Shamar's Final Project - Legends

The process:

First, I met with Tiza and the cast to discuss their ideas of developing a play from scratch based on legends from different cultures.

Once I had a general feeling of what the cast was aiming for, I started searching through the Creative Commons and Prelinger Archive databases. I collected an enormous amount of material, which I then scoured through, picking only the material that I felt would best fit with the feel of the play.

I then converted the pictures using Gimp, used Sony Vegas to turn the files into .mov files, and captured short clips with QuickTime.

Throughout all of this, my ideas continued to develop as I played around with the footage, using PD to mix and match the footage in a variety of ways.

Once I had a rough draft of the script, I started mapping out the projections scene by scene.

I then started attending the rehearsals and running some of the projections. Tiza gave me feedback on what she thought worked and what needed changing.

I made the appropriate changes to the pieces and learned more about Sony Vegas and PD in the process!

I continued attending rehearsals and started making a cue list as the cast ran through the play every night.


What I learned:

I learned that developing video projections is actually a very organic process that is largely based on the quality of the content. The content that I collected allowed me to realize possibilities that I had not even thought of before I came across the content. So, I learned that the search itself is just as important as putting all of the material together! For example, one of the scenes called for a spider which led me to collect about 10 media images of spiders before picking the winner! This is how I did everything. I found tons of landscapes, cityscapes, etc. before choosing the final files. Out of all of the material I collected, I only used about 10 percent of it!

I also came to see that the preparation of the files is very time consuming! Before I could even get to the fun part of bringing the images together in aesthetically pleasing ways, I had to put in hours and hours of time just re-formatting the images and files.

My biggest obstacle was trying to figure out how to provide 50 or so minutes of seamless projections even though the play was cut up into 20 scenes!! Since, Tiza preferred not to fade to black between each scene, which I completely agreed with, I had to figure out how to make all of the projections hold together and yet keep them changing. This is where all of the material I collected came in very handy! I had happened to collect one clip that zoomed from space to the clouds over the Earth. And then it hit me, aha, clouds! I realized that a loop of clouds could be faded into and out of to keep the various projections flowing smoothly!

And last, having the opportunity to use what I’ve learned this semester in an actual performance has allowed me to learn so much more than just how to use PD, Gimp etc. I’ve come to see how important the process of collaboration is and how the images must work WITH the actors and lights and sound!

I’m excited to keep exploring the possibilities that digital media offers for theater and look forward to more collaborations!