A new kind of theatre, that’s what it was. As far as we can ascertain, nobody has ever staged a live theatre show in a Digital Planetarium before.
Some of you will know that over the past six months, we’ve been developing fulldome content – but not just any fulldome content, mind you! We’ve developed a way to shoot super Hi-Res images and video at Planetarium native resolutions… As far as we know, we’re amongst the first, if not only people that are able to shoot this kind of stuff, too.
But we didn’t want to stop there – we also wanted to find a whole new way to bring our images to life…
Those that know me will be aware of my ongoing dilemma… The theatre vs. film debate… I don’t believe in the fourth wall in a theatre sense, and would go so far as to say that it’s rude to ignore a room full of people that have come to see you. Film/tv/video etc. are fourth wall, but they actually need a wall (or a screen) to exist… That’s not rude, it’s practical… This debate runs on and on in our house…
Anyway, for six months now we’ve been developing for an immersive cinema environment, the screen isn’t a wall, it’s a dome… Above the entire audience… It’s immersive, it’s inclusive and it’s engrossing!
So, as you may imagine, when an opportunity like this presented itself; to immerse an audience in both visuals and people – to create something new, that could be a real synergy of recorded and live – I went into overdrive.
Kindle Theatre are, to my mind, the only company that could possibly have pulled this off. Their brand of theatre – their “theatre of relationships” to my mind, represents all that is great and good in contemporary theatre. Yes I’m biassed, but in this instance, hand on heart, I speak the truth.
As fate would have it, a good friend of the Kindles, Tony Appleby, has been writing a script. A script that was perfect for this project. The right mix of Kindle-esque theatre coupled with a dash of astronomic and scientific subject matter. Perfect for an audience at a Planetarium, I’d say!
So, to the final piece of the jigsaw – Mario Di Maggio. The greatest asset to our development in the fulldome realm has been Mario. Hands down. His openness and generosity, coupled with our mutual enthusiasm for new developments in fulldome applications and content have been invaluable over the past six months. His dedication was the reason that ‘The Balham Ladies’ had a stage on which to perform.
cut to: 4.5.09, Stan’s Cafe’s new space (The A.E. Harris Building, in Birmingham’s Jewelry Quarter). Present – Kindle Theatre (x4), Tony Appleby and Filmcafe.
Admittedly, I’d been gathering my visuals a few weeks in advance – on mountain tops, in castles and in blackout tents – and Photoshopping and Rendering through many a lonely night… But the only actual rehearsal time that we had to create this performance was from 9am on the 4th of May ’09 until 6:30pm on the 6th… 57 and a half hours… Including sleep… I like to think that even Jack Bauer would be impressed.
Please understand that I’m not telling you this to make excuses for what we achieved – I’m genuinely proud of what we created. So continuing with the spirit of openness that brought ‘Balham’s’ test performance and it’s audience together, I wanted you to know how it came to be before I showed you this film…
Now, the dust is starting to settle a little, post-Balham. I’ve managed to collect my thoughts enough to write my report for the Technology Strategy Board, since after all, it was them that gave me the breathing space to start thinking in hemispheres.
But just because ‘Balham’ has been and gone, it doesn’t mean that it’s over…. Early next week, Kindle, Tony and I are having a meeting – to discuss the future of ‘Balham’ – to debrief, to see if we all want to keep going with it and to see if it’s viable.
I’m indebted to all of you that came to see Balham almost a month ago – thank you so much for coming to support us, it really meant a great deal…
I do have one more little thing to ask of you though! And that also goes to those of you that didn’t see ‘Balham’ on the night, but were interested enough to watch the clip and feel like you have something to say about it.
Put simply, we’d like your feedback. We’re trying to gauge whether to keep pushing ‘Balham’, whether the audience enjoyed it, whether they thought it worked in a Planetarium, whether they’d like to see more – or less – of anything in particular…
As above, on the subject of openness and transparency, I won’t be moderating the comments, except for the customary deletion of spam! So if you have anything to say about ‘The Balham Ladies Amateur Astronomy Club’, please say it here… Go on, you’re among friends!…
steve
I think it’s a great achievement to create a lasting atmosphere. Anyone can create drama, but a tangiable flavour of your own is much more radiant and perenial, like the stars themselves.
Loved the lady clapping at the end as well.
Well, as one who couldn’t be there…. I would definitely love to see more. The visuals look stunning – thanks also to the impressively edited showreel.
From what I know and have seen of Kindle’s theatre, the planetarium staging well support’s their demonstrative style and I feel like the scale and quality of the visuals helps to lift their performances. That’s the screen-mediated viewpoint anyway. Best of luck with the further stages of development.
The whole idea of staging the event in the planetarium was really special, an interesting link between old and new. I also particularily like the style of the Kindles, of being taken up into the planetarium by people in character. I hope you can extend and revisit the Balham Project, and more people can be made aware of the planetarium and of course Kindle &Filmcafe.
I thoroughly enjoyed, as ever with Kindle performances, the sense of event, of occasion and of a complete experience; the show began the moment we all began accumulating at the bottom of the elevator, long before we arrived in the Planetarium. What I took away with me from the event was certainly a sense of the potential that space offers and the potential impact the interplay of those two media – film and theatre – might offer an audience in that space. In the spirit of honest feedback to practitioners I respect and admire, I suppose I would have to say that I’m not sure that the experience was as immersive and as experiential (and as experimental) as I think it might have been – given the technological potential and the creative potential of those involved. What really took my breath away was the selection of images we were shown at the end of the performance – images of bridges, lighthouses, even trapeze artists swinging from a circus top, all projected onto the dome of the planetarium. As I gazed up at those images – especially the trapeze artist – I definitely felt that yes, I am really immersed in this image. (Whereas, for example, the projection of a night sky didn’t actually feel so immersive, partly because it’s what you expect to see projected on a dome in a planetarium, and partly because it’s the view you usually have of the night sky anyway.) What I wanted – don’t ask me how! – was for more of this imagery to be actively used by the actors as their set, their scenery – I wanted to see the actors somehow in these images, not just on a stage on the ground floor in front of them. With money no object (!, yes, I know!), I wanted them suspended in the images, or performing above me along some sort of whispering gallery around the dome, so that they and the images were part of the same view, rather than a separate view in front of or beneath them. OTT? Possibly, but I think there’s more potential for the space to be really played with, rather than used as a filmic / imagistic backdrop to a piece of theatre. But the intimacy of the venue certainly struck a chord and suited Kindle’s quirky, personal performance style brilliantly – there was a good fit with the dimly lit atmosphere of the astrology club, and a great sense of occasion – and gloriously comfy seats with leg room! So yes, enjoyable, potential, but more more more…(!)
I wasn’t at the performance but I’m vaguely familiar with the work of Kindle and of Tony Appleby. I read the notes about Balham Ladies before I watched the video and sympathise with Steve about this fourth wall thing. From what I saw in the video, the combination of theatre and video complemented each other. The stage performance breathing life to the video and vice versa. Impressive work for almost three days of rehearsal.
Congratulations and keep it up!