TJ's Faustus Post-Mordem

Dr. Faustus was an exceptional show that exemplified excellent directing, superb acting, and some amazing visual effects.  Having worked on lighting and sound in a number of dance performances and plays, it was an amazing experience being a part of a tech team for a digital theatrical performance.  I had never worked on something like it before, and despite my background in digital software, it has proven to be one of the most stressful and most challenging style of performance yet.

The biggest contribution I made to the show would be the spinning celestial Fludd piece.  It was fun to work on because I had to use flash, a software that I do not use on a regular basis, to separate individual rings of a 2D picture.  After messing up with the resolution, I had to restart the whole project on a bigger scale which was tedious, but it allowed me to learn an easier and faster way to manipulate my piece.  It looked great on screen and I think I would have liked to add some glow to it and maybe a cloud of noise to look like it was spinning out in space.

Another part I made for the show were the devils used during the park scene.  It was difficult finding a man a woman devil that had similar textures and drawing styles.  I cut them out, as well as added a number of blurs, gradients, and colors not only to make them pop, but to look as scary as possible.  Afterward, they were given to Yejee, our personal After Effects genie, to make move along a path so that they could appear to flying across the screen.  When put into Isadora, I was a bit disappointed to see that a lot of shimmer was added to them which ruined majority of the detail I had put into them.  Luckily, the finished product implemented less shimmer and a point where they stopped so they were seen for a few seconds.

In addition to this, myself and Yejee both found storefronts to use for the street/downtown scene.  Yejee found the pictures and I would bring them into Adobe Photoshop and cut them out.  Yejee later posed the idea to Tom to place a wall behind all of the stores to tie them together.  After doing this, and watching the show, I wish I had taken out some of the wall that was left on on the stores because it was different brick.  Regardless I felt it still looked great, and it wasn’t anything majority of the audience really noticed.

Overall this has been a great opportunity, and I look forward to using some of the skills I learned to work over christmas and summer break.  Dr. Faustus is a classic for a reason, and it will definitely not be forgotten by me.

Serena Deshpande Postmortem

Serena Deshpande

Digital Projection Design

Fall 2013

Coming into this course, I had very little knowledge as to what digital projection was and only some experience in digital media. Digital Projection Design truly allowed me to gain hands on experience with the digital design process, familiarizing me with new programs such as Isadora, Gimp and Pd Extended just to list a few. Not only did I get the chance to work with and understand stimulating new programs, I was also able to experience working with a team of driven designers, like myself, to create a full production from start to finish. Over the course of the semester, I worked independently as well as alongside many of the other designers in the class to complete various projections and background images for the show.

Once the director, Paul, interpreted how he envisioned the play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, I started sifting through images on Wallbase and selecting ones I thought would fit the theme appropriately. My first major contribution to the production was the Faustus Park scene. After finding the panorama online, I used Isadora to edit and add unique visual effects such as bloom, zoomer, HSL (hue, saturation, lightness) adjust and posturize. After the completion of the park scene, I worked on other projects to add to or tweak the show, many of which involved working as a team.

I realized that I genuinely enjoyed working with other students. Not only did we efficiently complete the tasks at hand, through observation we were able to teach one another what we did not know beforehand about the programs we were using. Terrence demonstrated some shortcuts in Photoshop and Yeejee showed how to animate an image in Aftereffects. With practice I know I can build from these techniques to acquire better skills with the programs for future reference. Like I stated earlier, majority of my later contributions involved cooperating with other designers in the class. I found the picture of the female demon that Paul had requested and told Terrence how to edit both male and female demons on Photoshop in order to make them visually appealing projections rather than simply two 2D images layered on top of a scene. I also found the image of the theater proscenium we used for intermission and with Terrence and Yeejee, helped remove the center with an alpha channel and layer mask on Photoshop. At one point, close to opening day of the production, I attempted fixing the rig of Mephistopheles using my knowledge of Maya when we had originally planned to create his character in real time.

During rehearsal week, when the design aspects were almost perfectly completed, I got the chance to experience working as a correspondence between the Acting directors and Digital Media directors. I took notes throughout the rehearsals on some scenes that needed to be slightly tweaked to match the performance. I also communicated with some of Paul’s assistants, noting down their feedback as well. 

Viewing the production on opening night was an amazing experience. I have to admit I was slightly nervous throughout the play but every projection performed perfectly and I believe the production was a success. Tom and Kevin did a fantastic job of hitting every key on point and the audience seemed to enjoy the show, I know I did. Overall, I believe I gained a lot more than I had originally had imagined through this course and I hope to continue the skills and friendships created throughout this semester.

Faust Postmortem

I focused a bit more on the audio side of ts production than the projection side, but I still feel like a got a good amount of time in both. However, before I get into what I did, I do want to say that a sincerely enjoyed the production as a whole. I think everyone involved did a great job and should be proud of their contribution to the project. Now, with that aside, what I was involved in:

First thing I remember doing was getting the set for the dorm. This was just an image I found online, but I was really excited about the resolution it turned out to be. Also, Tom's eventual clean-up and overall manipulation of the image was really cool and served as a perfect backdrop for the majority of the play. After getting that, I focused a lot on trying to find good backdrops for the play (as Paul had said that was most important). I found a few, but most were tossed or served as portions of already selected backdrops.

After getting through backdrops, I very briefly helped out with the scroll by finding an appropriate image online and applying an alpha layer to it for Yejee to use in After Effects. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out in the multiple scenes it was used in. Once that was finished up with, I helped out a little bit with the Kinect functionality which was ultimately botched (in minor ways; I mostly just tried to help with the rigging and utilization of the rabbit).

Once all of that was finished, I really tried to focus on the Clock Scene (or the Midnight Cacophony, as some liked to call it). This was a bit tricky, as we couldn't really get the precise timing down until we got to dress rehearsal. So, basically, I set about finding a good video of a digital counter (I was thinking maybe an analog clock, but given the setting thought this was inappropriate), and speeding it up or slowing it down depending on the speed of the video. Then, in Isadora, I set the video to stop and go at the push of a button. Initially, this was to give the ticking of the clock a disturbing, warped feel disconnected from reality, but it eventually worked out as a transition between Faustus' different lines. Speaking of, Pat and Tom really nailed the chaotic section of Faustus' monologue with their finishing touches. I just wish I had thought to do that earlier.

Also, during the play, I was in the control room handling audio. My job wasn't nearly as stressful as Tom's; it mostly consisted of making sure the fades occurred on time. For each transition, I had to fade manually (as there was no fade point due to the lack of knowing when a stage transition would end), but most automated fades were on point. The one time I remember messing up was the alarm at the end. The fault was half and half. I stopped it early because the track skipped due to incorrect looping. Basically, the audio sounded like a mistake and I didn't want that to happen again. But, in retrospect, I should've let Tom stop it as planned because the audience probably wouldn't have noticed. The actor recovered from my blunder perfectly however and all the audience saw was a prolonged black screen. I fixed the loop and the second night had no errors.

Again, I'm really pleased with how this production turned out, and I think everyone involved should be as well. It took a good amount of time, and I definitely learned something in the process. Really, what more could I want from a class? Hopefully, everyone else felt the same.