Not 4 Kidz

Not 4 Kidz hits the Brisbane Comedy Festival in March – a fully improvised show in the style of 1980’s after-school TV, with shows sort of like you remember… The concept for this one involved a perky peppy kids’ show host and a “I can’t believe I’m still doing this job” puppeteer, in the dankest of makeshift studios. Amy and Chris both nailed their respective parts, but it was Wade the Puppet that was the real star of the shoot. Until his untimely demise.

For tickets and all the details you could want, head to the Brisbane Powerhouse website.

T1513_151005_A5157ET1513_151005_A5313E

I get a kick out of comparing the design sketches with the finished product. Sketches like these are fantastic for aligning expectations with a client, and for visualising how the components of the shoot will go together. I’m particularly happy that I appear to have developed my skills in the very demanding sketching-coils-of-cable discipline.T1513_2016-02-02_0002
T1513_151005_A5207

Lord of the Thrones

How often do you get to shoot a completely epic campaign set in a fantasy land with drama and intrigue? We were super stoked to be involved with production of ImproMafia’s promotional images for their upcoming show Lord of the Thrones. If you’ve been hiding under a rock, you might not know of Game of Thrones, or Lord of the Rings. This show mashes both of them together, all controlled by a storyteller named R. R. (Named after J. R. R. Tolkien and George R. R. Martin. Get it?)

If you’ve watched Game of Thrones, you know that getting to know and love a character is their death knell – it doesn’t take long for something senseless and violent to remove your favourite and keep you guessing about what might be happening next. We thought it would be great to shoot a series of images, featuring characters from the show, and featuring Death – just hanging about, biding time until he is inevitably called to action.

Working with actors is a joy – they know where their arms and legs and face and eyes are, and they know how to project emotion and feeling with everything from a stance to a subtle facial change. Natalie, Alex, Brittany, Greg and Scott (with Scott doing double duty as Death) threw themselves in to it, and it totally works!

One of the fun parts of the shoot was building these super-serious, contextually consistent scenes with a dramatic persona in the foreground and a cool location for the background… with Death being just a little ridiculous somewhere in the shot. I can’t quite explain why, but Wanda’s idea for death’s dropped ice cream (above) makes me very happy indeed.
You want to see some magnificent prop work? Wanda Macgyvered some ancient parchment out of some printer paper, coffee, and a sandwich press. Best smelling magic scroll ever!

We had a lot of fun incorporating photographs from our travels. European palaces and North American forests featured pretty heavily in the series. Now, obviously, the budget didn’t quite stretch far enough to fly people overseas… Instead, we shot in our lounge room (much more exotic) and did some composite work to integrate characters in to their locations. So for this one project, we brought together elements we’d shot in Denmark, Colorado, Paris, Oregon, Stockholm, and Brisbane. Here’s a little behind-the-scenes if you’re curious.

Lord of the Thrones premiere performance is on Saturday 12 September at the Metro Arts Theatre, Brisbane. Tickets are available from impromafia.com.

Putnam County Spelling Bee

I’m doing some work with the Brisbane Arts Theatre this year – I’m often installed behind the piano at downstage right when I’m performing, and it will be fantastic to roam the whole space doing production photographs of their main house shows!

The BAT’s production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee kicks off tonight. Directed by Katherine Alpert, it was a joy to watch this hard-working cast work. And, eep, audience participation? Of the most gentle kind. (If you know me, you know I hate getting on stage. Quite pleasing to have the camera in my hand so I couldn’t be picked on.)

Putnam County runs from tonight until the 18th of April. Get out and see some local theatre! Tickets are available at the Brisbane Arts Theatre website.