other projects
Theatre
I recently worked on a live theatre project creating the flying sequences for Peter Pan.
There are three sequences in Peter Pan that require the actors to fly around the stage. This is usually done by suspending the actors on wires and carefully pulling the strings in the wings to get the desired effect.
The problem with this that it requires a flying rig and experienced people to control the wires as well as insurance against injury, which makes it prohibitively expensive for a lot of small theatres.
The alternative now is to create the flying scenes digitally and then to either front project or back project them onto a screen hanging on the stage.
I created the flying sequences using 3DS Max and Character Studio and created them as WMV files. The files were then installed into Opus so the theatre technician could run the files from a user friendly interactive front end. The whole thing was run from a laptop through a projector onto a big screen hanging vertically at the back of the stage. All the technician had to do was press the correct button at the appropriate point in the scene and then wait for the animation to play. When the animation had finished you move onto the next page in the multimedia and wait for the next que for the animation to be played.
It worked surprisingly well. During the middle sequence where the children were being taught to fly by Peter Pan, the actors delivered their lines from the wings whilst watching the animation and trying to keep in with it.
Requiem - the movie.
I recently created a short film "Requiem". To view the film click here.
It was a 90 second computer animation created in 3ds max. It was premiered at the Kerry Film Festival in October 2004, and won the Best Experimental Film award.
The music was composed by Geoff Cottrell who did an excellent job in creating a musical landscape that pefectly matched the images.
Requiem is animation as an art form, a painting that also exists in the dimension of time, a visual haiku that has different meanings for different people. It expresses, grief, hope, loss and eternity.
What surprises me is that there is so much fantastic digital film technology available these days but outside of Hollywood special effects and advertising it is rarely used as an artistic medium.
