Measure for Measure Film
Donation protected
Overview
My name is Mac MacDaniel. Myself and my friend Mary Sader are making a short film of Shakespeare's 'Measure for Measure.' We will be filming from August 2nd through the 9th.
I am a Shakespeare educator and dramaturge with Quill Theatre here in Richmond. Mary is in a graduate theatre program at Boston University.
The film will be shot in our hometown of Richmond, Va using Apple iPhones. We are using all of Shakespeare's original language, but with modern dress and props. We have cut the script down to a quick 45 minutes.
We have some relatively minor technical costs (paying our director of photography for traveling from Louisiana for the shoot, limited props and costumes). The bulk of our funding will go toward feeding our actors who are graciously working on the project for free.
If we receive any funds beyond what we need to feed our crew, we will use that money to pay them in cash for working on the project.
About Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure is one of Shakespeare's late comedies, but many who read or see the play might have trouble with that classification due to its dark, unsympathetic treatment of its subject matter.
The main plot of the play is that the Duke of Vienna has ‘left’ the city (he has in fact disguised himself as a friar and is still in Vienna) and appointed his deputy Angelo to enforce the laws of Vienna in his absence, including a law against fornication which has long been un-enforced.
Angelo imprisons a young man named Claudio and sentences him to death for getting his fiancee Juliet pregnant. Claudio’s sister Isabella, a woman in training to enter a convent as a nun, goes to Angelo to beg for leniency for her brother. Angelo, widely-believed to be immune to temptation, becomes obsessed with the chaste Isabella and offers to pardon her brother in exchange for sexual favours.
Isabella, with the help of the disguised Duke, come up with a plan to save Claudio, expose Angelo, and restore justice to Vienna.
Why this play? Why this film?
The ways in which the play portrays sexuality and gender relationships are unsettlingly modern and lend themselves well to a modern form of storytelling. Isabella is not only a citizen at the mercy of a corrupt government; she’s a woman at the mercy of lecherous hypocrites.
Logistics:
We have cut the script heavily, preserving the original language but removing superfluous characters and subplots to create a bare-bones version of the main story that can be told quickly. We will be working with a cast of seven actors, a minimal crew, and with only a few shooting locations. We will be shooting all the video on an iPhone 6 and recording audio separately. We will shoot for one week of eight hour days, moving through scenes quickly and wrapping around 8pm each evening.
We will go into post-production shortly thereafter and the film should be ready sometime in the fall.
My name is Mac MacDaniel. Myself and my friend Mary Sader are making a short film of Shakespeare's 'Measure for Measure.' We will be filming from August 2nd through the 9th.
I am a Shakespeare educator and dramaturge with Quill Theatre here in Richmond. Mary is in a graduate theatre program at Boston University.
The film will be shot in our hometown of Richmond, Va using Apple iPhones. We are using all of Shakespeare's original language, but with modern dress and props. We have cut the script down to a quick 45 minutes.
We have some relatively minor technical costs (paying our director of photography for traveling from Louisiana for the shoot, limited props and costumes). The bulk of our funding will go toward feeding our actors who are graciously working on the project for free.
If we receive any funds beyond what we need to feed our crew, we will use that money to pay them in cash for working on the project.
About Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure is one of Shakespeare's late comedies, but many who read or see the play might have trouble with that classification due to its dark, unsympathetic treatment of its subject matter.
The main plot of the play is that the Duke of Vienna has ‘left’ the city (he has in fact disguised himself as a friar and is still in Vienna) and appointed his deputy Angelo to enforce the laws of Vienna in his absence, including a law against fornication which has long been un-enforced.
Angelo imprisons a young man named Claudio and sentences him to death for getting his fiancee Juliet pregnant. Claudio’s sister Isabella, a woman in training to enter a convent as a nun, goes to Angelo to beg for leniency for her brother. Angelo, widely-believed to be immune to temptation, becomes obsessed with the chaste Isabella and offers to pardon her brother in exchange for sexual favours.
Isabella, with the help of the disguised Duke, come up with a plan to save Claudio, expose Angelo, and restore justice to Vienna.
Why this play? Why this film?
The ways in which the play portrays sexuality and gender relationships are unsettlingly modern and lend themselves well to a modern form of storytelling. Isabella is not only a citizen at the mercy of a corrupt government; she’s a woman at the mercy of lecherous hypocrites.
Logistics:
We have cut the script heavily, preserving the original language but removing superfluous characters and subplots to create a bare-bones version of the main story that can be told quickly. We will be working with a cast of seven actors, a minimal crew, and with only a few shooting locations. We will be shooting all the video on an iPhone 6 and recording audio separately. We will shoot for one week of eight hour days, moving through scenes quickly and wrapping around 8pm each evening.
We will go into post-production shortly thereafter and the film should be ready sometime in the fall.
Organizer
Mac MacDaniel
Organizer
Richmond, VA
