Double the excitement
Students turn theater performance into movie
December 3, 2004Michael Melvin
Staff Reporter
As if it’s not tough enough to produce and direct a full-scale play at Albion, Alex Rivera, Cepiapó, Chile senior, decided to film his production of Double Solitaire as well as direct the stage performance.
The play, written by Michael T. Smith and being performed Dec. 2-4 at Herrick Theatre, revolves around a middle-aged couple reflecting on their hopes and dreams together while facing the pressure of renewing their wedding vows.
“What stuck me was the challenge,” Rivera said. “How much do I know about 40-year-old middle-aged men and their lives?”
Faculty advised the students in the process of creating the play, but the production team consists of and answers to fellow students.
“I had never directed a film or anything, so I figured why not give it a try and see how it goes,” Rivera said. “It’s basically a film of the play, but not the usual crappy one-angle-and-just-film version of the performance. I wanted to give it that movie sensation that you get with the different angles, the nice cuts and the close-ups, because when I’m in rehearsal, that’s how I see it.”
Randi Brown, Farmington Hills junior, and Jason Hinchey, Jackson junior, headed the film crew. Hinchey, who is the president of the Briton Broadcasting Group (BBG), was also the acting cinematographer for the shoot.
“Alex had no idea about the technology when it came to converting the play into a film,” Hinchey said. “It’s one thing for Alex to want a certain shot a specific way and then want it edited to ‘look pretty,’ as he says. But Alex’s imagination is often much more expansive than the technology offered by Albion College. Making Double Solitaire into a film is Alex having some grand idea for every shot and then me finding a way to make it work.”
Meetings began in January, when set designs were drawn, schedules created and equipment tested. During the summer the crew read the play countless times to come up with ideas to better the production. Rivera spent his summer illustrating story boards for filming and creating a strict final work schedule for the beginning of production.
“I think this film gives people an opportunity to see how in-depth and complicated film production actually is compared to theater” Brown said. “There’s differences in lights, makeup, sound and staging that have not been considered before... It’s an enlightening and sometimes frustrating experience... but definitely worth it.”
While just the actors and the pre-designed cues were needed to create the performance, the filming took up to nine additional people, which included the director, the assistant director, the three camera men, the sound technician, light operator, prop master and the second assistant director.
“The other day I realized I sounded like such a Hollywood director,” Rivera said. “They tell you the vaguest thing and they want you to make it work, and I heard myself saying that, and it was really like that. I wanted a pan to follow him [the character] walking through and Jason said, ‘I think I see what you’re saying,’ and just did it.”
After tomorrow’s final stage performance there will be a few subsequent filming days before the shutting down of production. Come January, Rivera will head to the editing stations in the Ferguson Lab and begin the long process of editing the film. He hopes to have a first cut put together by mid-February and a final version completed by the end of March.
Whether or not the archive is shown to anyone outside of the theater department will depend on the quality of the final product.
“I’ve read this play a good 100 to 150 times by now,” Rivera said. “I see people performing it every night during rehearsals and I don’t get bored. That tells me that others will be entertained by the play.”
