In general there is nothing unique or remarkable about my individual experience during this global pandemic. Like all other Canadian artists I lost gigs and had to adapt to a sudden world of digital arts. I am fairly competent in the world of technology (I can photoshop pictures, edit movies/audio, design websites, design posters) but I have never worked in film, or directed for the screen.
So when The Canadian College of Performing Arts moved its year end production of Newsies, a show featuring 51 students, from it’s original venue (The McPherson Theatre) to a digital format, I wasn’t overwhelmed… but this was definitely outside of my comfort zone.
I was contracted to direct and choreograph the production. I would say that one of my strengths as a director, specifically for large musicals, is my crowd direction - the ability to generate captivating large-scale storytelling with a big cast. Now, here I am, alone in my studio yelling into my computer as I attempt to direct 51 students in an online digital version of the musical Newsies. I couldn't be further from my strengths.
I say “yelling” not because I was angry with the students, but because the first thing I learned about teaching and directing online is that your energy output as an instructor is 10x what it normally is in the room. Your voice is naturally speaking at a louder volume to ensure everyone can hear you through their devices, and since you cannot feel any energy coming back from the students (they are literally muted) you tend to over-energize. This is incredibly draining. We did four hour Zoom rehearsal days - with a series of video assignments that the students had to accomplish each evening - only four hours?? But we normally rehearse for double that! This should be eassyyyyyy. After four hours… I was in a terrible mood. I mean terrible. Cranky, unfocused, fatigued, and achey. Somedays it took an hour walk outside before I started to feel normal again. My eyes were feeling strained, my hip joints were all jammed up, my shoulders were achey from being hunched. It wasn’t just the computer work itself, but the actual energy drain of teaching on zoom was intense.
I started putting my computer up higher so that I could be standing, and this helped immensely. I started using a large ball instead of a chair. I integrated company dance parties into our morning warm-ups and this was incredibly useful - dancing in my studio with 51 students grooving out in their owns spaces was one of the most affective ways to loosen all the digital angst we were all feeling. All these little things helped, and we all started to get into a groove.
I should note that we weren’t doing the full show, but had decided to “stage” 3-4 musical numbers from the show. Our process took awhile to figure out, and we did a series of tests and troubleshooting but ultimately this is where we landed:
Storyboard with creative team (create a shot list)
Professional musicians record backtrack
Music rehearsals with MD (students muted, and recordings of their vocal parts sent out to practice)
Anchors record vocals (The students would record with headphones in as they listened to the backtracks. We chose 1 strong singer for each vocal part to record first because then all the other students could then match their timing. Without the anchors we realized the students were all over the place with their cut offs etc. )
Ensemble record vocals (The ensemble would record with headphones in as they listened to the Anchor Track)
Vocals & Backtrack mixed (We brought in a professional mixer in the end to do the larger numbers - we didn’t anticipate needing this, but it was very necessary because the volume and quality of all the students’ voices was hard to balance and time consuming to mix)
Blocking rehearsals (see more details below)
Filming Assignments
Editing (We had two video editors who split up the content)
Our rehearsals consisted of “blocking” where I would outline the storyboard for that particular scene, and we would brainstorm together ideas and concepts. There was a lot of “Jack’s box is going to be in the centre of the screen, so that means that you need to look down and to the right for it to appear as though you are looking at him”. This part was quite fun. Together with the students we invented a bunch of different ways that the “boxes” could interact with one another. We also brainstormed how the students could “manipulate” the boxes by pushing/pulling on the “edge” which made it look like they were pushing the person next to them. It was extremely complicated, and the students each did 15-40 different video assignments.
Choreography was quite challenging to rehearse in Zoom because of the lag. I would teach the moves, but as soon as I played music, they weren’t able to see my movements in relation to the music because the video would slightly lag. So I would talk through the moves, and send choreography tutorial videos. Unlike rehearsals, I wasn’t able to clean the movements very much and would basically teach it and send them off to practice and record. Fingers crossed that they did the moves correct! We also ran into some issues with mirroring because some student’s camera’s did that automatically, and then when they recorded it was the same issue. So our film editors had to fix quite a bit. Here is another video from a choreo rehearsal. You can see how impossible it was with the lag!
There was A TON of file organization with both the audio recordings and the video recordings. We created a Drive account that all the students had access to (aka they had the password) so that they could upload their videos directly to Drive and not take up space in their own accounts. Uploading became a huge issue because of everyone’s internet strength, and I would say that this part of the process was the most frustrating for the students overall. This project only works if you have access to good internet.
We chose a few solos, duets, and small group numbers to showcase. The final song Seize the Day was also a fun adaptation of Newsies where we had the students each begin in bed, and by the end of the song step outside in their full colour to experience the sunlight on their faces.
I haven’t even touched on lighting, how they set up their cameras to shoot, the drone we used and more……our learning was endless, and for that I am truly grateful. Email me if you have any questions about the details, I feel this blog has already gone on too long!!!
In general, I went through some ups and downs with the project but overall I am immensely proud of the product we produced, and I am extremely glad we did it. The students will have a memorable experience to carry with them, and some pretty rad videos to share.
If you want to hear a full interview on the process….here is myself and Heather Burns (music director extraordinaire) chatting about the process:
Whew! Now I am on to gardening 8 hours a day to counteract all that screen time.
Thanks for reading this far.
~ Jess