The Future of Projection within Theatre

[leejones37]

Hello everyone,

 

I am currently researching for my final year dissertation which I have chosen to base on the future of projection within theatre.

 

Aside from doing the obvious reading and seminar attending, I would like to see what the collective thoughts of blue-room members is.

 

So, I'll throw a few questions out to you and if anyone has any thoughts or even any suggestions of any stage shows it may be worth watching / researching then please post them up.

 

Ok, so three questions to begin with:

 

I) What advancements, specifically in the tecnology of projectors do you think will have an impact on how much they get used within theatre performances and what changes might these advancments cause.

ii) What are the most interesting ways you have seen projections used within a performance, if you could let me know the title of the show, also the company responsible.

iii) In your own opinion, do you think that projected scenery will ever replace painted backdrops onstage.

 

Thats it for now,

Thanks is advance,

 

Lee Jones

[thelxbloke]

Wasn't there another thread like this around this time last year??

You have searched and read havn't you now.....

 

Steve

[Russ83]

I work as a technician in a school and we have found projected backdrops to be very useful for adding that extra bit to a production. It may be used for adding movement, comedy or just helping to create the scene.

I doubt many schools can justify the budget to buy backcloths and create scenery for a show that only lasts a couple of nights but buying a gauze curtain that can be used over and over again might be an option.

 

One of the main problems I've found with projectors is the brightness and it takes a bit of extra planning in the Lx design to make sure light does not spill onto the screen. The other problem is where to mount the projector itself, rear projection may stop the actors becoming part of the screen but we don't have enough depth to our stage to get the projection to fill the curtain. I believe there are some projectors that can be mounted directly above but I don't think these have been developed for use on 20ft wide screens.

 

http://med.beckfoot.bradford.sch.uk/pics/bugsy03.jpg http://med.beckfoot.bradford.sch.uk/pics/bugsy02.jpg http://med.beckfoot.bradford.sch.uk/pics/bugsy01.jpg

 

EDIT: Pics added

[jimbo7744]

Video content with theatrical shows can add another dimension to a show with animation and video clips, but the important thing is that, that 'new' dimension is only 2D.

 

Nothing can replace 3 dimensional scenery and the over-use of video content can be tacky.

 

Cruise ships have and continue to invest in video content for shows due to the limited amount of space they have in scene docks, and the continuing pressure to put on more and more elaborate shows, night after night.

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-lZW8f8LEF4

(skip to 01.18, sorry for the poor picture quality, but this was recorded by a guest who would have been hiding their video camera regardless of the 'No recording equipment" policy

 

or

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0b3zAHaPrrQ&...feature=related

 

or

 

http://s236.photobucket.com/albums/ff280/j..._391080_241.jpg Pic of full video background

 

In the right places and in the right context, video content can be amazing and sometimes more appropriate and impressive than scenery, but the quality and brightness needs to also be appropriate or it can look like a "half arsed" production.

 

edit due to bad link and 2nd edit due to additional content

[leejones37]

Wasn't there another thread like this around this time last year??

You have searched and read havn't you now.....

 

Hey Steve,

I certainly did try to search, however knowing what exactly to search for is the issue, just tapping in "future of projection" (unquoted) brings up every topic with the words "future", "of", and "projection" in. When searching for it quoted, it found nothing.

 

If anyone could link to the thread in question then that would be greatly appreiciated, nice to see if any of the ideas people came up with last year have happened yet.

 

Also,

Thanks to the posts so far,

 

Lee

[DavidLee]

I certainly did try to search, however knowing what exactly to search for is the issue, just tapping in "future of projection" (unquoted) brings up every topic with the words "future", "of", and "projection" in. When searching for it quoted, it found nothing.

You need to think carefully about search strategy when doing your background research. All search engines are different so make sure you understand how they work by following Help links.

 

In this forum use the Blue Room search engine rather than the more obvious Google link. You will find the link towards the right of the light blue bar at the top of the window. From the basic Search window you can bring up more options by clicking More Search Options and then even More Options. In the advanced search window click on Advanced Usage Help to learn how it works.

 

In general avoid using common words such as of, and, in etc since they won't help the search and can actually make it worse. In this case try searching for +future +projection, which will return only posts containing both words (as you have already found, simply entering the target words without the + is interpreted as "show post containing future OR projection"). You should find something useful amonst the 21 results.

 

Best of luck

 

David

[Just Some Bloke]

I) What advancements, specifically in the tecnology of projectors do you think will have an impact on how much they get used within theatre performances and what changes might these advancments cause.

 

 

The first thing is BRIGHTNESS. Theatre lighting is bright (1Kw per unit and sometimes 50 or more units live at any one time: current projectors struggle to compete with that). Second is nice wide angle lenses so you don't have to be too far away from the screen (either for rear projection - see Russ's comments above about not having sufficient depth - or to avoid shadows if front projected) and third is really good keystone facilities to make the image look 'square'. Finally, comes the ability to use more than one projector without spending a fortune sorting out the correct image to each projector.

 

ii) What are the most interesting ways you have seen projections used within a performance, if you could let me know the title of the show, also the company responsible.

 

 

The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on the Wilkie Collins novel The Woman In White used only an interesting projection screen as the set. By careful use of multiple projectors and the 3D 'screen' moving around they were able to create some excellent sets without anything else other than props. They did clever things with doors you didn't notice till someone walked through them, and a train that really seemed to almost run someone over etc. Huge budget but it showed.

 

iii) In your own opinion, do you think that projected scenery will ever replace painted backdrops onstage.

 

 

No.

 

3D scenery has been aound for a long time and will never go. Projection is just another tool in the box used by designers.

[Seano]

ii) What are the most interesting ways you have seen projections used within a performance, if you could let me know the title of the show, also the company responsible.

 

Not theatre exactly, but for me it would have to be Gorillaz, twice.

 

Shortly after the release of their 1st album they played at Creamfields, and brilliantly solved the problem of playing a live gig 'anonymously' by playing behind a screen on the downstage edge. The lighting rig consisted of a couple of dozen S4's at floor level upstage. Various images and the cartoon 'band' were front projected onto the screen while the live band appeared (intermittently) as back-projected silhouettes in various sized/shaped pools of light from the S4's. The lampies weren't happy, it was a long, long night lining it all up and plotting the show, but the result was stunning.

 

And then again, the Pepper's ghost type malarky. (I saw it at the 2005(?) MTV awards in Lisbon). A transparent screen rigged at 45degrees from the vertical (very clean tensioned film), and projection from almost directly above (just far enough off to miss the film) onto a white floor beneath. For the audience on the floor (who were unable to see the stage floor) it created a stunningly effective illusion of cartoon characters walking around on stage. The press inevitably described them as 'holograms'.

 

iii) In your own opinion, do you think that projected scenery will ever replace painted backdrops onstage.

No.

 

The first thing is BRIGHTNESS.

Quite. From that point of view, you should probably consider LED screen technology too. The way it's come on in the last few years has been pretty amazing, so it'd be no surprise to see LED's continuing to displace projection in a lot of applications.

[Cormac]

I think your talking about musion eyeliner foil,

http://www.eyeliner3d.com/?gclid=CNvZssfs-5ACFQ1ZMAod4z-Oqw

 

Regards a bad speller,

[Trundle]

Not helpful as such but if you have seen Spamalot, that is a fairly recent production that has incorperated projection and animations into it, might be worth seeing to get an idea.

[Ken Coker]

To me, the interesting bit of projection is "What actually is it?" when it appears in a drama; is it a film? Is it scenery? How do we define the difference? If we project the wall of a house onto a stage, is it different - and how is it different- to a built representation of the wall of a house?

 

There is a book I've referred to before called "Tanz und Technologie" by Dinkla & Lecker which has some very interesting stuff on using video in dance and performance, and Aronson has some interesting things to say on it in " Beyond the Abyss". He is particularly good on the contemporary US performance art companies.

 

Have a look at: http://www.endofcinematics.com/

 

and http://www.bangonacan.org/

 

Both companies use a great deal of large scale projection.

 

There is also a fairly useless article on projection in the latest ABTT Sightline; I keep meaning to write to them about it, but you know how it is....

 

Cheers

 

Ken

[Seano]

I think your talking about musion eyeliner foil,

http://www.eyeliner3d.com/?gclid=CNvZssfs-5ACFQ1ZMAod4z-Oqw

 

Thats the stuff.

Rant: FFS! - No wonder the press get it wrong if even the manufacturer calls it a "3D holographic projection system". It's nothing of the sort, it's merely modern projectors and materials used to implement a good old-fashioned 2D Pepper's ghost projection system. 21st century video projection, 19th century effect.

[Cormac]

I) What advancements, specifically in the technology of projectors do you think will have an impact on how much they get used within theatre performances and what changes might these advancments cause.

 

I'll try to add to the post without repeating, I think the advances in technology of projectors over the last couple of years specifically the introduction of moving projectors from companies such as high end,robe and Barco

 

Robe Digital Spot 5000 DT http://www.robe.cz/default.aspx?contentid=...b2-3e356457ee73

High End Dl-1/2 http://www.highend.com/products/digital_lighting/dl_2.asp

Barco DML-1200 http://www.barco.com/events/en/pressreleas....asp?index=1975

 

have brought projectors and the entire idea of using projection within a show environment to a new audience of LD's and show designers who previously did not have the ability be it financial or technological to bring that department into smaller scale shows.

But with the introduction of any new technology it has also created the usual overuse and misuse of projection. LD's using the same stock content over and over being one of my own pet hates along with one centere screen onstage being another.

The ability to quickly and accurately create wide screen and multi-projector projections must be seen as an advancement, I can remember not so many years ago seeing techs spending hours lining up projector grids,this is now becoming much easier and less time consuming with the advancement of onboard technology.

 

ii) What are the most interesting ways you have seen projections used within a performance, if you could let me know the title of the show, also the company responsible.

 

http://www.uva.co.uk/ try these guys in London for some great ideas. They have a proprietary media server called dragonfly. Not necessarily all projection and not all theatre related.

http://www.sciencegallery.org/ open the festival program and you get an idea of the huge and varied types of work that could include the word projection in a description.

 

iii) In your own opinion, do you think that projected scenery will ever replace painted backdrops onstage.

No.

 

hope this adds

Cormac

[dbuckley]

You might like to have a read of "Projection for the performing arts" by Graham Walne, ISBN=0240513908. It's a bit dated now (1995), so it misses video projection completely, but it has some interesting info and nice pictures.

[Pete McCrea]

Answer to I) The Barco DML1200. A 10k projector in a moving head. Nearly twice the brightness of other similar fixtures if I'm correct, plus I'm hoping all the abilities of the CLM R10+ in terms of edge blending etc. The only downside is they won't let me have two for the tour we're quoting in March :-(