Continuing with our series of a look at our production processes, this week meet artist Chris and Queen of the Spreadsheets, Kirsty.

If a picture speaks a thousand words…

Art always plays a part in out experiences. Art can be emotive, explanatory and educational. It can also just be pretty to look at. At Lemon Difficult we all enjoy art, and I love to make it in a variety of media. But when creating an immersive experience the art needs to be woven in in a variety of ways.

Starting points are usually a logo. Something that defines the experience. For Locksmith’s Dream that was a Raven - representing the aviform Hours that were the source of birdsong being gathered. For The Key of Dreams, it’s the tree, that sits at the heart of the experience and whispers to you.

However, in our experiences, there are many different stories woven across the show. They have different themes and characters, but there is a link between them and they overlap and feed each other. But how do you keep all that straight in your head?

Enter the wonderful Christian Thrower - artist, designer and all-round great guy. Chris worked with us on Locksmith’s Dream, producing the art works for Crimson’s Rose and Adversities which formed a vital part of two of the stories for the event. We really enjoyed working with him, so when preparing for our new show, we approached him again.

This time Chris has had a much bigger role, creating story logos, badge designs, editing old photographs and even producing our new company logo (more on that soon). I am always impressed when we give Chris a brief such as - a sinister quaver please - and get back exactly what we asked for. It’s great to work with an artist who hears what you ask, and is on the same page, and who ‘gets it’. I do quite a lot of the art myself, so I’m used to fiddling about in Photoshop, and Chris is great for sending a file - I’ll fiddle and send it back with “more like this but better” and that is what we get.

He also takes us on a journey. From a first idea to finished product can sometimes at fist glance seem a world away, but has also got closer to the original idea that we just couldn’t express.

I’ll add it to the spreadsheet…

I will never get over the look on the actors’ faces for Locksmith’s Dream when instead of a script to learn they were presented with a 40 page document and accompanying spreadsheet. Luckily they now know us and our weird process so they were prepared when the barrage of documents began this time.

With a show as complex as this with so many moving parts to keep track of, so many objects, pieces of story, props for flavour, costume, food and food service items, drinks, housekeeping, actors, house staff, music, sound effects, I could go on for a long time, it is essential to keep them in some sort of order.

Ivan is a fan of spreadsheets and luckily so is Kirsty. Kirsty Arch is a force of nature. Ask her for research and you will get a spreadsheet filled with links, a breakdown summary and barrage of texts and emails all with useful stuff. She finds almost all of the music tracks that help to build the atmosphere of the experience, considers the little details that make a huge difference - like water carafes, sources obscure props for reasonable prices and also turns her hard to practical tasks like aging wood, testing radios (alongside our fabulous tech guy and her husband, Steve) and creating beautiful items for the model house. She also does the joyful trawling of antique shops and fairs to find unusual items, which I sadly don’t have time for, and sends me photos of amazing items like Boni here (which sadly we did not buy!)

Not long to go…

We are only a couple of weeks out from the first run of shows now, and things are getting very exciting. We can’t wait to reveal the wonders of this new production our first guests (many of whom are returning from having seen Locksmith’s Dream - thank you, your faith and loyalty do not go unnoticed!) and to see what they make of the pieces of story scattered before them.

L