KENNY MATHIESON discovers some of the technical wizardry behind Wildbird and Mull Theatre’s new production

DIRECTOR Chris Lee and the three actors who will perform The Mysterious Death of Netta Fornario – Rebecca Sloyan, Greg Powrie and Mairi Phillips – have been working hard on the penultimate scene of the play in Mull Theatre’s splendid production centre at Druimfin, just outside Tobermory.

Rehearsal is an intriguing process. They work over small details of both the text and movement, constantly tinkering and changing a gesture here or an emphasis there, a word here and a sentence there, gradually pulling closer and closer to what will eventually be seen on stage.

The set itself is a slightly off-kilter box, simply furnished with a table and chairs and a bed. It will function as the interior of several different rooms, but much of the visual action on stage will be generated by a series of projections, combining Graeme Roger’s film footage with Fraser MacDonald’s animations, and Chris and the actors move through to the back room where Graeme is installed in front of his battery of laptop computers to view some early examples, projected on the wall.

As Chris Lee explains in his interview, the projections play a key role in taking the audience outside of the immediate set to a wider perspective, recreating scenes on the island, or the trenches and field hospitals of the Great War. Graeme Roger explained how the process worked.

“We started off filming the actors against a green screen, which is a standard technique now, and then compositing it on top of footage which I filmed on Iona itself, or with archive images. The challenge has been in combining the real time footage with Fraser MacDonald’s animation, and giving it a sense of unified style at the same time.

From green screen ...

... to dream scene

“We have been working with various combinations of colours and looks. This is the first time we have worked with Fraser, and it is good to get a new collaboration going and make use of his skills, and also to push our work in a new direction.”

Although Wildbird have used projection before, this is a bigger and more ambitious project than anything they have previously attempted.

“It is,” Graeme agreed, “and it’s very different in style as well. My usual field is the real time footage, so there is quite a lot going on here that is new to me.”

The visual projections will have several different roles in the final show. At times they will provide a holding image, a static backdrop to the physical action that may incorporate just one small area of animation – a flickering lantern, perhaps.

Other elements of the projection will be used to focus on spot projections on a specific small area of the set, and the main projection will be a full-on action element of the show.

“I think we have to be careful not to overdo it.” Graeme said. “If you just do loads of tricks one after another, people get bored with it. We have to be sympathetic with the performers and the live action.

“A big challenge for us is the fact that it is touring to many different sizes of small venues, so we started off planning lots of projection mapping, but the reality was that in the spaces we were looking at, both back projection and some front projection – things like projecting a small image onto a suitcase, for example – all had to be very carefully mapped to ensure they would work in many different situations – that’s just the realities of touring theatre.”

At that point in the process, the company were due to start blocking the projections in with the performers as the next crucial step in the process.

“That will let us start to see what needs to be changed,” Graeme said. “Preparing the animations is hugely time-consuming, and it’s all about how we ultimately treat the footage we finally use. We are also still working on exactly how we will project them on stage, but it is mostly down to software issues, trying to work out which package will be most suitable.

“It all comes off the laptops, through a projector and a smaller front projector. The visual cues have to function like lighting cues for the operators on the tour, so it’s about making your creative wishes into an on-stage reality. We are trying to avoid just using projections for the sake of it.”

An atmospheric shot on the island with ghostly figure added

The tour of The Mysterious Death of Netta Fornario is rather longer than originally envisaged within the North by North East touring package, a direct benefit of the collaboration with Mull Theatre. They were able to augment the North by North East funding with additional funding from Scotland’s Islands to extend the tour.

Alasdair McCrone, the director of Mull Theatre, is acting as producer and dramaturg on the show, and explained how Mull got involved.

“I took my eye off the ball one day and it suddenly happened!,” he joked. “No, Wildbird came here with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and because of my connection with Nick Fearne over in Moray I was keen to give it an airing here. I was talking to Chris Lee about how we work, and the fact that we have this facility at Druimfin that we want to share with other people, and that we were interested in collaborations with new Highland companies in particular.

“I give that spiel to most of the companies that come here, but Chris took me up on it, and came back with this idea of a story he had been looking into that was set in Iona. I knew nothing about it, and neither did anyone else I knew here.”

Sheena Miller, Mull Theatre’s administrator, suggested at that point that the locals might be trying to keep the whole thing quiet!

“Yes, they might,” Alasdair  laughed, “so we’ve blown that. Anyway, we talked about it, then the opportunity came up to apply for North by North East funding. We at Mull Theatre hadn’t planned to apply – we felt we were maybe a bit too established, and also north Argyll wasn’t really part of it, but working in association with a company from Moray changed that.”

Mull Theatre took on making the application, and the two companies set up a partnership to deliver it. They received funding from North by North East, and Mull then received additional funds from Scotland’s Islands to extend the tour beyond the original ten dates.

“Sheena booked the Scotland’s Islands venues, and North by North East did the rest, and we have handled the administration and hiring of people and so on,” Alasdair said. “Chris and I did the casting together. It has been a true collaboration, not one in name only, and it’s been a case of combining the strengths of the two companies.

“The new techniques they are using really intrigued me, and it is quite a technical challenge on a relatively small budget, especially given that it is going to many very different venues, which definitely adds to the challenge.”

Alasdair has not been directly hands-on in the process, but has taken a close interest in how the work is progressing.

“I guess I’m acting as producer, and I’ve been keeping an eye on it – I have meetings with them, I see the production notes, I catch up with them each day on how its going, but the last thing they need is to have me hanging around looking over their shoulders. I’ve been able to make practical suggestions based on our experience of touring, and I hope that has been helpful.”

The Mysterious Death of Netta Fornario is on tour from 28 May – 25 June

© Kenny Mathieson, 2011

Links

• North by North East
• Wildbird
• Mull Theatre