FE Recall: No.12 – Alex Fernandes

“In Real Magic there are nearly 100 sound cues, many of which rely on almost subjective judgements of timing and pace, as well as often requiring the focus to be on minor details: pauses, gestures, brief actions that to a first-time audience are missed or immediately forgotten, but which are still so dramaturgically tight and reliable that the soundscape of the show rests on them. The show a technician watches for the 20th or 30th time is a different show to the one the audience is viewing for the first- the overall artistic picture has been replaced by a string of technical snapshots. We often can’t see the forest for the trees. We become not so much aware of what’s happening, but aware of how it’s different from what happened last time. In a medium where the performance being “different every night” is a mantra, the ability and intuition in clocking those differences can be very important.”

ALex Fernandes,  Touring technical manager