Premiering at Hammersmith Riverside, Age-Sex-Location is aimed at a young audience who might not necessarily be attracted to conventional theatre productions. Writer Marcus Markou decided he always wanted projection to be a fundamental element of the production; it seemed an obvious theatrical mechanism for a story set in cyberspace.
Video and lighting designer, Sven Ortel and video co-designer Dick Straker (both of Mesmer Productions) came onboard via director Pip Pickering, and all worked closely with Markou to define the design of the performance space. Straker and Ortel asked XL Video to supply the video kit, with hardware co-ordination handled by XL project manager and theatrical specialist, Malcolm Mellows. With budget extremely tight - much of it self-financed by Markou - the production's high calibre owed much to the team's enthusiasm to experiment and play with ideas. The willingness of contacts to cut good deals on the technology front even led to the use of Catalyst DL1 moving light projectors and a Wholehog III lighting desk, thanks to High End Systems.
The play's two acts have a very different ambience, and needed very different treatment. Act one emphasizes the isolation and loneliness of modern life; the vibe is shut-down and still. Lighting is sparse, primarily confined to upstage moving lights (High End Studio Spots) - which 'find' the actors and move with them. The protagonists communicate on-screen, via 16 video monitors supplied by the National Theatre and rigged over the audience.
By contrast, the Act two explodes with life, colour, movement and imagery, as a series of silver voile banners drop in for the projections. Ortel wanted the audience to se something unexpected after the break, and decided to use three Catalyst DL1 moving heads - extensively tested at XL Video before the show - to rear-project onto the nine voile banners. Each DL1 was lined up precisely so the optical systems would work as desired with the banners. The imagery had to be pre-distorted within each individual projection frame before being 'fitted' to the screens - as all the banners were set at varying distances.
Video material was created, and footage shot and compiled over a two-month period by Ortel, Straker and their colleague Ian Galloway. Video and audio sources were stored on four Doremi hard drives and controlled by Dataton, programmed and operated by Galloway. The Hog III was programmed by Matt Haskins, giving another layer of control flexibility for the DL1s. It "beautifully animates the video frames," says Ortel. The console also enabled the fine-tuning of individual video content parameters - just like a moving light. Ortel thinks the console is excellent for treating light sources like a paint box, where a fixture stops being a 'channel' and become a real tool.Other lighting fixtures were all generic, primarily ETC Source Fours with a selection of 10 - 26 degree lenses. All the non-house lighting equipment was supplied by Paul Anderson's company, Sparks Theatrical.
ASL's sound track was composed by Conor Mitchell, and utilized the standard house JBL sound system, with Interim amplification and crossovers and a Soundcraft 200B desk. Sound sources were hard drive and two Sony minidisk players.
A critical success, ASL looks set to be one of 2004's most memorable pieces of experimental theatre.
