Presented by Factory Space Theatre Company, The Matilda Waltz is the latest play from Director Deborah Mulhall, who if you don't mind me saying so, is quite the boss lady.
Apart from being great to work with, she trustingly handed me creative control of the poster and trailer for her upcoming play and it was one of the more rewarding shoots I can remember.
The Trailer.
The play is a journey through 5 generations of an Australian family, I was lucky enough to be invited to a reading and it's really good, and very well cast. I started storyboarding scenes that are very much within the characters of the play although as I wanted to keep the dialogue to a minimum, I didn't strictly limit myself to scenes that we see on the stage.
The play features Russel Drysdale (famous Aussie painter) and Banjo Paterson (from $10 note fame) and their banter is an important part of the play but they aren't really involved in scenes, finding a transition that took me to them seemlessly in the trailer was the most creativly juicy part and I'm really happy with the solution I came up with and the actors Jaymie and Leof were so patient that we set it up well and nailed it on the first take.
The Poster.
The actors came in throughout the day and I set each of them up according to my sketch of the poster, everyone was great and the whole thing went smoothly.
Design is a joy when you take your own photo's and the poster and the poster captured the feeling I was going for. I sent it through to the director and she loved it. "I am now going to declare my love for you! It is just superb."
Now I'm working on building the set for the play, I have earned the title of Production Designer and I have some ideas to make Deborah's vision a reality. Looking forward to getting stuck into it!
Ren
