Technical
National Theatre Design Challenge
As part of Sam's studies himself and a group of technical theatre students were givena design challenge by the National Theatre in which they had to re-design one of the scenes of the iconic play "The Curious Incident of the dog in the nighttime". Throughout this page you will see Sam's inital ideas and planning for the project as he developed throughout the process. This page will also show any changes made to the final product and any additions to the scene added by other group members.
National theatre http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/the-curious-incident-of-the-dog-in-the-night-time-at-the-gielgud-theatre-and-on-tour
The opposite mind map shows Sam's inital thoughts after reading the play.
After recording his initial thoughts Sam then began planning how he would create a sound design for a particular scene in the play. The scene chosen was the tube train scene.
From his intial ideas Sam knew that it would be vital to include sounds and effects in the soundscape that would be able to make the audience really connect with the character and feel as if they are going on a journey with Christopher and not just watching a show.
This will therefore mean the audience feel emersed in the theatrical experience and feel as if they are on the train with the charaters. This would mean that the soundscape must relate to situations the audience would be able to relate to. For example, the use of train announcements, background music and talking and any other sounds they may hear when travelling on a train.
Planning stage:
Sam then created a flow chart which detailed his design process and how he would organise and complete his work until reaching his final design.
The Curious team had a Webex meeting with the AV, Set and Lighting designers from Curious where they answered all of the questions that had given them about the concepts of the show and how they created certain scenes. All Sam's notes taken during this meeting are shown below:
After the meeting the Curious team spent some time discussing how the stage should be laid out for the performance. A range of theatre styles were discussed from theatre in the round to a thrust stage. However, eventually the team decided to use a theatre layout that would best show off the projection and objects moving on stage. We will therefore record our final theatre style choice in on next production meeting.
Since the last meeting the team have changed the scene they will be recreating and they will now be recreating the tube scene in the play and the image opposite shows the final set design idea.
The black outlines resemble the characters in the scene and the blue sections show parts of the train carriage that we would be re-creating in our scene. The idea now is to have Christopher closing his eyes when he is on the tube and to show this to the audience the lighting team will send the set to a black out. And whilst the character his eyes closed the sound effects and announcements will be played into the theatre. that he is trying process.
Sam also had the idea of using strobe and bright lights at certain points in the scene to resemble the train pulling into each station or showing the electricity and light that comes from the carriages.
Design Stage:
The Curious team held a meeting to finalise the departments and also start planning the set of the scene we would be changing in our re-design. As we had chosen the scene where Christopher is travelling from Swindon to London..
Once the team had decided the scene they would be re-crecreating Sam asked the rest of the team how they would design the stage to not only resemble a train but also present the scene to represent Christopher’s mind at the time.
The opposite image shows the first drawn plans of the staging and set design of the train scene.
The sections in blue resemble the train carriage that would be being creating. Again Sam told the team that he really wanted the audience to connect with the story and almost wanted to make the piece an immersive experience to the audience to really get into the mindset of Christopher. To do this Sam shared his ideas about using sub speakers hidden under the seats of the theatre that would play out a sound frequency that makes the audience reel that they are shaking. This would be done to resemble the how people would move on a train when it pulls into station or goes around corners.
In this scene the team would also using flashing colour chases to resemble the lights outside as the train goes through each station. To complement the lighting plan Sam will be creating a prototype soundscape that would not only provide the sounds you would normally hear on a train but also using a voice over to say all of the thoughts that are running through Chrisopher’s mind as he is on the train. This would include mumbling conversations and train announcements.
The Soundscape
After the group production meetings about the final plans for how the team would recreate the scene Sam set about working on his own soundscape of how he felt the scene should sound. Again he drew on his personal expeirences of being on the tube and wanted to create a realistic soundscape that would help the audience connect with Christopher. Sam also wanted them to feel confused and stressed in this scene as it would be the emotions that Christopher would be feeling himself.
As Christopher would be worried about all the new sights and sounds Sam focused on creating a soundscape that highlighted specific sounds that he would hear in a journey on the underground. Therefore he recorded some of the tube announcements and looped them throughout the soundscape to show that he would pick up on certain words that he felt were important.
Sounds of music playing through headphones, chatting and babies crying have also been used in order to recreate a normal soundscape that resembles a scene you would expect to hear when you go on a tube.
The soundscape has been designed to sound confusing as a variety of sounds have been put together at any one time in order to create the sense of confusion and stress in Christopher's mind.
Another sound that has been added to the soundscape is a variety of station names. However, the names read out are never found on the same tube route. This has been done to show how Christopher's mind may change what he actually thinks that he hears. As Sam imagined that Christopher would be reading a range of tube stations that are found all over London. Therefore the station announcements that he is hearing would be from his imagination as he creates a completely different tube route to that which he is actually on.
A copy of the prototype soundscape can be heard opposite.
Soundscape Feedback
At today’s meeting Sam played his soundscape, that he had created for the tube scene, to the rest of the team to see what they thought about it. To see if it would work with the visuals in the scene.
It was decided that parts of his soundscape would either be tweaked or used in a new soundscape that would work well with the visuals provided by the AV team. The soundscape had not been used for 2 main reasons. The first is that the soundscape did not work in time with the AV and the second reason was the fact that the audio quality was not brilliant due to the fact the format had been converted down so that it could be played on a variety of devices.
Sam therefore worked with the rest of the sound team to create a new soundscape that would fit in with the AV. The image opposite shows the timeline given to the sound team by the AV team detailing the exact timings of the scene. This told the sound team when there would be a break in the audio to add voice overs and at what station the tube is at at what time in the AV.
Once the sound team had been given this time sheet they set about creating a new soundscape that would be perfect for the AV video.
After they had been given this sheet the design team finished the design time by looking at the groups final ideas and what key things would happen in the scene.
The opposite image shows our updated plan and highlights key parts in the scene where the AV and soundscape will start. As well as any changes to set and lighting.
Final Week
This week is the deadline week to send off the design work the the National Theatre and therefore we spent today putting the final finishing touches to the sound teams soundscape,AV and lighting design.
Therefore voice overs were recorded to be added to the soundscape that would act as the station announcements. Each audio clip was recorded using Audacity and then exported so that they could be put into the AV track. This also meant that the AV and sound cues would hit the correct cues at the right time meaning that it was all in sync.
Once the audio files had been recorded Sam and Harry created a plan of where the speakers would go with regards to the theatre space. The image opposite shows 2 line-arrays at both stage right and stage left in order to create an even coverage throughout the space.
It was also decided to put 4 subs underneath the stage that would be used to make the audience feel the vibrations of the audio track. This would then make the audience feel like they are on the train itself and almost feel like they are moving with the characters in the scene. This would then help to create the emotion of uncomfort as the audience would not know what is happening to them. This is however, the outcome Sam would be hoping for as it would help them feel how nevous and uncomfortable Christopher is when he is in a new situation on the train.
Once this plan had been created the soundscape had been completed to work with the AV and the track has been left for any final tweaks to be made to it tomorrow. After that point the sound team will have a final product that will be converted into an MP3 format so that it can be played on any device.
The image below also shows the kit list that the sound department would be using.
The final AV design with soundscape can be found using this link to the shared Google drive for the Curious Design challenege.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B9N2KRGlBnA_eGpOY253T0hZRDg&usp=sharing
The final set design for the tube scene however, can be found opposite.
A final thought
In this final section are some of Sam's final thoughts upon completion of this project.
"This project has really opened my eyes into the world of design. Coming from a prodomantly tech oporater background this design challenge has given me the chance to express my creativity in ways I have not done before.
The overwhelming feel of pride from going from an intial brainstorm of ideas to finally completing a piece of work that not only incorperates a host of sound effects and techniques but to also see the product completed and working alongside an amazing detailed and realisitc AV video I feel that I have completed the one goal I really had when starting this project.
The goal being to create a soundscape and final product that would help the audience to see past the scene just being a scene from a show but to be able to fully emerse themselves in the experience to feel like they are on the same journey as the character, Fromthe sound of the station announcemnets to the vibrations from the subs acting as the train storming into each station I feel that this final product we have created gives this scene a new lease of life calling upon more senses than just what you can see and hear but also what you can feel.
Although this project has not been plain sailing we have overcome many hurdles to get to where we are now. From my intial soundscape, which although portrayed what a tube journey was like the audio quiality was simply not good enough to send off as part of our final product. However, from this soundscpae we were able to draw upon new ideas to create a clearer,better and more exciting soundscape that complemented not only the AV projection but also the lighitng design and set itself.
I have developed many skills from working on this project from the ability to work creativelly as part of both a large production team to working as part of core area teams I am amazed that we have all been able to pull togehter to create a final product that we can all be proud of.
The biggest skill that I have developed whilst working on this project is the skill of persaverance. As I have had times where both during and after creating my soundscape I have wanted to give up because I felt that I was unable to produce something worthy to send off as part of the final product. However, as I knew I had people counting on me I then became even more determined to create a soundscape that I could be proud of as well as supporting the rest of my produciton team and although I have achieved many goals and met targets by myself I know I could never have completed this challenge if it wasn't for the whole producton team helping everyone in thier hour of need."
