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Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
Driscoll created footage especially for the show which, taking the rhythms, words and thoughts of Morrissey and Marr as its starting point, is a musical with a difference.
Paul Wood is project managing for XL, who supplied the video hardware including a Barco G5 projector, a Catalyst digital media server and a Hog 500 lighting desk to run all the video cues. The images were projected the full height and two thirds of the width of the backdrop, subtly asymmetric, erring to stage right.
The desk was programmed by Steve Parkinson – a regular XL/Driscoll collaborator. They took full advantage of the flexibility of the Catalyst to produce effects like varying the aspect ratio of the clips, which were shot in a variety of film formats; 1:1.77, 1:1.85 and 1:1.33. The majority of the film playback was locked into sync to the sound track via MIDI time code transmitted from the sound console. At other times without music or where visual cues were taken from the action onstage, manual cues were triggered by projectionist Tim Perrett for precision timing.
Unravelling a tense and convoluted tale of real and psychological interaction between six people, ‘Some Girls’ is an often abstract and beautifully evocative piece detailing the disintegration of relationships through violence, drinking, physical and sexual abuse, distrust and miscommunication. It all leads to a gripping, murderous denouement.
The video projections are central to the narrative and a cerebral key to understanding the story. They run through most of the 90 minute show.
Images are interwoven with a harsh, almost industrial multi layered sound track, a live string quartet and the six main characters who sing and dance. The songs, including Smiths Classics like ‘Barbarism Begins At Home’, ‘I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish’ and ‘I Know It’s Over’ are not literal translations. They are given new treatments and interpretations, transcending the boundaries of traditional musical theatre, creating a mind-challenging, uniquely sensitive piece of physical theatre.
Into this fertile imaginative concept walked Driscoll, who was initially interviewed by Andrew Wale, who decided that Driscoll had the skills, experience and right personality for what they wanted to achieve. They had always wanted projection, and they wanted it to assume a personality of its own, just like the music and the actors, explains Driscoll.
The set was designed by Andrew Wale and Nicolai Hart Hansen, and the projections were developed as an integrated scenic element of this. “It was all a very organic process,” says Driscoll.
Wale and Manzer had very specific ideas for what the projection should convey – each song was to have its own piece of film. Driscoll also had the freedom to add his own ideas and express himself through the camera. Together they created a storyboard and a shot list for each song – much of it done inspirationally during company rehearsals and as the work developed day-to-day. “It was a very invigorating way to work,” says Driscoll.
Driscoll waited until the last possible moment in rehearsals before starting to shoot the footage – so he could gauge how each segment was developing through the many changes of direction. They visited several different locations in the intensive two week shooting period, and also discovered an abundance of excellent locations right nearby in Hammersmith. Child actor Patrick Harper was cast to be their onscreen character, Driscoll and Wale shot a series of filmed sequences over two days with him.
The footage was shot using an Arriflex SRIII high speed Super 16 film camera on colour negative film – high speed and ultra fine grain Fujifilm Eterna 500.
After processing at Soho Images the negative then went to Pepper Post Production in Covent Garden where it was graded for projection by Pete Harrow, transferring it from 16 mm to digital Betacam using a Phillips Spirit tele-cine machine.
Driscoll asked his colleague Richard Overall onboard to edit and to help co-ordinate the post production as it was such a massive project in a really compressed timescale. He also experimented with applying different techniques and treatments to the footage in post production in particular aged film effects.
The soundtrack was cut to the songs and synched to the images as the video department worked alongside the company in the rehearsal room, resulting in a seamless rhythm.
The final projections were beamed onto a mottled plaster effect surface onstage, which softened the images, making them appear more filmic. They subtly blended into the action, creating a high impact, thought provoking medium reinforcing, challenging and creating impressions - unlocking preconceptions and making audience brains work things out for themselves.
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