Class One:
Week two began with a tour of The Capitol Theatre. As there were around twenty of us we divided into two groups of ten and went in at seperate times, with my group taking the 12.15pm time a little later on.
As we first went into the Capitol, it still felt as though there was so much to do in terms of construction. What would become the lobby area was very much still being worked on and we were asked to put on high vis vests and hard hats whilst we received a safety induction from our tour guide Michelle. After this we proceeded to walk through the lobby and go into the actual theatre which was most definitely the highlight of the tour. They had told the people working on the building that RMIT students were going to be visiting and they were able to get the lighting working on the ceiling. Which as you can see by my panoramic photo also happen to change colour every couple of seconds.
As cool as the changing ceiling had been, the other thing I remember is thinking how beautifully designed it was architecturally. Something that was really important to RMIT for this upgrade was that it could be used for 2019 but also maintain and celebrate its history. After seeing the theatre itself we looked through the different rooms including where the bar would be. Michelle told us this story about how this room we were standing in used to be called “The Whiskey Room” and that was where the men were the only ones were allowed in, so that they could speak to one another whilst being able to enjoy a cigar or cigarette and have a glass of whiskey before their show. The women on the other hand socialised a level below (there was a balcony and steps separating them). Other places we looked at were the bio box (the place where the projectors were kept and would be used to show movies or shorts) as well as where the bathrooms would be and the different levels of the theatre.
It was great to see the space in this point in time because it is very close to competition and seeing how the builders have been returning it back to its former glory is so interesting. It definitely made me more excited as to how we could create media around this space.
Class Two:
Class two we focused in on Oral History. Oral History is the way in which people communicate information to one another about their history through storytelling as a way to maintain a record of it. Oral history is something that if we were to incorporate into our projects, it would be great to have as many visuals along with them as possible. This is so that the audience can have more to base what they are hearing on, but also when discussing the unveiling of the Theatre, we knew that there would be a lot of screens that would be great to use as people would be walking in and out of certain rooms. There was also the fact that it may be quite loud and so there is a high chance that it might not be an easy task to be able to listen to things when you are in there.
I really liked the fact that I was able to also get to know some more of my classmates during this class as we could chat together and discuss what we might like to do. Next week the plan is to start having a go at some of the camera equipment so it’ll be good to get into some practical stuff.