Podcast 68: Theatre Sessions and Extractions

We do a lot of unique events and working with The Village Players (the oldest community theatre in Hillsborough county) is a fun organization to create some unique imagery. Our goal is assist in the promotion of their shows as they typically have around 4-5 each year and operate as a not-for-profit theatre group.

**Just a side note, due to their non-profit status as 501c3 we do not charge the theatre for our time or image creation. We are a fan of the arts and The Village Players is our organization of choice to volunteer with and assist in getting the word out.

So what’s the process that we do help out and create some fun work?
Usually, we know the play in advance since the schedule is out - this helps as it allows us to start coming up with ideas. Currently as this is being worked on - The Music Man - our goal is to make some graphics that appear to match the era and feel of the of the early 1900’s. Since we haven’t started work, since that session is in July - our last play was Clue. I’ll do a post on the music man post session.

Our sessions are booked 2-3 months in advance, our schedules are a bit crazy. We bring the studio to the theatre and a lot of times, it’s one of the first full dress rehearsals of their show.

Image are taken in front of a green or gray screen depending on what we’re working on currently as they’re relatively easy to extract. I’ll post a video on the extraction process and link it here - at this point it’s much easier and the AI tools make the process a lot smoother.

The image with the police officer is a post extraction shot.

Once we make extractions of the entire cast it’s time to place them into the images we created for the play. Usually it’s 2-3 show photos and the cast imager.

For extractions, we either use Pixnub’s EZ Green Screen or the Adobe Extraction tool - it really just depends.

Whether it’s theatre, sports or our Comic Lucy the process is very similar. It’s a lot of fun and we enjoy the process of creating new imagery for everyone we work with.

For the upcoming Music Man at The Village Players Valrico - the 2023 Show Dates are the following:
Performance dates are on August 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26 at 8 p.m. and matinees on August 13 and 20 at 3 p.m. Doors open at least 30 minutes before curtain.

Tickets are on online at: https://tvpvalrico.ticketleap.com/the-music-man/