A new art form?

So, why would my wife and sit down and watch an Actual Play of a Call of Cthulhu adventure instead of a high budget movie or streaming show? Because it was very entertaining. If you think of a book, it can provide you with a story and tell you the thoughts and speech of the character. But in a Radio play you can hear them speak and enjoy the performances of the actors. Better still with film or television you get to see the faces of the performers and see the emotions but that’s not really how you imagined the story going and in the novelisation you got the character thoughts behind their actions. Now how about we add the element of to the story, what would change if the leading character didn’t get into the club? Wouldn’t be fun to hear the performer’s reaction out of character about not gaining entry. Can you see watching a good face to face actual play can tick all the entertainment boxes for an enjoyable evening?

Across the pond

I know face to face actual plays as entertainment are not new but they take a lot of work and can need a lot of budget. I’ve never watched the show itself but have enjoyed the Critical Roll cartoon Vox Machina and it must be very rewarding for their fans to see improvise lines animated into a proper show. But I wonder if the fans miss seeing the cast cracking up at the one liners and prefer the actual play? In the Call of Cthulhu world, master Keeper Mark Meers has helmed a couple of sponsored productions. The first one being the Bookshops of Arkham run by a small production company in a nicely laid out studio. That production suffered from some technical issues with sound not being recorded for one session. It was a great production nonetheless and was followed up with another production, this time crowdfunded to the tune of over $100,000 dollars, the Graveyards of Arkham. This was tied in with the release of the Arkham source book for Call of Cthulhu 7e.

Lets give it a try ourselves

Now having more ambition than common sense I wanted to see the playhouse do something similar. This meant loading a crazy amount of kit into a car driving up to London the night before and yet still manging to be late getting to the venue because … London. There were two set-ups. The most important was sound with everyone double mic’ed with a lapel and a hand held mic on a table stand. Next set-up was the camera, two prosumer levels Pan-Tilt-Zoom camera (PTZs) for the players and Hollyland Venusliv streaming camera for the keeper. This all was running along with the Roll20 feed on a laptop in a Blackmagic ATEM Mini Pro ISO vision  mixer and recorder. The ISO bit means all the camera feeds are recorded and a timeline created to make editing just that bit quicker. Last set-up was the lights which was nothing special, a couple of softboxes near the PTZ camera which probably gave off a bit too much light! But I was the only tech able to set things up, there was too much of a rush for perfection! After the 90 minutes set-up it was into costume and time to start the show. I was also the Keeper!

Three Bells

A Drop of Nelson’s Blood was played in the Old Royal Naval college at Greenwich sponsored by the adventure’s author SR Sellens! To sit in a room that Nelson and other major figures in British naval history would have used was very special and I hope they didn’t mind us sitting in costume tell the tale of mythos murder at the Admiralty. I was too fixated with the production to be able to relax and enjoy the surrounding as I was being Keeper, vision mixing the camera feeds and keeping an eye on time so we had not overly long episodes.  The game worked, we managed to squeeze in some lunch before recording the final episode. No sooner had I said “thanks for joining us”, it was off with the light to let them cool, stop all the recordings before power down and packing up all the kit to head straight home. Thank you to Newman, Nick, Maddy and Clym for being the amazing players and helping where they could. Watch the socials of the Miskatonic Playhouse for news of when that A Drop of Nelson’s Blood is out.

Never say never…

I can say I never want to do that again! The London venue was great but without a budget we drove to London then took the cheaper and quicker tube to get to the venue. Lugging heavy kit around the London underground isn’t great when you’re asthmatic but also need to get the tube back to the hotel to get the car. It was crazy to be the rodie, vision mixer and performer but with no budget, I was the only one who could do all the parts that needed to be done and it was my daft idea to do it face to face in the first place! I would love to entertain more folks via a Performed Actual Play. I think they are missing film elements and much as I love having a laugh as we role-play, is there room for a serious drama style actual play performance with reactions to dice rolls more like reactions in televised poker game than a smile and oops that’s a fumble. And what about small live shows? Performances on stage at the small theatre spaces? Would people come to those? I know it’s something I’d like to see. Watch this space folks.