Projects 2013 > Page to Stage > Journal
Last Wednesday was our big day - the day we had to shoot all the material we might possibly need for an interactive performance video with a ten minute master, five individual interviews, 'point of audition' sound, slowmotion fancy fingerwork, and some intriguing shots of instruments being assembled for the loading screen (I specially enjoyed the discovery that the timp player removes his wedding ring as well as his watch, hanging them delicately by his sticks)
And, of course, before anything else, satisfying the orchestra's leader with the quality of the recording and performance.
We got it done - just. Two recording engineers and all their kit, one binaural sound recordist, two camera people, one EyeDirect camera box for into-the-lens interviews, one hi-speed GoPro camera and operator, forty four musicians, several assorted animal skins (for the timps), a highly decorated Baroque horn, an 18th century bassoon with some bits missing, four orchestral administrators and a floating CEO, a birthday cake, Amanda and me. (and a very noisy rehearsal a few rooms away, which kept trying to intrude).
Since then I've been going through the material, which ranges from eye-watering technical detail about bowings, to the mystifying but endearing confession that French horn players can't eat apples before a performance.
Today and tomorrow it's the 'thought track' recording, which consists of me watching a sound recordist record a musician talking through their thoughts as they listen to themselves playing. Who knew that musicians not only feel the music together, but breathe in together? Truly, it's another world.
We were aiming to appeal to people with no musical knowledge and varying attention-spans, and I hope we can do that.
But of course, we can't do it all right now, as the developers will no doubt have to remind me every two hours...
So the next stage is making the elaborate non-linear paper edit of what goes where (and why), a process made more complex because we didn't get a chance to plan it properly with the orchestra, so there may be some randomness in which musicians bob up where in the music, and what they say when they do.
But as long as it's interesting and makes the user want to know more, I guess we'll have done our job.
Posted by Sheila Hayman