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XL Video and Rebecca
The 18-week UK tour, already a massive success, is being project managed for XL by Paul Wood.
The Frank McGuinness stage adaptation is based on Daphne Du Maurier’s timeless and classic thriller set in Cornwall. It’s directed by Patrick Mason, designed by Robert Jones with lighting design by Howard Harrison.
The set consists of a scenic beach cove, complete with pebbles at the bottom which curves up into an elegant 30 ft grey gauze material representing the sea, horizon and sky at the top. Onto this, they wanted to apply some crucially important and animated atmospheric elements of ‘Rebecca’ including the Cornish coastline and waves at the start of the show, and the famous fire sequence at the denouement of the drama.
Driscoll explains that they were keen not to over-play the use of video, wanting it specifically at the start and finish of the play, and leaving the bulk of the action to more traditional theatrical delivery. However there’s also a second, and different, wave sequence half way through.
‘Rebecca’ opens to a huge animated wall of rolling surf and breakers, which has immediate mood and locational impact on the audience, drawing them into the mysterious world of Manderley, the De Winters and sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers.
Driscoll produced all video material from scratch after first pre-visualizing the effects by creating animated waves on a set model. Once everyone was happy with that, he traveled to the Cornish coast, just off Land’s End, armed with a Super 16mm ARRI SRII high speed camera and Zeiss 35 mm lenses supplied by Simon Minett at Filmspace.
They chose their filming spots carefully to correspond closely to the height and perspective of the set. Waiting for the right waves at the right moments was also challenging says Driscoll, they had to take into account tides, the weather and also dodging of the odd surfer here and there!
He returned to London with 13 option of wave clips, all shot at 150 frames per second to allow maximum flexibility of playback speed. The Super 16 negative was transferred and colour graded by Pepper Post Production’s Pete Harrow, using a Spirit Datacine and Da Vinci 2K software.
The grading gives the waves footage the “bleached by pass” harsh silvery-grey texturing that works so well for projection. Perspective correction to match the waves exactly to the height and width of the set cove was also completed in software before the footage was stored.
The Manderley burning sequence was created form previously shot slow motion special effects footage. The edited material is stored on a Digital Video System Blade II video server supplied by XL Video. An industrial projector remote controller was specially designed for the show which instructs the projector to power ‘on’ and ‘off’ and opens and douses its mechanical shutter.
The projector is a Barco G5, Driscoll’s favourite machine for many reasons including its quietness and efficiency. It’s hung on the number 1 LX bar near the front of stage at each venue, complete with a 0.8 to1 wide angle lens.
‘Rebecca’ continues XL’s collaboration with Driscoll, which has also included ‘Up For Grabs’, ‘When Harry Met Sally’, ‘Whistling Psyche’ and ‘Our House’.
Driscoll comments: “Getting projection and the role of its designers into theatre has gradually become a far more realistic proposition. With the support of the XL team, I’ve been able to get projection into all scales of theatre productions. XL’s patience and persistence in striving to get the technology integrated into this challenging theatre environment has been brilliant.”
Wood adds: “Another great success for the XL/Driscoll team, and some beautiful effects are achieved by Jon and Howard’s understanding of the balance between lighting and video.”
9th February 2005
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