In January 2023, Keith McLaren, the depositor of the Miniature Stage Lighting visited the Theatre Collection to show us how the Miniature Stage Lighting worked and to give an insight into how the equipment could be used.
The Miniature Stage Lighting was deposited in October 2022 and has been catalogued as BTC334 Miniature Stage Lighting. It is equipment designed and made by Robert Stanbury who taught stage lighting to theatre design students at the Wimbledon College of Art in the late 1950s until the mid-1960s. He also made equipment for people including the eminent lighting designers Michael Northen and Richard Pilbrow and companies such as the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company. This particular equipment was ordered by Rae Hammond who was General Manager of the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham and is generally for use with 1:24 theatre design models although the equipment is larger for practical reasons. The lighting includes a control desk and several luminaires.
I worked with a colleague who took photographs of the individual parts and the process of setting them up for use. I took notes of the steps and advice, and I am creating a guide for future staff to use the equipment. We hope that our work will enable future generations to access and use the Miniature Stage Lighting in an informed way.
The process included building the stand, connecting the control desk to the mains, and connecting the luminaires to the control desk. Trial and error were needed such as to find out which lamp was connected to which dial on the control desk and the depositor gave us advice about common problems. Some of these included wires touching the body of the lamp and dirty contacts (the parts on the control desk used to assign a lamp to the left or right control dial).
I originally invited Keith to the session thinking that we would light a set model. However, he said he found this idea interesting because you don’t generally aim to light the set directly, apart from possibly motivating light (sunlight, moonlight etc.), rather relying on incidental “bounce light” from actor light. We ran out of time anyway!
The Theatre Collection also holds other items relating to lighting including collections such as BTC 155 Michael Northern Collection. Michael Northen (1921 – 2001) was the first credited Lighting Designer in the UK and his work on “The Mousetrap” can still be seen in the West End today. The JD Joe Davis Archive contains the archive of Lighting Designer Joe Davis (1912 – 1984). There is also a Mander & Mitchenson Collection reference box for lighting & sound. In addition, individual items such as lighting plots, plans and diagrams can be found within many of the other collections held at the Theatre Collection and there is a lighting section in the Theatre Collection library.
If you have archives relating to lighting (or any other aspect of professional British theatre or live art) that you would be interested in donating, please have a look at our ‘finding a home for your records’ page. You may also be interested in finding out more about caring for your records.
If you are interested in finding out more about theatre lighting, then please have a look at our catalogue and read more about visiting us.
Keith with the Miniature Stage Lighting. Copyright: University of Bristol Theatre Collection
Hello, my name is Violet, and I’m a third year student in the Theatre and Performance Department here at Bristol. One of the final year units is ‘Professional Development in Theatre and Performance’, for which students work in partnership with a professional or community organisation to develop their professional skills on a specific project. I chose to work with the Theatre Collection, as an Artist-in-Residence, to create a performance piece based on archives and archival research.
As a third-year Theatre & English student, I’ve been lucky enough to take several units that utilised the archives and knowledge of the Theatre Collections staff. During my degree course, I have looked into the set design for productions of Chekhov’s The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard in ‘Performance Histories’, statoscopes in ‘Immersive and Site-Specific Theatre’ and even a clown costume, believed to be worn by Harry Payne, in ‘Clowning through History’. I was mesmerised by the physical fragments from the past, and the exciting process of research-informed investigation into the greater context of the item and its relation to theatre. These items preserved the liveness and creativity of performance, which is inextricably linked to the theatre makers and the projects they were produced for. This sparked my interest in contacting the Theatre Collection to ask if I could have my placement with the team to learn about archiving, freelancing as an artist and exploring what creative and performative ideas could be inspired by materials in the Collection.
My own interest in theatre is rooted in design. I have experimented with designing set, costume, prop and makeup in theatre units, student productions and my own performance as a drag artist. Most of my previous work revolves around creating dynamic and intriguing performance spaces, experimenting with the bounds of absurdity and authenticity in costume and makeup artistry, and exploring the tension between exaggerated scale and practicality in props.
Photographer: Yamuna ShuklaPhotographer: Charley WilliamsPhoto by Moonshine Photographer
Before I pursue a postgraduate degree in performance design, I’m taking time to explore various avenues of artistry. As my interest was piqued by my previous encounters with the Collection’s archival materials, so I was intrigued to develop my own artistic practice, informed by researching designers and live art practitioners.
During the first month of my placement, I have taken my time to grasp the historical and contemporary works of live art, such as the work of Ian Smith, Nan Hoover and Crystal Theatre of the Saint. By investigating their creative process, promotional material, and recordings of their performances – with the support of the Theatre Collection team – I have built a foundation of archive research skills to begin my own process of producing a live art performance in early May. Please do look out for updates, as I will be posting regular blogs to show what archive items and artist influences have inspired me, the progression of my creative process and reflections on my placement with the Theatre Collection.
WhenIan’s Smith archive was donated to the Theatre Collection (TC) in 2020, it arrived with laser scans of his studio captured in 2018-19. Ian’s studio was much more than a place of work. It was like an artwork in itself that reflected Ian’s practices and artistic concerns, the interior including Ian’s collections of books, LPs, model toys and furniture, all carefully arranged and displayed. Ian died in 2014, but it had felt important to create a record of this space to put with his archive.
Ian Smith’s studio photographed by Malcolm Brown
It was the first accession at the TC to include these types of digital files and it really started us thinking about 3D data and asking questions about how we preserve and facilitate access to these files. Since then, we have also started to 3D capture objects within our collections, raising even more questions and queries about the data produced at the point of capture.
Thanks to The National ArchivesArchive Testbed Fund, we held a three day event using the ‘book sprint’ format to explore some of the questions that we have surrounding 3D data capture and preservation, using Ian’s studio as our case study. The idea of a ‘book sprint’ is to produce a collaborative piece of writing in a short period of time and in our case, we wanted to produce a basic in-house guidance document (Starting with 3D Data) that would help us develop principles, workflows and procedures for managing 3D data. We wanted to share this guidance with the wider archive community, as we hope it will provide a starting point for non-specialised archive services, who, like us at the TC, are meeting the challenges of managing 3D data for the first time.
We gathered a group of people together to take part with a variety of different expertise and experience in 3D data capture and preservation including:
Sam Brenton, Digital Archives Assistant, University of Bristol
Malcolm Brown, Deputy Photographer, Cultural Heritage Digitisation Service, University of Edinburgh (created the 3D scans of Ian Smith’s studio in a freelance capacity)
Sarah Bustamante-Brauning, Digitisation Officer, University of Bristol Theatre Collection
Catherine Dack, Research Support Librarian, University of Bristol
Angie Dight, Director and Co-founder of Mischief La-Bas, wife of the artist Ian Smith whose studio was scanned in 3D
Stephen Gray, Head of Research Support, Library Services University of Bristol
Emma Hancox, Digital Archivist, University of Bristol
Kieron Niven, Digital Archivist, Archaeology Data Service, University of York
Sean Rippington, Digital Archives and Copyright Manager, University of St Andrews
Julian Warren, Keeper: Digital and Live Art Archives University of Bristol Theatre Collection
Sian Williams, Project Archivist: Ian Smith Archive, University of Bristol Theatre Collection
This blog focuses on the three key discussion areas we addressed each of the three days of the sprint that helped us develop our 3D data guidance document, Starting with 3D Data.
Day 1: Data Creation
As Ian’s studio was our case study, we asked Angie to introduce us to his studio and guide us around the space with the photographs that were captured by Malcolm in 2018-19.
Angie talking us through Ian’s studio
Ian Smith (1959-2014) was an artist, performer and artistic director, founding the acclaimed Glasgow-based performance company,Mischief La-Bas, with his wife, Angie in 1992. As Angie explained, Ian, as a child of the 1950s and influenced by his older brother, loved 50s pop culture, was captivated by David Bowie and saw no divide between high art and low art. His studio, ‘The Den’ was his thinking and ideas place, and it really encapsulated his eclectic collecting and creativity. His artistic creations, known as ‘Pulptures’, described by Ian as ‘like sculptures but not as good’ adorn the walls and models of characters from film and TV, including his own bastardised creations, line the shelves.
Ian’s studio became the springboard for our all discussions, but in terms of data creation it helped us to address the fundamental questions:
Why capture in 3D? In terms of Ian’s studio, it was part of the WASP Artist Collective of studio spaces in Glasgow, so it would not have been possible to preserve his studio in situ in perpetuity. As described by Malcolm, the studio was like “stepping inside someone’s head”, as it really captured Ian’s personality and creativity. As Malcolm recognised at the time, there was a compelling case for not only capturing the space in 2D, but also to experiment with 3D capture. Although 2D can capture detail, laser scanning presents the possibility of capturing the space as a whole, its scale and relationships between objects.
As with Ian’s studio, Malcolm recognised the value of capturing the studio in 3D, but it was agreed there should always be a criteria for 3D capture. In terms of preservation, there is limited argument for scanning robust objects. Items should be prioritised for scanning based on a preservation need i.e. objects made inherently of material that degrades quickly and therefore require minimal handling or spaces/objects which may no longer exist. At the TC we hold many set models, which were only ever made with the intention of being temporary. The models are particularly vulnerable to damage with multiple and often fragile moving parts, but are high-use objects by researchers and teaching groups. In these cases, there is a clear need to 3D capture and create a digital surrogate, as 3D models can be manipulated in ways the original set model cannot be due to risk of damage.
How do you capture 3D? Ian’s studio was captured by LiDAR or laser scanning, which uses light waves to calculate distance and is often used for larger spaces. We explored other methods of 3D capture including photogrammetry, structured light and a hybrid version of both, as well as the challenges of each and different considerations depending on the method of capture, including cost implications and equipment requirements.
Day 2: File Formats and Metadata
To ascertain what file formats we should be requesting at the point of deposit and what metadata should be captured and recorded, we heard from those in the group with experience of 3D capture, so we could understand the process in more detail. Using worked examples, we looked at photogrammetry with 3D models of objects including set models. We explored the challenges at point of capture i.e. difficulties with using a green screen and white objects on white background, what files to keep (DNG, TIFF) and creating a mesh to produce a 3D model.
Book sprint discussions
Ian’s studio was LiDAR scanned to experiment capturing the space beyond 2D, but it was not processed at the time into a usable 3D model. In terms of future deposits, it would be more likely that the depositor would produce a 3D model as the final product, as this would be the primary aim of capturing the space/object. We are currently experimenting with the files of Ian’s studio to see if we can produce a workable model, and you can see how far we’ve got on Sketchfab.
What file formats and metadata should we have asked for at the point of deposit? In archival terms, we want to preserve the raw data with minimal intervention at the point of capture. But as our discussions highlighted, there is difficulty in this with 3D capture in terms of what is considered the raw data, as there is a lot of process involved in capturing and creating usable models. In order to access the data it requires a process to create a model by creating a mesh. This often requires the use of proprietary software. We would therefore want to ask the depositor for their raw files (whatever they might consider that to be), as well as an access copy of the finished 3D model that the depositor is happy with i.e. a meshed OBJ file.
In terms of metadata, it was helpful to hear about the Archaeology Data Service, and what we can learn from archaeologists, who regularly capture 3D data. The Archaeology Data Service already has a set of principles in terms of what metadata is requested from the depositor, which will help to develop our own set of principles. We started to consider what questions we should have asked for at the point of deposit of Ian’s studio scans, such as:
Reason for capture and additional context
What type of device was used
What software was used
Copyright holder information i.e. person who has made the decisions in the scanning process, as well as the objects that are included in the scans
Image of the equipment setup and colour capture
Accurate measurements of the space/object
Location where scan taken
Number of points of capture
Capture date
How many scans within the model
How the files are structured and arranged
Day 3: Audiences and Access
With such innovative potential for 3D data, we discussed our audiences and how we could make the 3D data accessible to them.
Currently the TC is introducing the digital preservation platform, Preservica, but due to early development and lack of demand for a 3D viewer on the platform, its viewer remains fairly rudimentary at the moment. We therefore discussed the need to use a temporary platform to access the 3D models in the meantime. However, in using these platforms such as Sketchfab and 3DHOP, there are of course cost implications, as well as considerations with ownership and licensing in addition to the increased amount of time and resources required for the processing to produce accessible 3D models. Using these platforms could potentially drive more traffic to our catalogue, but in using multiple platforms to making our digital models accessible this way we would need to ensure that the relationship with the catalogue is maintained. As always with archives, we are thinking about the future and whether these platforms will exist or be usable in the long term, reinforcing the archival reasons for preserving the raw data.
These discussions that took place over the book sprint event have fed into our guidance document for the TC. We will use this document as a reference point as we start to build our procedures and workflows for dealing with 3D data. Just as Ian’s studio encouraged us to start exploring 3D data, we hope our guidance document may be a useful starting point for any non-specialised archive service looking to explore 3D data capture and preservation.
Theatre is a collaborative art form. It takes a whole team of people to take a play from page to stage. All too often though, we only pay attention to the people performing onstage. Those who work backstage go unseen by the audience, and it is difficult to know just what they do, and what career opportunities exist.
Using Bristol Old Vic’s archives held at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection, Making A Scene (funded by the Museums Association Digital Innovation and Engagement fund) aims to fill this knowledge gap by giving young people across Bristol the chance to peek behind the curtain….
These blogs, written by staff involved in the project from the University of Bristol Theatre Collection, Bristol Old Vic and Zubr, a Bristol based Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality studio, are a behind the scenes look at the process of creating this behind the scenes resource.
After months of Making A Scene existing only in our imaginations, shared google documents, and thousands of emails, by the middle of March we were finally ready to begin testing.
Members of Bristol Old Vic Young Company testing ‘Making A Scene’, March 2022
Our testing phase was crucial for two reasons.
First: we needed to stress-test the hardware. Would the app crash halfway through the activity? Would the AR tracking work in brightly lit classrooms and in dimly lit rehearsal rooms? Would our accompanying paper archive ‘book’ resource disintegrate immediately in the hands of energetic teenagers?
Second: we needed to see whether the content was any good. We loved what we’d made, but would our target audience? Would they enjoy designing their own scenes? Would they have a greater understanding of different backstage careers at the end of the session?
I was more apprehensive about the latter of the two reasons, and walking into OASIS Academy Brislington ahead of our first workshop did little to calm my nerves. It suddenly felt like a long time ago that I was a teenager! Luckily, most of my worries were unfounded. The app worked and the response from the 37 students who trialled it was overwhelmingly positive. They described it as ‘fun, interactive, and interesting’. As we’d hoped, it helped them learn about the ‘different kinds of jobs you can get under drama’, and gave them ideas about possible future careers.
My favourite piece of feedback came from the student who said it showed them ‘that there is more than just actors and director jobs in theatre’. Everything we wanted to achieve with Making A Scene distilled into a single sentence! Throughout the next couple of months we delivered further testing workshops to University of Bristol Theatre and Performance Students, members of Bristol Old Vic’s Young Company, and students taking part in an IntoUniversity holiday, amongst others. These went similarly well, and also gave us a lot of food for thought as to how the workshop activities might be developed.
Members of Bristol Old Vic Young Company testing ‘Making A Scene’, March 2022
What we found most interesting was how every group interacted with the resource in a completely different way. OASIS Academy students were more interested in expressing their own creativity than following a brief or working to a budget. They also worked collaboratively as a group rather than taking on a specific role as we had suggested. Comparatively, University of Bristol students found the individual role and budgeting elements the most compelling part of the resource. Based on our experience at OASIS, we originally gave the Primary aged IntoUniversity students complete creative free reign, but we found that they responded far better to being given a specific brief to respond to. When they presented back to us at the end of the session we were blown away by how confidently they were able to articulate and explain their different design choices and how well they had understood their briefs. We had less time with the Bristol Old Vic Young Company workshop, so we had thought we needed to focus on the AR app, but many of them gravitated towards looking through the physical archive ‘book’ regardless and wanted to spend more time with that.
Our learning from these iterative test-phase workshops has led to the process of implementing the following changes:
Creating a more tailored workshop offer. As mentioned, each group we trialled the resource with responded to different elements of it. While we had originally imagined creating a single workshop for practitioners and teachers to deliver, we quickly realised we were going to need several different versions. As well as secondary school students and our target audience of young adults, it would be good to have a workshop we could also adapt for use by primary schools. We’d also need a workshop for students who had prior knowledge of theatre and a workshop for students with no knowledge at all; a workshop we could deliver in 45 minutes and a workshop we could take over 90 minutes – 2 hours. A major piece of learning for all of us, has been to embrace the fact that there is no single way to use the resource. Our role as practitioners is to encourage creativity and autonomy rather than seeking to hinder it by putting unnecessary rules and guidelines in place.
We need to give the accompanying physical book equal status and importance. We gave priority to testing the functionality of the AR app during the testing workshops for reasons of time. In the final workshops we need to be clear and intentional about allocating time for everyone to interact with the physical resources properly and to give them equal weight and importance. This will be particularly important where groups have less prior knowledge about theatre, as spending time reading through the different role bios and looking through the contextualising documents will provide vital context. A University of Bristol student who didn’t get a chance to look at the accompanying book asked for exactly this in their feedback, writing: “More information about the actual roles would be helpful.” Linked to this, we need to think carefully about the materiality of the ‘book’, choosing a paper that is both durable and robust enough to withstand multiple workshops but which also retains an authentic archival feel.
Adding a glossary. During workshops we were often asked to define or explain certain theatrical terms. To help practitioners with this going forward we are compiling a glossary for the back of the book.
Removing sound. During the R&D we devoted a lot of time to trying to solve the ‘sound problem’. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any paper assets, like a sound cue list or a musical score (none were in the archive for this Babes In The Wood production) to incorporate alongside the sound designer role description that’s been included in the accompanying book. We also didn’t have any of the original sound files to download to the app alongside the 3D-scanned model box pieces and costume designs. At the eleventh hour we came up with a compromise solution of creating some tactile touch tiles, which allowed users to ‘cue’ sound effects similar to those which would have been used in the production based on our reading of the prompt script. Our hope was that they would give users a taster of what operating a sound desk is like. We trialled the tiles during the workshops and unfortunately they weren’t a success. On a practical level they could not be made loud enough to be heard in a busy classroom or workshop space. On a creative level, limiting users’ sound options to five short sound effects hindered their creativity and ability to make independent decisions about how their scene should run. By the end of the testing phase of workshops we came to the conclusion that it would be best to remove sound altogether.
AR app tweaks: The ipad cameras had trouble picking up the AR tracking images on the black background we had originally picked out, leading to images not triggering correctly or flickering in and out of view. In between workshops, Zubr experimented with several different colour options before settling on a white and blue combination in time for the final testing workshop. The difference to the stability of the app was immediately noticeable.
AR Tracking Images
Zubr are also going to incorporate some additional elements directly requested by users into the app. These include including a ‘recycling bin’ for items longer necessary on stage (users having eyes too big for their stomachs and ending up with horribly crowded stages was a recurrent theme during each workshops…), and the ability to bring back characters ‘disappeared’ down trapdoors.
Being given the time to do a lengthy and rigorous testing stage, encompassing different age groups, locations and workshop lengths, has been vital to the success of the project. The feedback we’ve received and are now acting on will ensure that ‘Making A Scene’ is a truly user centred resource; one created in collaboration with our target audience in the fullest sense of the word, rather than in a tokenistic way as projects for young people often are. I’m incredibly excited to get started on implementing all the changes discussed above and have the resource ready for general use next month. We’ve been overwhelmed by the demand for a practical careers focused resource from local schools, especially with work experience season coming up.
Theatre is a collaborative art form. It takes a whole team of people to take a play from page to stage. All too often though, we only pay attention to the people performing onstage. Those who work backstage go unseen by the audience, and it is difficult to know just what they do, and what career opportunities exist.
Using Bristol Old Vic’s archives held at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection, Making A Scene (funded by the Museums Association Digital Innovation and Engagement fund) aims to fill this knowledge gap by giving young people across Bristol the chance to peek behind the curtain….
These blogs, written by staff involved in the project from the University of Bristol Theatre Collection, Bristol Old Vic and Zubr, a Bristol based Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality studio, are a behind the scenes look at the process of creating this behind the scenes resource.
‘Making a Scene’ is my ideal project. It draws together the three stages of my own career (if you’ll pardon the pun): theatre, collections and digital interpretation. It’s also been a wonderful opportunity to collaborate again with the Theatre Collection, Bristol Old Vic and Zubr. We first worked together on the Window to the Past app and since then I’ve left Bristol Old Vic’s engagement team to work for Zubr, so this project has been something of a reunion despite a few role changes!
With an established partnership from the get-go, developing the ‘Making a Scene’ app has been a real opportunity to flex our creative muscles and design a playful and hands-on AR experience. We knew we wanted to make an app which retained and celebrated the physicality of collections despite being delivered through AR technology, and after two years of isolated, online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was also important to us to create an experience that encouraged teamwork and discussion.
In September 2021 we hosted a concept meeting for the project team at Zubr’s Studio to test some of Zubr’s past projects and discuss our initial ideas for the app. We wanted it to be fun but age-appropriate. Aimed at 16-25 year olds interested in offstage careers, the content couldn’t be too gamified or simplistic. With this in mind, we agreed to design an AR ‘pop-up book’ that users could scan with an iPad to cause 3D models of objects from the Theatre Collection to appear above the page. Users could then select different models and combine them to create sets for selected scenes from our chosen production: Babes in the Wood, 2000.
Following the concept meeting, our Graphic Designer Miriam used recent lighting plans and CAD drawings supplied by Bristol Old Vic to inform the branding and set the stage for the app. The lilac, blue, yellow and black colour palette references backstage elements like gaffa tape, the glow of a sound desk, and the soft velvet of blackout cloths, whilst the app logo is a modern take on the classic theatre mask motif.
After confirming the branding, Miriam created mock ups for the experience which showed Theatre Collection and Bristol Old Vic staff what we were aiming to achieve. Next she designed the user interface for the app, working with our developers to ensure users could intuitively navigate the app. Miriam then used photoshop to cut out over 80 digitised 2D designs from the Bristol Old Vic archive at the Theatre Collection so they could be included as chooseable assets in the app.
Our Creative Director Chris advised Theatre Collection Photography and Digitisation Officer Sarah on how best to capture the model box pieces, exploring photogrammetry techniques and suggesting different settings and post-production software. Sarah then sent us the 3D models she captured, and our 3D modeller Joe prepared them for inclusion in the app. This involved reducing polycounts, removing green screen tinges, fixing holes, smoothing and scaling, adding lost details back in, making texture adjustments, and general clean up.
Whilst we waited for the 3D models, our developer Jake began building the app interface and screens based on the mock ups and UI designs Miriam had made. He incorporated text and instructions I’d written to inform users about the experience, and built different functions including a spotlight effect which highlights the asset users have selected; a budget tracker so users can see what each asset would cost and how much they’ve spent; different special effects; a carousel that shows different backdrops; and put all 2D assets onto vertical planes so they could be positioned in 3D space. Once the 3D models were ready, Jake added them into the app and began testing. Here’s a film of the app in its early stages, shot in the office carpark!
The app lets you choose characters, backdrops, set pieces, and props, see them in miniature, then scale them up to lifesize so you can walk around inside and among them. We then added special effects and lighting to really bring the AR content to life, and give you a taste of being a theatre technician.
Meanwhile Miriam was designing the layout for the book which contained further digitised archival material, instructions, and the tracking images which allow the app to interact with the book. She designed the tracking images in the same style as the app branding, transforming relevant designs and plans into colourful, high contrast images that an iPad camera could pick up.
As a project manager, my role has involved content decisions about the app structure and features, maintaining momentum on the project, informing Theatre Collection and Bristol Old Vic staff on progress, and lots of testing!
‘Making a Scene’ has been a true team effort and we’re really pleased with how the project has been developing. The app is being tested in demo workshops and being able to support the Theatre Collection and Bristol Old Vic staff at these and see people using the app is proving a very rewarding, and an effective way of working out what still needs tweaking.
The final result will be a playful experience rooted in real-life decision making and delivered through genuine archival material realised in AR. It’s a very unique use of augmented reality, but we’ve already had several commercial companies interested in something similar for exhibition, TV/film sets or festival builds. Despite (or perhaps because of?) its panto-theme, ‘Making a Scene’ is on its way to becoming an ideal tool for those wanting to dip a toe into the world of backstage theatre careers.
AR Tracking Images
