ProSoundWeb: “Forget everything about how you would typically do this, and then let’s figure out how we are going to do it.” This was theatrical sound designer Brett Jarvis’s instruction to his audio team when they began work on the sound design for Masquerade, a cutting-edge, immersive adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, directed by Diane Paulus.
3 comments:
It’s a shame that this is so expensive, because Phantom of the Opera is already such a cool immersive experience (especially for an older show), and this sounds amazing. Those first few minutes with the louder than life overture, lighting, and chandelier rising are some of my favorite five minutes of live theatre ever. I think that Phantom is one of the best things to turn interactive - the audience is already supposed to feel fear at the chandelier drop. Reading this has me struggling to understand how it actually works, which speaks in favor of the interactive experience. The sound specifically has me wondering who’s “in charge” of the direction of the show. Is it the sound program, or the actors as a collective? Or is each segment governed by the different macs that run them? I imagine that this production took a LOT to get off the ground. This article makes it seem like sound is the most complex element of the show.
It’s a very unique need to have to do sound design, not only for an immersive experience that goes through multiple show scenes at a time, but also having to do it for a very classic musical. Everyone is having very high expectations for this design, and if you drop the ball it will harm the immersive experience majorly. I find it very interesting seeing how they exactly did this and pulled it off, especially with the use of timecodes to where it’s practically automated. While I am sure they have someone constantly monitoring it, if an actor delays even by just a few seconds that could really throw the show off. While yes, timecoding this cuts back on a lot of labor and human error, it introduces more potential for machine error. I think the folks in the control room have the potential to be able to soft reset the system as a solution to this, but that would still require a show hold which just would ruin the show. Its very interesting seeing how this was programmed however, and I look forward to seeing it hopefully used in the future more!
After reading this article, I have so many more questions than when I started. When I was a kid, Phantom of the Opera was one of my favorite shows, and I always imagined it being more immersive so when I saw this article, I was super excited to see that it could be happening. I love that this article dove more into the tech and the logistics of how it's gonna happen rather than just briefly describing what was gonna happen, but for that, I think it confuses me because I don’t fully understand how it all works but as someone who is really interested in sound design, I think it is super cool. The six different levels part is really interesting to me. I am very intrigued to how they're gonna do that with the speakers and controlling the audience members to get them to go where you want them too without ruining the flow of the show will be a difficult challenge, but I'm sure they will succeed. I wish I had a chance to go to this show.
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