When we were talking about all the media that the story of Silver Antlers could fit, I mentioned a radio play. A radio play is (and I’m being unfairly general here but stick with me) a movie we watch with our eyes closed. Of course there are certain parts of a story that we can only perceive with our eyes—things like body language—but there are ways to compensate for most of those with words and other sounds.

And that hindrance can also be a boon. If we’re only using our ears to take in a story, we’re paying more attention to what it sounds like than if we were also processing visual information. And with more attention on the words, it can be easier to let the writing grow a few flowers.

A novel, a radio play, a stage play, and a film slide from least to most fully realized before consumption by the audience. Let’s compare:

• A novel’s events unfold entirely in the mind of the audience, and while novels frequently contain dialogue, they also contain written descriptions of the scenery and action of a story. A novel can succeed without any dialogue at all–perhaps unfolding entirely in the mind of the protagonist, if you will.
• A radio play is heard, rather than read. A radio play can be little more than a book read aloud—the medium is related closely enough to the novel that its stories can also eschew dialogue, favoring dictation by a narrator—but a general use of the medium involves multiple actors playing different roles, and sound effects and music to imply action and scenery.
• A play is tangible: the audience hears the cast deliver their own lines, like a radio play, but they also watch the cast interact: another layer of information. Narration is unlikely and scenery is often just implied (a restraint caused by all the action being limited to the physical constraints of a stage), but the dialogue tends to be dense and the physical gestures grand to compensate.
• A film also has tangible actors and audible dialogue, but there’s also far more motion in the audience’s point of view than when they are watching a stage, as the film is captured by a camera that can move anywhere, and shots can cut in and out at will. Scenery rarely needs to be implied and backstory is most often presented in dialogue (or subtext, or not at all)–narration tends to be rare.

Given that list, where do we fit, and what kind of text can we get away with? We have a visual component, but it’s largely static–there’s very little information available in the way of body language. The audience can move like a camera but save for scene breaks, the visual information they’re receiving won’t really change. The cast’s lines will be delivered by a voice outside of the viewer’s imagination, but it will still effectively be disembodied, like a radio play.

It’s an equation that I’ve yet to balance. I’m torn between lush, descriptive narration coupled with simple dialogue (which turns out to be about a minute per scene) and more expressive dialogue with no narration (which is quicker). I’m leaning toward the latter, but I don’t think there’s a right answer here.

I haven’t said all I wanted to say about this topic and my thoughts are fairly unorganized, but this is a good view of how these decisions are relating to each other in my mind. I’ve chosen to ignore silent films (and silent plays) for now, as well as graphic novels (and illustrated books), because this spread is already complicated enough, but they’re important points on the (line? graph? form?) we’re plotting. I’ll come back to this after I’ve made some more decisions, and I’d love to know how you feel about the arrangement as well.

Perhaps my most favorite element of the soundtrack for a walkthrough is the freedom of multi-channel audio. Surround sound has been used in movie theaters for decades and many of us even have 5.1 audio in our homes, but a walkthrough’s speaker arrangement is built specifically and exclusively for the scene at hand and can get delightfully complex. There can be a speaker in a character’s mouth that only plays her dialogue. There can be a speaker in a stream that only plays burbling water.

The decisions we make here depend on the decisions we make in our previous step (if there is narration then we probably need speakers overhead in each scene) as well as our scale (in our smallest iteration, the one where the scenes are lit in sequence in a single room, we might have one speaker per scene and one in the center of the space for non-diegetic sound).

These ideas deserve their own post, which you’ll read next week. This week we’re talking about some specifics of the arrangement and layout of our show in my ideal conditions, and we’ll also work out a proper timeline to make this thing real. And of course you’ll see a preview of the next scene. But you won’t hear anything. Yet.

Happy Thanksgiving if you live somewhere that celebrated the holiday yesterday. I sure did, and I still can hardly move, so here’s a simple post for the weekend: a list of all of the things that this production requires, broken down by scene. This list already exists in my head but this is the first time I’m writing it down. It will be very useful.

General notes

• Every scene but 6 takes place in the woods–lots of trees and brush throughout.
• The man wears a cloak over a tunic and tights; the woman wears a loose-fitting dress. They have very similar plain leather shoes.
• Depending on scale, the stag’s antlers will have a dedicated lighting effect that needs to be controlled in each appearance
• If we add motion, all characters will need to be rigged and will require one motor each

Scene 1

• Man, arms raised over head with bow and quiver
• Stag, on hind legs
• (Non-background) tree with shaker motor (?)

Scene 2

• Wife, arms outstretched, one hand pointing, shouting face
• Man, sheepish with bow and quiver
• Hut/hovel

Scene 3

• Man, leaning forward with lantern (controllable light) in upstage hand, probably without bow or quiver (he left them at home?)
• Stag, standing elegantly

Scene 4

• Woman, chicken in downstage arm, long list in upstage hand
• Man, defeated pose, with lantern in same hand as scene 3

Scene 5

• Man, in reverence (almost crouched), holding list from scene 4 in upstage hand
• Stag, leaning forward to read the list
• Royal horse and carriage (with lighting effect?)

Scene 6

• Woman with tall crown on tall throne, angry, leaning forward and pointing
• Man, looking upwards at throne, frightened, pleading
• Armed guard holding man by the elbow
• Long banquet table: turkey, goblets, platters of food
• Stone brick walls, tapestries
• Various attendants, guards, maidens, etc., not animated (or animated as a whole), possibly abstracted

Scene 7

• Man, muddy, wet, begging
• Stag, ferocious, back arched, antlers lit a different color
• Second stag to be used for effect on hind legs
• Fire effect in background
• Practical effect for lightning strike?

Scene 8

• Man with torch
• You’ll see what else.

On Monday we’re going to talk about our soundtrack choices on a theory level: narration, dialogue, music, and sound effects. After Monday, we’re getting technical, and I’m so excited for it.

Silver Antlers is a very simple story. There are eight scenes which alternate between two locations. There are three characters, only two of which are in any given scene, and very few props. When I think about the story, I picture it in many different ways: a walkthrough. A dark ride. A stageplay. A film. A radio play. An illustrated book. A graphic novel. An album. How can I choose just one medium?¹

We’ve already decided that this will be a walkthrough, but even with that chosen, there is lots of freedom. How large will the models be? Will we create full, three-dimensional figures, or “2.5-D” flats, like a pop-up book? Will the scenes be life size? How close in space will they be to each other? Should the guests travel through corridors between scenes, or maybe we’ll put them all in one large space and light them in sequence?

You can probably guess that I’ve imagined every possible combination of these options and more. The absolute simplest incarnation that could possibly satisfy me would be lightbox-style scenes, a few feet wide and maybe six inches deep, arranged in sequence on a long wall. There would be no special light cues—each box might have some small special effects inside it, but the whole space would be lit uniformly. Think of the way paintings are traditionally presented in an art gallery. The narrative would either be played from a small speaker close to each piece or simply written out and mounted on the wall. This would work, but it wouldn’t be too impressive.

The amazing, world-shattering, best-case-scenario-and-then some version would be life-size models in life-size settings, each fitted with its own speaker for an accurate sonic image. They would be space apart by a walk long enough for a bit of music, so that the viewers truly feel the protagonist’s journey. The lights would be cued both to the viewers’ presence and the story: lights up as a scene comes into view, lights down as it ends, and plenty of other effects to represent weather and narrative beats. The characters would also move—not full animatronics, but a head turning here, an arm lifting there. This would be incredible.

Note that even in my wildest dreams, Silver Antlers is not seen from a cart. I love vehicle-based dark rides but they don’t suit this story. It’s all about walking through the woods. I want you to walk through the woods with the characters².

Where do we settle between these two ends of our spectrum? The issue, of course, is money. I’m making a personal investment in this project, and I hope to charge admission as well. (It’ll be modest.) It just comes down to how excited you are. If you’re as excited as me then we’re going to make the big version, no problem. But I can’t know that yet. Yes, there will be a Kickstarter. Soon.

I’ve been looking at event spaces for rent in New York City (where I live). I’ve been pricing lighting equipment and art supplies. I’ve been sliding scale models around. I’m still working on what I think will be a reasonable goal.

Even if my project isn’t backed, this is still going to be real. One of my first middle-of-the-spectrum arrangements is a relatively cheap fallback:

Imagine a space about 12’×16’ with an entrance in the center of one of the short sides. In the center of the space is a large surface, about 4’ square. This is the woods. All four woods scenes will be staged here, as 1:5 scale models, with only one visible per edge of the surface. The other four scenes are flats, mounted one on each wall. Speakers and lights will be threaded in throughout the space and as the soundtrack plays, lights will focus on the scenes in sequence. Rather than a continuous stream of viewers, the work will be experienced by one (small!) group at a time.

Can you see it? That space is my apartment. I want something more grand but one way or another, The Stag with Silver Antlers will be.

We’re going to keep thinking about this as if it’s the full-scale version, both for optimism’s sake and also to figure out just exactly what we’re getting into. The story is fairly set by now, so our conversations are going to start leaning more technically. Next week we’ll talk about our options for the soundtrack. Sound hardly takes up any space at all, so if there’s any sound at all, it’s going to be wonderful.

Have you ever been to Walt Disney World? The Stag with Silver Antlers is an independently-produced walkthrough attraction in the spirit of the Disney dark rides (think Pirates of the Caribbean or anything in Fantasyland).

This is an idea almost ten years in the making. In high school, I began thinking about what it would take to build a theme park. Realizing that such a project was too large to even dream about, I narrowed the concept down to what I considered the most important pieces: themed design, the idea of manufacturing a “natural” environment to evoke a certain mood or feeling; and the dark ride, a story told through a series of dioramas which the audience rolls past in a cart on a rail. Combining these pieces brought me to the walkthrough.

A walkthrough is slower-paced and more immersive than a traditional cart-based dark ride. Because the viewer moves herself through the show, there is more time to consider her surroundings. And there’s more opportunity to turn those surroundings into something worth considering: a major technical reason that dark rides are so dark is to hide the ugly rail mechanisms. But a simple footpath can be beautiful.

I had my medium, but now I needed something to say. Taking another cue from the early Disney productions, I found a copy of Grimms’ Fairy Tales and started reading. I ignored the stories that were already featured in well-known adaptations—“Little Briar-Rose,” “Cinderella”—and soon found one that seemed to have potential: “The Fisherman and his Wife.” It’s a simply-structured tale of a man who accidentally catches a talking fish and a woman who doesn’t know when to accept a good thing.

I mulled over the story for a long time, but the farthest I ever took my idea was a few couplets (in iambic pentameter!) and some experimental websites where I would document my work (heh). The idea slipped away into the back of my head as I started thinking about college.

But it never left. Though I stopped thinking about my fisherman story, I never stopped thinking about designed experiences. Finally, last week, I tried to remember everything I had done with that idea in an effort to work toward it once more, and I haven’t stopped playing with it since.

Lots of details are different. The story follows the same flow as the Grimms’ tale, but I’ve condensed some parts, expanded others, and added nuance and drama where I felt the two were lacking. The fish is now a deer. But I don’t want to give away too much yet!

I have lots to share with you already, and there will be much more as we turn this dream into something real (walkthroughable!) over the next few months. I’ll be working away at this as publicly as I can and sharing new details every Monday.

Next week, we’ll talk about the history of dark rides and other themed attractions. I hope to see you then!