The Guildhall artists bringing Romeo & Juliet to the digital stage

The brand new filmed theatrical production of Romeo & Juliet, directed by Nick Evans, opened on 13 February to an online audience.

The production, which opened to 4* reviews from The Guardian and ArtsDesk, was created using ground-breaking new technology to overcome strict COVID-19 restrictions, adding live actors filmed against green-screen to a perfect digital recreation of the Manchester Palace theatre.

We caught up with four Guildhall alumni and students involved in bringing this production to the digital stage: Producer & Editor Ryan Metcalfe (former BA Technical Theatre Arts student), actor Brandon Bassir (Acting 2020, playing Mercutio), Lighting Designer Elliot Smith (Technical Theatre 2018) and Composer Sam Dinley (BMus Film Music).

Ryan, how did this project come about?

Ryan Metcalfe: From March last year it seemed the upper ceiling of what you could potentially produce was essentially a zoom call that was slightly out of sync. Those kinds of shows kept the art and the industry alive but at the same time it’s incredibly difficult to involve a full creative team and a full production team in a production like that, and it doesn't come anywhere near replicating the actual experience.

Through my work with Preevue I knew the technology was there to allow us to completely visualise every part of the process – we could rebuild the lighting, we could laser scan a theatre, we could build a set, but the one part that was missing was putting actors in and filming it.

How did you get to the stage where you could involve actors?

RM: In May of last year I started doing some work to find out how complicated that would be – very, is the short answer, but I was still surprised at how well it works.

We did some tests where we two actors shot themselves individually at home on green screens. There was a moment where they both turned and eyeline was bang on, without anyone directing them, and I think that was probably that moment that I thought “OK, we can do this.”

There was still a huge amount of planning and work that went into every single shot: aligning the cameras, putting dots on the wall, picking eyeline markers so people would be looking in the right directions. We had monitors that allowed Nick Evans the director and myself to watch back performances so we could see where things were lined up.

Brandon, what was filming in front of a green screen like for you as an actor?

Brandon Bassir: It was scary. If the person isn't there, your imagination muscle has to work much harder and you have to picture how they're delivering that line. But luckily, we rehearsed for about a week with Nick Evans, the director. When we were shooting we moved really quickly but so efficiently as Nick knew where the characters were placed and had a ball-park notion of how each actor would deliver each line. Having Nick read opposite me during filming really helped in being able to act opposite an actor who wasn’t physically there in the space with me!

How did the green screen process work?

RM: Our Production Designer Jamie Osborne had done some rough blocking of the CGI models, so during rehearsal for each scene I was able to plan out where our cameras were going to be. We had three cameras: one was our locked-off wide shot, which captured the whole space, and the other two were my cinematographer cameras to capture how I’d shoot a scene if the actors were there together.

Once one actor had shot their scene, it was then locked in terms of the camera setup. When the scene partner, or partners, were on stage shooting their parts – and that may have been that same afternoon or one week later – we would reset the cameras to where they were for the first actor.

There are just shy of 500 camera angles used in Romeo & Juliet, each of which could take up to 20 hours on the compositing side of things, so it was a mammoth task.

Sam, what was your inspiration for the score?

Sam Dinley: We ended up creating three distinct themes: a love theme; a theme of despair, covering the funeral, the deaths, and the darker moments; and then a theme of feud and battle.

What was the composition process for the production?

SD: I was writing the music all to green screen - all I was composing to was people on a green backdrop with context as to what kind of background they were in. Nick Evans the director gave me a great cue sheet showing where he wanted to add music and what style and mood he wanted, and that became the Bible for me. I’d use it every day, sending over cues to see if that was what he was looking for, and luckily most of them were pretty spot on.

The way that film music works now, the way you compose is very modular, and you can move things around very easily. So once I've written something it’s relatively quick and easy to change something, add something, or take something away. But luckily, a lot of the music didn't really change because Nick knew exactly where he wanted the music.

Elliot, what was the process like for you as Lighting Designer?

Elliot Smith: Before the recordings began, we spoke about how we how we wanted to light the actors to get a fairly even, full-bodied lighting effect which would allow us to take the performers and add them into the scenes. But my work really started once the performers were being processed as CGI in the digital space.

In theatre, lighting’s job is very much to tell the guide the audience to look at specific places on set. It's a bit different in film because the camera does that work for you, so it's really about trying to bring those special moments across without that theatrical style.

With a digital theatre you can do things that you wouldn't be able to in the real world, such as throwing lights in positions that would be incredibly difficult to get to in person, which offers a lot of freedom. But it was quite a balancing act to also create that realistic look. We did some of that in the lighting and some of that in post-production as well.

What was it like seeing the completed show for the first time?

BB: I'd seen the trailer and that was it! Every day I would go on Instagram just to check the Romeo & Juliet page to see if there was anything else, but the first time I saw it was the company premiere on the Friday before we opened. It was amazing. I've had people reach out to me telling me how much they enjoyed it and that's honestly made my day, the fact that people who watching it are responding to it in in a positive way.

RM: I'm super excited to have it out there, and it's great seeing the positive feedback from the public, that's our audience and seeing positive feedback from them is really great.

SD: I had only seen the scenes where there was supposed to be music, which was barely a quarter of the whole film. When I got to see it all in one piece, see the whole flow, it was pretty amazing to see it all come together and see the technology work.

ES: We worked on it in chunks, so we went from scene to scene but not always in a linear format. It was nice to see it come together as a final production.

What was your favourite moment in the show?

ES: I really like the curtain call. It ties everything together and makes it feel like you're watching the production from a seat in the auditorium. There's a particular shot right at the end as the safety curtain begins to come back in, where you get a glimpse upwards from an audience perspective and you see all the different lights in their positions. That was a really believable moment because it brought across this sense of reality.

BB: I thought the ball scene was really fun, just to see everybody on stage. I remember filming the scene and making small talk while holding some bottles, and it was so funny to see the final scene and it look like people actually talking to each other rather than two people who are just talking to a green screen. It felt like a big magic trick because they weren't there!

SD: For me it was Romeo and Juliet’s death scenes at the end. Watching those scenes was really powerful, and those were some of my favourite scenes to write to because of the emotion in them and the darker aspects to it.

RM: Brandon will think I’m saying this to suck up to him because he’s on this call but one of my favourites is Mercutio’s death with him and Sam Tutty, and it's amazing, it's just acted so brilliantly. There are two shots during that scene where we alternate between close ups, and it’s lit so beautifully by Elliot, and Brandon and Sam do such a fantastic job that I really enjoy watching that.

What will you take away from this project?

ES: It's really different to what I'd usually be doing, I've gained insight into lighting for film and animation, so that’s been really interesting to peer into those worlds.

SD: For me it was learning how long to spend on a cue. We had three or four weeks to do the whole score, so I had to restrict how long I could spend on a cue. In some instances I was doing one or two cues a day, and you have to learn to stop and be ready to move on to the next one.

BB: It all moved so incredibly quickly. At Guildhall there would be times where you were under a huge time constraint and you had to show up, commit and make it look like you had weeks of prep. Here, Ryan and Nick and the whole team were relying on the actors to show up, and you’re not going to have as many takes as you want but you have to submit to the process and do the best work you can in that moment.

RM: I’ve wanted to produce for a long time, it’s been a long-term goal of mine. Admittedly the plan was to do that on stage, but this was a good way of doing it. There was so much learn, mostly around how long it takes to get everything done. In every part of the process I wish I would have had more time, but I also do take away from it that despite it being incredibly challenging, it was still doable, and it’s incredibly commendable that absolutely everybody got on with it and did a fantastic job.

Romeo & Juliet runs until 27 February, and tickets are available through the Romeo & Juliet website.

You can enjoy the productions soundtrack album on Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music and Amazon Music.

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