The Almeida Theatre
Condensing a two-hour-plus production into a 90-second trailer, without losing what made it worth staging
Condensing a two-hour-plus production into a 90-second trailer, without losing what made it worth staging
Client: The Almeida Theatre, London
Productions: OIL (starring Anne-Marie Duff) and THE TREATMENT
Services: Filming, sound, editing and creative direction; one team throughout
Timeline: One day filming per production, about a week of editing per trailer
Two cinematic trailers for The Almeida Theatre's OIL and THE TREATMENT, carrying each production's tone to digital audiences and opening a relationship the theatre brought back for two more projects.
You have a production you are proud of and a run to fill. A promotional film gets ninety seconds to do what the play takes two hours and more to do, and a trailer that flattens the mood or gives the wrong impression can do more harm than no trailer at all. This is the hard part of filming theatre: deciding what to keep and how to shoot it so the ninety seconds still feels like the play. The Almeida had it with OIL and THE TREATMENT, and came to us because we had already spent years filming live theatre and knew where the traps were.
The situation
Two finished trailers built for YouTube and Facebook, each carrying the mood of its production and holding up the Almeida's reputation for bold, unexpected productions. Both were delivered on schedule and on budget, matching the creative vision agreed at the start. This was the first time the Almeida had worked with us, and they brought us back for two further projects.
The outcome
The Almeida chose the scenes they wanted in each trailer. We filmed them cinematically, because a straight capture of a stage reads flat on a phone screen and undersells what is happening on stage. The decision was to shoot and cut with the grammar of narrative film while keeping the performances and the staging intact, so each trailer played like a short film in its own right.
What we did, and the decisions behind it
Every choice was checked against the tone and intent of each play, so each trailer matched the production it was made for. To hold that line we sent the Almeida working edits as we went, so tone was agreed at each stage. The same team filmed and edited both trailers, so the intent set on the shoot carried through to the cut without a handover in the middle.
If you programme or market productions at a theatre or cultural venue, the brief here is probably familiar. It is a production worth seeing but a short window to sell it in, and a worry that a film will make what is on stage look cheaper than it is. Handing both the shoot and the edit to one team that films theatre for a living is how you get a trailer that respects the production and still works on a feed. Whether the next one is a new play or a season launch, it is the same process the Almeida came back for.
Tell us about the production and the run you are promoting, and we will walk you through how we would approach the trailer. Book a discovery call.
If this is your situation
Book a discovery call
Tell us about the production and the run you are promoting, and we will walk you through how we would approach the trailer.