Video and still projection technology has become an increasingly integral part of the professional theatre world, and its presence has become inescapable. But when it comes to materials that have been pre-assembled prior to a performance, a big challenge has emerged: What happens if one or more of your leading role performers happens to be out and the understudy takes over? It can be a bit of a problem, and one that can be a headache for the video crew. K-Tel Presents
A great example is the video projection work for Rock of Ages. In one key sequence, a "bromance" montage features Bourbon Room owner Dennis and his sidekick Lonny. Still footage using understudies was shot for both, and in the case where a new understudy might be in play during the latter sequence, a K-Tel type montage showing a list of classic rock ballads is shown scrolling on the display in lieu of the usual montage.
"We actually have three entirely separate video sequences that don't include video of the actors for various parts of the show, depending on if either Lonny is out, Dennis is out, or both Lonny and Dennis are out," reports projection and video designer Zachary Borovay. "So if you happen to see it with an understudy, you get a whole different set of jokes.
"Rock of Ages is the most complex of the shows I have designed in terms of dealing with alternate projections," adds Borovay. "In the off-Broadway production, three of the actors in the show appeared in the projections in various images both together and alone. We ended up with eight versions of the show based on who was in or out that night, including combinations. For Broadway, we added a live camera for one of the scenes rather than using a prerecorded version in order to eliminate a number of understudy issues. We actually built a small set in the basement of the Brooks Atkinson Theatre for the scene."
Serving Media Live
That key moment involves a phone call between Dennis and sleazy rocker Stacee Jaxx, who is shown onscreen in a towel with groupies by his side. The scene takes place while Jaxx is backstage at a show during "Too Much Time on My Hands." The Broadway incarnation of Rock of Ages also features an additional 10 live cameras to enhance the view of certain sequences, particularly those where audience members sitting to the far left or right do not have a clear view.
Borovay says that utilizing a live camera has solved many problems when a prerecorded scene will not work. He points out that many media servers have become much better at dealing with multiple shows being stored on the machine at the same time.
"Many of the motion graphics applications have gotten a lot more sophisticated," he adds, "which makes it easier to, say, turn a video into what looks like an animated chalk drawing, as I did in Xanadu, in order to obscure the actor's face enough to make it a neutral character, while still keeping the quality of motion organic and the look natural."
Sans Visage
For the roller-skating musical Xanadu, each actor dancing separately was filmed, then in post a composite was made of all of the muses dancing together. Borovay says that each muse was digitally "distressed" by giving her a realistic chalk-drawn appearance. It ties in with the story, in which lead character Sonny is drawing a chalk mural of the muses.
"This helped the storyline while also reducing the detail in the images enough to make the characters faces more generic in appearance, thus eliminating the need for substitute images."
For Peepshow in Las Vegas, a 90-second movie shot in black and white sets up the story. "We avoided any head or face shots except for a few very quick shots," reveals Borovay. "For playback, the computer inserts the appropriate shots into the free-running video depending on which version of the show is called up. There is a blond and brunette understudy version as well, with no face shots."
A Theatre Problem
Projection designer Peter Nigrini notes that the problem of alternate projections is "very much a theatre problem. It isn't necessarily a rock ‘n' roll problem or a corporate event problem. I think they have it but to a lesser degree because they aren't about building systems that are going to run eight times a week for years to come."
Nigrini recently designed Fela!, which had the added challenge of dealing with two alternating leads and an understudy for the title role. At the top of Act Two, a two-minute video interview of the character is shown, and if the wrong clip is shown (three were shot) the continuity of the show is ruined. Further, Fela's mother appears in still segments. Nigrini notes that where things get really complicated is when a photo montage with 10 members of the chorus surfaces. These roles can change on a nightly basis depending upon many different factors, and there are times when the video department will not know who will be on until 6:30 or 7 p.m. What's a harried crew to do?
"That show's built on media servers called d3, and we knew from the beginning that we were coming up against this problem," explains Nigrini. "UVA, who build the servers, has done a lot of development to make the system that runs Fela! possible, so I said to them that one of the challenges is that we're going to need to build a system where the technicians who come in and maintain the show can somehow be handed a piece of paper by stage management and be able to configure the system so that it makes the right choices and presents the right content."
Find/Replace
For Fela!, UnitedVisualArtists (UVA) built a simple feature in the playback software that performed a find and replace swap in real time. "When we programmed the show we had generic names," says Nigrini. "For instance with Fela, every file that the character shows up in somehow ends with a string of characters, !Fela." Plus there are files related to the actor playing the role, such as !Sahr (for actor Sahr Ngaujah) and !Kevin (Kevin Mambo). "It's a very simple text file, and you just match them in a series of drop-down menus where you say Fela is being played by Sahr. What that does is, literally, when it loads the file to play in the course of the run the show, every time it sees the text string and the file !Fela, it replaces it with !Sahr or !Kevin or whoever is on that night. So then it loads the appropriate file and we see the appropriate show."
This means that changes can actually be made not only at the top of the show but mid-performance. "They can change those cast assignments right in the middle of the show, and the next time the servers are asked to pull a file that has the correct string in it, they'll do the new replace and we'll get the new person," states Nigrini. "Even if someone injures themselves halfway through Act One and is going to be replaced, all the stage manager has to do is pass that information along to the video department to make that change, and the rest of the show will reflect that change, which is pretty fantastic."
On his current production, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, Nigrini is dealing with pre-assembled video clips of characters wrestling, and because of the strenuous physical nature of the performances, there is a regular rotating cast including a large, planned set of understudies.
"A lot of the footage that we are shooting is of wrestling, so you may have two guys in a single shot," explains Nigrini, who is designing the show with a Green Hippo Hippotizer media server. "If there are two guys and two understudies, there are four possible combinations of how that shot might look, so in that case we'll have to shoot every piece of footage four times. With the Hippos servers, we are still developing a solution for these even more complicated scenarios."
Back in the Day
What complicates matters on Chad Deity is that six characters appear on video, which will produce many combinations. Thus they are limiting the number of shots with two people in them and finding ways to show two people but perhaps only one face to keep production costs down. In the end, Nigrini notes, a lot of the end product comes down to how much producers are willing to spend. But having flexible software, such as that on d3 for Fela!, often allows a video designer and team to make replacements easily without having to edit the show file itself.
Video and projection designer Dustin O'Neill (who also does scenic design) tackled the problem of alternate projections on a production of Macbeth that he designed last year at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario. "There were a couple of cues, one with the face of Banquo and one with the visage of Macbeth, that required us to shoot a number of understudy actors in the multiple roles," O'Neill says. "With two possible exchanges, there were three variations, a Banquo replacement, Macbeth replacement, or both in the same performance. We were programming with (Dataton) Watchout on the show, so the easiest solution was to just create an additional three files which had the replacement cues swapped out in the timeline.
"Having the various software applications commonly used in the theatre today makes it quite simple to create numerous variations of a show's timeline and deliver the proper imagery at the correct time," adds O'Neill. "I couldn't imagine doing a show with alternate projections in the days of AVL Genesis and 35mm slide projectors. The constant rotation of slides in carousels could drive a person to wits end."
Borovay recalls the 35mm technology used on the Broadway production of The Who's Tommy in the mid-1990s and the clever solution that emerged for the key understudy problem. "There were several slides that had the actors face in them," he says. "Keep in mind, with a traditional 35mm slide show as complex as that, changing out slides last minute would be a nightmare. The designer, Wendall K. Harrington, came up with a solution that not only solved the problem of what to do when the lead was out sick, but also became an important thematic part of the style of the show. A solution that went perfectly with the story: the actor placed one open hand in front of his face. Just like the lyric – he didn't see it."
Photos by Joan Marcus
