Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2021 - 34

(From left to right, top to bottom) Obed De La Cruz, Alexa Luckey, Emily Saletan, and Morgan Gwilym Tso. The
scene depicts an Uber drive to a night club using OBS on individual performer's computers to overlay a car like
surrounding on top of their camera feed. | Image courtesy of Kieran Hood.

change and what would remain the
same. It became important that options
were narrowed down sooner rather than
later for him to get the lighting looks he
wanted.
Lights were remotely controlled
through two software programs: QLC
and ZeroTier. Some of the pros of QLC
are that it works on both Mac and PC
computers, it is free, and it seemed to
Shayne to have a lot of usable options. It
did run differently from a lighting board,
however; it wasn't so much taking cues
as it was " hitting a trigger. " For every cue
Shayne made, there was a soft key on the
screen that would be programmed to terminate the cue before it and take the one
that key represented.
Shayne notes the lack of design meetings, which were replaced with several
smaller meetings without everyone present. Due to this process, sometimes decisions were not communicated to all of
the designers, which made for some lastminute changes.
Sound required a great deal of attention by the technical staff, and sound
set up was more difficult than any other
technical aspects, according to Saletan.
Lag time was an immediate problem
given that the show was being sent from
one Zoom meeting into another, on top
of typical lag that Zoom already experiences. This meant that sound and video
weren't synching properly. So, the team
put sound on a three-second delay using
TouchDesigner.

Zoom's internal setting where only one
person (or computer) can be heard at a
time meant that there was no plausible
way for performers to sing or speak at the
same time live instruments or sound cues
were playing from another computer.
This meant that performers would have
to play sound cues and background music
themselves, while singing their own part
live.
The sound problems that arose varied from person to person, which was
troubling given that the same type of new
equipment and set up was sent to every
person. That consistency of equipment,
however, didn't stop one microphone
from buzzing, or cause a person to begin
to sound robotic or have a cable come
loose mid-performance.

Costumes

" [Costume designing] was not a whole
lot different from the normal process
because a lot of the work that I do is
shopping, " says Becky Bodurtha, TAPS'
costume designer and lecturer, though
this time around all of the shopping was
done online rather than done in-person.
Bodurtha, however, like many other designers and technical staff, faced timeline
challenges. Her deadlines passed before
she was given a script with a full character
list. Luckily, the TAPS costume shop was
supportive and understanding of the process. Logistics became a significant factor, ensuring that orders were made with
enough time on the back end to return

34 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | SPRING 2021

unused items and ordered early enough
for performers who needed to film scenes
ahead of time and for those who would be
rendered as an animated avatar for which
the clothing needed to match.
Bodurtha did learn a new software
that under normal circumstances she
wouldn't have discovered. Marvelous
Designer allowed her to create custom
digital clothing for the animated avatars
when she couldn't find anything right in
the stock options. The program even allowed her to " pin and sew " it directly onto
the avatar so that it would be the right fit.
Visibility limitations were another area
where designing costumes for virtual performance was challenging. " I think the
frame was a huge limitation, sometimes
in a good way, " Bodurtha says, describing how for the majority of the show, the
audience could only see the top half of
what the performer was wearing. " You
have to design in a different way. Hair and
makeup become more important, as well
as color and pattern. " Bodurtha allowed
the performers to have some choice in
what they wore, sending several combinations of items and allowing them to
choose what fit best as well as went best
with their personalities. It was a way to
have them feel confident and comfortable
in what they were wearing and have backups in case something didn't fit.
The big question for Bodurtha was
" How do you get everyone to look balanced together, faces to pop, and really
see people? " She answered this in a few
ways. The first by working with one of the
performers, Diana Khong, who helped
create sophisticated makeup looks, and
the second by using color. In one scene
Khong can be seen wearing orange and
in the next the walls of the " dollhouse "
Khong is supposed to be in are also orange. One final trick that Bodurtha used
to try to create a cohesion was giving each
performer a piece of moon jewelry. The
type of jewelry was meant to be reflective
of each person's personality and preference, and the moon was a running theme
throughout the performance.

Video

Matt Romein, the video designer TAPS
hired for the project, knew that a lot of
the elements would have to be run by students from their own computers, and it
was essential that the tools were given to
the performers " as early as possible and to
integrate it into rehearsals. " Fortunately,

Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2021