Month: February 2017

The idea for the project is to build on the existing concept of the ghost walk and adapt it to further play on the idea of hauntings and ghost appearances. To do this, I plan to create a ghost-tour style installation that will follow the structure of a ghost tour; where a tour guide leads a group of people round room by room, giving them information about different hauntings and spiritual occurrences. However, to separate this experience from existing ones, during the tour, the ghosts themselves will appear as projections to the audience. This will separate them from the tour guide and audience, as they will not really be there, giving them a more ghostly feel.

These projections could be pre-recorded, creating a thoroughly scripted experience, and will make the timings essential to the overall experience. However, I have also considered live-streaming the projections. This would allow for the ‘Ghost’ characters to have a further element of interaction, as they can respond to the audience instantly, and catch the audience off guard.

Further elements of projection could also be included into the overall experience. Instead of only having projection ghosts, different forms of projections, such as moving pieces of information, or using projections to create poltergeist-esche activity could be used. This could turn the ghost tour into an overall haunted house, opening the idea up to be more inclusive of different elements.

The story for the piece will be completely fictional and written exclusively for the project. It will either be a general story or based in with the location in which the project is to be held. This would be the more ideal option, as it further connects the environment to the project, creating a more immersive experience for the audience, as the location adds to the character of the piece.

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.