Photos courtesy of Bernie Wonsetler
Hallie Mayes
Managing Editor
In 3… 2… 1.. action, the Butler Theatre department has worked hard to develop the play “Joe Sent Me” performed live on Sunday, Sept. 24 – Monday, Sept. 25. The actors and crew anxiously await the film of the play they worked so tirelessly to perfect. They still have yet to receive the recording. Student actor Caden Runnalls decided to tackle this miscommunication.
Because of the COVID-19 virus, the Theatre department has evolved into new technological developments and can now provide recordings of the theatre productions to the cast and crew.
The first play, in the winter “a Christmas Carol” took four weeks after recording for the CDs to be distributed to cast and crew. Matt Jacobs, TV producer and station manager, was responsible for the recording and editing portion of the distribution of the latest play “Joe Sent Me”. Upon receiving nothing from Jacobs, Runnalls decided to take matters into his own hands.
Runnalls has been working to prepare and distribute the lost footage of the play. Working from a recording taken by Associate Professor of Theatre Bernie Wonsetler, Runnalls decided to dedicate his time to creating a tangible recording of the play for his fellow cast members.
Runnalls has been editing film since early high school, practicing on YouTube videos. He has continued to grow his skills as an editor and producer. The sophomore explained after trial and error with various editing applications he found his personal preference to be Adobe Suite software. Amongst, taking on this challenge, Runnalls has continued to grow his channel and further professional career.
“Right now, I am working as an editor and producer on the ‘Seeking Context’ podcast,” Runnalls said.
The latest project “Seeking Context” explores the ways life, beliefs and careers have developed over time and how they fit into context of community. Runnalls juggles these commitments along with a full class schedule at Butler. Dedicated to completing the project, the student actor persevered and continues to work on the project.
He explains the editing process of “Joe Sent Me” was completed in under three hours, but he has been working on the footage for four weeks.
The most time-consuming portion is burning the footage to CDs. As explained by Runnalls, he was able to burn only one CD at a time. Because of this, he has had to sacrifice time, effort and processing power on his computer to make a recording of the play for his fellow actors.
“Caden is one of many in our department who constantly inspire me,” Wonsetler said. “He has a bright future in whatever career he chooses because of curiosity and willingness to try anything.”
Currently the physical copy is three-fourths of the way complete and is pending on release date. The edited version of the play “Joe Sent Me” by Runnalls can be found at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DGq-IEEPIP8.
Butler Lantern 