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Beyond Exhibitionism FRAY Studio made its name with last year’s Rolling Stones exhibition, but its founders tell LSi about much greater creative aspirations . . . UK - With technology shaping the look and feel of events across the entertainment spectrum, talented creative consultancies are in high demand, and for very good reason. “The days of splodge are ending. Directors and creatives have emerged who want to use video on stage to talk to an audience in a different way,” says Finn Ross, one of the two founders of award-winning international video design outfit FRAY Studio. From the start of their careers, designers Ross and his FRAY co-founder, Adam Young, have adhered lightly to the conventions of video production. Their approach is best described as ‘visual storytelling’, the work the studio produces looking to guide an audience rather than explicitly direct it. “The video content we create is not meant to be noticeable in its addition to a stage,” says Ross. “But it’s something that, if you were to take it away, would feel strange without. So in a way, it’s not about asking ‘what would stand out if it was there?’ but ‘what would stand out if it wasn’t there?’.” Young adds: “As a video designer, it’s your job to think about your work as part of the wider world of a performance, whether that’s theatre, live music, or an exhibition. In a performance space, boundaries of where an image starts and ends become blurred. This allows you to take an audience from a very small, intimate moment, contained in a small world, into a vast, rolling image that expands that world. Working with content designed to run this way is very different from working with content designed to go across screens.” Ross continues: “We try not to have anything to do with screens. We approach a stage or a space as a series of surfaces. Surfaces are not something that you impose upon an environment, as you would a screen: surfaces, instead, are the environment.”
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Photo: iEC Entertainment
Ross and Young’s interactive video design has earned FRAY a clutch of awards in recent years - two Olivier, one Tony, two Drama Desk, one Critics Circle and one WhatsOnStage award. The company has put its creative might behind an array of productions, from theatrical performances to major live concerts, but their careermaking work formed part of a blockbuster exhibition. “The Rolling Stones Exhibitionism was probably the project that pushed FRAY into the world,” admits Ross. “The curator of the exhibition had seen our video design work on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time in New York and asked us to put together a pitch as they knew our work was informed by our theatrical backgrounds.” CLOSE COLLABORATION Prior to founding FRAY, Ross and Young attended London’s Central School of Speech and Drama, where they met. Since then, their joint appreciation for the swell, detail and mystique of performance and storytelling has been influencing their design approach. “I had only graduated the year before with a BA in Alternative Theatre Practice when I came back to host a workshop there,” says Ross. “Adam was one of the students I delivered to. Afterwards he came up to me
NOVEMBER 2017 • WWW.LSIONLINE.COM
Photo: Clive Barda © ROH
and asked for work experience and then sort of never left.” After Young’s graduation, he and Ross spent several years working together informally in a shared studio in London’s Bethnal Green. “We were running a company without realising it,” explains Ross. “Our first step was to admit that and then put the necessary things in place for FRAY to succeed.” The pair have found that although both are happy working either on-site or in the
B From top: The Rolling Stones exhibition The Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahogany at the ROH The two halves of FRAY - Finn Ross (left) and Adam Young
C Facing page: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
Photo: Brinkhoff Mögenburg
studio, certain aspects of their roles as founders fit them more comfortably. “I am quite happy to be shouted at by directors and producers, whereas Adam is better suited to pushing pixels around After Effects all day,” laughs Ross. Young agrees: “My happy place is back at the studio with the troops, making and guiding the content through a process.” Despite their differing natures, the two share a collective creative outlook and aesthetic, as Ross points out: “There is a natural shared creative consciousness between us. For example, I can say something abstract and vague to Adam and he can just take that and turn it into the concrete thing that was in my head all along. And vice versa - Adam can say something vague to me and I will know . . . It works well.” PRESENT & FUTURE In 2015, FRAY Studio was formed and Young and Ross moved their new business into a larger space in London’s Battersea, employing a small team of dedicated creatives. The studio has since worked on high profile productions including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the current production of The Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) The Tempest, the Royal Opera House’s The Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahogany, Jim Steinman’s Bat Out of Hell and Disney’s Frozen musical. It has also designed the video content for pop singer Jess Glynne’s Take Me Home arena tour and is currently working on Tina Fey’s highly-anticipated Broadway opening of Mean Girls. “Theatre is the place we found our roots and flourished, but it’s not the only thing we
do,” says Ross. “We bring our theatrical learning and experience into the live event world as it could take a lot from the workings of theatre. It’s about finding the right people with the foresight and confidence to try something new . . . and then, of course, the money to move forward! We want to work with people who don’t just want to revert back to what’s quick and easy, but who would take a risk in a commercial environment.” Taking such creative risks requires confidence, not only from a design perspective, but also with the technology that is at hand. “We’re not intimidated by new technology,” says Ross. “Because of that, we’re not prisoners of it. We’ve long been working with video manufacturers and programmers to drive video technology forward, and we’re able to bring those advancements into our projects.” In May, the designers hosted a round-table discussion with media server manufacturer d3 Technologies and software program developer Notch to discuss how the three companies could further push the integration of various features. “We don’t just make content,” reiterates Young. “We develop the projects from concept to prototyping, from animatic to final production on stage. And we’re active in the progression of video design as a whole.” Ross agrees: “We take our job seriously, but at the same time you have to have a laugh. If you took some of the craziness you have to go through in this industry to heart, then you would leave. At the end of the day, it’s just dressing up and telling lies.” I P www.fraystudio.co.uk
WWW.LSIONLINE.COM • NOVEMBER 2017
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