So it begins.

These first few weeks have been both daunting and thrilling, in the sense that I have not really had experience in the ways of technology so I chose this module to educate myself further, and to challenge myself in a way that I did not have the opportunity to do so before this module. So I am thoroughly excited to discover if I have any capabilities in the ways of Multimedia performance.

This week we have been looking into Makey Makeys and how they work, along with how they can be incorporated within a performance. So after experimenting with various objects including the human body, using a high five as a trigger and we also succeeded in creating our own version of the game ‘Operation’, another item we experimented with, that was deemed very unsuccessful was the use of chairs coupled with Makey Makeys this probably did not work because the chair itself was in contact with the floor so it did not have a complete, all round connection. We use our bodies for many things, this is no secret, however we have started to use it more in a technological sense; “Sensors such as the Kinect, are readily accessible.” (Hansen, 2013, 136) Using the body as a sensor, as we did when we created the human operation game using Charlotte as the main sensor further proves that we are getting more and adept at using our physical selves to interact with technology.

Another interesting aspect I have learnt this week has something to do with the fact that a theatrical performance always having a beginning and an end, however we are now at a point where we can manipulate and play with time by bringing various points from the past into the present we can create a whole new performance purely by bringing the two separate time streams together. This is just the case in Krapp’s Last Tape, where during his performance he listens to a number of tapes he has recorded in previous years, bringing the past into the here and now. If we think of time as a continuous stack, as if the present is stacked on top of the past, then we visualise removing something from the bottom and placing it on top, thus creating a moment where the past and present coerce.

 

Time to tinker

This week began with us displaying our short pieces we’d prepared in order to get a slightly better understanding of the various bits of technology that is at our disposal. Our group consisted of three people; we recreated a small scene from Bridget Jones’ Diary by using three different cameras, a television screen and two projections. Our aim was to create the illusion of two people standing directly next to each other, when in fact they are at opposite ends of the stage. After each group had performed their various scenes, those watching then had the opportunity to comment and give feedback to the group, advising them on changes that could be made.

After watching the production of Virtuoso during one of this week’s lessons, it added to my slight fascination of how images can be manipulated to look like something completely different by strategically placing both the objects involved within the shown image and also making sure the person was in a very specific place too. All of these collectively add to creating a final image that can make two people appear to be directly next to one another or create a backdrop from various objects. Although, physically you are able to see each actor, all of the cameras and also all the props on stage, meaning each transition is visible as they move various objects around to create their various images. The fact that each transition is visible and they do not try to disguise it was an aspect I enjoyed and would be something I would quite like to incorporate in our own performance as it gives it a certain aesthetic which I find endearing, just the idea of displaying everything out, making the transitions into part of the show is brilliant.

 

Creativity and beyond

The beginning of this week brought about the different roles each of us will perform during our creative process. I will be taking on the role of a performer because I’m not great at anything else and feel like I’ll be more of a hindrance than a help at this stage, so I will take any opportunity I can to learn about things bit by bit in the hope that I manage to get some knowledge during our process and start being able to lend a hand to those with other roles as well.

Now that we all know what our positions will be it lead to us doing an improvisational exercise consisting of two individuals who had put their names down to be performers, and speaking along to a projection that had no sound. Improvisation has not really been a subject I have excelled in, maybe due to bad experiences I’m not really sure, but I found it interesting to see where it would lead, working with one other person and seeing what unfolds, some turned to the idea of two people arguing, some made the impression that they were lovers, then some that were just two people having a random conversation. Whichever case, they each brought something different, in my opinion it was depending on who they were paired with and the dynamic those people had, for example, both Chloe and Sam are two very strong willed people so they constantly seemed like they were trying to gain some sort of advantage over the other. So although I do not believe I am great at it, I do feel like I got something out of it.

 

Ideas in the air

Ideas have started to flow this week. We have begun looking into surveillance and how it affects people on a day to day basis. People act differently when they are aware they are being watched. We are told that we are watched in order to keep us safe, however some believe it more because those with authority just want to spy on us and that they are invading our privacy. There are many films and books that are based around the idea of a higher power controlling entire nations through means such as constant surveillance. Each having its own version of a ‘Utopian’ world which happens to also have constant and privacy shattering surveillance meaning those involved tend to be on edge all the time.

After separating off into smaller groups we came up with rules that we would consider enforcing if we were in charge of our own dystopian future. Many people said they would enforce a population control rule due to it becoming an increasing problem now. After each person shared their rules we came up with the performance idea of creating our own dystopia, with a combination of the rules we have come up with. Creating a supressed civilisation and somehow involving the audience with the goal of making them feeling uncomfortable by displaying images of them on the projectors, seeing themselves become part of the performance will, with any luck, they will feel vulnerable and exposed.

We have come up with a general foundation to which we can expand our surveillance and dystopia idea. G.O.D. is the name of our world dominating corporation; the plan is to create a world around this basis and to see what comes about. We will continue to look into this idea in the coming weeks to see if it takes us anywhere, with more research and ideas for scenes and characters.

 

Out with the old

Unfortunately the G.O.D. idea did not work out. There was apparently not enough to create a piece with. I think it is a shame I thought the idea had some momentum. The new idea that has been floating about has been one about focusing on history, whether it is various points we focus on or we concentrate on one specific moment. I personally do not believe focusing on one moment alone will be enough, so I have expressed that I would prefer to focus on a number of different snapshots and create a performance out of them. That way we can create a narrative from a number of moments meaning we can create a link between them therefore showing a different variation of events.

Now that we have settled on developing a show around historical moments, we are currently in the process of narrowing down which points of the past we will be displaying. Another aspect that we have decided upon, is that rather than focusing on the pinnacle, well known moment, we will be focusing on the times just before and just after the epic moment; for example, we plan on using the Queen’s coronation as one of our points, however rather than showing her just as she is crowned, we are wanting to develop our own version as to what we think she could have been like in the moment just before she went out to face her nation. Creating such an image of her being shaky and nervous and speaking about her family, and how she misses her father; since the fact she was only 23 when she was crowned is quite a daunting thing especially since that is how old I am and the idea of me being crowned queen is not the nicest of thoughts, the country would go downhill pretty quickly. The fact she must have had a number of emotions just before that epic moment must have been pretty daunting for her.

So this new plan, focusing on the moments behind closed doors that people do not see, just before these iconic historical events take place, this is the new plan. Now that we seem to have a concrete idea for us all to go on now we can really get started with putting something together.

 

Now the end is near

We have each been assigned a historical moment to look into and to also come up with a way of staging them too. I have been charged with making a scene for Winston Churchill. Attempting to look at his various viewpoints that he expressed throughout his time in parliament , as it varies from loving the war to disliking it quite severly along with his wavering viewpoints towards Hitler; “German sufferings and bitterness marched forward together- as they do to-day.” (Churchill, 2002, 12) I have looked up some famous speeches with the help of Adam and Cherry, the three of us have come up with a rough idea of how we think it should be staged, as the war room with Churchill stood at the head of the table as the room gets built up around him. Now that we have a set scene list the performance is finally coming together.

I have been cast in the suffragettes’ scene, which basically consisted of me sitting down and watching the footage of Emily Davison throwing herself in front of the King’s horse during a race on a seventeen second loop. Until recently where it has been decided that it would be a good idea for me to throw myself on the floor over and over again for the best part of ten minutes. Originally I was quite sceptical about the idea but after doing a run through or two I have received good feedback from people saying it was good and that they had trouble watching which, despite the number of bruises and swollen knee I now have, clearly means it is going well and obviously a good decision to change it from the original idea, although that also had it’s good qualities too. It has now become a more simplistic and hard hitting piece. I have decided my goal is to make people cry on the day of performance, but also to make them think about what must have been going through Emily’s head the moment before running across the racetrack towards the horse; was she scared, determined, thrilled, excited or all of the above. These are things I am wanting to invoke thought with, the act itself must have taken quite a lot of gumption, but that is all people seem to see when thinking of this incident, rather than thinking of her as a person with thoughts and feelings coursing through her merely moments before running.

 

And so I face the final curtain

We finally have a full production! Everything has very suddenly seemed to be upon us. Although we have not had the opportunity to be in the space with all of the equipment as of yet we have our first chance to have all of the above is on our tech day next week. Although it has been difficult to fully get to grips with everything without access to the space and tech, we are making do. One of the main concerns at the moment is to sort out transitions and to make sure everyone knows where they should be, at what point, and to also make sure it is clear which props and what cameras people would be manoeuvring. Making sure that this was down to perfection so that when we have everything next week we will already know what we are doing, therefore prepared to just get on with it.

Performance day tomorrow! Now we have had our first session in the space with the tech, scaffolding and props. Although the vast majority of the day has been spent going through all of the lighting and setting them up, it has still been helpful to start getting used to the space with the cameras especially, even if that meant just walking through transitions so that everyone was clear of the pace plus how to carry cameras safely. One of the main panics of the day was the lack of fluidity between scenes, so after all the lighting and sound was sorted we spent the last hour or so concentrating on making sure each action was fluid and done with purpose or any dillydallying. Things are looking less like a messy plod and more like an actual production. So most of us are now feeling a bit more confident about the whole thing.

We have finished our show. This entire process has been exceptionally stressful yet in its own way rewarding. It took us a decent amount of time to get going with ideas which is obviously a shared error within the entire group. However we got there in the end, but if I was to do things differently I feel it would have been better to get the ball rolling a lot sooner so we weren’t panicking a fortnight before performance day. I was also worried by the fact I’d not worked with a number of people within the group before this project so I didn’t really know what to expect. Now I’ve come to know everyone and there’s a few I’m going to really miss working with now. I have learnt many things through this process, from discovering that sometimes less is more and also how to work with media elements within a theatrical performance. Overall it has been an all-around learning experience so despite the disorganisation that was our group when we first started, because of that I have learnt something new, and so in a gaining of knowledge standing point I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

 

Work cited

Churchill, W. 2002. ‘The Gathering Storm’. New York: RosettaBooks.

Hansen, L. 2013. ‘Making do and Making new: Performative moves into interaction design’. International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media. 9 (1). 135- 151.

EXPERIMENTATION.

Give me a camera and a projector and honestly I’m like a kid at Christmas. I can get very easily excited over multimedia theatre, it’s something I’ve taken interest in since I started taking drama seriously, so being able to just have some time to ‘create’ is something I treasure.
This week we were allowed to do just this. As a group we were given two cameras and two projectors and let loose to see what we could do with live feeds. Steve Dixon wrote, “for many performance artists” including us, “Digital technologies remain tools of enhancement and experimentation.” (Dixon, 2007, 8) Experimentation is what we were aiming for, and that is what we did.

Here we looked at what happens if the live feed camera faces the projection. It created some kind of portal of light and images, which was fascinating and slightly trippy.

With clever set and projection placement, you can create a 3-dimensional image, or projection-mapping scenario.

Finding two similar areas to film, and then placing the projectors to match the images, a ghostly effect can be created in the projected image.

By hooking a makey-makey board up to soundplant then to a live body, we can create an interactive display. We chose to replicate the operation game board.

IDEAS ARE FLOWING.

We were asked to each come up with our own dystopian future, and mine took on this G.O.D idea and I explored it further here.
I also spent the time to script two scenes for this idea. One can be found here, and the other can be found here.
I took the time to begin to learn how to use after effects to create professional looking videos and I began to use these skills in creating motion logos for this idea.

Created entirely from scratch in after effects, I created this corporate motion logo for the G.O.D. The circles represented the eye, the typing was the importance of documentation, and the fact the screen gets swallowed by the eye shows how overpowering the G.O.D is.

Combining the previous video with the effect of twitch, I created a glitchy effect, like some rebel alliance is hacking the airwaves of the G.O.D

When this idea began to disappear, I quickly came up with an idea for a two-person version of this show, which can be explored here.

A LATE NIGHT SPARK.

Imagine a show where we see past the images we’re so used to. Where we can see into Marilyn’s dressing room, or to the men that made Martin Luther King. We can ask odd questions like ‘What does 9/11 sound like?’ and ‘What did the moon landing look like made out of television pixels?’

The possibilities are endless, and we can show so much with technology, from recreation, addition, focus on some tiny detail.
Stuff like that will make an interesting show – and entertaining when audience learn what is being shown.

I think it does exactly what we were asked to do. Show something that can only be shown with technology.

By chopping the newspapers of today, we can create the headlines of the past.

EYE FOR AN EYE. LENS FOR A LENS.

The camera. A piece of technology that is so inherent to the modern way we live our lives day after day. Every person who owns a mobile phone has a camera attached to his or her body at all times of the day. So where is it’s place in theatre? “Theatre is not virtual, it is real. It is exactly this quality that cannot be replaced by any other medium.” (Freiburg, 2010, 79) Which is all well and true but that doesn’t stop it combining with media to create something new. Why can’t theatre become more cinematic?

During this module and during the show we have to adopt a language that is not inherent to theatre, but instead theatre. Close-up, wide angle, post-production and so on… The function of the camera is to pick a part of an image and present it on a screen. Combine with theatre and “the material body and its subjectivity are extended, challenged and reconfigured through technology.” (Causey, 2009, 16) You can see things you otherwise wouldn’t see. A subtle hand move, the shaking of someone’s nerves, a quick eye dash. This was important when creating our show; we wanted to present things in new ways so why not close-up on the moments of history to show the subtle sides of it. We can see the queens nerves before she gets crowned, and we can see the subtle workings of a murderer.

MY DABBLE IN MARKETING.

I had a chance – though was rejected in the end – to work with marketing to create a look for the show. A full explanation of the things I achieved can be found here, but I present to you now the marketing elements I brought for the show.

 

Poster. Simple, effective.

Video trailers, that were circulated on social media before the show.

EVERYBODY KNOWS THE MUSIC FROM STAR WARS.

Music has the ability to make someone smile, cry, laugh or feel every emotion under the sun. It can take a simple movement to a fully orchestrated artwork. It is a vital part of cinema and TV, and when implemented to theatre can act as an emotional underscore to set a mood for the whole production.

When it comes to this production, a lot of what was wanted was asked for by the directors, which I always followed and achieved exactly what they envisioned but I did have a little bit of creative freedom when it came to how certain things sounded.

When designing the sound and music, it was incredibly important for me to remember, “Sound tells an audience what they cannot see. What is invisible to the audience, but near enough to be heard, becomes the domain of the sound designer… The sound we heard lied to us but still managed to create its own perfectly plausible reality.” (Collins, 2011, 29) This was not only applicable to sound effects like crowd sounds, to make it clear to an audience that there is a crowd just out of eyesight in the given scene, or a clock tick to fill the empty monotonous space, but it also applies to that of music that can create a mood or tension that an audience cannot otherwise pick up on. A monologue said to no sound would sound however the actor portrayed it, may that be angry, happy, sad, but with a low hum underneath, for example, adds a tension or uneasiness that an audience would have otherwise been missed out on.

JACK TULLIN. HISTORICAL DJ.

It is incredibly rare “for any designer to spend this much time in rehearsal with actors.” (Collins, 2011, 23) Given that in this module I chose to make sure I was at every rehearsal, regardless of whether I was called in or not, I was able to get a real feel for what the performance called for, and I was able to bring sound in from an early stage. In a production of Titus Andronicus, sound designer Collins took a similar approach. In his writing he talks of being able to understand the performance the entire way through the process, much like I did, and he talks about an “opportunity in this to perform – albeit from just off-stage… I had found that I could make my relatively crude playback devices work in perfect sync with their performances.” (Collins, 2011, 23) This was something I found I was able to do too, and was able to match sounds to the performances that took place, like making sound change slightly when people entered or left the room.

I chose to use a program called ‘Sound plant’ which we explored use with earlier in the module. The program allowed me to load sounds in, and play them along with a click of a button of my keyboard. I was able to loop, overlay and match the sounds to the exact second that needed to occur. This was helpful in every rehearsal and the plan is to use it in the performance live too with the audience being able to see what I’m doing at all times on a TV screen connected to my laptop.

A screenshot of soundplant, with my sounds loaded in.

I started to refer to myself as a historical DJ. Taking moments of history or using other sounds to reconstruct or add to moments from time. “The DJ activates the history of music by copying and pasting together loops of sound, placing recorded products in relation with each other.” (Bourriaud, 2002, 18) Whether or not it actual music or sound effects, I managed to play sound files and edit them live, along with layering to create the exact sound that needed to happen. I was able to fade in and fade out tracks live along with the action, add reverb or low pass filter when needed and overall create a live and interactive feeling to the sound.

UNEXPECTED INSPIRATION

During March of 2012 my college took me to see a performance of Romeo and Juliet at the Nottingham playhouse. They chose such beautiful artistic moments and presented the story in such an interesting way it has stuck with me. Their whole premise was the idea that everything that happened to Romeo and Juliet could have been avoided various times in the story. Each time something like this happened they played through the alternative, and then stopped – the lights blinded the audience, ticking played through the speakers, and then they repeated the same section with the original text. They used a calm humming sound at times to orchestrate the story, along with modern songs and high levels of multimedia. The show inspired me so much I found that I used a couple of the same techniques and feelings in Changing Faces with the sound and lighting.

The poster. Monochrome image with the bold red influenced my own poster design.

The Trailer. The low humming noise with fast ticking and flicking imagery has been a huge influence on my artistic style and these elements have found their place in Changing Faces.

 

Image of Juliet in front of lit up platform.

ANOTHER OPENING ANOTHER SHOW

Bang. Hum. Scene.
Bang. Hum. Scene.
Bang. Hum. Scene.

“Music and effects can have similar attributes. You may be involved with a production where you find that music would be completely inappropriate. For whatever reason, adding even the most minimal of melodic themes to this production would make a dramatic moment melodramatic… remember that you can use sound effects to create a moment just as effectively as if you were underscoring with music.” (Deena, 2009, 44)

A simple cinematic boom to punctuate and a low hum to fill the empty space with sound. It’s simple, it’s clean and it’s abstract. A lot of thought went into when to place the cinematic bass boom’s, and at one point they were used to start and end every scene, yet this seemed too much and it was decided to only use it to finish a scene felt better. It let the audience know that that moment of history had ended and the next was about to be constructed.

 Low Bass Humming

Cinematic Bass Boom

As said, each scene had it’s own style and own music – however it would be impossible for me to talk about each of them, so I’ve picked out two to talk about most.

1 – Capturing Feminism.

Feminist Mashup.

One scene called for a long sound file that showed the history of feminism. Recently finishing a dissertation on feminism in musical theatre I was very much looking forward to pulling out the important women that have shaped it’s history and presenting them for this scene. A full transcript of the sound file I created with each name with the lines can be found here.
It was questioned whether or not Emma Watson should be included with the ranks of other feminists from history, yet I fought for her. She is incredibly important. Spending most of her time fighting for women’s rights, her videos and speeches have gone viral online proving themselves popular with the modern generation. She has a strong feminist message that is helping to define a generation who are willing to listen to her. She may not be someone who has shaped feminism past, but she is someone who is strongly carrying it forward. Given that most of our audience will be university students, having her inclusion is incredibly important, as she will be recognisable to the audience of today.

2 – Columbine the video game.

It was suggested heavily that the Columbine killers were inspired by violent video games into doing the massacre they did. This is why the scene we show is completely inspired by games. Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People is a song inspired by troubled youth and gun violence, and has connections to the Columbine massacre. I found an 8-bit version of the song to open the scene with a video provided by Hal, and then overlaid a phone call – for similar reasons to the 9/11 scene – over the song to play through headphones to simulate a modern call of duty style game set up. This became the theme tune for the scene and gave it an upbeat feeling which was right given that we were looking at the boys being just boys behind the killings.

Instrumental of Pumped Up Kicks overlaid with 9-11 call from teacher.

8-Bit Pumped Up Kicks.

LIGHT IT UP

I also took time to help design and sort the problematic issue of lighting. How do you light a stage full of projections and projection screens? Each projector is it’s own light source and you must not have light spilling onto the screens or it just looks ridiculous. I decided to have everything very simple and central with small lights to light the scaffolding at the back and some sidelights to give it a more abstract and interesting look.
In the designs, it works, and looks good.

Here are are few examples of the front and birds eye view of the lighting and set. Here you can see the pre-set look, the watergate scene, and the 9/11 scene. I made a digital version of the set on the computer, then used highlighters to show where I wanted the lights on each page.

However, in practice, it became clear that light spill happened a lot easier than expected and some of the sidelights just looked cheesy. In light of this (excuse the pun) I chose to bring back lights into scene changes – similar to how Headlong chose when passing time in Romeo and Juliet – to give an abstract look to the stage and to give light to people moving set and props. This looked incredibly good and also replicated old timey camera projectors. If I knew it was possible for them to have a flickering effect, it may have been something I tried, but I didn’t know, so they just stayed simple and dim.

CUT, PRINT, MOVING ON.

Surprisingly, the show went off without much of a hitch in my areas. The only issue that occurred was that the vinyl player sound did not play, which was a shame, but only minor. The set up I had with Hal was complicated but functionary. With my laptop, vinyl player, levels mixer and stand to have script on, I had everything I needed. I plugged my computer into a TV on the set so the audience could see me live mixing and it seemed to look professional and interesting.

 

The Set, and my sound set up on the tech table.

The only things for sound I would have really changed were more of a universal style between scenes, but for this style of theatre, that would prove difficult, and perhaps some recorded speech to give an overriding theme. It was thought that the phrase “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past” from George Orwell’s 1984 would work, and I would have loved to have had this played near the start of the production, in the middle and near the end. It gives a nice framing statement of power and history that is exactly what the performance was about.

 

Works Cited

Dixon, Steve (2007) Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theatre, Dance, Performance Art and Installation. Chapter 1. Cambridge and London: MIT Press

Freiburg, J. (eds.) (2010) Gob Squad Reader. London: Gob Squad.

Causey, M. (2009) Theatre and Performance in Digital Culture. London: Routledge.

Collins, J. (2011) Performing Sound/Sounding Space. In: Kendrick, L. and Roesner, D. (eds.) Theatre noise: the sound of performance. London: Newcastle Cambridge Scholars.

Bourriaud, N. (2002) Postproduction. New York: Lukas & Sternberg.

Deena, K. (2009) Sound and music for the theatre: the art and technique of design. London: Oxford London Focal Press.

Surprisingly, the show went off without much of a hitch in my areas. The only issue that occurred was that the vinyl player sound did not play, which was a shame, but only minor. The set up I had with Hal was complicated but functionary. With my laptop, vinyl player, levels mixer and stand to have script on, I had everything I needed. I plugged my computer into a TV on the set so the audience could see me live mixing and it seemed to look professional and interesting.

 

The Set, and my sound set up on the tech table.

The only things for sound I would have really changed were more of a universal style between scenes, but for this style of theatre, that would prove difficult, and perhaps some recorded speech to give an overriding theme. It was thought that the phrase “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past” from George Orwell’s 1984 would work, and I would have loved to have had this played near the start of the production, in the middle and near the end. It gives a nice framing statement of power and history that is exactly what the performance was about.

Either way, the show went well, I was proud and I’m incredibly proud of all the work I’ve put into this module. Some elements I wish were stronger, but with the limited time we had once the decisions were being made about the show we did the best we could, and the fact we had a show is an achievement that we should all be proud of.

I also took time to help design and sort the problematic issue of lighting. How do you light a stage full of projections and projection screens? Each projector is it’s own light source and you must not have light spilling onto the screens or it just looks ridiculous. I decided to have everything very simple and central with small lights to light the scaffolding at the back and some sidelights to give it a more abstract and interesting look.
In the designs, it works, and looks good.

 

Here are are few examples of the front and birds eye view of the lighting and set. Here you can see the pre-set look, the watergate scene, and the 9/11 scene. I made a digital version of the set on the computer, then used highlighters to show where I wanted the lights on each page.

However, in practice, it became clear that light spill happened a lot easier than expected and some of the sidelights just looked cheesy. In light of this (excuse the pun) I chose to bring back lights into scene changes – similar to how Headlong chose when passing time in Romeo and Juliet – to give an abstract look to the stage and to give light to people moving set and props. This looked incredibly good and also replicated old timey camera projectors. If I knew it was possible for them to have a flickering effect, it may have been something I tried, but I didn’t know, so they just stayed simple and dim.

Bang. Hum. Scene.
Bang. Hum. Scene.
Bang. Hum. Scene.

It’s important that every show has a style and theme throughout it; otherwise it just feels random and not thought through. However this becomes difficult when the show you are working on is completely abstract and each scene is completely different from the last. A theme is difficult when the directors have specific requirements for each scene and they do not have many similarities with each other. So how can I develop some overriding style?

Music? No… that’s not right. It wouldn’t fit this production to have melody going through the performance. In a book about how to design sound, Deena wrote, “Music and effects can have similar attributes. You may be involved with a production where you find that music would be completely inappropriate. For whatever reason, adding even the most minimal of melodic themes to this production would make a dramatic moment melodramatic… remember that you can use sound effects to create a moment just as effectively as if you were underscoring with music.” (Deena, 2009, 44)

Sound effects! Brilliant. A simple cinematic boom to punctuate and a low hum to fill the empty space with sound. It’s simple, it’s clean and it’s abstract. A lot of thought went into when to place the cinematic bass boom’s, and at one point they were used to start and end every scene, yet this seemed too much and it was decided to only use it to finish a scene felt better. It let the audience know that that moment of history had ended and the next was about to be constructed.

Cinematic Bass Boom.

Low Bass Humming

As said, each scene had it’s own style and own music – however it would be impossible for me to talk about each of them, so I’ve picked out three to talk about most.

1 – Capturing Feminism.

One scene called for a long sound file that showed the history of feminism. Recently finishing a dissertation on feminism in musical theatre I was very much looking forward to pulling out the important women that have shaped it’s history and presenting them for this scene. A full transcript of the sound file I created with each name with the lines can be found here.
It was questioned whether or not Emma Watson should be included with the ranks of other feminists from history, yet I fought for her. She is incredibly important. Spending most of her time fighting for women’s rights, her videos and speeches have gone viral online proving themselves popular with the modern generation. She has a strong feminist message that is helping to define a generation who are willing to listen to her. She may not be someone who has shaped feminism past, but she is someone who is strongly carrying it forward. Given that most of our audience will be university students, having her inclusion is incredibly important, as she will be recognisable to the audience of today.

The feminist speeches mashup.

2 – What does 9/11 sound like?

What does it sound like? Like explosions and screams and people running? To me, it feels like it should be more personal. A lot of people forget that it caused a lot of death and the voices are the most heart-breaking moment. Given that 9/11 was to be explored at the end of the Wright Brothers scene briefly, I needed something quick and shocking to play. A phone call from CeeCee Lyles who was on board one of the planes of the day felt like the right thing to play. Surrounded with the robotic telephone voice, her words of love echo through the pain. After a calm scene with piano undertones, this harsh beep with clipped voice would give a stark contrast and sudden change to the feel, right for exploring how sudden the event of 9/11 actually was.

 

CeeCee Lyles phone call.

3 – Columbine the video game.

It was suggested heavily that the Columbine killers were inspired by violent video games into doing the massacre they did. This is why the scene we show is completely inspired by games. Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People is a song inspired by troubled youth and gun violence, and has connections to the Columbine massacre. I found an 8-bit version of the song to open the scene with a video provided by Hal, and then overlaid a phone call – for similar reasons to the 9/11 scene – over the song to play through headphones to simulate a modern call of duty style game set up. This became the theme tune for the scene and gave it an upbeat feeling which was right given that we were looking at the boys being just boys behind the killings.

8-bit Pumped Up Kicks Intro

Instrumental of Pumped Up Kicks overlaid with 9-11 call from teacher.

 

Works Cited.
Deena, K. (2009) Sound and music for the theatre: the art and technique of design. London: Oxford London Focal Press.