Tag Archives: Finborough Theatre

From the archives, Production photography, Theatre

Transference

07/11/2014 Scott Rylander

Back in July, I looked at how we approached the publicity shots for Martin Sherman’s play, Passing By, to make sure we did justice to the fact this play isn’t gay, it just happens to be about two gay people, and how we jiggled the look when, after the initial Finborough Theatre run, a new cast took over for the transfer to the Tristan Bates Theatre.

This time round, I thought it would be interesting to show you the production shots from the two shows. The old space and the new were recognisably the same but different. Likewise, Alex Felton and Steven Webb in the original run and James Cartwright and Rik Makarem in the transfer brought their own souls to eke recognisable but totally different lives from the script.

Posters, Production photography, Publicity stills, Theatre

Death to the Finborough

12/08/2014 Scott Rylander

If there’s one character who pervades every scene of Sommer 14 — A Dance of Death it is, as the title suggests, Death (note for the uninitiated: it’s not a ballet — a dance of death / Totentanz / danse macabre is a mediaeval literary genre centred around the fact we all die…).

German playwright Rolf Hochhuth’s exploration of the events that led to the First World War gives us Death as a wild-eyed and innocent teenager who finds himself on the battlefields paying for the vanity of the European elite.

For the poster and advertising shoot we wanted to create imagery that conveyed three things: that Death was a German soldier, that Death was Death, and that Death was young and innocent and not who you’d expect.

Director Chris Loscher and designer Mike Lees solved the first problem by procuring a full-on German World War I outfit, complete with spiky helmet.

For making Death look like Death, it was for brilliant makeup artist Siwan Hill to work her magic and create a skull that left just enough human face behind to let us know there’s a boy back there.

And to make Death look young and innocent, we went to the font of all persons young and innocent but still old enough that you don’t need 18 child minders and security — people taking their GCSEs — for our (fantastically patient, fantastically willing and generally fantastic) model, whom I shall not name to avoid school gate ribbing.

Sommer 14 — A Dance of Death is currently playing at the Finborough Theatre in Earl’s Court.

From the archives, Posters, Publicity stills, Theatre

Transfusion

01/07/2014 Scott Rylander

Some interesting challenges posed by advertising Passing By, Martin Sherman’s play about two men who fall in love which makes a virtue out of treating them as normal human beings rather than theatrical excuses for oh-my-god-they’re-gay-this-is-an-ISSUE angst.

First off, advertising for gay plays tends to be anything but charming. Traditionally, you stick as many topless buff young things as you can into the frame and make them strut. This may have no relevance to the plot but, well, it works.

But if you sold Passing By that way, you’d be cheapening the very thing that makes it different. That it’s not about guys shagging and being gay. It’s a love story between two fully-rounded individuals who live actual, you know, lives and happen to be gay.

Second, we wanted the imagery to conjure up a retro 70s feeling to match the 70s setting. But we absolutely didn’t want it to look like we’d just snapped a few shots on an iPhone and pumped it through a filter on instagram.

So the solution we came up with was to shoot outside and give as much of the retro feeling from the shooting technique itself as from jiggling it about in a computer, coupled with some spot-on costuming from Pippa Batt.

Then we came across a third problem. On the transfer from the Finborough Theatre to the Tristan Bates Theatre, the original cast of Alex Felton and Steven Webb were no longer free. Actors James Cartwright and Rik Makarem stepped in not, so much, to fill their shoes as to spin the play in an entirely different direction.

So we wanted the transfer advertising to reflect the vibe of the original, while making clear that it stood on its own two feet. The stills also needed to meet the requirements of shooting for bigger print formats and online advertising.

And how do you do that?

In the first shoot, oranges and reds were the dominant tones and the abiding rule was to trick the lens into behaving like a piece of plastic. For the transfer, everything was about the greens and shooting sharp as a razor. Different, but just enough of the same.

Assistant for lighting concept tests: Sara La Cuesta Calvo.

From the archives, Posters, Publicity stills, Theatre

In the beginning

25/02/2014 Scott Rylander

Going through the archives the other day I came across the first publicity shots I ever took, all the way back at the beginning of 2010, to promote Tennessee Williams’ take on Chekhov’s The Seagull, The Notebook of Trigorin.

The piece went on to generate a debate in the Guardian over costuming accuracy, which has got to be something of a rarity…

Dancers, Musicals, Production photography, Theatre

Lost Boy

17/01/2014 Scott Rylander

I try to mix my blog up a bit for variety, so this post is something of a rarity: production shots from a production that’s still open and you can still go to see!

These shots are from the fantastic new musical Lost Boy, which floats the question of how Peter Pan and co would cope with adulthood and World War I.

Having debuted at the Finborough, the show’s on at the Charing Cross Theatre until 15 February and you can book tickets here.