I went to see Nimal cutting at home on Saturday. He’s got a lovely set up and nice house with great AVID – although he’s had some technical trouble and has had to transfer the rushes to the hard disk.
We looked at the beginning of scene 14 where Zeus and the nymph are having hanky panky in the reeds. I hadn’t shot enough of a reaction from Echo to Zeus and the action is a bit obscure, although I think this is partly because we weren’t thinking of the 3 screens. With Hera on the left, I think Zeus’s gesture (shhh!) to Echo will be readable, but it’s not reading on a single screen, and NImal has put in a different close up of Echo looking around, which I think is even more distracting. Nimal has cut it following on immediately from the song, and I’ve asked him to put a fade to black on, when Hera comes to earth, in order for the audience to be drawn to the ceiling screen, and then pick up what is happening on the surrounding screens.
The action happens so fast that it will be impossible for anyone to follow, and this fade to black follows John Adams’s finding with his installation, that the audience can be directed with such dissolves.