[SML] Super Titles?

[Steven Mclean]

Des Moines Metro Opera has been doing supertitles for years and have
used several systems (some quite sophisticated, pricy and
cantankerous.  The Music Department at Simpson College began trying to
emulate them last year.  We employed a KISS philosophy that worked
pretty well.  The basics as follows:

Laptop running PowerPoint.

Video Projector mounted as close to 90 deg as possible to screen.  (In
our case, this meant using a custom-built projector tray hanging below
the celling clouds about 15' from the projector).

Screen was about a 3'x 14' flat painted dark grey (as others have
indicated and for the same reasons)

Power Point file with abbreviated text, not direct translation.  We
assigned a student to create the text starting from the score.  She
worked on the project for several weeks.  Ran it by the conductor and
director before tech.  I will echo the caution that supertitles are
necessarily succinct abbreviations of the lyrics and cannot be created
without much care.

PowerPoint operator must be intimately familiar with the opera and
with the file.

Steven J McLean
steve.mclean at simpson.edu
designandtechtheatre.wordpress.com