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.