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CROSSING THE CELLULOID DIVIDE
This technique stems from some of the earliest experiments by cinema pioneers, using the new medium (following its invention in the 1890's), to explore ways of presenting theatrical magic and illusion acts.

Georges Méliès was the creator of cinematic spectacle and the first to use theatrical sets in a film. Forkbeard reverse this concept to use film within their theatre sets.

Greg Giesekam in his excellent book "Staging the Screen" (Palgrave Macmillan) says - "..... within a decade of the Lumière Brothers exhibiting the first films in Paris in 1895, theatre practitioners were employing film ....... (by 1929) fifteen theatres in Berlin were already fitted with projection facilities"

"GHOSTS" (1985)
The audience sees the Ghost Hunter approach the window from across the fields in Film, before he bursts through the door in person. The room he enters is like a medieval spaceship with the world contained in its middle, and Nothing beyond its bitten-off floorboards. Here he will meet Doormat, the Butler, at present hovering below ten gallons of green jelly. The shutter slams shut and the door is locked. He is trapped, cut off from the outside world.
"WHO SHOT THE CAMERAMAN?" (1986)
The Brittonioni’s first became seriously entangled in one of their movies during the Murder Mystery Thriller “Who Shot the Cameraman?” An intruder in a Parka anorak inexplicably enters a sequence of action in which he was positively not involved in the making of the film. To everyone’s astonishment Chrissy suddenly crosses the Celluloid Divide to chase him away.

             “What we were doing was creating a living dynamic between stage & screen, where the filmed sequences become part of the world on stage into which and out of which the performers can move –from stage to screen and back again… and performers in film or on stage communicate and talk with one another across this Celluloid Divide. 

Film on Stage holds this power to delight because of the illusion of a whole new living dimension, which is in fact just 2-Dimensional ; the depth of field it brings to even the smallest stage; the gorgeous sense of suspended disbelief.  It's also been a great way for us to increase the cast and only pay the actors once. Either that or we just play all the parts ourselves.

It's always seemed strange to us that it was invented over 100 years ago and its taken The British Theatre Establishment so long to embrace it. It's amusing today reading drama critics who now not only condone but acclaim its use & even trumpet it as NEW. When the wonderful Spanish company La Cubana came over in 1997 with a show using film The Guardian bellowed  “NEW ARTFORM INVENTED!”.

 

SOME EXAMPLES OF FILM IN FORKBEARD SHOWS:

"Total blackout in theatres is something one can’t get nowadays because the EXIT lights are so bright. While of course they’re there for safety, the loss of total darkness means one can’t ‘possess’ the audience’s imagination in that particular way when the lights go completely out at the beginning of the show. “GHOSTS” started in pitch black; the sense of place becomes less certain, disorientating the audience. A tiny picture appears showing a man approaching down a hillside towards what is obviously a window. He eventually peers in and can’t see inside, steps back, and then crashes in through the door. A flap crashes down over the window and gibbering starts in the total darkness. A classic start to a ghost story and the first time Forkbeard used film as part of the narrative plotline of a show. A super 8-projector was back-projecting onto a simple sheet.”

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FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE INTERESTED IN THIS INTERACTION TECHNIQUE (especially if using FORKBEARD FANTASY in your AQA AS & A-Level syllabus) there's a "Beginners Guide to Crossing the Celluloid Divide" on YouTube. You will find all the links mentioned in these pages on the link page at the end.
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