Setting the scene: a case study
Crescent School, an independent boys school in Toronto, staged a production of The Front Page, a play first produced in 1928 and written by Chicago reporters Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht.
The play’s one set is the Press Room in the Criminal Courts Building at Chicago’s infamous Cook County Jail and the play revolves around the working day of the reporters passing the time cracking jokes and playing poker.
Working it...
As the play takes place at a very specific point in history, the tone of the era had to be established from the outset of the play. After much discussion with their drama director, we decided to project a video montage onto the stage at the start of the play that would set the scene and bring the audience into the world of the roaring 20s.
To get some semblance of feeling from the era, I reviewed a lot of documentary footage from that time, looked at photographs and newspaper clippings and listened to music that typified the age.
To integrate the film into the play, I filmed some of the cast going their business as reporters in the news room and then wove these scenes into the montage.
Working with their director, we blocked the opening positions of the first scene and filmed it, appending the footage to the end of the montage. That way, the video ended with a shot of the boys in their opening positioning.
The Result
Crescent's Middle School performed a successful run of performances to the delight of their school, families and friends.
BCP continues to work on Crescent School's video projects.
"Working with Regan Latimer and Bee Charmer Productions has been nothing short of an outstanding experience. Regan is a consummate professional who's imagination and creativity turned my very basic ideas for the motivational, theatrical, and promotional videos into masterful works of art... Her work is exceptional and only hope that I have more opportunities in the future to employ her talents."
Godric Kim, Crescent School, Toronto
