More on Film
Nico on Jan 19 2006 at 5:41 pm | Filed under: Film
Tonight (at 6:30 p.m.) is the screening of excerpts from Ian Strachan’s documentary on Bahamian ringplay at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas.
Film is clearly a burgeoning industry in The Bahamas. During the Ringplay/IDB workshops in the autumn of last year, it was evident that young people who might originally have gone into theatre ten or twenty years ago are now seeking to study film. Digital video has of course made the production and editing of films more accessible to the average person, with the result that the kind of popular revolution that took place in the internet is occurring in film. Theatre, perhaps, is old hat, growing irrelevant. It certainly appears to be a belief among the young that theatre in The Bahamas is irrelevant to them.
The thing is, I don’t think it is. To begin with, all the techniques and equipment and computers in the world can’t make a film out of nothing if one has no story and no acting skills. Story and acting are still things that theatre does well. Correction — while film focuses on plots, and while gimmickery and technology and CGI and so on can create a story out of nothing at all on film, in theatre stories grow out of characters in conflict. And ultimately, characters in conflict are what we remember.
So this film revolution in The Bahamas is a wonderful thing. I believe that in the long run it can only benefit theatre.
The only thing? We have to be making theatre in order for it to benefit.
