Month: February 2017

On Sunday Feb 26th, I went to the Barbican centre in London to watch Hatsune Miku: Still Be Here. Hatsune Miku is a volcaloid; a holographic Japanese idol. Still Be Here was an art piece that talked about the lifespan and creation of Miku, her impact on the fan base, and how her music is created and presented. It also featured a ‘live’ performance by Hatsune Miku herself.

https://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=20330

For the performance, the character of Hatsune Miku is projected onto a plain of perspex positioned in front of screens on the stage. Miku herself is then projected onto said screen by multiple projectors in, in order to make her look 3D and like an actual person on stage. This perspex screen separates her from the background, further making Miku look like she is a real person on the stage. Miku then sings and dances as if she is a real person performing on stage. This is created using both the Volcaloid software, for the singing, and a mixture of programming Kinect software, and motion captured choreography in order to give her realistic dance movements.

Still Be Here commented on the Miku-phenomeon as a whole, and examined how a projected character could become a world wide celebrity. Afterwards, the creators of the piece talked about how they created Miku for this performance; giving insight into how they made a projected character look and act as if they were a human performer on the stage. They created content in the real world and then transformed it into a digital piece; merging the two in the process.

Hatsune Miku shows how a digital creation can go on to be a celebrity. By being a projection, she has the advantage of being able to be anywhere, and perform to any audience around the world. This also gives her the ability to be in more than one place at the same time, furthering her reach. By being a digital creation, Miku is the ideal celebrity, as she is unable to do anything that could be harmful to her reputation.Her content can be created by fans, and anyone can put their work into the Volcaloid program.

Hatsune Miku shows the advantage of working with projections instead of real people, as it allows more to be done with them, whilst still presenting them as real in the real world. Creating my ghost in the real world could be done in the same way as Miku is created, in order to make them look more tangible. Setting them away from the surroundings makes the character look more able to interact with said surroundings, and puts them further into the environment.

On Sunday Feb 26th, I took a trip to the London Dungeon. This attraction gives its audience a tour of London through key events in history, with a gruesome and horror-esche twist. Going through Guy Fawkes and the Plague, up to Jack the Ripper and other historical events. Most of the events are told through live actors and interactions with the environment, however ‘4D’ elements such as water shots, air blowers, and sound effects are also used to bring the experience to life and set the scene.

https://www.thedungeons.com/london/en/

The attraction instantly sets up a spooky atmosphere with the first part of the sequence; an elevator ride down to the rest of the attraction. This takes place in pitch black, with ropes used for the gallows hanging down in the lift. A voice over explains that the audience are all traitors, and conspirators in the Gunpowder plot, setting up the next sequence. The darkness and unnerving atmosphere sets up the entire attraction, putting a sense of unease into the audience that lasts for the entire journey. This is further enhanced by a jump scare right at the beginning of the tour, scaring the audience and keeping them in that sense of heightened fear for the rest of the tour. Setting the atmosphere instantly allows the audience to be engaged with the scenes, and keeps them focused on the action at hand.

Projections are used effectively in the Gunpowder plot segment of the attraction. The audience are escorted to the room where the gunpowder was, and a royal guard is there to greet the audience. Behind them is a projection of Guy Fawkes’ head on a pike. During this talk, the head comes alive and starts talking to the guard. The conversation runs fluidly, and is an expert example of how timing between a live actor and a projection is important. If the actor was out of time, there would either be long pauses between pieces of dialogue, or the projection and actor would end up talking over each other. This timing is important to achieve, else it loses its effect. By projecting the image of a head onto a sculpted one gives it the realistic skull shape it would have if it was a severed head. This effect cannot be achieved by a video alone. Due to the repetition of the sequence, the head is pre-recorded in order to ensure consistency, and lower the chance of human error.

Another key part of the attraction that has helped inspire me is the pub scene in the Jack the Ripper time. Set 1 year after the last of the Ripper murders, it shows the pub being haunted by a ghost of some kind. The bar maid tells the story about the murders and whilst she is, the lights keep cutting out (allowing her to move to a new place no one can see till they come back up) and having items in the room move; a lantern on the bar, the widows slamming shut etc. This slow build up sets the mood, and has the audience on edge for what is going to happen next. This comes in the form of the Ripper, who appears out of nowhere from the darkness in a strobe light. The build up to this made the pay off more impactful, and shows that the best scares come from the build up to them. This not only shows an effective way to build up to a climax, but shows how to demonstrate effective and believable poltergeist activity.

In the Victorian Era, mortality rates were high, especially among young children. In order to preserve their image, families would take pictures together as a memento. However, sometimes they posed with their dead relatives, as this would be the only memory of them they would have. In these photos, the dead would be positioned alongside the living in order to create a family photo. Due to the long exposure method of taking photos in that era, the stillness of the dead made them appear more in focus than the living; the opposite of how ghost are perceived in modern style ghost pictures.

In the modern day, death photography is much less present, and people are early, if ever, seen posing with their deceased relatives. The evolution of digital software means that people no longer have to pose of corpses to be with people who have died. However, this does not mean pictures with the dead no longer exist. One photographer who does this is Joel Paul Witkin. Witkin uses severed limbs and skeletons in his photographs in order to give them a macabre feeling. The surrealist pictures use black and white tones, as well as the people parts in with everyday objects to reflect on the morality of people. This is reminiscent of the Victorian Death Photography style, playing off the style and imitations of the old photography in order to create a style that reflects the same macabre feeling.

By looking at how the dead are portrayed, I can work to incorporate this style into my work. By being able to show those who have passed on in a way that reflects the time period will ground the work in its mies-en-scene, combining to enhance the overall piece. By looking into the victorian era, the photos from the time can be featured in the scene, in order to build up the atmosphere around the exhibition to match the content. However, if I look at a modern ghost story, the modern aesthetic can be used to create and build the scene. By matching the surrounding photos to the scene, I can further enhance the atmosphere of the exhibition, by reflecting the themes of the content in it’ surroundings.

The 2017 Sapporo Snow Festival features different samples of projection mapping onto different snow sculptors.

The first one shown is a Final Fantasy VII snow sculptor, and scenes from the game are projected on to it. The characters of Cloud and Sephiroth are brought to life by displaying their likeness onto the white, snow models of themselves. Scenes are then projected around the character models, showing footage from the original product, and its updated re-release of which this sculptor is a promotion of, the focus of the projection being on Cloud’s iconic Buster Sword. By displaying the characters on the snow, it shows more of them than the snow or a video alone could, really bringing the characters to the fore. This, and the combination of the surrounding video, advertises the product in a clear and original way, by using footage of the game on the characters themselves. It brings more depth to the advertisement, as it is showing the game in the context of t’s own world and characters.

The second video shows Kohfukuji Temple in Nara being projected onto. The projections used here turn the plain white temple into a colourful rendition of a real temple. It shows lights and colours moving through and around the temple, making it appear as more than just snow. By mapping onto the shape of the snow, the temple looks more real. The dimensions of the snow have to be considered in order to create this effect, as a video played onto the snow would look flat, and not show the same depth. This shows the key difference in projection mapping, instead of merely projecting a video.

The ideas behind these projections can help inform my own piece. They focus on depth, and using the environment to enhance the experience of the light show. By focusing on the environment that I have to work with, I can enhance my videos, by having them interact more with there surroundings. Projections can be used to turn a blank space into a number of different places, and create a new setting, as well as enhance the appearance of plain characters. It can also be used to make things that cannot move or change appear to do so, allowing me to show poltergeist activity on inanimate objects.

 

The Haunted Mansion is an attraction that features at Disney World Resorts. It is, as the name suggest, a mansion that is haunted by many ghostly spectres and characters. It uses standard horror tropes, but presents them in a humorous situation, combining both the horror and comedy genres.

It uses different forms of projection mapping to create its different ghosts. The most notable are the ghost dancing in the dining/ball room. These ghost appear to made by using the Pepper’s Ghost effect, making the people (or animatronics) appear transparent in the scene, giving them the ghostly appearance. At the end of the ride, a mirror reflects the carriages the riders or in. On top of these carriages, a ghost appears. I believe this is also done using the same effect, allowing human forms to appear as ghosts to the on-looker.

Another example of projection mapping is that of the gargoyle heads. These are projected videos that allow the head to change expression, and smile at the riders as they travel past. These look like normal gargoyles, but the use of a projection allows them to change there appearance. The ‘Bride’ that tells riders to hurry back at the end of the ride is also a projection. This allows the character to look like a person, due to a mannequin shape for the base, whilst keeping a spectral appearance, due to the video projected onto said base.

Not only does the attraction use projections, but other techniques, such as slow elevators to create more haunting effects. By combining these with projections, the ride is able to create a truly haunting experience. The projections are also set up in scenes built around the era the house is set to be in. This sets the scene for the ghosts, and puts them in a believable scenario, adding to the overall experience.