Introducing Guildhall Production Studio

Guildhall School is delighted to introduce Guildhall Production Studio, an award-winning, full-service production studio, employing state-of-the-art technologies to deliver captivating results for clients in the public and private sector, bridging creative and commercial projects.   

Working in multiple disciplines across performing arts and technology, Guildhall Production Studio explores the future of live events and creative experiences, undertaking Research & Development with industry partners to inform the cutting-edge work produced for clients and audiences.    

A new production and research unit, Guildhall Production Studio builds on the work of Guildhall Live Events. It draws together expertise from across Guildhall School, including Professor Julian Hepple as Technical Director, Mike Roberts as Musical Director, Dan Shorten as Creative Director. 

To learn more about Guildhall Production Studio, we spoke to Dan Shorten. 

What's unique about Guildhall Production Studio? 

As a new production and research unit, Guildhall Production Studio is incredibly well positioned to leverage cross-faculty expertise and the broader infrastructure of the School enabling us to combine cutting-edge research, professional-grade production, and world-class performance capabilities. With a track record of commercial event delivery, we're at the forefront of digital innovation in the arts, utilising the knowledge and reputation of the School and the City of London more widely to create groundbreaking experiences. Our ethos is about combining academic rigor and creative excellence, allowing us to push the boundaries of what's possible in digital performance and production. 

Which teams are involved? 

Guildhall Production Studio is a whole-School initiative. Most frequently we bring together colleagues from the School’s Production Arts, Research, Innovation, Electronic & Produced Music and Recording & Audio-Visual departments, but have also work closely with the Drama department and the Performance Venues team. This interdisciplinary approach allows us to tackle complex projects from multiple angles, ensuring innovative and high-quality outcomes in everything we do. 

Tell us about some of your favourite projects so far. 

Predicably I'm going to say I love them all, but I can also say that there are a few stand outs. Beasts of London at the Museum of London was special because it was such a catalyst for growth, the first immersive experience we did in the Bascule Chamber at Tower Bridge was incredible - visually and sonically very strong and amazing to be in such an iconic venue - Light Odyssey at the Empress Ballroom was fantastic, working at such scale and with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. On the subject of orchestras our show OrchestRAVE probably tops my list, simply because of the incredible collaboration that it initiates across our various teams and the mind-blowing responses we get from audiences, it’s very humbling – and always nice to win a few awards too! 

What do you hope to create through the partnerships with industry? 

Our ambition to be directly and firmly connected to external industry partners. Both as a means to help develop our commercial profile, and therefore help bring funds into the School, but also as a catalyst for our research activity. We want to be part of the current and future conversations about design and production for events, performance and experiential art and design. Our developing pool of industry partners, most notably but not exclusively Target3D, who house the School’s recently acquired state-of-the-art volumetric capture system from 4DViews and Holosys, are a vital part of that picture. They help us to keep our activities current and relevant, and allow the knowledge and skill that is developing in the industry-focused work, to trickle back into the curriculum development at the School.  

What kinds of Research & Development will you be exploring? 

Our main focus at the moment is on creative practice within digital performance. Although we are not technology developers, what we can do, and do very well, is take the tools and processes produced by manufacturers and developers and apply them in rigorous and ambitious creative projects. We like to road test and push the available technologies. Our current mantra is 'hacking and finessing' existing systems. We have an incredible blend of creative flair and technical proficiency. This technical backbone is incredibly enabling and one of the key stumbling blocks for so many others. There is an acknowledged skills and expertise shortage in the industry, as we all try to keep up with the rate-of-change that the technology boom is driving. Have such a strong in-house foundation, and a pool of incredible external partners, and a powerhouse like Guildhall School backing you, give us an incredible platform to take risks, ask questions, develop solutions and most importantly, share our outputs with the wider industry. So, work that examines performance making, that celebrates tradition and excellence, but that looks to innovate and inspire the future generations will be the focus of our R&D work.  

How are students involved in Guildhall Production Studio? 

We are always keen to work with students, graduates and the entire faculty. Although the general production schedule at Guildhall is intensive, so therefore having time to do alternative projects can be challenging, we continue to encourage all students who are interested in the types of projects that we deliver to get in touch. We have had incredible contributions from student designers, operators, composers, singers, managers, actors and many others too. Our work range from small scale and fast turnaround to very large, multi-stakeholder projects that may run for several months and involve 100+ people. By developing new opportunities where we conceive, create, produce, develop and curate turnkey projects we allow the School to have genuine agency in these external events. Developing opportunities for students (and staff) to inform and inspire the work of Guildhall Production Studio as we grow into the future.