The Prologue is Past

Richard Byrne wrote a brilliant monologue about a scientist at the CDC who lost her job because she wouldn't fudge the numbers for the Trump Administration. 

We shot entirely remotely. Two cameras. I wrote a bit about it here. One camera was a Zoom feed and the other was a Panasonic Lumix camera. Go to the link above to see the cat camera operator. 

We also used a Zoom audio recorder. So yes, one company which is a video conferencing service, the other is an audio recording hardware manufacturer. Both with the same name. So "are we recording on Zoom"? is a really terrible question if you want a coherent answer.

We got Christa Kimliko-Jones, who was a combat android in Millennium Crisis, to play the lead.  

And we got into the 2021 Prague Fringe Prologue!

Christa Kimliko and Sarah Matthay in Millennium Crisis 

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When you film a play, is that a film or a play? I don't think I've ever actually directed a proper play before, and my identity makes me feel more like a filmmaker than play director.

In any case, producing plays under pandemic conditions has meant the advent of probably the worst art form ever devised by Man. That is, the Zoom play. I mean really, Zoom plays are universally pretty terrible. ;-)

We aimed to change all that. We (meaning The Queen of Mars, and Richard Byrne) made a handful of short films called "Plays Pandemical" written by Richard, produced by the Marsian Queen, and directed by me. I think Richard thinks of these as plays that are filmed, whereas I think of them more as films. And one of the goals was to break out of the "one person in front of the blank background, with terrible sound, etc." Of course there were other agendas too -- I'm working on my PhD in music composition by research and am specifically making films to experiment with placement of music cues, Richard has his own driving forces, and it's just nice to be making movies (or plays) again.

So a Zoom play, but with directed cameras, art direction, and for crying out loud -- good sound, can really work! For other examples, see the other Prologue films (or watch our other films in the "Plays Pandemical" series.)