Margaret Anne Schedel:
Ferociously Interactive Multimedia
A Digital Assistant
“Final Cut Pro is a very intuitive platform and the interface is friendly and customizable,” says Mac-Auliffe. “I especially enjoy being able to work in real-time during my editing sessions.” She also likes the easy compatibility it affords.
“As an artist, I work in a range of applications,” she adds, “and I’m thrilled to be able to publish directly from Final Cut Pro to DVD Studio Pro. The constant back and forth between applications really makes me aware of not only the power and performance of Final Cut Pro, but also its stability.”
Digital Dance System. “John sits at home in Maryland wearing the sensors, which transmit data to my computer in Cincinnati.”
Mac-Auliffe continues, “Having Final Cut Pro in my arsenal of creative tools allows me to bring to life my digital ideas in a thoroughly creative fashion. I never feel as though the technology is controlling my final output. It is more like my digital assistant, one that’s constantly helping me achieve my goals.”
The videographer sees her tools as indispensable to her artistic evolution. “The integration of the Apple pro suite of applications will continue to alter the way I work as an artist,” she predicts. “A stable OS, superior software and continued improvements have allowed me to evolve into new areas of digital creativity. Without Final Cut Pro, Live Type, Compressor and DVD Studio Pro, I would simply not be able to create in this productive, seamlessly integrated fashion.”
A Team of Mac-Heads
The rest of the team is equally enthusiastic. Director Jennifer Timm uses iMovie to tape rehearsals and help with blocking.
Set designer Stephen Gladfelter uses PowerCAD and Form•Z architectural software on his Power Mac to create set designs and quickly alter them after reviews.
Lighting designer Pete Thornbury employs Catalyst, a system custom-built for the Power Mac, to move projected graphics around the stage. And actor John Paul Young uses iDisk and iChat to rehearse with the Ohio-based team, despite the fact that his full-time job keeps him in Maryland.
“We have our rehearsals over the Internet,” explains Schedel, “using a transmission protocol called Open Sound Control that was developed at U.C. Berkeley. John sits at home in Maryland wearing the sensors, which transmit data to my computer in Cincinnati. We have the sound files on both computers and we transmit low-bandwidth MIDI. He watches the rehearsal in iChat and is able to respond to the actions of the chorus, while they react to the sounds he’s creating.”
All About Collaboration
Ever since the opera she wrote for her master’s thesis was co-opted before performance, Schedel has been a passionate advocate for teamwork. “After I wrote the music,” she says, “the conductor just took it. Other people worked on the sets and costumes, and I thought, ‘There’s got to be a better way.’” Schedel envisioned a new way of working. “The overall idea and the music is mine,” she says of her current work, “but the project is an open-ended collaboration. I wanted us to create it all together, so each team member could unleash her potential, and each element of the piece would have the chance to shine.”
It’s natural to wonder how, with so many contributors, her project maintains a clear focus. “We collaborate in a kind of ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’ way,” she notes with a chuckle. “We each have our area of specialization, but we come together to form a cohesive whole. It’s not about me having control; it’s a conversation where we inform each other.”
“We have our rehearsals over the Internet. John sits at home in Maryland wearing the sensors, which transmit data to my computer in Cincinnati.”
She also notes that the success of such a model works depends on the individuals. “I’m fabulously lucky with this team,” she sighs. “We all have a similar aesthetic and vision for the show and we respect each others’ crafts. It’s a really rare synergy.” Too, the team members share the avant garde edge that keeps Schedel’s work at the growing point of contemporary music.
“Somehow I got people like me, who are interested in pushing the boundaries,” she says. “We don’t want the music to drive everything. At certain points the set becomes the most important thing and at other times it’s the lighting or something else. I see this synthesizing of the elements as the height of artistic achievement.”
Sound Art: a New Music
Schedel knows that many, if not most, listeners resist contemporary music. “I was trained to understand and appreciate this form,” she says, “but the kind of music I write is foreign — and challenging — to the average person. The tonality, the timbre, the notes, are very different from, say, normal pop music. It’s hard for them to even think of it as music.” So Schedel tries to lessen the barriers. “Sometimes I tell them to approach it as ‘sound art,’” she says. “They may be more open if they don’t bring their traditional assumptions about what music is supposed to sound like.”
Unlike many of her fellow practitioners, Schedel actually uses her PowerBook as a performance instrument. “A lot of people in the field use taped music, and they set the electronic sounds beforehand,” she says. “I’m interested in affecting those sounds in real-time by performing the computer part.”
It’s an interest that was sparked early for Schedel. “When I was a child I had problems with small motor control, so my parents started me on piano lessons. Then the teacher thought I needed to play a string instrument to develop my ear, and I fell in love with the cello. I found that you can manipulate the notes while you’re sounding them — whereas on the piano, you just push the key and that’s it. So I got into playing with sound as I was making it.”
Today, at 30, Schedel is taking that predilection to new heights. “With the computer,” she says, “you can manipulate the sounds even more. And that just resonates with me. Trying to pass that along to other people — well, that’s my art form.”
