It’s been quite a couple of years for Mark Grimmer and Leo Warner, the creative partnership behind audio-visual specialists 59 Productions. One minute they were a couple of graduates who, with like-minded peers, pooled resources beneath a loose-knit umbrella to pursue projects ranging from film-making and design to publishing their own magazine. The next, 59 Productions are being hailed as the most exciting purveyors of video within a theatrical context in the world, are working with national theatres either side of the border, have gigs with New York’s Metropolitan Opera and a diary fit to burst.
As they prepare for an array of projects for 2008 and beyond from the Southside Edinburgh flat that’s currently their base, Grimmer and Warner may be quietly surprised by how things have worked out, but they remain chirpily unfazed. Then again, with their contribution to Marianne Elliot and Tom Morris’ production of War Horse in rep at the National Theatre’s Olivier space, and David McVicar’s production of Salome about to open at the Royal Opera House, they can afford to be.
“We seem to have found ourselves working in opera by accident,” Warner observes. “It seems to be a very small world, and once you’ve done one, it’s very difficult to say no to another one. Especially when people ring you up and say they’re doing this opera in 2015, and ask are you free. Well, what are you supposed to say to that?”
If it’s the 125th anniversary of New York’s Metropolitan Opera house, which is actually in 2009, or a touring revival of Katie Mitchell’s acclaimed production of Waves, again for the National Theatre, the word is something in the affirmative. The last year alone has seen 59 provide panoramic images for English National Opera’s productions of Carmen and Satyagraha – a co-production with the Met and Julian Crouch and Phelem McDermott’s Improbable company – Seven Deadly Sins at the Royal Ballet, and another acclaimed production by Mitchell of Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life. All this and the National Theatre Of Scotland’s production of Black Watch too.
“It’s a really weird situation”, according to Grimmer, “because we’ve gone from spending a lot of time mailing out to theatre companies touting our wares, to the situation where we’re now of possibly having to turn work down. It’s made us have to re-assess how we take work on. Whereas before we might have said yes to things because we weren’t sure where our next work was coming from, now we’re having to try and develop the confidence where we leave holes, and think something will turn up. If it doesn’t, we can only hope that the time we’ve then got gives us the impetus to get up and do something for ourselves.”
It’s a rare position to be in, especially as Grimmer and Warner are now divided through domestic situations between Edinburgh and London. But then, given that 59 was born in York and has now pretty much gone global, their outlook has always been pretty much a 21st century one, morphing through places and identities as part of their natural growth alongside their chosen artistic oeuvre.
An audio-visual designer’s role in theatre isn’t clear cut. Up until recently, outside of companies such as the Wooster Group and other Live Art ensembles, the use of hi-tech audio-visual equipment as an essential component of the creative process has been resisted by the mainstream stage. The UK in particular has relied on a more traditional, directorial approach, and has tended to accommodate video solely for effect.
“A lot of productions have gone down the pan,” according to Warner, “because the director thinks it’d be quite a good idea to have some video, so you go and do all this filming, and then no-one really knows what to do with it. There’s a real history of video totally messing up productions, because the company has this notion that ‘We’ve tried everything, but we’ve got this massive dramaturgical problem, and if we have a massive projection of the guy’s face I’m sure it’ll be alright.’ A film-maker would be commissioned to do something, or a corporate AV company would be hired to do something, and it would cost an absolute fortune because they’d bring in all this expensive equipment that wasn’t needed, but no-one in the theatre would know any better.”
In contrast, 59 have used the fact that most theatres have no AV department to their advantage, building systems out of off-the-shelf components. “Up until about a year ago we were using really cheap, basic kit and trying to use it in a creative way.”
Working at the Metropolitan Opera, however, has changed things.
“We got pretty much everything we asked for,” says Grimmer, “because money was no object. In fact, when we arrive we’ve actually got two of everything we need. That’s all great, but it makes you think in a different way, because it’s quite alien to us at the moment.”
59 Limited, as the company was originally known, was co-founded by Warner following a stint at art college when he moonlighted as a commercial graphic designer. While doing an English degree he and three others had the glorious idea that they could “do some stuff, which sounds completely naïve now.”
The company moved to Edinburgh, by which time Grimmer had come on board after becoming editor of The Lip, a student quarterly he’d originally taken photographs for. Having spent much of his under-graduate days producing theatre, and with Warner having begun work on Sweet Fanny Adams in Eden, a site-specific play produced by Stellar Quines in the gardens of Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Grimmer gradually moved away from The Lip.
From Sweet Fanny Adams, written by Warner’s mother Judith Adams, 59 worked on Fierce with Grid Iron and Arthur – The Story Of A King for Wee Stories prior to hooking up with Grid Iron once more for their Edinburgh Airport set Roam, and the NTS for Black Watch. Something had to give and, in November 2007, 59 Limited became the more streamlined 59 Productions.
“We had a big office with seven people and all the administrative stuff to deal with,” says Warner, “but we simply don’t have the capacity to do that anymore. So now there’s just the two of us, who live in different cities, so as if the commute between Edinburgh and London wasn’t bad enough, we’ve been in New York loads and are about to go to Poland to research a show for The Traverse.”
If 59 ever expanded again, the danger would be that, like a fashion label bringing in outside designers without any umbilical link to their employers, the company’s original identity may be consumed by a conveyor-belt mentality. Given the relatively early stage audio-visual technology is at in terms of its relationship with theatre, however, such concerns are unlikely to be a problem just yet.
“Because of the brand,” Warner says, “people expect certain things when they employ 59. But in London in particular, there are the same five or six people doing absolutely everything in terms of AV.”
How, then, does the 59 double act work?
“We’re starting to analyse that. We’ve always been quite bad at dividing up exactly who does what, because - organic’s a terrible word – but I suppose that is how we do things.”
When pressed the pair will admit that, for now at least, Warner will take on “the aesthetic role,” while Grimmer takes responsibility for “conceptual development and how everything’s integrated. A bit like keeping your eye on a lot of different spinning plates.”
As ever with 59, though, things are changing fast. The next 18 months will see Grimmer coming to the fore as a stand-alone designer, while the modus operandi of how 59 is perceived is set to make a tectonic shift.
“What is really exciting,” says Warner, “is looking forward to a time when we have our own strand of work running alongside what we do for other people. Hopefully the next year will see us working on a couple of projects which will be totally ours, and may not necessarily be video led. Developing our own theatre productions and developing as a film production company is something we want to take seriously.”
“The whole industry is very much about finding people you can work well with in whatever capacity,” Grimmer points out, “so hopefully our approach will work in a totally different medium.”
“People do seem to like working with us for some reason,” Warner muses. “Perhaps it’s because we can talk technical, but we can talk creative too.”
Salome opens at the Royal Opera House, London, on February 21-March 12.
War Horse runs at The Olivier Theatre, National Theatre, London, until February 14. Black Watch is currently touring Australia and New Zealand.
The Herald, January 26th 2008
Ends
As they prepare for an array of projects for 2008 and beyond from the Southside Edinburgh flat that’s currently their base, Grimmer and Warner may be quietly surprised by how things have worked out, but they remain chirpily unfazed. Then again, with their contribution to Marianne Elliot and Tom Morris’ production of War Horse in rep at the National Theatre’s Olivier space, and David McVicar’s production of Salome about to open at the Royal Opera House, they can afford to be.
“We seem to have found ourselves working in opera by accident,” Warner observes. “It seems to be a very small world, and once you’ve done one, it’s very difficult to say no to another one. Especially when people ring you up and say they’re doing this opera in 2015, and ask are you free. Well, what are you supposed to say to that?”
If it’s the 125th anniversary of New York’s Metropolitan Opera house, which is actually in 2009, or a touring revival of Katie Mitchell’s acclaimed production of Waves, again for the National Theatre, the word is something in the affirmative. The last year alone has seen 59 provide panoramic images for English National Opera’s productions of Carmen and Satyagraha – a co-production with the Met and Julian Crouch and Phelem McDermott’s Improbable company – Seven Deadly Sins at the Royal Ballet, and another acclaimed production by Mitchell of Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life. All this and the National Theatre Of Scotland’s production of Black Watch too.
“It’s a really weird situation”, according to Grimmer, “because we’ve gone from spending a lot of time mailing out to theatre companies touting our wares, to the situation where we’re now of possibly having to turn work down. It’s made us have to re-assess how we take work on. Whereas before we might have said yes to things because we weren’t sure where our next work was coming from, now we’re having to try and develop the confidence where we leave holes, and think something will turn up. If it doesn’t, we can only hope that the time we’ve then got gives us the impetus to get up and do something for ourselves.”
It’s a rare position to be in, especially as Grimmer and Warner are now divided through domestic situations between Edinburgh and London. But then, given that 59 was born in York and has now pretty much gone global, their outlook has always been pretty much a 21st century one, morphing through places and identities as part of their natural growth alongside their chosen artistic oeuvre.
An audio-visual designer’s role in theatre isn’t clear cut. Up until recently, outside of companies such as the Wooster Group and other Live Art ensembles, the use of hi-tech audio-visual equipment as an essential component of the creative process has been resisted by the mainstream stage. The UK in particular has relied on a more traditional, directorial approach, and has tended to accommodate video solely for effect.
“A lot of productions have gone down the pan,” according to Warner, “because the director thinks it’d be quite a good idea to have some video, so you go and do all this filming, and then no-one really knows what to do with it. There’s a real history of video totally messing up productions, because the company has this notion that ‘We’ve tried everything, but we’ve got this massive dramaturgical problem, and if we have a massive projection of the guy’s face I’m sure it’ll be alright.’ A film-maker would be commissioned to do something, or a corporate AV company would be hired to do something, and it would cost an absolute fortune because they’d bring in all this expensive equipment that wasn’t needed, but no-one in the theatre would know any better.”
In contrast, 59 have used the fact that most theatres have no AV department to their advantage, building systems out of off-the-shelf components. “Up until about a year ago we were using really cheap, basic kit and trying to use it in a creative way.”
Working at the Metropolitan Opera, however, has changed things.
“We got pretty much everything we asked for,” says Grimmer, “because money was no object. In fact, when we arrive we’ve actually got two of everything we need. That’s all great, but it makes you think in a different way, because it’s quite alien to us at the moment.”
59 Limited, as the company was originally known, was co-founded by Warner following a stint at art college when he moonlighted as a commercial graphic designer. While doing an English degree he and three others had the glorious idea that they could “do some stuff, which sounds completely naïve now.”
The company moved to Edinburgh, by which time Grimmer had come on board after becoming editor of The Lip, a student quarterly he’d originally taken photographs for. Having spent much of his under-graduate days producing theatre, and with Warner having begun work on Sweet Fanny Adams in Eden, a site-specific play produced by Stellar Quines in the gardens of Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Grimmer gradually moved away from The Lip.
From Sweet Fanny Adams, written by Warner’s mother Judith Adams, 59 worked on Fierce with Grid Iron and Arthur – The Story Of A King for Wee Stories prior to hooking up with Grid Iron once more for their Edinburgh Airport set Roam, and the NTS for Black Watch. Something had to give and, in November 2007, 59 Limited became the more streamlined 59 Productions.
“We had a big office with seven people and all the administrative stuff to deal with,” says Warner, “but we simply don’t have the capacity to do that anymore. So now there’s just the two of us, who live in different cities, so as if the commute between Edinburgh and London wasn’t bad enough, we’ve been in New York loads and are about to go to Poland to research a show for The Traverse.”
If 59 ever expanded again, the danger would be that, like a fashion label bringing in outside designers without any umbilical link to their employers, the company’s original identity may be consumed by a conveyor-belt mentality. Given the relatively early stage audio-visual technology is at in terms of its relationship with theatre, however, such concerns are unlikely to be a problem just yet.
“Because of the brand,” Warner says, “people expect certain things when they employ 59. But in London in particular, there are the same five or six people doing absolutely everything in terms of AV.”
How, then, does the 59 double act work?
“We’re starting to analyse that. We’ve always been quite bad at dividing up exactly who does what, because - organic’s a terrible word – but I suppose that is how we do things.”
When pressed the pair will admit that, for now at least, Warner will take on “the aesthetic role,” while Grimmer takes responsibility for “conceptual development and how everything’s integrated. A bit like keeping your eye on a lot of different spinning plates.”
As ever with 59, though, things are changing fast. The next 18 months will see Grimmer coming to the fore as a stand-alone designer, while the modus operandi of how 59 is perceived is set to make a tectonic shift.
“What is really exciting,” says Warner, “is looking forward to a time when we have our own strand of work running alongside what we do for other people. Hopefully the next year will see us working on a couple of projects which will be totally ours, and may not necessarily be video led. Developing our own theatre productions and developing as a film production company is something we want to take seriously.”
“The whole industry is very much about finding people you can work well with in whatever capacity,” Grimmer points out, “so hopefully our approach will work in a totally different medium.”
“People do seem to like working with us for some reason,” Warner muses. “Perhaps it’s because we can talk technical, but we can talk creative too.”
Salome opens at the Royal Opera House, London, on February 21-March 12.
War Horse runs at The Olivier Theatre, National Theatre, London, until February 14. Black Watch is currently touring Australia and New Zealand.
The Herald, January 26th 2008
Ends
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