Regarding Henry

27/08/2015 Scott Rylander

Theatre company Antic Disposition have returned to Temple Church with a new — and rather beautiful — production of Shakespeare’s Henry V, fresh from their tour in France. Some of the production shots below.

The show runs in the legal cathedral to Saturday 5 September.

Incidentally, the photos may give the impression that the play has a Wagnerian running time. I can assure you that it doesn’t and zips along. Because of the venue we shoot the production shots slightly differently from the way they’d be done in a theatre, so I get the rare chance to photograph the show first in daylight and again after dark.

Portraits, Posters, Publicity stills, Theatre

Always take the feather with you

24/08/2015 Scott Rylander

When we sat down to talk about the poster for World War I musical The White Feather (coming to the Union in September), we knew three things.

It was going to have a feather in it. It was going to be shot in studio. And we were going to shoot it for real.

Well, sometimes photoshoots evolve as they go on.

As star Abigail Matthews looked gamefully morose-but-content-but-triumphant — which, in case it’s not obvious, isn’t the easiest look to pull off — we tried holding a feather in front of her on a wire, having her throw feathers at herself and flinging feathers at her via a wind machine. But the feathers just wouldn’t go where we needed them and it all risked looking like a comedic farce or — the horror — a little bit arty.

I’m a great believer in doing things practically when you can. But, when you can’t, there’s always computer magic.

So what we ended up doing was showering feathers from the ceiling and taking what we’d intended — Abigail staring at a single feather — and turning it into a feather flock.

All against the backdrop of two skies from opposite sides of the world: Te Anau in New Zealand and the Pointe du Grouin in Brittany.

Production photography, Rehearsals, Theatre

Theatre. Quickly.

12/08/2015 Scott Rylander

I was at the Lost Theatre over the weekend to shoot the 1448 London festival.

Billed as the world’s quickest theatre festival, the idea of 1448 is for writers, actors, designers and directors to devise and stage 14 brand new plays in the space of 48 hours.

Pushing everyone’s innovation to the max, the end results were brilliant.