This piece was an exploration in how live projections could be a part of a theatrical experience. We had a student from the College of Engineering as part of our team, who developed for us a set of visuals that would react in real-time to the actors on stage through the use of a Kinect motion-sensing camera. This presented a great opportunity for all of us to learn something new, and to try and take a different approach to the well-known story of 1984. We also looked at how design in general, but especially projection design, could be part of a show’s central concept from day 1, and how this would impact the staging of the piece.

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When approaching the sound design, I knew that we would have a lot on our plate with the projections. I wanted to try and stay ahead of the curve as much as I could, so when the director came to me with some material that he had used in a previous staging of this adaptation, I was excited to use it, and to see how we could shape and modify it to fit our version. Using this, in combination with music from Tangerine Dream, we were able to develop a distinct aesthetic for the sound design that was unique to our show. Provided here are some examples of that: first, is the previous incarnation’s music, coupled with elevator sounds that we used to punctuate the humorous elevator scene, and second, an example of how we used Tangerine Dream’s music in concert with other diegetic sound effects, such as the shocks from the electric chair that Winston receives.