Last Saturday, the 18th August 2012, saw the final show in the TFM - Encore series, a series of local shows in the Titirangi Theater. These shows doubled as fund-raiser shows for the TFM (to enable it to pay some debt back and continue on as an annual festival event) and a celebration of the last days of the Titirangi Theater as we know it before Lopdell house closes for two years for structural, earthquake strengthening and other renovations.
The Encore series (name and logo by myself , my design partner Tany Caseanu, and some substantial assistance from Kristie) was put together by local muso's, music lovers and community volunteers. Most of the acts had appeared at previous festivals (2005-2012) and in many cases were donating their services and waiving a fee to support the fundraising effort.
Jumping in, myself and Tany came up with the series logo (produced by Kristie), posters for each event, tickets and Tany even found time to produce an animated ad for each show.
We knew in advance that Stewart Alan and Musical Forces were on the bill so we'd decided several weeks earlier to attempt to improve the video projections we'd made for Stewart's 60 minute TFM2012 performance (back in early April 2012) for this 40 minute encore performance.
Through numerous meet-ups, some frantic filming sessions and a lot of editing by Tany we managed to have a run through with the band at a practise on the friday night. Everything was coming together. Tany would do some minor corrections on some of the tracks then render and burn the final projection dvd for the show tomorrow.
Stewart had asked me to trigger the video pieces from a blu-ray player side-stage so I'd set that up on the Saturday afternoon. Show day. The blu-ray device was hooked up to a roof-mounted loan projector that after much chasing around on the friday I'd managed to procure from Janet in the Theater (by 3pm on Saturday afternoon). Unfortunately the mounting brackets were the wrong size for the projector; the only person who had the key to a room where the proper brackets were was on a flight back from Christchurch; and we couldn't use the projection screen on the rear wall of the theater stage as half the stage was a set built for the upcoming (last) theater production. To solve the last issue one of the sound crew supplied a sheet which we hung over Mel Bartons "Glow" artworks which would decorate the stage for all the other acts that night.
Mounting the projector was another issue altogether.
After a couple of hours of trying to mount the projector myself and Mels Barton eventually managed to get some clamps from the soundies which held the projector in the roof. The projected image looked pretty flat on the sheet screen and wasn't perfect in terms of position as it was off the edge of the sheet and I think it was about this stage I felt like vomiting and I'd had enough... so, i went home for some tea (6.30pm). We'd done all we could.
When I got home Kristie noted that this was easily the most stressed she had seen me in all the years we've been together and I must admit it was. I knew that I was immensely unsatisfied with the projector (positioning, mounting and quality) and also with the screen. I really wanted to cancel the projection part of the show but knowing that Tany was putting the finishing touches on the video tracks, rendering and producing a dvd and that she'd put screeds of hours into it....well, I rang Tany at her house to see what she thought and got her partner Marc who proceeded to inform me that Tany was hysterical in the bedroom and nothing had worked out with the DVD rendering and that we should cancel the video part of the show. My first instinct was for Tany and how she felt. My second thought was relief. And then Marc informed me that he was joking and Tany was up at the theater and had the finished dvd with her. Nice one Marc.
The projection dvd was delivered to the theater at 7.30pm with Musical Forces due on at 9.40pm.
I arrived back at the theater at 8pm even more stressed out and I was even having chest pains. I found out that Stewart was now going to be on 3rd so would be on after Arli Liberman and a subsequent 20 minute break so we went to the theater bar and I managed to get a couple of glasses of iced water down, which helped a lot.
Tany and myself discussed the projector and sheet issue and I suggested we just do a test run in the 20 minute break. So when that point arrived we furiously pulled the sheet screen back over, hooked up the blu-ray, fired up the projector and discovered that the projector had moved in the mount and half of the image was being projected onto the back of a concrete roofing beam. Up the ladder Mels and I went to try and (unsuccessfully) reposition things in the mere moments remaining to us.
Stewart Allan and Musical Forces took the stage with projections running (well... at least the bottom half was on the screen) but the images were very thin looking due to the stage lighting not being taken off to compensate for the projections. I ran back to the lighting box and asked Duncan to drop out the red and blue spots in the deep stage which brought a bit of contrast back to the projections. This made the images more visible and improved things a bit. Kristie thought they looked good from the front row.
Returning to side stage I could see that Tany was as distressed as I was and we both looked at each other in great pain. But the show was running and we all know that "the show must go on". Then the unthinkable happened and things got worse. The projector switched itself off. I quickly raced to the rear of the stage, mounted a ladder behind the set wall and tried to use the projector remote to restart the projector from there...to no avail. So I returned to side stage and waited for a song to finish before I raced on stage, pointed the remote at the projector and raced off again. The projector started up again and we re-cued the video to where the band now were in the next song. Whew.
And then the projector switched itself off again. I looked at Tany and all I could say was "I'm pulling the plug" so I switched off the blu-ray player and disconnected everything and we left the projector to do its cool down cycle (for two hours as it turned out) and Tany and myself returned to the theater bar where the staff there shouted us both a cheer up drink and Kristie and Mels joined us as we struggled to make some sense about what had happened.
After a couple of days distance between now and those events I've calmed down a lot. I still feel responsible for the projector, mounting and screen but I did what I could in the time I had available. I'd assumed there would be production people to put the gear up but that wasn't the case and it had to be cobbled together by myself (and Mels) at the last minute. Tany did nothing wrong but had to share in us not being able to deliver. Yes. I feel we failed because we didn't deliver the video accompaniment to the show and thats very hard to deal with. I hate to fail. And I hate it worse when i know that that failure is going to happen and there's nothing I can do about it. Its like a roller coaster heading for a brick wall (although that would hurt a _LOT_ more)
The show itself was superb. A sold out show with exceptional musicianship by all. Especially Stewart who rose to the occasion and truly impressed everyone in attendance with an inspiring performance. He admitted backstage afterwards that the lack of video made his performance easier because he didn't have to time things to the video tracks and that allowed the songs to breathe easier. Bless him.
Where to from here? Not sure. I need time. I can only guess that Tany needs time too.
On the plus side, there's some amazing new video work "in the can", Stewart is keen as and the whole process of producing the work was a magical, collaborative experience in itself. It really is a shame that the final production/presentation support wasn't in place and that everything that could go wrong (with the video presentation) did. Its also probably a very good learning experience about the level and degree that one should "get involved". Tany and I did take on an awful lot of work as members of the Organising team for the Encore series and i guess my thoughts are shifting from the humiliation of failing to deliver the video presentation more towards some sense of pride in what we did manage to achieve.
Where to from here? Not sure. I need time. I can only guess that Tany needs time too.
On the plus side, there's some amazing new video work "in the can", Stewart is keen as and the whole process of producing the work was a magical, collaborative experience in itself. It really is a shame that the final production/presentation support wasn't in place and that everything that could go wrong (with the video presentation) did. Its also probably a very good learning experience about the level and degree that one should "get involved". Tany and I did take on an awful lot of work as members of the Organising team for the Encore series and i guess my thoughts are shifting from the humiliation of failing to deliver the video presentation more towards some sense of pride in what we did manage to achieve.
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