Friday, June 29, 2012

Zombie!

Event Client:  Mann Made Media
Corporate Client:  Standard Bank
Video:  Out of the Blue Episode 5 (internal audience)
My Role:  Co-Script Writer, Video Director

We have just completed episode 5 of Out of the Blue.  And for the first time we played with lighting in the white space... which is a radical departure... given that the white space has always been the way.  Till now.  This was all good because in this episode we didn't use the infinite white space in the same sort of way.  There was no road tripping or mountain climbing... physical challenges that make the white space so exciting.  This time we had static fixed locations... so it was the fab lighting (by Nick Turvey) and brilliant editing (by Gareth...) that changed the space and brought the movement.  

Deborah as Sue being all 'Is it?!'

Lerato Moloisane as the ever enthusiastic Pam in action with Sue


The very funny Jose Domingos as the wonderfully dry Nigel

Mostly I was excited about the make-up of the dead person and the zombie.  The make-up artist Dawn Williams was part of the South African team that sent zombies over a ridge in Johannesburg at day break as part of the worldwide launch campaign of The Walking Dead.  Imagine seeing that - driving home from a big night dancing!  What the...?  Ahhh.  As you skid around the nearest corner.

Deborah in make-up... the slow fade to becoming a Zombie!

I see dead people...

Me and the zombie.  Brilliant.

"What's in your head... Zombie... Zombie..."

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Playing with words


A week or so ago I had an interview with Diane de Beer (Independent Newspapers) at a lovely little cafe in Sophiatown... complete with board games and wooden benches and delicious coffee and what felt like history... we chatted about theatre for an hour. Conversations like these make me wonder how it is possible to talk about anything else.  What was great was she asked me what kind of theatre I want to make - and it's interesting to articulated it... one of the answers is that i'm interested in scripted work where the actor still has the freedom to play...  Go further.  React to the audience.  Repeat something.  Come back to something... and so on.  All in complicite with the audience and their own performance... timing, rhythm, reaction and so on.  Of course you do a lot of this with devised / improvised work - but the structure is thinner with clearly defined fixed points to get you from one beat to the next... and so the opportunity and necessity to play is much larger.  But if you take that idea into a fully scripted piece the doors to play are harder to find - but they must be found.  I think.  To find the spontaneity within the structure.  The rigor of script with the delight of play.

This is what James Cuningham and I have been looking at during this re-rehearsal period of Sunday Morning for the Grahamstown Festival... how to find moments of play within the script.  And it's been fun - besides the freezing cold unheated rehearsal room... grr.  When 'play' happens the work comes alive in a way that straight acting or traditional theatre often neglects... Or forgets... Or deliberately steers away from.  But however you look at it, the audience is there.  It is theatre after all.  Even if it is wonderfully scripted and clearly blocked and well rehearsed and brilliantly and professionally executed.  So... it's going to be interesting to see what happens in Grahamstown.  But without play there is no theatre.  Not really.  The occasional dive into the unknown somehow seams essential.

It's fun to talk about this stuff.  Scary to do it.  Of course.  Eee.  You can read the review here... Theatre maker raises curtain on class act - Tonight News | IOL.co.za

Monday, June 18, 2012

a Sunday Morning song...

We are going full steam ahead with rehearsals for Sunday Morning as the Grahamstown Festival looms... we have 2 weeks and two days till our first performance.  We have a reinvented set - which is lovely - and today we did our first re-rehearsal with sound... aah.  What a lovely thing.  A soundtrack.

When we did our run at Goethe on Main last year James Cuningham was trawling the internet for music inspiration and he came across Kayla's cover of The Velvet Underground's 'Femme Fatale'... so he messaged her on her YouTube site Hills and Valley asking her if she would cover Sunday Morning... and the next day there it was uploaded onto her sight.  How brilliant... and here it is.  Inspiration for everyone.


Below is her Femme Fatale cover which caused the request.  Lovely indeed.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Kicking Corporate Theatre for Kumba

Event Client:  Mann Made Media
Corporate Client:  Kumba (Sishen Iron Ore)
Theatre:  Envision Share Options (internal audience)
My Role:  Concept Development, Script Writer

In 2011 I was commissioned to write and hour long theatrical intervention that took the message of financial responsibility to Kumba Miners all over South Africa.  The script was based on a concept and an outline developed with Nick Warren from Mann Made Media.  Miners were about to be paid out lump sum Cash amounts from the companies employee share option initiative... so the point was to help show how bad financial decisions impact ones life... and then showing how the good financial decision can improve ones life in the long term... So pretty much 'wrong way - right way' industrial theatre.  But this is not as simple as it seams... to get across fairly complex concepts in way that is both entertaining and understandable was challenging.  The idea centered around a main character... Mr Mali the financial advisor who took us on the journey...  the other two actors played multiple roles - miners as well as the other key characters in the story... the audience was then brought onto stage to play side characters... the crazy irresponsible taxi driver who drives too fast and crashes into the un-insured car that the miner has just purchased.... or the weather guy armed with water spray bottle to create the slippery road that caused the taxi to loose control... It worked very well.  The audience was fully engaged, entertained and educated.

Below is the press article that appeared in the BizCommunity recently...


Themba as Mr Mali giving his financial advise

Recognition provides a wonderful opportunity to learn and this often happens when a situation that resonates with the audience is portrayed through a powerful medium - such as industrial theatre.

Recently, Mann Made Media was tasked to create a series of scenarios depicting the dilemma of the workforce shareholders at Kumba Mines. Kumba created a BBBEE share participation scheme (Envision Trust) for its permanent non-management employees at Sishen Iron Ore Company. Over a period of five years it consistently paid out dividends to the workforce, but coming to the end of Phase1, the shares would be sold and a substantial lump sum would be received by each member. An industrial theatre piece based on this story was the ideal tool to empower the audience with information on how to handle such a sum of money.
Our cast on stage with the audience

With this objective in mind, Mann Made Media worked on a strategy which involved using professional scriptwriters and actors to produce a piece of interactive theatre which would be beneficial to the audience as well as amusing and compelling. The concept of a likeable character with whom the spectators can identify has always stood the test of time in theatre pieces. With this in mind, the role of Mr. Mali was created, an Envision-appointed Financial Advisor who would play the part of a narrator and take the audience on a journey of profitable financial planning as well as the dangers of silly spending. The invaluable input and insight of Envision Financial Advisors was accessed in the research phase of the proposal and footage was taken of them giving financial advice, which would be later used as emphasis in the show itself, lending authenticity to the stories. This would also serve to introduce the option of starting a dialogue between the Envision appointed financial advisors and the employees.

The range of stories illustrating each circumstance was vast. The issues tackled were the importance of budget, saving, prioritising wants and needs, paying off debt and planning for emergencies. This was done with contrasting before-and-after scenes of different situations. Shakespeare's advice was taken into account: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be" and get-rich-quick schemes were disapproved of. Buying a house was encouraged and labelled a good investment and tax, interest and retirement were discussed at length: how and why tax is deducted from salaries and capital gains, along with the power of compound interest in relation to savings and investments and retirement. Humour was woven into the script in order to connect with the audience.

Lerato and Edward as the young couple spending their new found wealth on a car

At the end of the show Mr Mali summarised all the correct ways to deal with a lump sum of money using a Yes/No quiz with his fellow actors, winning the audience over with the slogan: "Make your money grow - not go!' The feedback from the audience afterwards was positive. In general, they were motivated to open up a channel of communication with the Financial Advisors provided by their company, but more importantly they felt valued as they recognised and identified with the situations presented to them. MMM has stuck to the principles of respect for the audience and professional integrity when using the powerful medium of industrial theatre.

Friday, June 1, 2012

...then we'll take Berlin.

Jamelia... 'What?'

In the early hours of a winter morning... Snug in a warm bed under a plump feather duvet...  The distant sounds of world waking up - chirping birds - a barking dog - a passing car - and - an unusual scraping noise coming from the other side of the bed.  I know what it is.  The scraping noise.  I hope i'm wrong.  But no.  Jamelia, the cat, has peed on Nicks jeans.  His replay jeans.  Yes.  Not his old old dirty socks... or outside in the garden.  No.  And now he is trying to cover it up with the floor boards.  I don't know what he thinks.  That the boards will give way and no-one will know that he couldn't be bothered to go out... Stuff this... It's cold outside...  And I don't see them squeezing through this tiny flap at the bottom of the door in the middle of the night at minus 3 temperatures.  Who do they think I am...

Usually when he can't be bothered to go outside, usually he chooses the bath and then scrapes the sides, in the hope that the walls will collapse and neatly cover his business - a little enamel parcel of cat pee.  Nice.

Bang!  A pair of soiled Replays fly across the room narrowly missing a totally confused and indignant cat... What?  I was trying to cover it up...  The floor boards wouldn't move... it's not my fault!  Nick and the cat are still not talking.

Cats.  What are they like.... First we'll take Manhattan and then we'll take Berlin... if he did listen to pop music it would no doubt be Leonard Cohen with Lulu our over zealous labrador singing backing...