Post 40: Our Box Rehearsal Stage

   I  extended the tabletop in length 24" to the right, and am considering extending it 16" or so in width.I have not finished the edges of the box with wood tips yet because of the dust involved would not help the healing of my cataract surgery. I just used white gaffe's tape. Mary has played in it a little, and there are definite possibilities.

  I have been trying to use multiple projectors with processed images. My main problem still has to do with Isadora not handling multiple HD streams very well. 
  I am running v2 of Isadora in beta as an early adopter,and have been emailing back and forth with the guys at Troikatronix about various issues. They have sent me new GPU based actors to test that are supposed to handle HD, but I still find there is a lag, and the Luma Key Actor does not actually seem to work properly. Also, some of my favorite "Actors" like Delay and Difference are simply not available yet in the GPU version.
  I ordered a new Black Magic DeckLink Mini Recorder PCI card to see if it might do a better job than the "old" Intensity Pro I have used for years. The new card has one HDMI and one SDI input:

   I know that Ralph swears by SDI and uses it to connect his live cameras, the main advantage being that the signal can travel further. I hope it will also be faster. 

   I had great hopes for HDMI, but have been disappointed with the results in the field.     It is OK for a fixed Home Theatre installation, but the connectors are fragile and get disconnected easily in a show situation. I regret the old screw on VGA and DVI plugs. In fact, I also ordered some DisplayPort to VGA cables to see if that might be more reliable.My projectors are only 1280x720 anyway. That is what Christophe is using at the Festival Theatre to project his sets, and they look fine.

   In order to connect my video camera, I also had to order an HDMI to SDI converter, and an SDI cable:

Post 39: A Mini Practice Stage

    The main problem we have been dealing with is finding a rehearsal space and setting up our stuff temporarily for practice. It is exhausting to lug everything down to CDF, set up, practice a few hours, and then take everything down and lug it back home. It is also a problem to coordinate with the dancers, and every time I unplug my computer and replug everything somewhere, there seems to be problems getting things running properly again.
   SO, I decided to clear the big table in my studio where the Frida miniature set had been set up for months, and use it as a permanent "Mini Rehearsal and Practice Space". To limit the movements of the dancer, I built a box, more like a deep square frame 48" x 48" x 24" out of left over 2x4'S and two sheets of 1/4" Plywood:

    The "box" will be painted black inside out, with the edge painted green on one side and white on the other. The live video camera is set back just enough to fill the frame vertically.
   I attached two vertical pieces of conduit to my desks about 48" apart, and mounted a 2x4 beam 10 ft up to hold can lights and a RGB LED Wide Flood. Two more 2x4's 7ft and 8ft up hold my old 55" Panasonic Monitor facing the "stage", so the dancer can see exactly what she is doing live:

   Mary and I immediately discovered that because of it's hollow construction,"the box" is actually also a percussion instrument, which adds interesting possibilities.I got some sticks and mallets to experiment with.
   I also extended the stage/table a couple of feet in width, and may possibly extend it also a foot or so in depth.

Post 38: Long Time No See

    Well, we are now mid July 2015, and I am resuming posting on this Blog after a long silence.
   The "Light Dreams" Show at Alys Stevens was not renewed for a third year, and we looked for other ways to keep going with the Double Take concept.

  I started a new Blog Last year called "Frida, Pinche Vida", as we were attempting to put together a "Frida Show", as I put it at the time: "An Avant Garde Stage Show Based On Frida Kahlo's Life and Work, combining Acting, Dance, Music, Sound, Voices, Lighting, Multiple Live Video Feed, Motion Control, and Projection on Movable Sets".
    That sounds ambitious, and it was. It would have required a permanent dark rehearsal space at least 30ft x 60 ft, with a 20 ft + ceiling to accommodate the set, some external funding, and serious commitment from a number of people: dancers, actors, narrator, stage manager, computer geek, etc... We couldn't find a space, and things just get complicated when more than two people are involved. That proved our downfall.
   I have not given up the idea, and still hope to produce this show some day.

   I also went on a tangent for a while with the idea of the Absurdist Theatre Cooperative, an idea fired up by my discovery of and subsequent enthusiasm for dead Polish Artist and Theatre Director Thaddeus Kantor. That did not even take off.
   In the meantime, Mary and I have been playing on a small scale, and with a simpler set up. I built a 18ft x 10 ft wooden frame on which we stretch a vinyl projection screen, and use the long beam  and one of the tall poles from our Light Dreams setup to hang lights, an overhead camera, and the projector:

   A black panel is set up at a right angle and the camera is shooting sideways at the dancers:

   We did a show at the Wine Loft for "Arts de Valentine" using this set up, promoting interactivity and audience participation. I don't have a video of the show, but these video were shot rehearsing and horsing around at CDF just before the show: 

  Mary has been using the overhead camera and a projector to do workshops for teachers.
   I started a weekly Summer Cine Club in my patio, projecting on a new "waterproof" 16ft x 10 ft projection screen with grommets and a black border that stretches on a 1" conduit metal frame that is easier to set up than the wooden frame. But I prefer the later for stage shows because of the clean lines,  and have plans to build a second identical frame to stretch a black background on if we ever do a stage show, so we have a neat closed corner self standing set that can be placed at an angle on stage.  
   We did a 3 day workshop recently at the YWCA with a group of young kids. I built a lighter weight wooden frame using left over 1" dowels and metal corners to stretch either a black or a green background that we used at the Y:

    Besides teaching the kids and putting together a "show" for the last day:

Mary practiced and we got some interesting stage recordings of the computer generated video output:

POST 37: "Light Dreams 2014"

   Getting ready for the "Light Dreams 2" Show at Alys Stephens became too time consuming for me to to keep blogging about it, and I stopped. 
   I will try to update this post at some stage with  an explanation of what we did, and links to some videos of the show. 

Post 36: Starting Rehearsals

     We practiced with Sarah this week for the piece on live cam from the front, using a piece of spandex with a small hole the head can barely get through. We will stitch two pieces together and trim a circle for the full costume. Having the purple LED Flood on the white backdrop, the live image has a bright blue background, and the dancer is magnified.

    We decided on music by HildegardeVon Binden.

Post 34: Moving to a new rehearsal space

    We were able to store our set parts at CDF for a week or so until we found a free rehearsal space, graciously loaned by a dear old friend. We immediately started to move all the stuff and getting the space ready. It was a bit of a mess, having been abandoned for so long since it was a night club in the 70's, but the lights worked. And that happens to be where I met my wife 40 years ago, at the Opening of the Joe Namath Club, featuring Lou Rawls! Memories…
  Anyhow, it's a little cramped because of a very low suspending ceiling, except over the dance floor, which was just big enough at roughly 12ft x 13 ft.There is just enough space to back up the front projector against the wall using the wide angle adapter. 
  We painted the floor flat black, and attached all the front panels together.
  I am still amazed at the amount of cables necessary for power, AUDIO and VIDEO. I had to get HDMI Repeaters, HDMI Signal Splitters, a Dimmer Pack, a Dimmer Controller and a 50 ft DMX Cable, a powerful Amplifier, a Blue Ray Player.
  There were two huge speakers left in the club, and we can use then, as well as some old stage lights.
  I hung a monitor on a swing arm just above the window so the dancers can see where they are in Livecam. There are both an overhead live cam, and a front one mounted just under the window.
  The Mitsubishi Ultra Short Throw 1280 x 800 Projector is hung high to cover the backdrop.

Post 33: Playing with the Leap motion Controler

   Finally, before we took the set down on Sunday, I finally got the Leap Motion Controler to work, and we could play with projected particles following finger movement and position:

  My intention is to mount it just under the window the a dancer can "conduct" the movement of the projected images with her hands.