The original idea for my piece is to create an interactive exhibit between a live actor and a projection of a person, representing a ghost. This interaction will be different to standard ghost appearances, as the ghost will be a person, but will not have a physical form. This will create an added degree of realism to the idea of the ghost, as they will only be image.
As a projection, the ghost can appear around the room, and move between projections to make it feel like they are actually there, whilst only being an image. This allows the ghost to scare the audience, as they will have abilities that a normal person will not. the positioning of the ghost will also allow it to have a degree of interaction with the audience, like telling them to turn round when it moves, making the experience more direct then a ghost tour.
The idea of a ghost tour is the basis of the idea. Instead of a tour guide telling the audience about the ghost stories, the ghosts themselves can appear to tell there own tales. This can be done as a horror style piece, or a comedy piece. The horror version can show blood and gore, showing murders; whilst a comedy version can have the ghosts correcting the guide about their lives and deaths. Both versions of the tour could be run to attract different audiences to the event.
As they are not live actors, special effects can be used to make them more ghostly. Dismemberments and floating effects can be used on the ghosts, making them stand out from the tour guide. It also allows for further illustrations of the stories to feature, as these can be shown and told simultaneously, as apposed to just being told to the audience.
To create this piece, research into different ghost stories will be conducted. This will allow me to build the exhibit up from pre-existing a ‘true’ material, added to the sense of supernatural realism I hope to create with this piece. By basing the stories on ‘true’ occurrences, locations and background information can be further explored, to make the stories as creepy as possible, or to have them easily corrected by the ghosts.
This idea comes form another idea I had, but would not be possible at this time due to time restraints and lack of resources. This first idea was to have a stage play in which a live actor is an exorcist, and needs to remove a ghost; played by a projected actor, from a building. The exorcist learns about the ghost’s past and why he haunts this location. Whilst this cannot be achieved, the idea of a live actor and a projected one creating a narrative is the core, and is being implemented in the form of the new style of ghost tour.