Last week one of my assignments took me to a rehearsal of Thornton Wilder's classic play, Our Town. The young lady, pictured above, played the Stage Manager.
As it was a rehearsal, all kinds of things were going on apart from the action onstage: The lighting personnel were discussing technique, costumers and prop people were running around carrying things, and the actual stage manager (not the character) was barking directions to all. But amidst all the hubbub, this actress stayed in character and delivered her lines.
It made think about how, when I've covered professional tennis players, they demand complete silence and no movement. I suppose it's true that certainly, this actress doesn't have a ball coming at her at 100 miles an hour. But still, I was impressed how she was able to block out everything and deliver.
Often, I'll be in a theater and, when cameras are allowed, I see people in the audience using flash. I guess the automatic features on their camera suggest it. But even from across the room I know they won't be happy with the resulting image on their LCD. If they're too far away, their flash won't reach the stage, but will just light up the backs of the heads in front of them. If they're closer, the flash washes out everything onstage, and you get "soap opera" flat lighting, making the image a far cry from what the play actually looked like.
The trick is to not use flash at all. Think about it: The lighting designer is an expert who has spent time figuring out the most dramatic way to light a performance. Why should I override that?
So I set my camera on manual, with the widest aperture and the slowest shutter speed I can handhold. That lets me get the most light into my camera. I play with the ISO so I don't burn out any areas. Then I wait.
Wait for what? I wait for the actress to move into an area with decent light and a clean background. That works.
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