Summary: An intimate look inside a living time capsule, this program explores the planning and reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, presenting a day in the working life of the unique artistic institution. The video guides viewers through the facility, painstakingly designed and built to resemble the original Elizabethan playhouse, and offers commentary from the actors, artisans, and educators...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: When Tim Supple directed the filming of Twelfth Night, he was a stickler for sticking to the words as the Bard penned them. Everything else, though, was up for grabs as he and screenwriter Andrew Bannerman shifted and intercut scenes and in general translated the play into the all-encompassing language of film. In this program, members of the cast and crew use snippets of the screenplay to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this program, Channel 4 commissioning editor John Richmond, producer Rachel Gesua, director Tim Supple, screenwriter Andrew Bannerman, and members of the cast and crew talk about the business of making a modest TV adaptation of Twelfth Night. Step by step, they walk viewers through scripting; budgeting for talent, crew, cameras, sound, sets, blue screen, lighting, and costuming; casting...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program studies the art that underlies the craft of filmmaking-a painstaking process that culminates in the take, that shared moment of concentration when everything comes together. Twelfth Night director Tim Supple and his first assistant director, production designer, director of photography, costume designer, stunt coordinator, and others offer their insights into set design, the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Computers are changing everything, including filmmaking. This program illustrates the digital postproduction process through numerous editing examples taken from Twelfth Night. Key crew members-a film editor, sound designer, sound recording engineer, digital effects artist, and others-share their expertise with setting the film's pace and rhythm, constructing sequences with different types of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Over the course of a single year at the RSC, 150 actors play 500 different roles, each requiring authentic period costuming and makeup. In this remarkable program, master costumers and makeup artists demonstrate their crafts as expressed in productions of The Tempest, Measure for Measure, and Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy. How does cleverly designed clothing help make Pompey more arrogant...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: It can take more than 100 specialists working 8,000 hours to create the set for a single stage production. How is it done? In this extraordinary program, the dynamic process of set design for RSC productions of Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, and Measure for Measure is described by the people who make it all happen. From creating a full-size tree for Benedick to climb that can be removed...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Viewed by many as the preeminent dramatist of our time, Nobel laureate Harold Pinter was also an accomplished actor, steeped in the relationship between text and performance. In this program, produced two years prior to his death, he advises a group of actors as they conduct staged readings of scenes from his plays. In addition, Pinter grants a candid and detailed interview, accompanied by his...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: The theater familiar to most modern viewers had a lowly medieval birth-in churches, on festival platforms, and in the great halls of the European nobility. Hosted by Professor Richard Beacham of King's College London, this program weaves together elaborate visual tours and the latest scholarly research, surveying the evolution of Elizabethan and Renaissance stage formations and the conventions...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Men playing the stage roles of women is as old as the history of theater; in the tradition of Kabuki, the portrayal of female characters has become a tradition of its own. This program looks at the history of Kabuki and the role of women, and looks particularly at the dynastic development of the onnagata-the female impersonator-and the intricate techniques and details by which a thoroughly...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: During the English Civil War, London's theaters were closed by Parliament, and many were destroyed by Cromwell. During the Restoration, new playhouses, built to stage the probing social comedies of the era, were shaped by changes in English drama, politics, and society. We learn how the Parisian tennis court theaters, attended by the court in exile of Charles II, influenced the new London...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Geared specifically to educators and produced by a working drama teacher, this program offers practical, hands-on guidance for creating an original high school musical. Viewers learn six essential components and ten key steps to writing and staging a production that entertains, engages, and boosts ticket sales! Designed for step-by-step viewing, the video is divided into two main...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Staging a successful play takes time, energy, and wisely used resources-whether the production is on Broadway or at a high school. This program shows how to select an appropriate script for a student theater group and produce the play in an organized, efficient manner. Viewers receive information on casting, planning and conducting rehearsals, and how to utilize the strengths and limitations of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: From the Greeks to the present, this program explores the evolution of play structure, staging techniques, and acting styles. Viewers learn about the following innovations, movements, and artistic figures: the open air amphitheater and its central role in the work of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; the use of the chorus and masks; the role of theater in ancient Roman society; morality and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: The American Repertory Theater is one the most respected and innovative dramatic institutions in the United States. Through the prism of the A.R.T., this program explores the organizational and creative challenges facing today's theater community and describes the flexibility and resilience arts groups must have to survive in today's cultural climate. F. Murray Abraham, Debra Winger, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: For biographer Michael Holroyd, playwright George Bernard Shaw is practically an alter ego. Using archival footage and Holroyd's painstaking detective work, this intriguing program questions the extent to which Shaw's life and art fed upon each other, addressing issues including the effects of the triangle between his father, his mother, and Vandeleur Lee on his plays, as seen in Misalliance...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program covers the purpose, design, and uses of the ekkyklema for showing the victims and perpetrators of off-stage violence; the deus ex machina, a crane mechanism to suspend gods above the stage; Charonian steps, for ghosts from the underworld; and other means of entrance and exit. It also explains the reasons for New Comedy, its audience, and its physical requirements.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Beginning with the most rudimentary of theaters-an open plot of ground which the Greeks called a theatron or "seeing space"-this program illustrates in stunning detail how that idea evolved over the centuries. Professor Richard Beacham of King's College London guides viewers through the Theatre of Epidaurus and the Lycurgian, Hellenistic, and Roman manifestations of the Theatre of Dionysus. The...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the 50 years separating Aeschylus from the later works of Euripides, theater changed: plays had been performed in honor of the god Dionysus and for the enjoyment of spectators; now they were targeted at spectators who took pleasure in the spectacle itself. Where once the text itself set the stage and described the scene, sets came into use-at first to stimulate imagination, later to imitate...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program looks at the theatres of Herodus Atticus, Epidauros, Corinth (where Arion is said to have taught the dithyramb), and many others to explain the design of the ancient theater, the synthesis of art forms that was ancient Greek drama, the origins of tragedy, the audience in classical times, the comparative roles of writer/director and actors, and the use of the surrounding landscape...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005