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

Splice is our entry into IFF ’09. An offering of around 2:30 featuring a ton of BMX-ers at Creation Skate Park, Moseley, FreeRunners from Team Fluidity doing their thing around Bristol and the Welsh Bockers, bocking around the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay.

We shot it in 3 days, from the 6th of Feb to the 8th using our 5DmkII.  I’m not going to give away too much about how we managed to get fullframe, uncropped fisheye images down on video – that’s our little secret – but our fulldome blog has more info on it (though not enough to give it away, hopefully!)

Perhaps a video of me being both brave and stupid might yield some further info?

So after our whistle-stop tours of Brum, Bristol and Cardiff, I headed north to see filmcafe-Rich in his new 5.1 Dubbing Suite.  (If anybody would like to donate a comfy sofa to that cause…)

Still, sofa or not, it’s a great place to mix 5.1 in… And Stereo too!  It’s always amazing, no matter how may times I sit in on a mix, the massive difference it makes.

Even if Logic was more tired than we were, deadlines are deadlines… No autosave though?… Strange.

Bit of time-lapse on the way back to Cardiff, (with a particularly low Hercules almost making an appearance) a late night trip over to Color and an early morning one ever to DHL and we’re done!

Now I’d love to show you Splice, but I can’t just yet.  Not until IFF ’09 have announced weather they like it or not.  That’s not their criteria – it’s mine. As a superstitious fool, I’m too scared to jinx anything!  But be sure, when I hear anything, I’ll be posting the info – and maybe some more making-of footage of me being stupid and as un-health-and-safety as it’s possible to be!