferred to embrace the theatrical truth of their piece by leaving their technological workings exposed; perhaps this is an idea to be considered. Personally, a recreation of a Greek play using multimedia would be fascinating (imagine the Gods, or the amount of offstage action that could be created), or perhaps an immersive production of a supernatural piece; Doctor Faustus as an immersive piece with projected demons perhaps? Either way an exploration of the technologies relation to the space is imperative.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once!
Albert Einstein
Looking through Sarah Bay-Cheng’s notions of temporality, what seemed to most resonate with me were her notions of time in performance and the Steinian/Bergsonian notion. Essentially it means, time is not a linear progression, but rather a stack, that can occur simultaneously or independently. By taking singular instances from the past or present, moments can be represented and rewritten. Famous moments in time could be dissected and rehashed before the audience, or with the interaction of the audience. Something that could be explored is Darren Brown’s experiment The Game Show. The audience are asked to vote on a number of events that influence a strangers life, each time picking the most negative outcome until a tragic climax. The experiment gives the audience anonymous control resulting in their re-evaluation of human nature. Other examples include Gob Squads performances where the audience become performers; pieces such as Super Night Shot use cameras to present the audience’s reaction to (for them) the beginning of the piece, whereas in reality, they are presented at the end of the piece, again confronting temporality and questioning what is live performance, while presenting post performance. By using live music over the piece, the performance becomes both pre-recorded and live, something our performance should tackle.

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.
― George Orwell
Technology can also be used to rewrite history, in a way like never before. By manipulating the media a state can effectively create a fake history, that is accepted and believed because the society doesn’t know anything else. For example, in North Korea they believe they won the world cup. This is because all of their media coverage supported this claim, and as all media is state controlled the majority of the population never had any evidence to disprove this. A totalitarian government or a dystopian society becomes both terrifying and intriguing, perhaps using 1984 as an example, or the society in V for Vendetta. Working from the idea of a dystopian society, it becomes interesting to examine the ramifications surrounding the media. Looking at examples such as North Korea, or even Nazi Germany, it is possible to rewrite the past by manipulating the present. For example, Hitler managed to spin Germany’s failures in WWI by using the Jews as a scapegoat. Developing this idea, exploring the relationship between manipulating media and the truth can cause questions to be raised about the authenticity of past mediated events. There are several conspiracy theories suggesting the fabrication of the moon landing, JFK’s assassination and many more events in history. What if those theories are true? The piece should examine this, perhaps exposing the staged nature of historical events. Looking at performances such as Virtuoso (working title), who expose the façade that is theatre by rejecting realism, and leaving the technical workings of their performance exposed (cameras, wires, markings on the floor etc), it was established that adopting a Grotowski style attitude toward representations of realism would encourage the audience to question the dependability of the mediated news they consume each day.
Virtuoso (working title) also revealed the manipulation of every day on screen imagery by creating images that appeared real on the televisions but the live bodies in the space created a surreal tableau for the audience to witness. This could be utilised within our piece by recreating scenes from history, or manipulating bodies in the space to recreate historical events, just with different outcomes, or by completely fabricating the event. For example the moon landing again, if it were to be recreated in front of the audience, on the TVs, but the live space remained a television set, with lives bodies placed at different angels to create on screen perspective. Again this would hopefully encourage the audience to question the authenticity of the media.

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
– Oscar Wilde
It was eventually decided that a selection of historically important moments would be designed as scenes, creating a fragmented non linear representation of history in brief. The scenes that were chosen were the result of a long process of suggestion and elimination. The general theme was events that were covered heavily in the media or events that influenced humanity. The list goes as follows;
• The Moon Landing
• Watergate Scandal
• The Journey to Flight
• Churchill’s Evolution
• Women’s Rights
• The Big Bang Theory
• Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation, voyeuristic view
• Columbine
• Assassins, Multiple Points of View
• Ann Frank/ Another Perspective
• HIV/AIDS Scandal
• Live in the News Room
Each of the scenes we carefully considered for their importance, effect upon culture, media importance and stage-ability. Questioning history and re-examining/presenting the information would hopefully force the audience to reflect upon the authenticity of the mediated images they are presented with on a daily basis. Auslander argues that television and mediatised news has evolved into the primary source for our information (Auslander, P. 1999, 5), therefore by reflecting important mediated events, either by providing a voyeuristic view into a private moment or presenting an image to expose it as a lie, demonstrates the façade that mediated imagery and information can create. As a result the choice was made to expose the inner workings of the piece. This included having the technical crew onstage at all times in and their laptop screens on display, so the audience was constantly reminded this was a performance, not reality. The technical crew also appeared as puppet masters, above the whole show, controlling a great deal of the action through lighting, sound and visuals (all multimedia elements). Furthermore, the cameras were onstage when used and the audience were able to see the performers moving and working with them. Finally, tape on the floor shows clear indication for the location and blocking of characters, props and cameras, with the stage managers constantly wearing her headset throughout (even when acting). This all serves as a constant reminder to the audience of the staged nature of the piece, and encourages them to questions the authenticity of the media.
The last scene was a more literal manifestation of the piece’s underlying theme; a television studio preparing for the daily news report. All performers were onstage throughout and each took on a persona. This is perhaps the most characterised scene, the one trying to create realism, if only to parody the news. By overacting and trying to recreate a clearly fake news show, the audience are forced to acknowledge its falsity. The obvious set behind the actors, the antithesis of a BBC broadcaster sat at her desk, everyone hurrying around, building the pace, until perhaps the ultimate anticlimax in the end of the piece. It is all a lie, a show, and once again the audience are pressed to recognise this. By choosing something as constant as the BBC the piece will give the audience a relatable news source and a televised one (instead of an online broadcast). This allows the audience to engage with the final scene, as it is a scene they recognise. But it is wrong, and clearly false, possibly for a brief moment encouraging the audience to reject Auslander’s theory, and reject the information provided through the television, realising it is wrong.
The moon landing scene examines the inner workings of a system, directly echoing the deconstruction of realism in the piece by exposing its true nature. There are many obvious images associated with the moon landing, but not too much of the action behind the scenes. Maybe as a result of cold war politics, maybe it was not deemed interesting, either way a great deal of the information regarding the event is controlled by the American government. It is interesting to note the amount of control the government of a democratic country have. Reflecting the government are two actors stood offstage. A live feed camera displays their faces on two screens, and while both these men are clearly not American presidents, they are reciting the correct speeches. These two presidents faced off in a televised debate during the 60’s and this proved essential to Kennedys election (those who listened on the radio believed Nixon won the debate, however his refusal of makeup left those watching it televised siding with Kennedy). This provides the audience with an unrealistic portrayal of truth, not pretending to be the presidents, but further exposing the act of performance for what it is, just performance (and not always truth). It is a slight nod toward voyeurism in its display of behind the scenes action, yet the action itself was heavily stylised and almost biomechanical in the rhythmic and repetitive movement. A display of a precise unit working as one to perform a more important task, everyone is the same, parallels between the scene and a communist society could be drawn which arguably provides the scene with an ironic subtext.
Due to the parameters of this blog, it is impossible to explore all of the scenes enough detail to do them justice. Therefore, the next few posts will focus more on the scenes I had direct creative input into or scenes that were particularly interesting and explored a lot of technical and theoretical avenues.
The scene in which I had most personal involvement started life as the ‘Hitler’ scene. Looking at the Nazi’s in WWII was important, not just because of the implications of the war and the ramifications for Europe, and he world on the whole, but because of the vital role German media played within Nazi Germany. Like all fascist societies, the Nazi government had complete control over national press, and Joseph Goebbels (head of propaganda), did a fantastic job of manipulating the media coverage to condemn the Jewish population and encourage Nazi ideals. There were several ideas regarding the nature of the scene. Perhaps looking at Leni Riefenstahl films, or the posters/advertisements fed to the German public? However, upon discussing the possibility of using Hitler’s home videos it was decided that an exploration into the more human aspects of Hitler’s life would be enlightening for both performers and audience. By dubbing over the videos conversations between Hitler and Ava Braun, it was hoped to portray Hitler as just a person, having every day issues with his other half. An exploration into the domestic life of Hitler was underway, questions about children and marriage were first to arise, however it soon became clear the task was pretty huge. The home footage had been supercut together and the scenes changed too rapidly, or the voice over just didn’t work at all. Either way, a new idea had to be formulated quickly. Therefore reflecting upon other important figures of WWII Ann Frank emerged as the most popular idea, the extreme opposite of Hitler. This coincided with the arrival of the Go Pro, and another concept for the scene was devised; this time with one live body on stage, attached to the Go Pro, which is projected on the back projector. The audience begin by seeing themselves onstage through the projection. Another live feed shows someone writing, but only their hands and in shot. A voiceover reads excerpts of the diary, and the body leaves the stage to roam around the LPAC, until it reaches the writers hiding place. All that is left is a book on the floor, and the live feed cam and Go Pro end up having the same shot at different angles. However, the Go Pro itself did not have a very large range when it came to live footage therefore prerecording the journey seemed the only option. It was also decided to place a body onstage to read from the diary, rather than the live feed. This resulted in a scene so rich in multimedia, using live bodies, pre-recorded and live footage. The finale, with the Go Pro used to film and project the audience onstage, uses the camera as a mirror rather than a portal, and the audience can witness themselves through this.
Conclusion
On the whole this was a fantastic piece I am proud to have been a part of. Given this opportunity again I would have liked to explore the use of the Go Pro within scenes and the piece as a whole, I believe it would have completely changed and influenced the piece. Another issue was the sheer size of the theatre group there were a lot of people doing nothing, and a few people doing everything. Through no one person’s fault more delegation was required, only having two people completely familiar with all the tech and software was difficult, and put a lot of tension on the team, therefore perhaps clearer roles and responsibilities along with further tech training would be beneficial. Issues with both obtaining the tech and performance space also created problems for the performance, but even with all the obstacles, the piece was a success.