The Army Of Noise

Well this is a bit late as the show is over. I photographed the play but then I had to shoot off on holiday, sorrrrrry (not really 🙂 )

The Army of Noise is a fantastic new play from James Shaw, Creative director of Click Creative. A mixture of traditional theatre, puppetry and 3D projection mapping with live music provided by DJ Rasp.

In a previous blog I reported how I had photographed an early rehearsal session Rehearsals and I was amazed at that stage by the teams ingenuity. They were still figuring stuff out and I mentioned that there seemed to be a bond already between the actors and the puppets. Well it was simply amazing to turn up on the opening night and capture the real thing. Absolute genius, these guys have some vision – and skilz

Asher is a disruptive child, a selective mute who always seems to be in trouble. He has a social worker who despairs of him and she fixes him up with some ‘work experience’ at D-Rums record store. D-Rum gives the lad some (magic) record decks and Asher’s journey starts.

Asher gets a little counselling from his social worker

D-Rum presents asher with a set of magic decks

D-Rum might be getting on a bit but……….

she still has a few moves

Meetings with his own inner demons Claws and Vo-Cal, and a meeting with another character, mental saxophonist, B-Low, wake Asher up to the fact that he has a talent and he gains the confidence to use it putting on a show for the school.

Claws pays Asher a visit

B-Low gives Asher a little advice

B-Low shows Asher a few moves (there was a little ad lib going on here)

Asher is visited at night by his own monsters but they help him fight his demons and find himself

Asher kicks off the threat of Claws – his own inner demon and goes on to find Vo-Kal

Asher meets Vo-Kal and releases her tied lips to reveal the sweetest voice

After practising on the decks Asher discovers that he has talents! His passion and love for music explode and he knows what he wants to do.

Asher manages to convince his social workers that he can do this. He wants to put on a show for the School.

Here’s a turn up for you. Asher who I’m sure you all know, probably for all the wrong reasons!

Is going to put on a show. Give it up for Asher

And with the help of DJ Rasp he does just that…….. turns in a fantastic set.

All in all it was a great show, with a great message too. The audience really enjoyed themselves and DJRasp on the decks was something else.

But – and this is the big bit – you missed it! I don’t even know if this is possible but if you are running some kind of summer event thing and need to entertain groups of families and kids………. Get them to dig the puppets out and re-run the show. It certainly deserves another showing.

Photographic stuff: All the images show were captured on a Olympus EM1 and Em5 micro four thirds camera. During the rehearsal shoot I could move around and was able to use off camera flash with Damian McGillicuddy modifiers.

For the live shoot I had to stay put and just use the stage lights so these were shot mostly on shutter speed priority with ISO varying up to, I dunno,  3200, something like that. The silent mode on the EM1 was certainly useful during the performance. Lenses were the pro 12-40 f2.8 zoom and the 45mm f1.8 prime.