DISQUS

Cambiare Productions: http://frawst.blogspot.com/2007/09/cutting-corners-is-cutting-corners-no.html

  • Scott Walters · 2 years ago
    It is an interesting problem you bring up. Like you, I am attracted to the sustainable aspect of digital projection. But the obvious failures are daunting. Let me as you a question with a preamble: when sound film first appeared, many of the films were simply filmed plays with the camera placed in front of the proscenium (see, for instance, "The Cocoanuts" by the Marx Brothers). Then film developed its own vocabulary and took off from there. Might part of the problem be that the designers are not only not professional enough to make it look good, but they're trying to make the digital projections do the same thing as scenery, instead of exploring digital projections own vocabulary?

    (Just a sidenote: there is nothing wrong with leaving at intermission and writing about it. George received free tickets from the theatre with the understanding that he would write about it on his blog, which to my mind creates a contract with expectations for certain behaviors. My take on a little dustup that, blessedly, I was not the cause of nor much involved with.)

  • Travis Bedard · 2 years ago
    Scott,

    I think you're dead on. Which is part of the reason I'm trying to come up with my own code for these things.

    One of my 'things that are wrong with theatre' is our over-reliance on our filmic vocabulary in stage life. And I think that that definitely applies here. Not simply that they are trying to recreate scenery with the projections, but that they are trying to produce films with live people.



  • Tony · 2 years ago
    I wonder, do you thing the problems with the projections you saw come from being phoned in? Or did they just not reach their expectations?

    I think the latter is more acceptable. Sometimes things don't go as well as hoped and that's okay, as long as it's not due to lack of care.

    I love technology and what it can do with love performance. I don't love most of how I see it being used. As a designer myself, I generally have the same rule for all design elements. If people walk out of a production of Glengarry talking about how amazing the set and set change was instead of how amazing the actors are--that's a problem.

    So with projections, (much like with sound) they can do a great job helping to tell the story. But poorly done ones detract more than help.