Theory Of A Directing Model Film 

I have already shown historically how the art of directing is dependent on a set of technological or mechanical facts or properties. The results obtained from this history of the relationship between directing and technology are that a significant change in the directorial identity has occurred only after a change has occurred in the above technological facts or properties, for example the historical moment of the incorporation of the multimedia in theatre directing in the decade of the 1960s or the 'golden era' of the insertion, admission and intersection of digital performance and new media in the 1990s.

Technology and directing can be seen as analogous to the railway network. Different kinds of trains run on a rail network and as a result many rail systems provide different kinds of passenger services. In the same way the operation of directing (like a rail system) is connected with technology (like trains). The most striking result to emerge from this historical data is that a change in the role of director or in the directorial identity has occurred, only after a dynamic shift has occurred in those technological facts or properties in the theatrical environment. So I argue that a particular type of theatre-making or directing model supports evidently a shifting process in the directorial identity. Of course the structuring of a theatre theory that is satisfying all the directing conditions is unlikely, if not impossible. So, at this stage of considering and constructing a model of a directing theory I will be based upon a number of assumptions.

My thesis is that a developmental directorial shape or model with regard to advances of technology has been produced explicitly so far by theatre practice. Since there are cases where the directorial identity has been shaped and changed through applying technology, the change in the directorial role or the directorial identity can be identified and traced successfully through a firm factor: the use of technology. The implications of this phenomenon for the theatrical art have been far-reaching and this will also continue in the future, since theatre directing is bound by an unbroken commitment to socio-political and cultural tendencies. Therefore, theatre directing in the age of digital reproduction is bound by a constant connection to the challenges of technology. This has led me to the notion that when directing and technology are taken to be two ontologically separate categories, two apparent opposites, is a phony. I argue that directing and technology belong to the same spectrum and that there is a perceptible constant movement between the two, which is detectable in theatre history, especially with regard to the history and ideology of the contemporary director and his/her cultural context.

It is observed in practice that the display of the characteristics of a director's theatre through applying technology concerns mainly directors that have a dominant position as artists who are exercising multimedia postmodern theatre. So, the characteristics of multimedia and postmodern in my investigation of a theoretical model are crucial. However, judging from the theatre history, even though, there is a clear ability of theatre directors to raise a design of a production based on technology, which is consistently and effectably above mainstream commercial levels, such as in the case of multimedia postmodern theatre, there is at the same time, evidently, the case of productions with the values of mainstream commercial theatre, in which small elements of technology can be identified. However, this type of technology does not anymore represent a cutting-edge technology (high tech) and therefore is termed as 'low technology'. The consequence is that there is scarcely any theatre production, which is not using technology at all.

I will show that there is a theory for determining the nature of the change observed in theatrical directing by following a method of locating the technological metalanguage on the art of directing. Thus the starting point is the hypothesis that the language of technology is a type of a theatrically articulated language applied on another type of theatrical language, such as the language of directing, like in the metaphor with the rail network. I argue that specified properties that define the change in the role of the director are associated with technology in such a way and degree that indicate that the two concepts can be identified with synonymy-classes, and therefore, we can spot essential connections of great importance particularly in the theatrical system.

So, through the theorization of these specified properties I will demonstrate how they can prove to be efficacious for the formulation of a directing model. I have demonstrated in the introduction of this thesis that the main purpose of the director in the theatre is to solve conventional problems related to the issue of representation on stage or to put things in order related to pertinent confusions. The director knows what, knows how, and knows in what way to transmit hers/his expertise. The main use of technology (machine-non human-virtual) in the theatre by the directors is to help him/her for finding practical solutions of these problems. The purpose of technology itself, on the other hand, is to solve problems and it is prepared and programmed for all the technical eventualities in the theatrical environment. But, technology cannot program all the potential representational sequences in advance. This is where the director comes in with his/her basic role as creator of the performance. I argue that the more directors use technology the more they will need technology. So the focus for analysing theatrical directing must be on the way and the intensity that directors build on technology for making theatrical productions.

But to what extent does a director need to update his/her technological skills in order to make directorial modifications? The director can modify things related to representation but in order to do so s/he needs to know what the potentials of the technological elements are. Surely the director can examine an entire database of propositions provided by specialists on technology and work out which require modification according to the needs of the performance. But if the director is burdened with an enormous database of facts to examine every time that s/he makes a performance (technological-technical issues) the task starts to look problematic. The idea here is that not every part of the technological data needs to be examined by the director when it is updated. Those parts that represent real big changes on stage surely have to be examined in details, such as for example the several potentialities of the screen; however the rest can simply be left as they are, such as for example the canons for the lighting and sound design. So, the obvious appeal is related to the notion of relevance: only certain properties of the state of technology (low tech or high tech) are relevant in the context of each performance. As a result, the role of the director - related to the use of technology - is to determine what is and what is not relevant to his/her vision for the performance. This decision however is bound with the time and what is available for the artists for their action. In this way, an iron age of the use of technology in the theatre can be identified during the industrial era, a renaissance era in the 1960's, and a new-renaissance since the 1990's.

Therefore, the relation of the director to the technological properties is pervasively shaped by his/her inclination to do a particular thing in a particular way. As a result, any aspect of this technological content is presented in a form or shape of technology, such as for example in my case studies of fragmentizing, totalizing technology or the hybridization of both tends, which I have found suitable in order to constitute a conceptual content or framework related to a model of directing or to a model of displaying the characteristics of a director's theatre. Therefore, the system or network of 'directing plus technology' is appropriate to represent the qualities of a shifted theatrical environment, which allows an individual artist, such as the director, to perform a creative action: directing. Everything in a director's experience must find expression in some form. Interestingly, directors fill out the details of their visualization of this desire for a form by any possible available means, such as technology.

In particular, directors effectively manipulate structures that are external to theatre - external in a way that they are situated and originated in forms that come outside of the theatrical environment, such as the use of multimedia, kinetic architecture, ingenious use of projection, inventive use of hi-tech hardware and gadgetry - as well as, internal processes, that emanate from theatrical art itself, such as methods of acting, producing and interpreting texts. Directors who have been constantly experimenting with the above elements, using up-to-date technology and showing an extraordinary capacity to manipulate and exploit technology's structures in the theatre, especially during the last 30 years, have noticeably change their directorial identity.

I argue that this phenomenon, the symbiosis between directing and technology, results in a sustained process of change or shift, which entails ideas of progress and evolution related to the directorial identity. The first point which must be made about the theory of directing with technology is that it is not only a theory; the conditions necessary for this model are being observed essentially in practice. As a result, there are examples of models of directing, such as LeCompte, Lepage and Mitchell's directing models, which will be examined in this thesis, that prove that contemporary theatrical practice can support the above hypothesis. Even though, this practice is being perceived by the audience as impressively complicated in terms of its actual performance, or, it can be observed a delay in the application in the theatrical environment related to the media arts, it is apparent that directing with technology reaches its most powerful moment by achieving a maximal effect on the audience. I will refer in more detail in these particular practices (LeCompte, Lepage and Mitchell) and their effects later on. This directorial vision and practice provides a pattern for the analysis of my argument- based on the thesis that the directorial identity has evolved through the application of technology - and is also positively involved in establishing valid conclusions for the seminal relationship between directing and technology.

The most resonant theories of mediality, to multimediality and intermediality related to the function of different modes of a directing model, which can be defined by one key element, technology, was chosen the best method to adopt for this investigation because I have found that they present a concrete articulation in the development of the directorial identity of the directors LeCompte, Lepage and Mitchell, which are my case studies. Therefore, strong evidence of a clear shift in their directing has been found when notions of mediality, multimediality and intermediality have been applied. In the 'Theory' and 'Applications' sections of the previous chapters I have demonstrated evidence of this shift in the development of the directorial identity of the three directors. This shift in their directorial identity has revealed a new taxonomic group for theatre directing or an original directing model, termed as techno-directing, whose properties do not belong purely neither to the theatrical medium, nor technological medium, since it forms a hybrid. This paradigmatic shift has subsequently altered the existing modes of reception of their directing. This indicates also a significant positive correlation between the art of directing and technology in the theatrical environment.

My theoretical framework can be summarized as: by treating the detailed description of the activity of significant directors, such as in the case of LeCompte, Lepage and Mitchell, as a dialogue of several perspectives - for example the perspective of fragmentizing, totalizing technology and hybridization - of one directing model, the model of directing with technology, I am eligible to establish this model of directing. This is because I have found a pattern or a form of a directing model, whose basic characteristic relies mainly not only on actors, designers and technicians for a performance, but also on a range of collaborators that are experts on technological issues. Additionally, directors create a performance in which time, space, body and image seems to operate according to laws of mediality, multimediality and intermediality, which create a developmental nexus of measurement that I have analysed in the theoretical part of this thesis.

The pattern is made because, on one hand, I have provided a set of applications (tools) for exploring similarities or disputes between these several perspectives (fragmentizing - totalizing technology - hybridization) and, on the other hand, because these applications can be used as the basis for a particular type of theatre-making that I have argued that supports a shifting process in the directorial identity. Following this approach, the set of applications, the traceability of this genre of directing can be established and, additionally, the validity of these several specifications or perspectives can be examined. So, a pattern has obtained from an analysis of some of the main characteristics of significant representatives.

This pattern or directing model can be summarised in the display of the characteristics of a director's theatre through applying technology and, therefore, can be described as a piece of directorial work with a specific shape/form. This shape/form is based on a process of convergence between theatrical and technological elements and has the features of amplifying affixed technological components and handling in such a way the technological material in order to form a directorial entity, which aims to affect the audience or win audience' attention. The major premise towards a theory of this type of directing model is that technology 'is' directing or that the element of technology mediates the art of directing. That means that whenever there is a 'condition of technology' in the theatrical environment I have taken it as a 'condition of directing' or a condition that exposes the purposes of directing. In the proposition that the use of technology 'is' directing I have implied that when I think of directing, I also think of the element of technology as particularly appropriate to directing. Therefore, the development of the role of the contemporary director and the shape of the directorial identity can be taken that has its roots to the use of technology. In short, there is almost a certainty, as this thesis has demonstrated, that the advanced 'condition of technology' is leading to the development of the 'condition of directing'. That is why the change in the role of the director has occurred through the use of the technology.

The important issue, however, is to determine the dramatic effect which the display of the characteristics of a director's theatre through applying technology can have on the audience. To understand this one must first turn to a formulation of theories of pre-existed directing models, such as for example the Wagnerian theory of total theatre or the Brechtian theory of estrangement, or the theory of deconstruction, and consider what would happen in conditions of displaying the characteristics of a director's theatre through applying technology or compare the outcome with what happens under the condition of not applying technology, recognising, at the same time, that there are limitations and that this theoretical analysis of this directing model is not the only one which explains the directorial behaviour in the theatrical world.

The above pattern/model have raised my research interest for three interrelated reasons: the first is that the phenomenon of directors who are involving technology in their directing is greater than it was in the past. The second relates to a new generation of spectators raised with a specific cognition and reception of the spectacle. And the third is related to the fact that critics and theatre scholars have developed an extent discourse either for or against the phenomenon. The researcher strongly believes related to this issue that the emergence of a type of technophobia in the theatre, which is an increased anxiety for the decreased authenticity of the performance, is against the actual evidence provided by the directorial practice itself.

The benefits of directing with technology

The benefits of directing with technology are: more sophisticated design of the productions, more attractive to a new generation of audience productions, wider artistic choice and greater efficiency than would have been obtained under the condition of directing without applying technology. According to this theory of a directing model, the condition of directing is maximised in conditions of extended use of technology. The combined effect of directorial and technological efficiency leads to the fact that the dramatic effect overall is maximised. And as a result the power or the influence of the dramatic effect to the audience is also maximised.

Under the condition of directing with technology technological resources are allocated between a variety of tools and services in such a significant way that it is not possible to constitute a directorial identity without using them; so there is a phenomenon of a technological surplus on stage at its largest. The achievement of the technological efficiency, which is known for the characteristics of productivity, flexibility, excellence and a mixture of scientific disciplines, is transferred to the display of the characteristics of a director's theatre. This is because the director, by assuming that s/he is acting creatively and has a desire to maximise his/her directorial effect, will expand his/her synergy with technology for as long as it is creatively effectable to do so. As long as s/he can earn more by exploring all th possibilities by one extra element that enhances the directorial qualities, s/he will presumably do so. Only when the cost of this further element exceeds a lot the cost of the design of the production will s/he cease to expand the production to this terrain.

Where the phenomenon of the displaying of the characteristics of a director's theatre through applying technology is extended, a reduction in the director's own art cannot take place and so there is no reason to limit it; the director will therefore increase the effect of directing to the point at which technology and directing (the net of directing) coincide. This means that a directorial efficiency through technological efficiency is achieved, as audiences can obtain aesthetic pleasure by the amounts of tools or services generated by technology.

A further benefit of the display of the characteristics of a director's theatre through applying technology is that directors will constantly innovate and develop new productions as part of the continual battle of striving for audiences' awareness. Thus the display of the characteristics of a director's theatre through applying technology may have the desirable dynamic effect of stimulating important technological radical experiments and development. This assumption has been questioned. Some argue that only the live art enjoy the privilege to innovate and carry out provocative and radical experiments. The notion that the motivation to be radical was the condition of not applying technological effects but based only on text and actor-performer-body centred elements and that directors that apply technology would in due course walked out from the theatre history and be displaced has been long ago abandoned as being phony. Empirical radical experiments tends to suggest that neither traditionalists nor the new generation of theatre practitioners that they use fiercely technology in the theatre have a superior track record in this respect, but it would seem clear that the assertion that only text or actor-performer-body centred elements can innovate in the theatrical environment is incorrect.

The main directorial rule is to extent the theatrical dynamic at its most potential. There are no 'barriers to entry' which might prevent the emergence of this type of theatre. Resources can flow freely from one area of technological activity to another. The director that uses technology is a position to see that s/he will be able to earn the largest dynamic effect if s/he does not refrain from expanding s/his production to the maximum possible. This motive to maximise effects is accentuated by the fact that a new generation of audiences watch productions which they wanted more. And they want productions that they speak their language.

A related benefit of the display of the characteristics of a director's theatre through applying technology is that this type of directing has the dynamic effect of stimulating innovation as a new generation of practitioners strive to produce new and more sophisticated productions for new audiences.

When directors promote the notion that the use of technology would be a stimuli for allowing a change in the way theatre is made and perceived, distinctively they show a belief that the symbiosis between directing and technology in the theatre would create a new form of theatrical art and produce a hybrid dramatic effect based on theatrical and technological agents in the direction of a theatrical aesthetics of the 'in-between'.

This sense stems from a technophile aesthetics or technological aestheticism profoundly associated with the postmodern culture. However, the paradox is that despite the firm ties with notions like pastiche, fragmentation and heterogeneity within the artwork - basic characteristics associated with postmodern culture - technophile aesthetics preserves an utopian desire of wholeness and autonomy.

Questioning the model of directing with technology

Scarcely any directors are not using at all technology in their directing, especially in contemporary directing. Unless, they have explicitly manifest that they are supporters of a complete opposite genre based exclusively on body-oriented acting, such as in the case of Brook, Beck, Grotowski, Suzuki, Barba, etc. who are not included in this study.

An explanation of this tendency may be the fact that their ideology reflected a previous generation of directors, who were more interested in exploring new methods related to body-oriented actor training and issues related to the audience' active participation - rather than merely passive observation - based on anthropological theoretical approaches and influential ethnographic research. The concerns of these directors and their audiences have risen by the repercussions of a war era and, as a result, they have developed an ideology against constitutional technology, which they consider to be a visible manifestation of war (bombs, firearms, internet technology for military purposes, surveillance technologies etc.) and fascism.

Between the polar of two directing models, of the extensively application of technology, on the one hand, and refusing technology overall, on the other, there are many intermediate positions. Many directors create productions which command some degree of technology, specially based on an ordinary setting, lighting and sound design. This means that, an increase in the technological design of the production will not necessarily result in a substantial use of the technological element.

However, there is also the example of a traditionalist audience and criticism that refuse the efficiency of theatrical directing with technology and are tended to a dislike or even loath the manifestations of lavish extravaganzas, which are based on advanced technology or of expensive high-tech equipment and devices. This is a consequence of an overconsumption of the dominant position of technology in the theatrical environment. It is true that the use of technology by a lot of directors has become a fashion or a fetish or a cliché in a great deal of productions and nothing more. Hollow productions.

Another objection to this model of directing is based on assumptions that the spectacle, which will be produced, will reach unnecessarily the highest possible cost. This means that as much of the production cost and director's focus is wasted in the technological equipment. The costs are kept to a maximum level supplanting other important elements of the production.

The argument against the model of directing with technology supports that on any particular theatre there is not sufficient technological equipment able to produce this type of productions. Therefore, it is reasonable to be at least sceptical of the argument against directing with technology related to the costs of the production overall.

It is true that directors, free from constraints, can design high cost productions. Thus, the display of the characteristics of a director's theatre through applying technology is to be conducive to just directorial caprice, egocentrism and self-indulgence. But, if we follow this thought, the whole art itself, from painting to novel, can be accused of being settled on self-indulgent urges and personal obsessions, since it represents a means of the individual expression.

If directing with technology were only the case of exceeding the cost of the production for the above reasons, then why the new generation of practitioners move into the theatre directing with technology in the hope of more effectible directorial action? If this was the case then young directors would attempt to produce on a more efficient basis without the extra financial burden of technology and to achieve a dramatic effect, engagement and immersion of the audience only through text and actor's elements. But this is not the case.

The costs of use of technology in the theatre can be kept at a minimal level.

Technology and low cost

as better affordable digital acquisition eliminates the liability of low picture quality, and as they look for a means to escape the increasingly drastic "boom and bust" financial situation

Proof sceneography and digital

In the long run this tendency of directors to use technology will manage to incur the lowest cost possible and, at the same time, to achieve the maximum dramatic effect or audience's immersion and engagement to the performance. Eventually an equilibrium will be reached where the design of the production and the average cost of producing using technology will necessarily coincide. This in turn means that the design of the production would never rise above cost. If, on the other hand, the design of the production is continuously going to fall below cost, then rationally there would be an rejection of this genre from the theatre and the effect of a model of directing with technology would therefore decrease and the design of the production by the directors would be restored to the earlier forms.

A further problem related to the theory of directing with technology is that there is an assertion that the fundamental role of the actor and playwright is pushed aside.

The traditionalists against technology state that in this way the dramatic art is guarded, since the assumption that they protect naturally theatrical bound individual sectors, such as the playwright or actor's role or the authenticity will necessarily improve theatre as a whole.

Other problems with the theory of directing with technology depend on the notion that all directors are always attempt to maximise directorial effects, so when they do not manage to do it, the culprit is basically technology. But this is not necessarily the case. Directors may not think that earning large effects for their audience is the most important consideration they have to face: they maybe more interested in exploring the mechanisms of technology in the theatre for the benefit of the play or acting itself. So their experimentations with the new media, for example, might not be so appealing to a mainstream audience, but to specialists (artists, engineers) with the same concerns. That is why the subsidisation for these projects comes most frequently from institutes or universities and not from the entertainment industry itself.

As well as the complexity of a director's theatre through applying technology into theatre that might be, it is possible that social or political value-judgments may lead to the conclusion that this type of directing is inappropriate in particular plays such as realistic, political, classic repertory.

The theory of a director's theatre based on technology depends on the information being available to audiences.

Lastly, there is the difficulty with the theory of directing with technology that it is based on a static model of technological behaviour which may fail to account for the dynamic nature of directing.

Given these doubts it might be wondered whether pursuit of an unattainable ideal of directing technology is worthwhile at all. Indeed some theoreticians have asserted that it might be positively unharmful to aspire to a technological based directing.

Technology has already proved that since its very beginning has captivated directors and their audience in a visceral and sensual way. There are directors, such as in the case of LeCompte, Lepage and Mitchell, and their predecessors, who have illustrated how theatrical directing can be developed from a radical angle through the use of technology and, as a result, they have shaped a directorial work by mastering the element of technology. Therefore, there are productions observed in practice, in which the director is responsible for the entire the effect of technology. The implications of this for the theatrical art have been far-reaching and this will also continue in the future.