This Restless House

This Restless House
File:***
Summary
Dates ***
Location Chandler Theatre
Director Becky Hope Palmer
Production Team
Production Manager Gavin Johnston
Stage Manager Paola Soliz
Deputy Stage Manager Saul Johnstone
Assistant Stage Manager Sophie Harwood
Technical Stage Department Ellie Shaw, Trudy Nelson & Gregor Dickov
Stage Crew ***
Lighting Designer Maxi Heddle
Lighting Programmer Smiles Ricci
Production Electrician Gun Lai
Deputy Production Electrician Smiles Ricci
Lighting Technicians Roy Mohan Shearer & Sal Quinlan
Sound Designer Danny Taggart
Production Sound Engineer Daniel Barclay
Sound Technicians Hamish Bell, Connor Boyd & Cormac Cameron-Finn

Technical Stage

Balloon drops

The director wanted balloons to drop from the ceiling. She wanted many to drop at the same time, so we knew we'd have to design a method for dropping them, rather than being able to drop them by hand from the catwalks. Because there there's not much headspace in the Chandler, we didn't want a traditional kabuki system because we didn't want the black tat to be seen when it was hanging down or to interfere with the lights.

Instead, we designed a system where the release lines (the pink in the photo) being pulled would pull the black tat back so that the balloons would fall out from the system. We put up three of these systems–one larger one that needed two people to operate it and two smaller ones which each only one person to operate from the most upstage catwalk.

In the cords attaching the tat to the red lines, we faced some issues in finding the balance between keeping tension so the black tat was taut and creating too much friction in the system. In the larger system, the red line was a horizontal scaff bar which we waxed but in the smallers systems, it was a thicker piece of rope. If the tat was held too loose, it didn't bunch up as well and more balloons got caught and didn't fall. In the end, the solution was just to find a happy medium where the lines were taut but there wasn't so much friction that the release lines couldn't be pulled.

Sound

Qlab Karaoke Lyrics

I created karaoke lyrics that where projected onto the floor, this was achieved by creating the sides of text with a white outline and a green font colour then "green screening" (linear key) it out to then move boxes across creating the kareoke effect. I then timed each section to the song.

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