Setting up of the performance area started on 21st Morning, when we collected all the equipment from office and Kit room. Some of them are as given in the list below:
List
The first part was to get the official part including the safety paper works to be done, as well as clearing the space from the clutter, which almost took half of the day. After decluttering we started with trying placements for the table and speakers. After multiple trials and assumptions, we decided on the set up to be a mix of a traditional audience seating with and angled seating for three of us leaving enough space for Mai. Miles was in the middle since it was easier for the mixer to be in the middle, with Tata and I on the opposite sides. These placements were best because both me and Tata had to stand up and its best when there is enough room around us for less disruption and free movement. On the other end of the stage, we planned the screen for the projection. This structuring reduced the box like feeling of the venue.
After setting up the space
Once the tables were fixed and well covered in black cloth, we started with the placements of all our equipments and wiring of the place. It took much more time than expected, especially with the constant running to the office for more cables and extensions.
A constant thought was the improvisation of lighting. We wanted to keep it as dark as possible but enough for the video. Later we had to include the larger light at its minimum brightness in blue.
The background video was done at the last minute, we based it on font but didn’t have enough time to play with font as I would have liked to while sticking with the idea of subtitles, as mentioned by Miles.
There were discussions on what to be displayed, should it be the whole poem or the selected phrases but then we came up with the idea of reconstructing the poem into few stanzas. We did use certain parts of the selected phrases from before but there were new meaning and emotions being built without completely losing the base of the poem.
Remade poem
I leant upon a coppice gate
The weakening eye of day.
When I was unaware
When Frost was spectre-grey,
At once a voice arose,
The Century’s corpse outleant
Like strings scored the sky
In such ecstatic sound
An aged thrush has flung her soul,
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Projection making
Again, we had to make multiple rendering according to the changes we were making with the positioning of the projection screen. The configuration to project on black screen was very useful for the setting.
For the Trembling Belly, we tried using a SM-75 but we found better results with contract mic, especially when I was trying to move the strings around. The mic was used for the pebbles once the prerecorded vocal starts.
The last step for the day was poster, since we were including smoke machine, we tried to make it a part of the poster along with the bird. The background was given a paper like feel with different texture brushes.
Poster