Tech at work. Ruprecht Manz in the improvised "studio"So I’m sitting on a washbasin in a disabled loo, next to a rat’s nest of wires and a mixing desk on a catering trolley, looking into a camera viewfinder
This is called art.
The evening had started out easily enough. We needed to film “Messiahgate” a “Government enquiry” into the disappearance of Jesus’ body from the tomb. The problem was that we wanted a dark, abstract set, which meant we needed big black drapes, which meant that we needed a solid bar to hold them up. And the only place that had those was the cloakroom.
So we set up the drapes and the table and they took up most of the space. There was only one place for the camera, and when we had placed the camera there was only one place for the director. So I ended up sitting on the washbasin.
The piece is a step towards making movies. It’s still “talking heads”: a fixed camera rather like an audience, and performers in front, but we made a set in a new, if slightly unconventional location and learned a bit about creating a new environment to perform in, and some of the differences when we are performing for film.
We decided to make Pilate an English-speaking role, as he was a foreigner, and from his character in the bible it seems unlikely he’d bother to speak the local language. This was even more odd: I had to hear a German question, act as if I was hearing a translation through an earpiece (Agent Smith style) and respond in English.
Well, it’s all good experience. And hopefully it will take some of the heat off the team: now we don’t have to rehearse for Easter it buys us a little time to build the tour programme and get organised for that. We could also take the video on tour with us, or make another one for a wider audience.
A better director’s seat would be nice though.
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