Digital Media Level 3 Semester B

To build the premise for the Seance, I decided to base the character around a time period, and have the 2 talk about the changes between now and then. Not only does this open up an educational aspect to the piece, but also widens the audience that the piece can reach. The time period I decided on was the Victorian Era, as this would be the easiest aesthetic to re-create during the exhibition, and in the costume of the Ghost itself. The time period also has links to the occult through popular artwork and literature at the time.

From this, my research lead me to a character that the actor could represent. Henry K Hebb was a member of the Lincoln council, and worked on different aspects of Lincoln’s development. His personal history with the city made him the ideal candidate for my script. Through his own experiences, and the developments that happened during this era in Lincoln worked as a strong basis for the crux of the piece. Further research revealed that his Father was once the Mayor of Lincoln, adding another avenue to my work.

However, research into Hebb did not yield any results in the form of photos or pictures of him. These would have helped establish him as a real person, further justifying his presence. Counter to this, not showing Hebb’s face broadened the range of actors that could be used, as they did not have to resemble Hebb himself.

Research into the time period was conducted online, and in a book about Lincoln’s history written by Sir Francis Hill. This information gave more of an insight into Lincoln’s past, of which the script could be based upon. This research was built upon with images, both past and present, to show how Lincoln was back then, and how it has changed to how it is now.

From this, it was decided that the Seance itself would be pre-recorded. This allows for the script to be practised and rehearsed before the final recording, limiting the possibility of human error. As the character is a true person, the information about them would have to be factual. This is easier to control in a pre-recorded film, as the script can be researched thoroughly before recording.

The main draw of the live recording was audience interaction. However, as a true character, research would need to be conducted to answer the questions asked, unless the actor was very well versed in Lincoln;s Victorian history. Even so, it would be impossible to pre-prepare for all the possible questions that could be asked. Although research to answer questions could be done on the fly, this would not appear natural, and break the illusion that the actor is truly Henry K Hebb. As this is not possible, a pre-recorded version has been opted for, as this limits the range of technical failures that may occur.

After a test of the Seance had been filmed, it became apparent that there would need to be some method of covering up transitions in the piece. Due to its style, the Seance has to be recorded in one take. However, this adds pressure to the actor, and sometimes, mistakes were made during filming. These mistakes could be edited out, but then the actor would jump his position, and change the way he is standing, making the Seance look unnatural. Although this could work as a stylistic choice, it was not one I wanted to pursue.

Instead these cuts would be masked with transitions. For some them, pictures relating to the subject the ghost is talking about will be projected over him. before adding out. Whilst the ghost is covered by the image, his change in movement would go unnoticed by the audience. However, this is not applicable at all times during the speech, and so an effect is used to mask this jump.

A number of different effects were tested to try and mask these transitions. The original transition effects can be seen here: XXXX. The main effects tested were light effects, which feature at 1:03, 2:12, and 6:21. Whilst the last of these effects covered the jump effectively, the other 2 did not. However, once projected, this light effect did not create the desired effect. The best of these tested effects was the ‘ripple’ effect, featured at 6:00. This effect masked the transition effectively, and still worked when projected; but could still be improved upon.

Further research into usable effects lead me to find a ‘glitch’ effect tutorial. XXXX. This effected would fit in with the theme of ‘Digital Seance’ as it is a computer glitch, linking the digital aspect further into the content. The first test of the effect can be seen here: XXXX. When projected, this effect looked the part, and masked the jump effectively. It will be refined ahead of the final Seance, but will be the effect used to mask the jumps.

For one of the elements of , I filmed a group of people reaching out with their arms. In the exhibition, a person can stand up against a wall and from there, the arms will be projected onto them. To an on-looker, it will look like the person is being attacked by the arms.

This footage was shot on a plain black background, and the actors moved their arms to the side and waved them around. When filming this, in order to get the arms to interlock from either side, the actors themselves had to be in the shot. For the final version of this footage, the actors will have to be cropped out, leaving just there arms in the footage.

For said crop, I tried two different techniques of masking them out; one that went straight down, cutting the scene in one place all the way along, and one that followed the layout of the actors tightly, creating more of a wavey cut. These were then projected and compared to see which one looked the most effective. The straight cut made the arms appear too harsh, whereas the tight crop made the arms seem more natural, due to them all having different origin points. Both sets of this footage can be found here:

https://youtu.be/zf3uc_qLQFg

 

 

However, this was not the only part that needed to be tested. Different background elements were tested for the projection. The options I had were: to removed the masked area, but leave the arm’s background, repeating this process, but using a clean slate to put behind the now empty mask space, or keying out the background completely from both the mask and the arms.

When projecting the footage, the shadows created by the actors made the wall behind their arms appear different to the recorded clean slate. This made the divide between the arms and the clean slate too visible, resulting in this method not being usable. This footage can be seen here:

The version without the masked background, but with the background still present was also not effective. This was because there was too much of a difference in the appearance of the footage between the ‘blank’ area and the area with a background. However, the ‘blank’ area looked the best when projected, and made the version where the entire area was ‘blank’ appear to be the most promising of the techniques.

 

As expected from the previous test, the best version of the footage was that with the background keyed out completely, leaving only the arms themselves. This made the arms appear from nowhere, and left no division between the space around the arms, and the place that was masked out. This information, and that of the straight/wavey test, revealed that the best version of this footage to use is the wavey cut one with no backgrounds at all; and thus it is the version that will be displayed during the exhibition. This footage, and the straight cut version, can be found here:

 

Once the final version of the footage had been decided upon, it needed to be tested on a real person, in order to test that the effect had the desired effect. If not, the footage would have to be re-recorded or further edited to create the desired result. Although some of the videos feature audio, this will not be used during the exhibition, so the audio will not be an issue in any instances of the footage.

When testing onto a person, the arms created the desired effect. The arms could be seen on the model in the testing environment, which was brighter than I plan to have the final location. This means that the arms will be clearer on a subject during the exhibition. From this test, it was clear that the arms would appear more clearly depending on what the model was wearing. However, this issue can not be avoided, as it is unknown what the audience members will be wearing during the exhibition. The area of the model covered by the arms can be changed with the positioning of the projector. Although the projector will be set up to a standard height, moving the projector can change where they are, in order to make it work on all the guests, regardless of their height.

For the main part of my piece, I shall host a seance between myself and as person from Lincoln’s history to speak to them about the time period they are from. For the time period, I decided on the Victorian era, as this would be the easiest for me to set dress. From this, I began doing research into Lincoln’s history and events for this time period.

During my research, into different parts of the history, I found a subject for my actor to represent. H B Hebb was a member of the Lincoln council, and worked on different aspects of Lincoln’s development. He then became the basis for my exhibition. His personal history with the city made him the ideal candidate for my script. Further research revealed that his Father was once the Mayor of Lincoln, adding another avenue to my work.

From this starting point, I used a book by Sir Francis Hill about the history of Victorian Lincoln to construct the rest of the narrative for the piece. This allows the history for the event to be accurate, educating the people who attend about the past of Lincoln.

Upon confirming the venue location and date of the event, I could begin advertising the event itself. The focus of this advertising campaign was a poster with all the information about the event on it. It would be posted online, in order to attract guests to the exhibition. for this poster, I commissioned a student with a focus on Design to design the poster. Due to their Design focus, they would be able to create a poster more effectively than myself, making it stand out more, and reach a wider audience.Originally, I wanted the design to be black with white text, in order to invoke a ghostly vibe. However, upon consulting with the Designer, they advised a more historical look to focus on the Victorian-esche design that will feature throughout the scenery. Here is the final poster:

This poster shall be shared online, and posted up around the university in order to attract potential guests to the event.