gizblog

Larger Than Life

  largerthanlife 
  Originally uploaded by giz..

Artichoke Productions organised a conference this week to review the lessons learned from the Sultan's Elephant last year. As a fully paid up groupie to the Elephant (and fan of other large scale street theatre) I agreed to speak. My assigned topic was how live event producers can harness new media.

I promised to upload the gist of my speech, so here goes.

The Sultan's Elephant was seminal for me: not only was it an epic and life-enhancing production, but it was also the event that brought home to me the value and potential of social media. It was the first time I'd made some photos public (and had comments on them), and it was the first event I watched so intently cascade over YouTube and the blogosphere. By the end of the event nearly 12,000 photos had been uploaded to Flickr, and over 70,000 websites had posted news. The most watched YouTube video has now been seen 1.7m times. The elephant has therefore left big digital footprints all over the internet, and has probably been seen by more people online than during its wanders through the West End of London. And all this, without any pre-planning by the organisers.

The lessons, I think, are simple. First, new media enables a richer and more participative experience for the live audience. Innocent Drinks are past masters at this, and cheerfully promote Flickr to get people to share their memories of their events.

Second, new media can extend the live experience to people who didn't see the original show. YouTube is a great platform for this, but it's becoming ever easier to build new audiences online. One day every conference will be as slick at sharing its content as TED.

And finally, the audience can become part of the creative process. Aardman has launched a production blog for the new Wallace and Grommit movie, which builds engagement a whole year in advance of the release. The Soho project is an interesting experiment in encouraging (and later mashing up) user generated video from a particular location. And finally, Oldton demonstrates that the audience can be used to tell the entire story. Other examples, raised in the Q&A, pointed out that Second Life and World of Warcraft are, in effect, live events. They're just played out in a virtual space.

The rest of the conference was a fascinating mix of stories and lessons from a bunch of passionate doers. It hadn't dawned on me before that live events in the open air are very different from performances in a theatre. First, you can't control the space: you can't build a set, or rehearse, in the normal way.

And second, you can't control the audience either. How do you plan for a million people converging on the streets of London, to a ticketless event? With great care, two years of contingency planning, and a good dose of trust in the wisdom of crowds. And how do you persuade dozens of stakeholders and public bodies that central London should be closed for 4 days (for the first time) for 'Art'? By having an unshakeable sense of purpose in the importance of the project, resourcefulness to overcome every obstacle, and a decent amount of guile.

An uplifting, and unusual, day.

Fuerzabruta (or puddles from underneath)

  Fuerzabruta @ Roundhouse, Camden, London 
  Originally uploaded by NickSS.

Went to the Roundhouse this evening. A great venue which has recently re-opened, and has kicked off with an amazing show.

It's hard to describe the experience. We stood for an hour, in a crowd, with pounding music and dry ice. Around and above us, variously, were: a bloke running on a treadmill through boxes and paper, occasionally getting shot; two women in flouncy dresses doing cartwheels along a vertical wall of rippling foil; and then a a huge transparent paddling pool was suspended above our heads, containing rippling water and paddling / splashing women.

Part cirque du soleil, part Blue Man Group, part Mad Max, and part nightclub. Astonishing and engrossing.

And puddles can look very beautiful from underneath.

Sunday in the Park with George

I had a week in London on my own, and took the chance to see a couple of shows which Kate and I were unlikely to get to. The best was Sunday in the Park with George.

Not Sondheim's best score, in my view, although the connection between his slightly spiky musical style and pointillism was interesting. But overall a really interesting idea: a composer using a story about a painter to explore the process of creativity. The first half focused on the creation of Seurat's painting, and the stories of the characters within it. Cleverly done with sophisticated but understated computer graphics woven into the set. And in the second, an unexpected and contemporary sideswipe at the increasing cultural conservatism of 80's America.

And the bloke who played George was brilliant.

More French Street Theatre: Transe Express

  Henley Festival: Transe Express 
  Originally uploaded by giz..

Why are the French so good at street theatre, and cirque-du-soleil-ness?

Having loved the Sultan's elephant, we had a great time at the Henley festival watching the elegant and entrancing weirdness of Transe Express. It's basically a giant human operated glockenspiel created by a dozen or so performers in full costume, suspended a hundred feet up in the air.

I'm glad that these projects are never stopped by people who ask "why?".  "Because" is a good enough reason. It went on a few minutes longer than the novelty value demanded, but maybe that's part of the uncompromising nature of it too.

Pulp Fiction...

  titus 
  Originally uploaded by mym.

We got last minute tickets to Titus Andronicus at the Globe last night. But we left at the interval. I suppose we should have read the reviews  beyond the "riveting" quotes. In fact, I'm surprised there weren't warnings posted on the entrance.

I've always enjoyed revenge tragedies, ever since studying them at school and seeing a great production of The Duchess of Malfi in Salisbury where a prince turned into a wolf on stage. The violence has an intriguing surrealism, but also a connection to a society in which it would have been less shocking and more commonplace than today.

I didn't know the play, but although the prose isn't memorable the plot's wonderfully (?) macabre. And it was the Globe at its best: convincingly authentic, low tech, involving, atmospheric, and real.

A bit too real, mind. Lavinia, in particular, was disturbingly gruesome, and I'm not surprised that a few people fainted in the groundlings. We decided to call it quits at the interval (Kate really wasn't enjoying it). It was a great evening to stroll back across the wobbly bridge, in a stunning sunset. Pity to have missed Tamora's sons baked into a pie, though.

Elephant in Picadilly

  098 Now It's Time To Head For Trafalgar Square 
  Originally uploaded by Cadigan.

This is by far the best photo of The Sultan's Elephant that I've seen. An epic, whimsical sight at a familiar landmark, surrounded by people who are enjoying the spectacle.

What an event....as the organiser  said it was a chance to dream. Although probably grown ups more than children. Ours are still young enough to believe that an 80 foot elephant wandering around London with a puppet girl is entirely possible. But we had tears in our eyes.

Lloyd had the snappiest description: Mad Max meets Pinocchio. It was both the scale and the attention to detail that amazed me: huge blokes in velvet frock coats pulling the ropes, enormous robotics powering leather, wood and silk, and the delicacy of the girl having her socks changed, or her hair combed, when she stopped for a rest. Wonderful.

Loads more photos on Flickr Let's hope that London has the confidence to keep on doing events like this. A great day, and memories for life.

And I've just found some video of the first day which gives you some idea of what it was like...