Friday, May 19, 2006

Bad Blogger... No Pizza

Illy film shoot

Ten days in ArtSpark time is a lot. Really it's like leaving a young child alone for a week or two, they've grown noticeably when you see them again.

Since last we spoke Team Infinite Perspectives took an Austin Ballet imposed week off.
2/3's of the team being committed to other Art for the week, we went dark.
Which is what every show on a deadline really needs.

It gave us time to handle some of the technical elements in the time we normally would have been rehearsing. And work we did.
Draft 12 in hand we set forth to create the graphical, audio, and video moments of the show.

We found that it's very difficult to build those elements by yourself when you really need consensus to create a unified feel to the show. There's been quite a bit of trial and error on the graphical and audio portions.

On Thursday, Illy and I got together with the Foundation Film Squad (the Filmies) and shot our video moments for the show. This was a considerable amount of fun. Cliff and Aaron (Rhea not being available) took us for a little walk out back of the ArtSpark Compound and delivered us unto a park that apparently lives out there. We selected several shots that we thought fit the 'openness' that Dewey and Martin had requested as a contrast to the starkness of our on-stage world.

And we proceeded to shoot our monologues again and again and again. The Filmies were amazingly accommodating and we got several different looks and location for each monologue, so that Martin had something to choose from upon his return.

Human, All too Human


I myself created some of the graphics for projection during the show, and a couple of montages like so:


Oh but we haven't hit the capper my friends.
Only in ArtSpark.

With the show only mostly blocked we had our tech rehearsal last night.
You heard me.
We had our tech rehearsal last night.
Two weeks out from the show, one week from dress.

And you know what? It was 400% better than it ever should have been.

As an actor I've been through some excruciating tech rehearsals. Just hour after hour of bitchy turf wars and status games layered on top of gross inefficiency.
Not here son.
Slated to begin at 6:00, we actually got really rolling at about 6:45.
We got in 2 full cue-to-cues, blocked the cooking show scene, did notes, struck and were outta there by 10:30.
With no bitchiness. I didn't see a single person run out of the space crying.
Major kudos go out to Bon, Derrick, Michaela, Austin, Martin and ArtSpark staffers Doug and Chad. If all theatre were that straight forward we might all still have hair (well I might anyway).

So now all that's left to do?
Fill the holes we haven't yet in the technical side. (Clay has yet to shoot his monologues, and we have some audio to rework and some graphics yet to create or tweak)

And Clay, Illy and I need to fill out this show with our performances.
Two weeks.
We're on it.

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