STEPHEN WOLF

Love Lust Love was an Immersive Theatre Project inspired by the works of ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘20,000 Leagues under The Sea’. Designed to allow the audience to choose their own path; either Love, or Lust, as they follow the story through 38 different immersive rooms. The twisting maze of rooms allowed the participants to have a completely different experience every time they ventured into the abyss, riding the Nautilus down into the shadows and mysteries of the deep.

Originally I was brought on to help with the initial construction of the rooms for a couple of weeks, but my role grow exponentially with the opportunity to design several rooms and the freedom to take on a lot of the detailed construction and finishing of the rooms right up until opening night. This project was a completely different experience to a typical Film Set build I had become used to, with this role requiring me to rely on my Architectural Experience to design and build the immersive rooms. Throughout my career up until this point, the amount of required construction on my jobs had been slowly growing, but with this job, I truly grew as a builder and found myself really finding my feet as a set builder as well as designer.

The Immersive Experience

Immersive Design has always been something I’ve been interested in from as early as Studying Architecture. The concept and theory behind manipulating the environment to influence the users experience is a key Architectural Design Principle. This theory has crossed over into my Film and Set Design as a foundation for storytelling, presenting the space in a particular way to influence tone and mood of the scene. Love Lust Lost gave me the opportunity to dive deeper into this type of design and really push the boundaries on how this could be possible.

The rooms and spaces that were presented to me, I was given the freedom to develop the concept and design and in the end proved to be a big hit from the audience. The feedback received was positive and I am confident with my ability to create an immersive space for future projects.

The ‘Bridge/Brig’

The Bridge was the first room I was handed to Design and Build. The brief included a hidden room, a ‘brig’, that the audience were encouraged to find through an elaborate set of clues, an escape room of sorts. The build was an ongoing process, while helping build in several other rooms. The end result was an incredibly immersive experience with endless positive feedback.

The Periscope Room

The Periscope room was the second room I conceptualised and built. The original design, the periscope room of a submarine; industrial, metal and cold. However, this concept changed drastically due to the inability to straighten the irrigation tubes sourced for this room. The finished product had an organic theme, taking inspiration from an underwater coral garden, which would tie in much better to the rest of the show.