Waking the Dead Forensic Room

[filmgavin]

Hi All

 

Okay, first off your going to think I'm mad. Yes probably slightly.

 

I'm interested to know about effectively projecting a room for stage.

 

Let me explain. In a recent episode of Waking the Dead on BBC1, there was a scene played out with actress Tara Fitzgerald, going through the final momemts of the main victim. The room was

projected onto screens and a floor made into an actual size replica of the rooms' dimensions. Now I know this was TV and there will have been lots of technical wizardry on the go. What I'm looking to find out is there anyone out there who may have worked on a production using anything like this process. We are looking into a play which might call for multi locational scenes and we would like to try something like this method. Sorry to any carpenters/scenic painters out there but it will be a one off! More importantly, if this has been done and I'm sure it must have been, was it effective?

 

Looking forward to a response.

 

Best wishes

 

G.

 

Moderation: Moved to Video and Projection as that would seem to be a more appropriate forum to get the answers you need.

[alex_hughes]

The Tate Modern had an exhibition a while back which was a live feed of four walls in another room. It wasn't very inspiring but if they can do it you can too, you'll need multiple projectors though.

[Suzette]

I think this may depend upon what your budget is? Try speaking to a video projection company - maybe someone like XL Video?

[David A]

You may regret trying this idea, some pitfalls are

the distance you need behind the screens

you need really high power projectors for a decent image

rear projection cloth has different transmission values when viewed at different angles, check before buying

the projection will be washed out by any slight spill from your stage lights

when you get into the detail it is not very practical unless you have a serious budget.

[Jivemaster]

Prrojection is almost comon! BUT try large format still projection. Also allow enough space for the diverging beam, and enough power for thr lamp, for adequate brightness.

[johnhuson]

I'm interested to know about effectively projecting a room for stage.In a recent episode of Waking the Dead on BBC1, there was a scene played out with actress Tara Fitzgerald, going through the final momemts of the main victim. The room was projected onto screens and a floor made into an actual size replica of the rooms' dimensions. Now I know this was TV and there will have been lots of technical wizardry on the go. What I'm looking to find out is there anyone out there who may have worked on a production using anything like this process.

 

I can't say for definite as I didn't see the episode but from your description it sounds like the 'projections' could in fact of been added digitally in post production.

 

Sorry this doesn't directly answer your question but hopefully it is of some help.

[ace]

This sounds a bit like a CAVE Virtual Environment, using multiple projectors to render computer graphics onto multiple walls of a cube. The technology was used to combine each of the images to immerse the user into a single 3D computer generated environment. There is loads of information out on the web as it is a technique that has been used extensively in the research and computer graphics industry. Maybe a setup like this could be of interest to you?

 

A good starting place is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_Automati...ual_Environment but google will provide many more links!

 

Chris

[Nick S]

Want to do something like that live? Unless your budget is extremely high, I'm afraid your results will be less than satisfactory. Also, you need back projection across all planes, so even in a three walled room you're limiting your stage space considerably.

 

Now, I'm sure you could modify the setup somewhat to have a three-walled set-up, but you'd then be hitting the brick wall of how to run and control it. Software and hardware to sync that kind of video does not come cheap. You'd definitely be looking at the thousands to achieve this.