Author: Nina Woods

Posted in Ideas

Development of idea – Immersive theatre

Posted on by Nina Woods

Below is the transcript from Multimedia Facebook Group:

Hello group!

This is going to start bad, but stay with it, it will improve. Unfortunately, in my honest opinion, our current ideas, and what we’re doing, isn’t really going to be enough to get us a good enough grade which I’m sure we all really want. This is definitely due to the shit we’ve had to deal with during our lessons, as we certainly haven’t had any real guidance, and the way I see it, as a group, we’ve latched onto the dream idea and stuck with it. Although the concept of it is good, we’ve got to take a step back and think what we’ll be doing to the audience. Apart from putting them into a fabric cube, we haven’t done anything.

For the past few meetings we haven’t progressed at all, we keep on doing the stop motions and sleep movements. For the first few weeks, yes, that’s what we needed to do, and what we have done has been very good pieces of work, but perhaps by now we should have progressed? Every time we meet up I can’t help think we haven’t done anything significant. Immersive Theatre, and blending the live and fictional together, isn’t done by stop motion, videos of us talking about dreams, making clouds or sheep jumping over a fence.

Now, I’m not going to say all this without actually contributing anything valid. This is the part where I hope this post improves. So don’t hate on me yet, as I definitely feel this has had to be said. This, what I’m about to say won’t be changing our idea; it will be a mere adaption of it. I have spoken in depth with Nina about this, and we both agree this will definitely give our piece a basis to improve, and go into the right direction, but if you have any problems with it, i.e. don’t like it, please say something.

So, I’ll start.

At the start, we agreed to place them into the cube. Initially I think we should begin by spending a good 5-10 minutes lulling our audience into a dreamlike state. This can be easily done, and we already have the sources do this. For example, with music that we’ve already have downloaded and the sky footage that can be projected on top of the grid. Once placing them into this dreamy state, we can then attempt to place them into a different world, or place. This can be a war zone, Paris or something as morbid as a natural disaster. Our live element can then be making it feel like what we’re re-creating is real and happening to them. Making them feel for the piece emotionally. The starter is essential, in my opinion. Not only does it kill time for us, the created dream state should hopefully place the audience into a mood where they are more sceptical of the real world, and more imaginative.

Anyway, onwards to my possible idea of what we can do. For this to work, we’re going to have to be extremely mature over it. My idea is about 9/11 and the Twin Tower attacks. As Nina said to me, this will be very similar to Blast Theory’s mixed realities production Desert Rain, which was hugely successful, that focused on the gulf war and how it was a meditated war, citing Jean Baudrillard’s assumption that the war didn’t take place because it was all mediatized. The cube we’ve already created is very much in the shape of the twin towers. We could focus on the use of mobile phones within this event. How it was the main way the victims made their final emotional goodbyes and how it was an unnatural source to say the goodbyes. We could use actual archived mp3’s of the real calls made during 9/11. Another idea, from Nina,voicemails could also act as instructions. This could all create a blur between the digital and the real? Nina also suggested that we could take snippets of text from plays about 9/11? – Nina has previously been shown a selection of 10 minute plays on 9/11 which we can tap into. This all can still link into the dream stuff. We could create the question was this a nightmare, or a reflection of reality? The option of the grid could also show the boundary, or the floor, where the people inside the trade centre could not escape from.

Little final ideas that were discussed in my and Nina’s little discussion. If the projection works on the grid, we could simulate falling that way. We could use shadows to show a body falling as well. Staying with the falling victims, we could highlight how many people were thought to have died through jumping from the towers? Or, we could highlight the no. of unidentified casualties. This is very similar to how Blast Theory hid in their participants coats a bag of 1000 grains of sand which highlighted the projected death toll of the gulf war. Finally, we could also use water, like Blast Theory did to represent the memorial water fountains, but, that could also lead our piece to be extremely similar to Desert Rain.

Now, this is only a very early idea that will be adapted to work, I’m sure we could make this be amazing. If we do something like this, our performance would most definitely be a performance that is immersive and blends and distorts the realities within our performance.
Danny.

Comments:

  • Luke Talbott This sounds well thought out Danny, and is evident that this isn’t a new thought of yours. I just hope that such a dramatic change this late in the rehearsal process won’t be something that we’ll come to regret. I have confidence that we can pull this off!
    18 April at 21:35 via mobile · Like · 1
  • Kim Price-O’Brien This is amazing!!! How do you mean when you say ‘use water’? x
  • Nina Woods Yeah we also said that we wouldnt have to scrap what we have done but use it as a device to get into the immersive bit so like the nightmare sequence part of the grid can lead into the bit down on the floor
  • Danny Roberts Blast Theory used a rain curtain to project their virtual world upon. It also became some what of a equivalent to Stanislavski’s ‘The Fourth Wall’ and produced a gateway into the fictional world, as it was how the players would enter an leave.

    • Francesca ‘Frankie’ Brooks Thank you for this. For starters, I wish you could have said something earlier if you weren’t happy, that is what group work is about: to debate ideas, discuss the progress of performance, and contribute. This all well and good but we don’t have much time left. However, I do love the ideas you’ve come up with. Totally agree with the dream-like state starter, makes the audience calm and collective.

      If you’re going with influences from Blast Theory, that is good for the blog on that front. Perhaps you could adapt other terrorists attacks? Or just bomb attacks in general, i.e. Boston Marathon and the suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan this week. (Thinking of more up to date tragedies, but 9/11 might be more recognized and easily adapted, I don’t mind). I just thought the idea of the casualties being represented with shoes, like souls leaving the body, (and soles being part of the shoe) I remember bits of fabric drifting from the towers in the ash after the planes hit, could drop some of those through the grid? 
      Also with fire we could play with lighting – which links in the weather project but we’re taking elements instead.

      Just a few ideas to add to what you’ve already discussed, we can make this a very powerful performance.
    • Francesca ‘Frankie’ Brooks Also with the shoes we could include loads of different designs and shapes and sizes, as well as children’s shoes
    • Nina Woods Frankie – love the idea of replicating something falling from the grid! cos they said that from the towers paper flew from the offices and fluttered down! so we could do that!
    • Kim Price-O’Brien You know it’s 9/11, might be a stupid idea, but we could cut out a plane shape from a piece of paper and move it across one of the big lights on the grid so it travels over the audience? x
    • Francesca ‘Frankie’ Brooks Yeah I’ll never forget those people who jumped. I saw a man in a suit fall to his death and it’s just something that’s never gotten away from me, I watched a documentary about twins who lost their brothers/sisters to the towers as well, and people who survived. A man fell several stories when the North? I think, tower fell, and Fire and Rescue found him in the rubble.
    • Danny Roberts Unfortunately Frankie, the shoes is a complete no go in my opinion. We would need something more accessible. We’ll need hundreds and hundreds of shoes, and its far to fresh to do the Boston Marathon in my opinion.
      The falling is good idea, but, inside the cube they’ll be technically inside the trade centre?
    • Nina Woods Erm can be – or outside of it witnessing it happen? And see I quite like the Boston Marathon idea – cos theatre is all about making an impact
    • Francesca ‘Frankie’ Brooks They don’t have to be inside the building itself, the cube can just be a metaphor for the building now on the ground and not stood up, and the audience are in its remains. I just think if we’re doing a contemporary performance then shouldn’t the context be up to date too?
    • Danny Roberts Well, nothing was really digitally used within Afghan bomb and the Boston Marathon. In 9/11 the mobile was an essential tool for victims to say their goodbyes, something we could look into.
    • Francesca ‘Frankie’ Brooks The internet documented so much on the Boston bombings, updates from Twitter, Facebook and even pictures and stories on Tumblr. There was some good that day as well, some marathon runners ran to the hospital and donated blood for the victims, a man was seen helping another man who’s legs had been blown off and he saved his life. YouTube bloggers have had discussions about the bombings this week too.
    • Francesca ‘Frankie’ Brooks I do like the mobile phone idea, don’t get me wrong
    • Danny Roberts Although you’re right, on the internet complete nobody’s were talking about it, bar of course well respected journalists.I don’t rate YT bloggers much at all, but i can go on a tangent there. With the final moment calls from the 9/11, i think we can really create a sensory immersion, different from a cognitive one, which if we’re blending the mixed realities together, we should really be looking to do.
      Francesca ‘Frankie’ Brooks I just used it as an example, how it spread across social networking sites and all around the internet, and if we’re talking about digital, it’s all relevant and happening now. I just think the two can link together, how it’s still happening and still relevant and still raw. There’s more on 9/11 because there has been time for everything to have been investigated and we know exactly what happened there so I see why you’re wanting to do that. I was just trying to see a way of it being up to date with what is happening in the world right now.
      18 April at 22:18 · Like

      • Danny Roberts We can explore twitter etc. and we can use that as a stimulus perhaps. I don’t really feel comfortable using the Boston thing as its extremely fresh, and not all the facts are out yet.
      • Danny Roberts I mentioned we’d have to be very mature over all this if we were to do it, and I think the Boston thing is something we really should step back from.
      • Nina Woods I think it could be used as a lasting messageor end message to show the continuing of terrorism and how nothing has changed since 9/11 and that something else is bound to happen in the future. Will have to see how much time we have after everything
      • Francesca ‘Frankie’ Brooks Yeah I agree Nina, there needs to be something at the end the make the audience think about they’ve seen and how it’s an on going thing over 10 years after it happened, and the way it brought to attention the act of terrorism
        • Francesca ‘Frankie’ Brooks I’m just suggesting ideas and ways to expand it really, I understand that it’s a major disaster and something that can be replicated in different ways. I feel we need to look at it from a fresh angle in some way, because it has been a theme for a lot of productions. You may have to explain to me in person by what you mean with the simulation idea, because I remember in Contemporary we wanted to simulation and Dan told us to stay clear of it because it can be a tricky thing to represent without it mocking what is going off.
        • Francesca ‘Frankie’ Brooks And with the aim being mature we want to be absolutely sure with everything that we’re doing is all. I’m not banishing the idea, just trying to expand and add.
          • Olivia Clephane I really like the new idea. I think it’ll be a really good way to bring a more intense and definite idea in, helping with a better final performance and more research on the blog. I get really really emotional over this subject though and find it hard …See More
            18 April at 22:57 via mobile · Like · 1
          • Francesca ‘Frankie’ Brooks I understand what you mean about Boston I was just thinking of more recent tragedies and came up too recent, aha. I do think a sit down discussion of everything we’re going to need and everything we’re going to do is absolutely paramount indeed xx
            Edited by Luke Talbott
Posted in Experimentation, Rehearsal

The Grid

Posted on by Nina Woods

Following the decision to make our Multimedia Performance a piece of immersive theatre, the idea arose of using the technical grid above the auditorium. People would be lying on this grid acting as a birds-eye view of watching people lying in bed asleep. It would; however be the reverse as the audience will be lying on the ground looking up at the grid, acting as a mirror image.

Queries began to arise about health and safety and risk assessments about whether or not it would be possible to have part of our performance on the grid. However after consulting with the technicians of the LPAC they gave us the go ahead with the warning that strict guidelines would follow about what we could specifically do up there. These included health and safety guidelines such as what we can and cannot wear as clothing and that a maximum of three people per square. We felt this was manageable and we could coincide with these regulations as we only intended on having a maximum of three people on the grid, in separate squares.

With the guarantee of using the grid we proceeded to experiment and test how figures and images would look on the grid itself, examples can be seen below:

Grid 3 grid 5

grid 4Grid 2Grid 1

 

Videos:

This first video shows it from an audience perspective as they will be lying on the floor looking in front of them and then their attention will be shifted to above them, laying, looking up at the grid


Experimentation on the grid using a cloth:

Shadows:

Projection:

 

These experimentation’s were very beneficial to us as it brought about the idea of incorporating shadows into this aspect of our performance. Previously we only considered using projections up onto the figures on the grid. However, by pure chance when watching the other members of the group it appealed to us that a mixture of projection and shadows could both be used. Perhaps the projection suggesting dreams and shadows suggesting nightmares due to the lack of identity they provide.

We continued with this idea when we began to choreograph a routine for when members of the group are on the grid.

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Video of beginning of routine:

Choreographing routine:

The routine:

 

By Nina Woods

Posted in Ideas, Influences, Live footage

Gobsquad

Posted on by Nina Woods

During our Multimedia classes we learnt about the theatre company Gobsquad. Following on from this I visited their website to learn a little more about them. They state that their aim is to “make performances and videos which search for beauty in the everyday, and look for words of wisdom from a passing stranger” (http://www.gobsquad.com/about-us). It is clear to see that their productions infuse both performance and video, meaning they are a multimedia theatre company, illustrated when they say “We try and explore the point where theatre meets art, media and real life. As well as theatres and galleries, we place our work at the heart of urban life – in houses, shops, underground stations, car parks, hotels or directly on the street” (http://www.gobsquad.com/about-us).

What particularly interested us with the connection it had with immersive theatre as they also state “Everyday life and magic, banality and utopia, reality and entertainment are all set on a collision course and the audience are often asked to step beyond their traditional role as passive spectators and bear witness to the results” (http://www.gobsquad.com/about-us). The audience’s role is questioned as they are made to actively participate in the performances. From watching an example of their work (which can be seen below) it is clear to see that Gobsquad take this a step further as members of the public become performers also, simply by being captured in the video footage.

What is most interesting about this performance is that they have a story line and character profiles to bind the project and give it purpose. By having a narrative behind the project it changes how the public are viewed as they are subconsciously immersed and instantly become part of the story upon encountering them.

What is also intriguing is the venue in which the videos are watched. Theoretically the footage only exists virtually, however to see what is happening on all of the cameras, at one time, the videos need to be displayed within an auditorium space. This gave us the idea of having a live element within our performance that could be streamed and watched continuously. This exists in the form of the live bedroom.

A bedroom will be set up on the stage of the auditorium, out of view by the audience due to the separation of a curtain. A person will be lying in this bed continuously throughout the performance. A teaser video which can be seen in the previous post “Acquiring footage for our performance”, this will create the impression that the audience is being led up to the room that they can see on the live stream, creating the impression that this room is in a separate location and the camera is acting as a CCTV device. It will also create the impression, similar to that which Gobsquad set out to achieve that this room is essentially virtual also as the exact location of this room is unknown. This will be paired with the showing of pre-recorded footage of an installation dream room in which people enter to recite their dream and have a lay down. At the end of the performance this room will then be revealed on stage, and audience members will be invited to enter the space, creating a new aspect of the performance whilst also blurring the boundaries between the virtual room shown as a projection and the real, physical room.

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Online Citation: Gob Squad. (1992). About Us. Available: http://www.gobsquad.com/about-us. Last accessed 11 April 2013 GoetheBangalore. (2012). Gob Squad: Super Night Shot. [Online Video]. 11 Jan. Available from:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gKj85COyAJk. [Accessed: 11 April 2013]. By Nina Woods

Posted in Influences

Acquiring footage for our performance

Posted on by Nina Woods

From the beginning of brainstorming ideas for our performance we were eager to use clips from varying types of media. In the post Initial Ideas, examples can be seen of possible TV, film and YouTube clips that are all related to dreams or sleep. However after creating a mock mix tape video of these sources we realised that it would be problematic attaining the rights due to censorship rules.

Therefore we thought the best decision to avoid breaching censorship rules was to recreate the media ourselves. Below examples can be seen of the videos that inspired us and then the re-created footage that we have produced.

 Sheep Counting:

Original:

Our version:

photo Sheep.gif
Stop Motion:

Viral Facebook Video:

Target advert:

Passion Pit:

Stop motion intrigued us most due to the overlap of still images and motion images. We found that stop motion required greater focus from us as we had to pay attention to how each of the frames progressed into the other. It was this focus that we found appealing as we will need our audience to be attentative to successfully contribute to creating an immersive atmosphere and performance.

Our version(s):

These first two clips have specifically taken influence from the videos above, having the bed as the setting of the clips.

We also previously acquired footage of clouds passing through the sky which can be seen below:

We wanted to experiment with stop motion to see if we could create the same effect – inevitably in the end, when in performances effortlessly combining the two. The stop motion video can be seen below:

 

As part of our performance we are setting up a dream room prior to the performance date in the auditorium for this we are going to have footage of people talking about their dreams. This will then encompass the room whilst they are laying in the bed. Upon entering the dream room they will also be encouraged to talk about their dream which will then be replayed on the performance auditorium date. Examples can be seen of the group talking about their dreams below:

At the beginning of the performance on the auditorium date we plan to show footage leading up to the dream room, the footage of people talking about their dreams will then be played creating curiosity of this room. At the end the room will be revealed, showing that it is not in fact in a mystery place but in front of them – dividing the gap between imagination / dreams and reality again. The teaser video can be seen below: