Archive for the ‘Theatrical Design News’ Category
Armstrong & Miller – Mick Perrin
Nina will be designing video & projections and working with Knifedge to create the content for for Armstrong & Miller’s upcoming tour.
Anthony & Cleopatra - NBT
Nina is talking to the team at the NBT with a view to creating projections for their new ballet telling the story of Anthony & Cleopatra.
April 2010
Projection Design – Nina Dunn for Knifedge
Set design – Ellan Parry for Knifedge.
The tour opened successfully on 16th April at Brighton’s Theatre Royal with a great audience and happy teams all round. To see the highlights video, scroll to the bottom of this page.
Following the press night in Bromley, the show has received three stars from both the Guardian and the Times. Of course, the show’s not about the video and set, but here’s what the Times had to say:
“The costume changes are commendably snappy, covered up by an inventive series of video inserts on the giant TV screen buried upstage.”
And from theartsdesk.com:
“On tour, Brand uses video inserts projected on a dinky mock-up of a TV set to entertain the audience while she is offstage, a device that’s used to enterprising comedic effect.”
“The set is a big cartoon television [...] which holds a screen within it for projections. This clever technology allows Katy to talk to the screen and interact with it. Knifedge Creative Network’s Nina Dunn has designed and directed the production of content – everything from the opening titles through to filming Katy’s characters against green screen for Katy to interact with live on stage. A high point has Katy’s Lily Allen on stage talking to three other Lily Allens on screen. It’s a very ambitious show in terms of costume changes – such as from Lady Gaga to the Queen in less than 30 seconds – but these are managed flawlessly with film sequences maintaining the interest level during the changes.”
And from her appearance in Leeds:
“[...] the characters which got the greatest laughs – had the audience near enough rolling in the aisles, in fact – were her own inventions. The stoned nun who couldn’t keep a straight face, in an astonishingly clever move, taps into that hideous human instinct which forces laughter when you least should. Yet more amusing is Captain Rosie Fielding, the viciously feminist, butch soldier recruiting women to her blokeish, peeing-standing-up ways, who culminates her speech with a ludicrous rendition of Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’.
It is likely that these two hugely subversive, outrageous and crude characters were the reason Mr and Mrs Bailhalfwaythrough didn’t return. What they missed was Brand herself and her own intelligence and wit shining through. Yes, what I had seen of Ms Brand on TV was correct. Her characters are every bit as raw, cringeworthy and downright detestable as I expected. But as the show wore on I caught a glimpse of an incredibly versatile and imaginative comedian who is unafraid to push boundaries.
To give her time to switch costumes and characters, Katy stitches together her skits with films of her characters on a giant TV screen. Some of these videos are so convincing and cleverly woven into the show that you could believe that her Lilly Allen actually does go through a door on the stage and into the screen, or that a pre-recorded anchorwoman is responding live to Brand’s news reporter ad-libbing with the audience.
At the end of the day I can only admire a woman who can endure as much time with characters this hideous as she must have done to craft this smart piece of theatre.”
Katy Brand’s Big Ass Tour from Nina Dunn on Vimeo.
Opeing Night of "Die Frau Ohne Schatten" at The Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg
November 2009
Jonathan Kent – Director:
“[...]how really thrilling and evocative the projections were. [...]you gave us a really rich, dream-like, complex
visual narrative.”
Nina designed projections for the Opera “Die Frau Ohne Schatten”, in conjunction with Sven Ortel, that opened at the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg in November. This challenging opera in three acts is rarely performed since not only are there five major lead roles, which few opera companies can find within their resources, but also the libretto specifies numerous special effects that are very hard to realise successfully on stage.
Recommended by Video & Projection Designer Sven Ortel, Jonathan Kent was pleased to welcome Nina Dunn on board to design projections for this show. Her approach to video in Theatre as an integrated part of the spectacle was very much in line with the Director and Designer’s desire for the opera, who had planned to include projection from an early stage. The result was a show with not just special effects at key moments but an interwoven visual language that supported all the other elements of the opera throughout – musical and narrative.
The piece requires a demarcation of two contrast-ing worlds – fantasy and reality. Video elements within the scenes and ‘journey’ sequences between the worlds illustrate this. While the real world’s imagery remains more literal, that of the fantasy world is highly stylised; it is a place where set pieces can come alive and the air stirs with magic.
The two worlds also represent positive and negative spaces that eventually crossed over, highlighted in
a play-off of negative and positive silhouettes, which also bring to light the theme of the shadow as an entity. Water and dye are also key elements in the opera and many of the sequences were inspired by the movement and nature of fluid, using
footage shot especially for the show.
Die Frau Ohne Schatten – Projection Design from Nina Dunn on Vimeo.
Die Frau Ohne Schatten – Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg from Nina Dunn on Vimeo.
The projection rig consisted of 4 Barco DML 1200 moving head projectors and one Christie projector.
The concept behind the show required the design to reflect two ends of the cultural scale: At the one end sits Opera, at the other, Cabaret and somewhere in the middle, the mystical meeting that is the realm of Belle Canto. As the primary player, Belle Canto’s costume embodies this. With its lavish and burlesque silhouette, it retains the opera feel through colour and details such as opera glasses.
The ambitious attempt to portray so may different scenes in such a short period of time created a number of practical demands of the set and costumes.
The costumes were designed to be flexible and to allow for small elements to be changed that would effect the whole look and transport the actor’s look into the next scenario.
The Marketing collateral that supported the show was created in line with the same design style.
As for the set, it was designed as a series of modules that could be arranged in different ways from scene to scene, suggesting different environments for the action through abstract representation.
Projection content production by Nina Dunn
Rocky Horror Show – European Tour 2008 from Nina Dunn on Vimeo.