Gorgeous Avatar by Jules Horne

Production Pyrotechnics... Gavin Harding

Gavin Harding
Production Manager

Gavin just happens to stay in the beautiful Border village of Yetholm, just a few miles from my front door - and the venue for the opening night of the Gorgeous Avatar tour (how cool is that?). But production week finds him not out in the Cheviots, but underground, as the lynchpin of the whole production process. Next to a machine that seems to be printing wallpaper. Yes, wallpaper. Beautiful big flowers for the walls of Amy's cottage. Is there nothing these people can't do?

Q; What does your job involve?
Basically anything to do with the production. You're the welding force in all the departments - wardrobe, sound, elecs, stage management, transport... anything that goes to make up a production is ultimately my responsibility. But I have heads of department who work under me and who organise the smaller and more particular aspects. At the Traverse, with stage management we've got a team of seven, and myself gives eight, so you can understand we're quite busy most of the time.

Q: Where are things at the moment with this production?
We're in production week now. Everything's looking good, but there's an awful lot to do. We're at the stage where we're setting lights, focusing lights, getting ready to be able to plot those this evening. Then tomorrow's the big day when the actors get on stage, we hopefully finish the set and the whole thing has a technical rehearsal. That's extremely important. It's the first time everything - all the go-faster bits - have been welded together. And in this production, there are a lot of technical bits and pieces that we're putting together. So tomorrow's a very important day.

Q: What sort things have been happening while the actors have been in rehearsal?
For example, the chap who's been making the film for us, John [Alder, video artist], which we'll be showing on the screen... obviously has to dovetail, and there have been endless conversations with Philip [Howard, director], myself and Mark [Leese, designer], working out how this might be, how this might look. John has been to rehearsal, he's gone away - he lives in Newcastle - he has to work in an editing suite to get all this material together, he needs to go and make films of various areas - we've been out on locations shoots with him to get the atmosphere right, and also making up the light box with him for the back of the set was all part of that process, because it all has to look as though it all fits. So that's just one element of what we've been doing. But there are all sorts of others, like the set being made - that's been made in Leith about a month before the production. Prior to the production, Mark, Philip and myself met up and decided that the set was good from Mark's model, looked at it, discussed any problems that might bring to us, and then involved the builder, who builds these sets down in Leith, he came on board, and the process is ongoing effectively until the first night. This session of previews that we'll go through on Friday, Saturday and Sunday before Tuesday's opening are all very much 'work in progress', so in a sense if Philip said 'I'm really unhappy about the fireplace' or 'I'm really unhappy about the plasma screen' we in theory could do something about it.

Q: What do you love most about your job?
The things I enjoy most...? It's just this period, when everything suddenly comes together. If you've got it right, it works well. It's very hard work, but it's very exciting, because for the first time ever ever - because it's a new piece - all these elements are coming together to tell this story - the actors, the set, the design work, the lighting... everything is coming together. And that's extremely exciting, it really is.

Q: And scariest, hairiest moment?
Well, I wasn't involved in this, but we did a show called 'Outlying Islands' [by David Greig] and that had a gas-effect fire, which at one point had to explode. We were using plaster dust for this, and it worked brilliantly. And then some very clever ASM ran out of plaster, and he used flour. And as we all know, flour is highly inflammable, and the actor just lost his eyebrows. We were very, very lucky. But that's the sort of thing that, if you're not absolutely vigilant, can happen...

posted by Jules Horne @ 5/03/2006 10:58:00 PM