TTA230 Portfolio
Welcome to my TTA230 Portfolio. In this section, you will find various documents and explanations supporting my critical review of the TTA230 Collaborative Project. During this project, students from Technical Theatre Arts (TTA) and Theatre and Performance (THP) worked together to devise a piece of interactive theatre to be performed to small groups of audience members.
I have included links to download documents mentioned. You can also click on the images to make them larger and view them in greater detail.
Cart Building
On the left are three images of the carts that we had built for the show. These are what the audience would be transported in at the end of the show. They would be brought from the individual performances into the large studio, Studio A, where the final group performance took place. While on the way to the studio, mini-performances would happen as the carts were travelling.
These pictures show us building and experimenting with the carts. There were six in total and they were all able to slot into each other to make a rectangle. Each kart had windows on either side and a hatch in the roof which allowed the actors to climb down into them during the final performance. When the carts were in the final formation, the inside windows were opened, which in essence, made all the carts into one big cart as all the audience members could now see each other and interact after being separated during the performance.
Extensive risk assessments had to be completed for this, as we were transporting audience members through public spaces and elevators. The actors were also climbing on top of the carts.
Performance
On the right are some photos taken during the performance. The top photo was taken at the beginning before the audience members were taken off to the sub performances. Here, the actors and one of the TTA students were reading lines and creating a story, which hinted to the themes of the sub performances.
The bottom photo was taken right at the end of the performance. You can see the audience members facing the camera, stood next to the carts, and the cast facing them. Here, the whole cast including the TTA students were singing to the audience. After the performance had finished the audience were told not to give spoilers to people who hadn't seen it. We then interacted with the audience and answered all their questions about the performance.
QLab
On the left are some screen captures of the automated cueing system that I created for our piece. To achieve, this I used QLab, OSC, MIDI Timecode, and ETC Eos.
QLab is where I ran all of my audio cues, it also housed MIDI and OSC cues that would send commands to ETC EOS for the lighting. I used the OSC cues for firing specific cues in EOS and the MIDI cues for timecode which enabled me to run a timecode sequence in EOS for some parts of the lighting.
I colour-coded the cues, so I would be able to see at a glance what they did, as during the performance I didn't have time to monitor the system. The green cues have to be played manually. Orange is automatic. Purple is used for timecode which is also automatic. Blue are sound cues that are automatically played. Red are stop cues, if they aren't in a group they are manually cued, if they are in a group it happens automatically. The arm and disarm cues are used once in the performance. They are to arm an extra audio track to be played when the last group of audience members leaves our room. This means only one group per performance gets to see this part of our show.
I had a second instance of QLab, which was connected to a wireless speaker in our cart to provide audio to the audience when in transport to the larger studio ready for the final group performance.
The bottom two pictures show how the OSC and MIDI cues are routed.
ETC EOS
I did all of the lighting programming on ETC EOS. In some aspects it was straightforward as I only had five fixtures to manage but in other aspects, it was very complicated as I was using both OSC and MIDI at the same time. The show also had 110 timecode events, making the programming difficult.
I had two instances of EOS running, as we were going to have battery-powered lighting in the elevator, however, we decided against this so we only ended up using one instance in the show. There was another QLab file to accompany the second instance of EOS to be able to cue it.
The bottom two photos show how the OSC and MIDI cues are routed, which corresponds with the two pictures from QLab above.
Management
I was tasked with managing all of the technical equipment for the show. I decided to contact each group and get them to send me a list of what they needed. I then collated this into a spreadsheet so I could easily see what needed to be booked and returned. It also allowed me to make sure everyone had the correct equipment at the right times.
I also helped the other groups with setting up equipment and coming up with ways to make things work. For example, one group wanted their performance to be heard in the cafe, so that when the transport was going on, their performance would be able to carry on the whole way into Studio A. I came up with the idea of using wireless transmitters and receivers and went on to help them design this. We decided to go wireless, as having cables around the public space was to much of a risk.
You can download this document by clicking the XLS button below the picture.
Notes
On the right are my notes and a diary I made throughout the process documenting what we did and when. These helped me reflect on the process and write my review.
Both of these can be downloaded for better viewing.
I have included a link to a Word document containing a word count for the report on this page.