FELIPE CARDONA
Introduction to the project
In 2016 I got to meet De Derde Akte Theatergroep. Formerly known as the NHTV Theater Studentenvereneging at the Intro for Breda's new college students. We got along very well from the beginning and started talking about possible projects for the year to come. Little did I know just how much time and energy I would end up investing in the theatre group. They thaught me how to act and I in return helped with 2 social media campaigns for promoting both 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest' and 'Het Diner'. For both projects we agreed to create a set of interviews of the actors and a 3D animation for the monitors at the NHTV (A local University).
For the first animation I sat down with Judith van Oss, a former board member. With whom I discussed the idea which I had in mind. I had thought I would create a simple stage on which I would add animated text in the style of the play. we settled on a few elements like the colors and the wall. After that I just went off in Cinema 4D.
To create the animation I used Cinema 4D. I have played with cloth simulations in the past, but I have never gone about actually creating something with it. So this was certainly a challange. Creating the cloth and adding the right properties so it would move like an actual theatre cloth was pretty straight forward. But once I tried moving the cloth so the curtain could open I started running into some issues.
In the end I ended up working with the cloth Belt tag which I acutally also used on the NHTV theatre logo. It wasn't untill later on in the process which I discovered springs. In hindsight I could have finished this animation in about 3 hours. But it ultimately cost me 2 weeks between school to finish it.
For the second performance I decided to create another 3D animation. I had had so much fun creating the previous one. So we came up with a concept and I got to work. The play is called 'Het Diner' which translates to 'The Dinner'. So for the concept we went with 3 simple reveals which brought up the most important information about the play. It all culminates with the reveal of 'Het Diner' in big white letters. Pretty straight forward.
Interviews
To come up with a more personal touch to our marketing campaign, we looked at our public. Our public mostly consists of parents, friends and relatives of the cast and production. So we decided to focus on this target group. To do this we thought 'what would I as a friend or relative of an actor or producer like to see?' This way we came up with the idea of interviews. It shows a personal side to this big play we as a group wanted to do.
As for technicalities I started by creating a simple template. Basically there is the intro, then we asked the talent what their name was and which character they were playing. Subsequently we asked them why their character was special. To add depth to the video I overlayed B-Roll of the rehearsals. Lastly we asked the talent to invite all their friends and family to the play, stating the date and time. Afterwards I added once again the intro and fade to black. Between every part, there is a quick swoosh of cubes in the color of the NHTV theater logo which I used to create a littlebit of a seperation between parts.
For the second performance I decided to create another 3D animation. I had had so much fun creating the previous one. So we came up with a concept and I got to work. The play is called 'Het Diner' which translates to 'The Dinner'. So for the concept we went with 3 simple reveals which brought up the most important information about the play. It all culminates with the reveal of 'Het Diner' in big white letters. Pretty straight forward.
As for the actual production, I hit up the studio at Avans University and Coördinated a day with the cast. It was actually more complicated than I thought. Thanks to the support of the production team, we managed to interview everyone.
So to have an idea of how things were gonna go, I enlisted the help of my then girlfriend and another friend just to test the light and the concept. We actually ended up both photoshooting for the poster and also doing the interviews. In my experience, this is definetly the way to go when it comes to these kind of productions. It kept the team sharp and everyone was having a good time, so it made for much more relaxed interviews.
For the interviews of 'Het Diner' we went for the same approach. Except this time we altered the background. we went on location at the POPOCATPTL in Breda and we shot 3 interviews and one promotional video.