Making the Image Speak

Athens, 24/11/2018, Workshop, Greg Naughton

Making the Image Speak

Athens, 24/11/2018

Greg Naughton, senior lecturer, Department of Performing Arts, University of Winchester, UK

Workshop 5 hours
The workshop hours are 9:30am-12:00pm and 3:00pm-5:30pm, according to the timetable.
Part of the 2018 ATHENS GREECE INTERNATIONAL THEATRE/DRAMA & EDUCATION CONFERENCE
organised by the Hellenic Theatre/Drama & Education Network (TENet-Gr) 

Language: English

This workshop is designed for people who have little or no experience of making film or using cameras to provide another form of communication that supplements theatre production or stands alone. The workshop addresses the issues of exercising the imagination, practicing visualisation and inventing visual languages that say what you want to say rather than borrowing from existing forms and orthodoxies. The workshop will provide some key basic skills that participants can take with them and apply to whatever context they find themselves in. The workshop does not utilise computer-based editing techniques but rather demonstrates that effective communication through a visual medium can be achieved with only a camera. Each participant will leave with a visual record of the work they have done that may be used to help develop their work independently. In small groups of two or three people, participants will devise some basic scenarios (story-boarding) and film them using edit-in-camera techniques that exercise both imagination and precision. From simple exercise such as ‘making an entrance’, to more complex ‘single shot’ action-based sequences, participants will learn about focus, shot size, shot length, the rhythm of the edit, and effective camera movement. The outcome will be a series of processes that can be employed by anyone to tell stories, to highlight relationships and to express the specific communication needs of the participants.

Greg Naughton is an actor, director and writer. As a collaborator with a Theatre in Education Company in New Zealand, he developed his approach to performance with the formation of the Sun Theatre Company (new works & street theatre) after being invited to work with the National Opera Company as a director, tutor and understudy. In the UK he founded and worked with Youth Theatre and community groups on self-representation, and with several independent film and radio production companies as a freelance producer, director and editor. In 2002, as a University of Winchester Research Fellow, he examined community applications of new media across the U.K. This led to the creation of an undergraduate programme that brought together media production and community participation. A series of public sector research, participatory and promotional projects followed while he ran the MA Theatre & Media as Development. His specialist interests are theatre and media as community development and regeneration, and the personal and political impact of dramatic forms in theatre, film and new media.