The Set

It’s time to paint the set. Last week I finished scrimming – pasting muslin over the wood panels. This makes the paint hold better and less subject to scratching when, as inevitably happens, it gets moved between venues and stages. This is a feature of touring theatre – everything has to be built durably, whilst trying to balance that with the weight and size, mindful that the stage panels get carried and moved around on a daily basis. Too heavy and the cast curse the designer; too light and things wobble around on stage and get damaged – and the cast curse the designer.

So, paint to be mixed; ladders in place. Only trouble is I’ve got meetings and other jobs to fit in. It’s the first two days work to get started.

The design of the LLF set is interesting. It’s almost the perfect model set for demonstrating the range of techniques used in our work. Stage left is an area representing the hutongs, the old and characterful courtyards of old Beijing where Guo Yue grew up. This part of the stage is animated by masked performers. Stage right we have two puppet stages, one behind the other. The rear stage is used for hand puppets about a foot (30cm) high; the front stage for table top puppets about 18 inches (45cm) high. This also acts as a ultra-violet stage area for one scene. Then between the two is a screen which is used for back and front projections – both film and animation sequences and live shadow puppetry.

Now I’ve just got to go and do it…

Bob Frith (Artistic Director of Horse + Bamboo Theatre)

Set designer for Little Leap Forward

Puppets and Proofs

My entry will be a short one this week, which is probably representative of how busy we all are at the moment. It's now about 10 weeks until the show goes on tour. Over the past 2 weeks, I've been organising the print for the Little Leap Forward tour which was a lengthy process of finding good images, checking proofs over and over again, changing our minds, sending emails back and forth to the printer, things not looking right, forgetting to credit the right people etc etc. Thankfully, I signed it off today and it had better be perfect when it gets delieved here next week, thats all I can say!

There's alot of Little Leap Forward activity in the building today, there's me here in the animation room setting up a fan page on facebook that you join and keep up to date with LLF tour news. In the meeting room, Loz and Jonny are being trained by Julie Parker, a great freelance technical manager that Horse + Bamboo have worked with in the past. They are having a days training in QLab, a programme which will enable them to integrate the audio visual element of the show with sound and lighting. Loz has been working on editing down all the music he's recorded so far and is deciding on the right piece of music for one of the main scenes of the play - sorry I can't give that away!

Alison and Bob are in workshop. Bob is scrimming the set, so that it will be ready to paint and Alison is currently making 6 puppets for the "School Scene". Vanessa Card ( Puppet & Costume Maker) is in the sewing room producing some minature versions of the costumes for the puppets ( other costumes will be made by Felicia at the Royal Exchange. I have uploaded some of Alison's sketches to give you a flavour of how the costumes will look like.

That's all for today.

Alithea

Loz Kaye - Recording Session With Guo Yue.

On Tuesday it was finally time for the recording session with Yue of his contributions to the music for the show. Right from the outset when Alison, Bob and I met Yue and Clare we were all agreed that the flute playing of the Little Leap Forward character should be done be Yue. Apart from anything, despite my attempts on wind instruments on everything from the Slovak fujara to the euphonium I would not say that playing the Chinese bamboo flute is one of my skills. It seemed most fitting that it should be Yue- after all the play and book are based on his life, and Clare explained there is something very characteristic about his playing, a sense of freedom, fluidity and spontaneity that is unique.

I had been looking forward to this for a while, but was a little nervous too, we had one shot to get what the show needed. There had already been quite a lengthy exchange of emails setting out what we felt we needed for the show and how we work, and reflections from Clare and Yue. And some very helpful advice on types of flutes. He carries a case with a whole family of different sized flutes. So now it was reality rather than theory, and Yue picked me up from the station in leafy Richmond.

The destination was Chris Bemand's studio just outside Richmond which Yue describes as a 'shed'. Sure enough from the outside Chris' studio is in the backgarden of an ordinary house and does look like a rather generous sized place to store gardening equipment. But inside, Tardis like, it contains an impressive array of computers, screens, mixing equipment and so forth.

Chris and Yue work together a lot so that makes the whole process easier. We started out with coffee and tea and just chatted about music for a while. Yue's enthusiasm is infectious and he is generous with his praise. Whilst talking about some of my ideas he responded eagerly 'Very good, very good! Very beautiful!' Chris and I discussed composition, he does a lot of TV which has even stricter boundaries and requirements than theatre. We looked at one of his cartoons on Youtube, and he explained how often in animation you have to change mood second by second. I felt my 30 second blocks to fill for Little Leap Forward are positively luxurious suddenly.

Down to business, and Yue went off in to the recording booth, apparently made out of conservatory doors. The first track to lay down was the sound of a tiny little flute to represent the singing of the bird Little Cloud. In fact the flute was so tiny that it disappeared completely in to his hands while he was playing it. It was this flute that was the original inspiration for the book, so it is fitting that we include it in the soundtrack. Also Alison and I agreed that it is easier to accept a musical sound rather than a sound effect as the voice of a puppet bird. Yue produced a symphony of twitters, chirps and trills.

My only angst about this now is that it needs to be the sound that attracts the Little Leap Forward character in the show to the bird for the story to work. At the moment in the script it says 'her song is incredibly beautiful'. My heart always sinks at stage directions like that, because you have a tall order to live up to, suddenly the sound carries the full weight of the narrative. But I am always up for a challenge.

The next section threw up its own type of challenge, a sequence representing the young Little Leap Forward learning to play the flute. We discussed that we couldn't be too literal about the first stages of starting to play an instrument. Anyone who has been through that knows how excrutiating it can be! There was also the question of what the material should be, I was clear that it should be a revolutionary tune, rather than a traditional one, as this section dovetails in to filmed sequences of red guards and propaganda in the show. We hit on a structure of a tune repeated three times, starting slowly at first and rather breathily, then growing in confidence and elaboration as it went on.

Finally we recorded a sequence for the end of the show, a melody that is described as 'a song from the heart' in the script. This took a while to get to - with Yue taking various pauses to focus and get 'in to the zone' running through the music in his mind. Once the right instrument was found his playing did indeed soar freely, a sound version of all the pictures painted so vividly in the book which is the inspiration for the show. All in all, a great session, and a joy to work with such a talented artist.

Loz Kaye

March 4th AM

From Loz Kaye- Composer and Musical Director for Little Leap Forward

Yesterday I started back on work for 'Little Leap Forward'. Actually it has been a while so first of all it was all about getting back in to the right head space. I did an initial part of research, gathering some sounds and composing last year. I knew I that I had to get ahead of the game, given that autumn 08 would be taken up with teaching and a residency at Trestle Theatre, and that I would be on stage with 'In the Shadow of Trees' in December. I can see from my sound files that some of the material I wrote was back in August last year. It has the character of an old friend that needs some time for reaquaintance.

For those of you who are less familiar with Horse + Bamboo's work, although we primarily describe ourselves as a visual theatre, each piece has music running throughout it specially composed. The music is a key part of the unfolding of the narrative, and an insight in to the states of the characters as well as setting the sense of place and mood.

Still, we kicked off by looking at the animation sequences with Bob, Steff and Jonny. Really lovely, and ideal for getting back in to the mood. Of course they are going to require some precise writing and timing, film requires much 'tighter' composition than theatre. Increasingly our process has been more and more dominated by the discussion of timings, which is inevitable with recorded music, The software we are using now for playback allows a lot more flexibility than a simple CD player, but even so the material itself is set in stone.

The planning ahead we did for Veil really paid off. Both in a practical sense because it meant that I had to do much less rerecording and altering of tracks, and in a more abstract 'getting the rhythm of the show' sense.

So I have been going back over the discussions we had a few weeks back about the script and how it divides up in relation to different sections of music. At present the script has 9 scenes. For me the job is to identify the rhythm of the story telling, what sections require what type of music and where shifts of mood are. So I have a structure of blocks of certain types of mood and music - and how long we estimate them lasting. They tend to be 1 minute, 2 minute or 3 minute chunks. Of course this is rather crude and there will be flow and transformation within these blocks, but it gives me a structure to work to.

The sense of time is crucial- after all time is music's proper element, it is what it exists in. Also I need to have an idea how quickly I need to establish a particular feeling, or what is the rhythm of winding something up to a finish point. The musical problem I often have when working in theatre is that if we discover that - for example for the scene to work it needs, say, 30 seconds more music, that changes everything. What might be interesting for 1 minute can be deadly dull over 1 minute 30.

Going through the script once more I reckon on there being 45 separate sections of music and sound effects. At this point it always seems rather daunting, particularly as I want to break the back of this before I go off to Denmark for a week on the 31st. Or in any case we need to be getting a lot of the music in to the computer system which is running the show in the week before rehearsals (the week starting the 13th of April). So, on we go...

I will be twittering about my ongoing work on Little Leap Forward, and my artistic process in general. You can follow me as LozKaye on twitter.com .