I decided to take some new pictures of the cast for the programme rather than using the ones we already had on the blog. The photos on the blog are look very casual and fit with the manifesto for the company where we state that…
‘Our ten company members channel their energy, excitement and enthusiasm in the devising process, to create focused and significant theatre’ (Fill In The Blank, 2015).
This led to me creating images for the blog which reflected this.
Michael WoodhallHannah Thorpe
These picture are in colour and show the enthusiasm and energy of the company.
For the programme I decided to go in a different direction with more professional headshot style images. Below are two examples of this…
Naomi FrenchKatherine Copley
Works Cited-
Fill In The Blank Theatre (2015) About Us. [online] Lincoln: Fill In The Blank Theatre. Available from https://fillintheblanktheatre.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/about-us-2/ [Accessed 15 May 2015].
As producer of Fill In The Blank Theatre one key task I do, is taking minutes during every meeting or rehearsal. This simple yet very important task enables us as a company to keep track of any ideas or suggestions regarding the company, the performance, the set, sound or lighting. With any theatre company, (especially that which consists of a large number in our case ten members) remembering every idea or contribution to the devising process is difficult and therefore often a potentially exciting idea can be missed or forgotten.
Freadman and Reade note that “in the case of all companies, efficient and effective marketing and organisation, as well as your originality and talent, are the keys to longevity” (Fredman and Reade, 1996, p.267). The point they raise re-enforces the importance of keeping minutes and rehearsal notes. It is vital to find the balance between creativity and organisation. By keeping minutes it means I can find this balance by noting everyone’s creative contributions which thus allows us as a company to remain organised.
Seabright notes that “one key purpose of these [production] meetings is to keep the director updated on how the production side of things is going, which can otherwise take a back seat in their priorities when rehearsals are in full swing” (Seabright, 2010, p.272). This is also where the task of taking minutes comes into play. As Seabright notes often the production side of the process can take a ‘back seat’ during the devising process as most of the Directors focus is on the rehearsals and creating the content itself. By myself and often the stage manager taking notes and minutes in rehearsals it enables us to be able to give the in-house technical team at the venue a better idea of our performance from the offset.
Arranging production meetings with the in-house technical team is important as it means we can establish early on our vision and if it is achievable. By taking notes it means I can then feedback to the Director as Seabright notes informing them on how things are going and what the technical team suggest if problems arise.
It is clear that taking minutes and notes throughout the devising process is important for keeping the company on track and as Seabright notes fulfilling “one really important part of a producer’s role is maintaining a view of the ‘big picture’ at all times in the production process” (Seabright, 2010, p.12).
Works Cited:
Freadman, R. and Reade, I. (1996) Essential Guide to Making Theatre. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Seabright, J. (2010) So You Want to be a Theatre Producer? London: Nick Hern Books.
Aswell as being the marketing manager for Fill In The Blank, I am also a performer which means I sometimes have to hand over the camera in rehearsals to one of the non-performing members of our company. I then edit these images and upload them to our social media so we can share our progress with our online following.
Here are some of the images from our last rehearsal where we worked with ribbon to try out some new ideas…
Marketing for the arts and commercial marketing are two very different ideas. In the commercial sense, the marketing ‘dictates the nature of the product or service through conforming it to the requirements of the customer’ (Hill et al, 2003, 2). This is the main area in which it differs from arts marketing. Marketing for the arts does not dictate what the product should be but instead it takes influence and attempts to represent the work that the artist is creating. Instead of tailoring the work to what is being demanded in the market, it ‘needs to start with the product and find customers for it’ (Hill et al, 2003, 3) and I have done this for our company by finding out that our audience are highly engaged students based at the University of Lincoln.
It is important that the marketing materials for the company are coherent with the ideas that the creative team have for the performance. Whilst creating the image for the play, I had discussions with the company’s creative team so that I understood the direction that the play would be moving in. We decided that there were a few key elements that would definitely be integrated within the show. These included…
The importance of live music.
The use of projection.
Memory loss.
Science.
Michael Cahill as the main character.
A Colour scheme of red, blue, grey, white and black.
As we are still developing the final show, it is quite difficult to create an image that matches the artist’s intentions for the piece. Therefore, I used these characteristic as a design brief when creating the image.
My main idea was to use a double exposure effect on a photograph. I wanted the image to be of Michael who is playing ‘The Man’ in the performance. I took a lot of inspiration from the pictures below…
Albi, A., 2013
Tu, G., 2012.
Amamak photography, 2011
As our show is about memories and I wanted to show the complexity of what goes on inside our heads. The layering of the images helps to show this and it is also a really beautiful effect.
I had never tried to create this effect on photoshop before so I knew it was going to take me a few tries before I managed to get the right image.
Within our piece, another important element is music so I decided that one of the layers in the photo would be sheet music.
I liked the effect that it created but i didn’t like the colour scheme of the image. I also thought there needed to be more than one thing layered in the double exposure as it put too much focus on the sheet music and suggests our piece is mainly about music when it is only an element of it.
I preferred this image but the background needed to be a colour and there needed to be another image layered.
I then changed the image that was layered over the top and added the font. I really liked the image but once again, I wanted to add another layer over the top and wanted to try this with the sheet music I used previously. After some feedback on the image I also decided that the text was not bold enough and possibly needed to be further down on the image.
This is the final image with all of the information on it aswell. I like this image as I believe it portrays our performance well. I like the image of the light layered over the sheet music as we are using both music and projection within the piece and this hints at it. The font is bolder and the layering of the white font over the main image makes it stand out and look bold.
Work Cited-
Albi, A. (2013) Nature Boy. [electronic print] Available from https://www.flickr.com/photos/alessioalbi/9617537966/in/photostream/ [Accessed on 20 of April 2015].
Amamak Photograpy (2011) Sunshine On My Mind. [electronic print] Available from https://www.flickr.com/photos/artzyviv/6390297865/in/photostream [Accessed on 20 of April 2015].
Susan, H., O’Sullivan, C. and O’Sullivan, T. (2003) Creative Arts Marketing. 2nd edition. Oxford: Butterworth and Heinemann.
Tu, G. (2012) Wanderlust [electronic print] Available from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gretatu/7432964390/in/photostream [Accessed on 20 of April 2015].
All images not cited were either taken or created by myself.
Let’s do a warm up!
Warm up was a consistent part the rehearsals, every single rehearsal would start by warming up. All the work we were going to be doing was physical so to not warm up could end up hurting the cast. I would tailor the warm to fit the rehearsal, if we were going to be doing a lot of fast paced movement then we would do cardio, followed by stretches that we would be getting our hearts pumping and raising the heart rate to allow for the physical work to happen. We gradually build upon this by following it with star jumps and running then once fully warmed up we would then go onto stretched the now warm muscles. I fully believed that with consistent upkeep of the warm has led to the more flexibility in some of the cast members.
