PRE-PRODUCTION - THEATRE RECCE & FLOOR PLAN

Victoria explained to me that we now have a theatre. The Tom Thumb Theatre in Margate, Kent. The owners allowed us to come and recce the location so Jemma and I went to take a look. The Tom Thumb Theatre is a very small theatre which holds local performances in Margate. It equipped with a lighting desk, lights, sound system, curtains and a bar upstairs as well as a bar area for the performers to get ready. Below are my recce photos from the location:

Although the theatre is small, it's exactly what we needed. The stage is a decent size (3.06m by 2.04m) with 4 lights set on the lighting rail above the stage. All are tungsten stage lighting but the owner told me he's happy for me to add in gels to the lighting to get more colour for the performance. The audience area is very dark but the lighting is also CTO (Colour temperature orange) so if I bring in one of my Tungsten red head 600w lights and bounce it off the ceiling, I'll easily be able to fill the room and add more light to see the audience prior to the performance. 

The owner explained he can take out a row of chairs so our 2 cameras have more room for the tripods which'll work better for us as well. Below is a camera plan I wrote up after the location was recce'd:

Although basic, it allows me to see where I want to place my cameras and I can show my other operators this and simply explain the plan for the shoot. I also got the floor plan of the theatre off their website (as seen to the left) which I can use against the camera plan to explain to the operators how the set up is going to work. 

Following seeing the theatre, the owner explained that there is also a bar upstairs which we can use for filming as well if it's needed. As we'll need to film interviews as well we went and looked and found what is a perfect room for interviews. 

Photos below:

This room has plenty of natural light flooding in through the windows and I'll be able to block out certain bits with curtains or blackout cloth. When I asked if it would be possible to do a tech run at the theatre to test cameras, lighting and sound the owner explained this would be fine but it can't be done until January.