Inventing the “Flay” (Movie/Play) with Campo Santo

Star: The concept of the “flay” (a portmanteau of “movie” and “play”) didn’t come till we had the footage. We went in to movie the play, and the soundstage was going to imitate a theatre set. I virtually forgot that, on prime of all the pieces else, the actors have been twelve ft aside on these double units. For the final two years that we’ve been modifying with Thayer Walker and Christopher Sauceda, we have now been simply trying on the movie the place the photographs of the 2 units are merged and each actors are in a single body. I felt overwhelmed.

What was the preliminary plan, and the way did that shift over these three weekends?

Sean: November 2020

Joan: Weekends solely.

Sean: Seven days whole. That’s loopy, man.

Joan: The election occurring.

Star: COVID, the 2020 election.

Joan: Bananas.

Sean: At first we have been like, “It is a filmed play.” Stylistically, we have been taking a look at who on PBS [Public Broadcasting Service] has executed attention-grabbing renderings of efficiency. And we weren’t making an attempt to trick individuals into saying we’re filmic. Then, as soon as we obtained within the house, it shifted to a sitcom sort of vibe. It’s one set, two or three cameras that keep the identical. So how will we take advantage of that? And that’s not a nasty factor when you have got Star Finch’s writing.

I’m nonetheless amazed by the actors, by the crew that we set to work with. Blown away by anybody that would deal with your language. But it surely was wonderful to do a chunk that you simply primarily couldn’t rehearse. “Oh, we did this Zoom rehearsal factor.” Kiss my ass, that’s not rehearsing. Particularly the best way we do it as a crew. We learn our performs, I feel, greater than most performs get to be learn. For Facet Results, we didn’t even have that pure rhythm.

I used to be shocked by the crew exhibiting up on this fucking warehouse, full of tension, after which going, “Okay, do some shit that we’ve by no means executed earlier than.” It was very a lot a brand new frontier, which didn’t really feel as thrilling as new frontier sounds. In my mind the entire time I used to be going, “Document all of it, after which see what occurs. So long as we get all of it, then we will work magic with individuals who work on this factor known as post-production—which we had by no means executed earlier than.

Star: Joan, for sure scenes you began sprinkling your Joanie magic the place the lighting was totally different, you have been inserting your distinctive vibe and taste. Did you propose that forward of time?

It was an actualization of that philosophy that efficiency might be collective in sure regards that we don’t usually have room for in a course of.

Joan: Sean and I pulled aside the script once we have been speaking via design. We have now this shorthand by way of projection/visible design: we all know issues are going to go in some fairly far out, sort of loopy instructions. Then, hastily, we’re in a world the place we’re actively integrating not solely visible concepts however aesthetics into, primarily, a play construction.

We did have an concept of the transitions we needed. Quite a lot of it was actually simply the common interpretation of the script. The place our imaginative and prescient departed from our cleaning soap opera set have been the two-dimensional side-by-side views.

Principally all of us on manufacturing needed to study all of the expertise on the fly, together with the usage of twin cameras, syncing, shade correction, and lighting—which was not theatrical lighting. It was for broadcast. You give instruments to a bunch of inventive individuals, and so they do some bizarre stuff with it.