Renowned video projection designer Sean Nieuwenhuis arrived at NIDA last week to begin providing his expertise to three productions in NIDA’s Nick Enright Season of student productions, with preparations for the 9 June start date moving up a gear.
Photo: Sean Nieuwenhuis with BFA (TTSM) second year student Aron Murray
Renowned video projection designer Sean Nieuwenhuis arrived at NIDA last week to begin providing his expertise to three productions in NIDA’s Nick Enright Season of student productions, with preparations for the 9 June start date moving up a gear.
With a glowing career spanning over 25 years that has seen him work on Broadway, national opera houses and other huge events (he will be Director of Visuals at Toronto’s Invictus Games this September), Nieuwenhuis is mentoring one Master of Fine Arts (Design for Performance) student and two Bachelor of Fine Arts (Technical Theatre and Stage Management) students on Love and Money, Eurydike + Orpheus and SALEM.
‘The three student productions have fairly extensive video content and I’m working with each of the designers as a mentor, providing my expertise as they meet questions and challenges along the way,’ commented Nieuwenhuis, who is in Australia in a work capacity for the first time and will be here for a two-week stay for the fit-out and tech periods of all three shows.
The three students taking in Nieuwenhuis’ wisdom are MFA (Design for Performance) student Patrick Howe, who is Set/Props and Costume Designer on Love and Money; BFA (Technical Theatre and Stage Management) third year student Ray Pitmann, who is Video Designer for Eurydike + Orpheus, and BFA (Technical Theatre and Stage Management) second year student Aron Murray, who is Video Designer for SALEM.
‘The process for the three students was already ongoing before I arrived in terms of the communication with the directors and their design colleagues. I’ve been sent technical drawings and conceptual pieces as they’ve been developing everything.’
NIDA Deputy Director/CEO and Head of Design for Performance, Michael Scott-Mitchell, saw the opportunity to enhance the visual technology capabilities in this year’s June production season and turned to Nieuwenhuis, the pair having worked together on Doctor Zhivago in New York a few years ago.
The extensive LED screen that was used in the Doctor Zhivago production was the inspiration behind incorporating a similar piece of technology into Love and Money, which runs on the 9-10 and 13-16 June in NIDA Theatres.
‘An LED Screen is forming the main backdrop of the Love and Money design and it will feature towards the back of the theatre stage. Patrick is creating a lot of interesting and quite graphic content that will run on it, some of which is incredibly impressive. One is a 15-minute transition of a colour shift. It’ll also run multiple filmed pieces of content.’
‘Patrick designed the content and I am essentially offering tips and insight on how to realise his vision using a variety of tools. At this point, it’s ongoing, fluid and evolving.’
‘One of the opportunities of having the LED technology accessible versus projection, which is perhaps more traditional as a visual tool, is the creation of depth. The wall, set up at the very rear of the stage, takes up a relatively small surface but has the ability to fill the space and create gigantic images. If we were using projection, you would have all kinds of challenges in terms of creating the physical depth, and you’d also worry about actors interfering. With the LED screen, we can still have people play right up against it.
‘The use of LED represents a great opportunity for our students: it’s a great tool to have exposure to during their training, because it’s definitely becoming more prominent in the industry. The subtlety, the way to manipulate it and make it tie in with the design are factors which make it exciting. The screen owned by NIDA is right up there in terms of that quality.’
Quite aptly, the timing of Nieuwenhuis’ visit also coincides with the Vivid Sydney festival, which he said he will find time to attend.
NIDA’s Nick Enright Season of student productions will run from 7-19 June.
